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Information Services

Information Services is one of five Information Technology departments that comprise the University's Office of Technology and Information Services (OTIS). Information Services is responsible for implementing, supporting, and enhancing enterprise systems on campus. These enterprise systems provide the foundation to enable students, faculty, staff and alumni to achieve their goals and objectives. This foundation is based on tools that enhance communication, collaboration and information sharing. The Information Services office is committed to these values that will allow students, faculty and staff to succeed.

Enterprise  Systems
The Information Services department is responsible for supporting various enterprise systems on campus that are central to the organization and ensure that information can be shared across all functional levels and hierarchies. Enterprise systems for staff integrate and coordinate business processes while enterprise systems for students and faculty provide for communication and collaboration.

Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP)
The University ERP system is Datatel's Colleague. Colleague is a centralized application and database system that serves as the data respository for the institution. All information processing for the institution occurs in the ERP system. In this manner, information is used to improve operational, process and institutional effectiveness through informed decision making. The data custodians for the system are the offices of  Admission, Financial Aid, Registrar, Billing, Accounts Payable, Finance, Human Resources, Residential Life, Student Services and the Deans' offices. Other constituents such as academic staff, faculty and students access the system through webforms on the UArts portal.

Document Imaging System
The Document Imaging system is Hyland's OnBase. The imaging system provides for a paperless environment indexing paper documents into digital format within a database. In this manner, access to information is instant, the information is protected from destruction, security is enhanced to who has access, and office space for physical files is freed for other purposes. The imaging system is intergrated to the Colleague ERP allowing access to digital images students, faculty and staff  from either system. 

The Portal 
The Portal provides a single gateway to the digital University. Personal and community information can be obtained through the portal such as events, announcements, calendars, forms, surveys, registration, schedules, transcripts, forms and course management tools.

MyUArts Record
MyUArts Record provides for personal access to information in the University administrative system. It exists as a channel on the University portal. Students use MyUArts Record to register for classes, update demographic information, view schedules and transcripts, and other personal information. Faculty access MyUArts Record to advise students, post grades, etc. Staff can view budgets and change demographic information.

Digication
The University course management, Digication, is an online collaboration and learning environment that provides a tool for managing, delivering and assessing student learning. It is designed by higher education for higher education to bring students and instructors together for knowledge sharing, discussion and shared learning. Digication supports teaching and learning, allows students and faculty to create online portfolios of their creative work, and provides assessment tools to measure the progress of students in the learning process.

Development Management System
The development system for managing constiuent relationships is Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge. The product allows advancement offices to bulild strong relationships with all constituents  from students and parents to alumni and supporters. These are some of the functions of the development system: fundraising, managing and growing annual funds, planned gifts, legacy gifts and more.

Reporting
The University uses the Entrinsik Informer product for institutional transactional reporting. Informer is a Web-based reporting tool simplyfing the extraction of data from the Colleague ERP system. Transactional reporting improves operational effectiveness for the institution. To gain access to Informer, please contact Information Services at 215-717-6997.

File/Print Services
Microsoft File and Print services are provided to allow departments to share data in a secure manner. The server is maintained with security and backup procedures to protect department data. The server also provides management for network printers so different groups have access to a single printer.

Policies
The policies for students, facuty and staff are defined in the corresponding student, staff and faculty handbooks on the UArts portal under the Resources tab. They also can be obtained in hardcopy in the Student Services department for students and Human Resources for faculty and staff.

Colleague Users Group
The Colleague Users Group (CUG) is a technical advisory group consisting of business and technical leaders from various offices on campus who are stakeholders of the University Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system named Colleague. Colleague is the centralized application and data repository for the institution. The committee is chaired by a representative from the OTIS Information Services department. CUG convenes on a monthly basis to set standards, create best practices, discuss  issues, create solutions, plan upgrades, map workflows, discuss implementation schedules, discuss training, reporting, etc. to enhance the use and benefits provided by the ERP system. The collaboration provided by the advisory group enables departments to streamline processes within and across all offices on campus. In this manner, the information provided by the ERP system is optimized to make reliant and informed decision making.

For Support Services, contact the OTIS Help Desk at 215-717-OOPS (6677).