The year 2019/2020 was very challenging with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in our region. However, the year was also noteworthy as many new and significant goals were achieved. Most of the ICT priorities were shifted to focus intensely on solutions to respond to and meet the growing demands of the pandemic. The IT departments across The UWI worked tirelessly to design and deliver services which enabled successful transition to remote work, teaching and learning. Notwithstanding, we were able to make progress on some of the ICT objectives defined prior the pandemic, new projects were added to our portfolio as we continued to maintain day to day activities.
Previous achievements and initiatives laid a solid foundation which prevented us from being sent into a whirlwind and prepared us to pivot quickly when COVID-19 forced us to shift to a virtual working world. This report outlines the highlights of the work accomplished during the year and accentuates our involvement and deliverables in response to needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
To be a ONE UWI IT team delivering excellent ICT services to enable the transformation of The UWI.
Coordinate and mobilise campus ICT teams into a cohesive university team to enable the University's mission through innovative technology; provide secure, reliable and integrated ICT solutions for Vice-Chancellery departments; and enable digital transformation across The UWI.
The OUCIO continued to be a key strategic enabler by coordinating strategic ICT cross campus projects and initiatives and continued to add value by making improvements to existing technology, especially in a financially constrained environment. The OUCIO established a record of high quality service by enabling functional departments to move to their virtual working environments seamlessly, securely and efficiently. The resource constraint team combined technology, teamwork and long working hours to successfully deliver remote access and a connected workforce during this period while performing day-to-day activities, which increased significantly.
The portfolio of projects included 28 major projects and Table 1 provides a snapshot of the projects were actively involved in during 2019/2020. Many of the projects and initiatives extend across the Triple A Strategic Plan categories with the greater percentage in the Agility (49%) and Access (38%) groups (refer Figure 2). We were able to complete five of these major projects with one project near completion and another partially completed. Eleven of the projects are being implemented and ongoing. A few of our IT priorities (six projects) were put on hold or delayed because of lack of funding and the few resources were transferred to implement and support the initiatives and projects needed to reduce or avoid the negative impact of the pandemic. The projects on hold include the Target Operating Model for Shared Services; the upgrade of the RHQ Council Room and door access upgrade.
The report covers OUCIO response to COVID-19 and a summary of some of the major projects, and includes a section on major activities by numbers and timeline (refer Figure 5 OUCIO Activities by timelines).
The change of delivery mode from face to face to fully online was implemented in a timely manner to ensure a seamless transition. This section is a snapshot of efforts that enabled and continue to support remote teaching and learning that were launched since March 2020.
The pandemic fast-tracked the adoption of the Microsoft Office 365 platform in the Vice-Chancellery and also across the campuses, specifically St. Augustine and Open. In the Vice-Chancellery there was a surge in requests for training, creation of accounts and user support.
The OUCIO conducted training in Microsoft Office 365 across the University to equip staff members to collaborate with each other and maintain a high level of productivity during the pandemic. A total of 250 users received training in MS Office365.
The OUCIO facilitated remote access to ICT services for 69 new users added to VPN. SharePoint repositories were created for secure, confidential and cross-campus access to support an additional 30 users of this platform.
Websites related to the pandemic were created and deployed, including the hub of communication for The UWI COVID-19 Taskforce.
Embracing the theme "ONE UWI IT team delivering excellent ICT services to enable the transformation of The UWI", the IT staff members from across the University gathered at the University Inn and Conference Centre, St Augustine for the annual ICT Retreat on November 13–15, 2019.
The Office of the University CIO, in collaboration with the Campus CIOs and their teams, set out a comprehensive agenda with six breakout sessions which were all focused on supporting The UWI Triple A Strategic Plan. The breakout groups were formed and focused on six key areas:
The focus on staff matters and motivation was central from the beginning as the CIOs recognized the powerhouse team of skilled, talented, committed and reliable cross-campus ICT staff. As expressed in the University CIOs opening remarks, "We have a cadre of highly skilled, capable and experienced IT staff, ready to support the many and varied needs across the university. The staff continues to display excellence, innovation and diligence in their work to accomplish much with meagre resources."
There were nearly 150 participants which included persons who joined sessions remotely. This was one of our largest retreats and included the participation of key stakeholders such as our colleagues from Planning, Library, Marketing and Communications, Registry, Bursary, Academia, Legal, APAD, Office of Online Learning and Management Audit. The Five Islands campus was also represented.
The Office of the University CIO continued to provide leadership and coordination in many university-wide ICT projects and is guided by the University ICT Steering Committee. During this reporting period meetings were held on the following dates:
By the end of the second semester preparation started for a 100% increase in requests for new courses and a 120% increase for online examinations.
There were increased activities online which was noted by the increased usage of the web conferencing tool and Turnitin plagiarism tool. The first request for special examination containers was within this semester for the Faculty of Medical Sciences. Below shows Practice exams and the Final exams:
The UCIO negotiated with the Turnitin team to get the license extended and obtained additional features to support teaching and learning.
The chart below shows that a major increase in requests and addition of new users took place during March 2020 when preparations for COVID-19 were in full swing.
Chart 1: New Users Created in MS O365
OUCIO continued coordination of this project and during this period all campuses were involved in the implementation. The following activities are highlighted:
Cave Hill has migrated 100% of staff; Open Campus synched 89% of active staff identities; and St. Augustine has migrated 80% of staff to O365. Mona has started the preparation activities for migration. All staff at Five Islands use O365.
Draft completed, which is to be finalised, approved and implemented in O365.
Significant progress was also made in the following areas:
Funding was identified through the Caribbean Development Bank to provide training for The UWI cross campus security team. Six teams were trained in Microsoft Azure Security course and 15 team members were trained in the certified Cloud Security course.
This project is kept under the spotlight although it is on hold. We await HR and Finance departments to start critical activities to facilitate the transition phase.
Continued to provide ICT Support to the FIC as they established ICT services at the campus. The OUCIO established and lead ICT Working Group with the purpose of:
Spearheaded review to identify ONE UWI solution for Student administration and made recommendations. Led a consultancy review of all teaching spaces to identify education technology required. Prepared a detailed report titled "Update on the current state of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at The UWI Five Islands Campus (FIC)" in June 2020, which covered three broad categories: Infrastructure, Software, and Staff.
A SharePoint Governance Stakeholder Committee (The Committee) was formed to provide guidance and governance in utilizing MS SharePoint 2019 Online. The Committee members were drawn from a diverse group of staff members including representatives from ICT Departments, Archives/Records Management teams from across all campuses.
The primary objective of the Committee was to create a working SharePoint 2019 Online governance document with the aim of defining policies, procedures, roles & responsibilities and processes for this platform. The first draft is completed and submitted to stakeholders for review.
The Office of the University CIO (OUCIO) started the upgrade of MS SharePoint 2013 Server on-premises instance to MS SharePoint 2019 Server. This upgrade project will introduce new features to be utilized to improve cross-campus collaboration and further reduce administrative expenses. The planning and design phases were completed and the server requirements requests have been submitted to MITS.
The objective of this project is to deliver an improved and standardized method for the University to access results data from CXC for students and applicants to The UWI through the use of Web Services. The project is 95% completed: three campuses are to complete testing, one campus has started to use the service.
The project is expected to increase traffic to the various sites, generate more student registration, and improve the sites' functionality to enhance user experience. The project which is being spearheaded by the University Marketing and Communications Office is almost complete.
Initiated Enterprise Architecture cross-campus group and identified funding to conduct training in TOGAF methodology.
The OUCIO provides technical support to the Consultant in establishing the MS Office 365 platform for collaboration across the programme domains. Members of the OUCIO participated in the technology track domain.
Continued to lobby for the implementation of the Data Protection policy.
The following projects or initiatives were placed on hold because of lack of funding or external dependencies were not able to complete key deliverables. These projects are of high importance and are reviewed each year with the intent to restart as soon as resources become available.
The OUCIO decided to freeze the Senior IT Officer post left vacant by Marlon Walcott July 2019. This was our contribution to cost cutting measures introduced during the year. However, we face the problem of reliance on one employee in critical areas such as Business Intelligence, which increases risk and will have to be addressed.
Table 1: Major Projects Status and Triple-A Strategic Plan Summary
Figure 2. The OUCIO projects are designed and developed to support the University's strategic goals. This table shows that of the 28 major projects, 49% supported Agility, 13% support Alignment and 38% supported Access.
Figure 3. During the academic year 2019/2020 28 major projects were in progress, the chart above depicts the number of projects by status at the end of the year
Figure 4. This chart shows the major activities for IT Operations for periods August 2019 to January 2020 and February 2020 to July 2020. A significant increase in activities took place during the February 2020 to July 2020 period. The cluster of activities was in the areas of VPN requests, SharePoint Requests and other miscellaneous IT requests. The primary reason for these spikes is the impact of COVID 19 on our new working environments.
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The University of the West Indies
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