Recently Approved Projects Among UIT Priorities

What do Quarterly Cost Certification, eDissertation System Improvements, and ServiceNow have in common? In addition to improving Stanford's academic and administrative systems, all three were among projects recently approved by the Systems Governance Group (SGG) to move forward.

A few key projects

The following are among the key projects recently approved by the SGG.

• eDissertation Update — This set of enhancements to the current custom eDissertation functionality in Axess improves process and approval flows, adds timely dissertation-related notifications for students, incorporates the most recently approved rule changes from the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), and simplifies participation by non-Stanford reviewers.
• Quarterly Review and Certification Initiative — This project consolidates the Quarterly Principal Investigator (PI) Review and Certification and the Annual Payroll Distribution Certification processes into a single automated review/certification process and system. Among the many benefits are eliminating the review and certification of the Annual Payroll Distribution statements; eliminating the need for printing, signing, and storing 144,000 pages of expenditure statements each year; and allowing for immediate verification and certification status checks. These changes help reduce the administrative burden for more than 1,000 PIs and 700 administrators.
• ServiceNow Implementation — Using the ServiceNow platform, this initiative replaces the current Remedy system used to support the HelpSU service, allowing UIT (and eventually other units) to more efficiently manage and deliver services, workflows, and metrics. Additionally, the project will define and redesign key IT service management processes, including incident, problem, change, knowledge, and request management.

About the Systems Governance Group

For Stanford-wide technology projects requiring one-time funding and prioritization, the most common starting point is the SGG. This governance group is chaired by the Vice President for Business Affairs and CFO, and comprised of administrative deans from the seven schools, staff from the Dean of Research office, and senior leaders of central administrative areas including the University Human Resources, Registrar, Financial Management Services, University Budget Office, Office of Faculty Affairs, and Research Administration.

SGG meets at least twice each year to advise on proposals, to review between meeting actions and the progress of approved projects, review-funding status, and review overall portfolio including projects in the pipeline.

This governance process works to achieve several outcomes:

• create a multi-year strategic plan for IT that aligns with and supports university priorities;
• identify strategies to address gaps in overall technology adoption; and
• improve alignment with annual budgeting processes by providing an annual update to the University Budget Group on the use of funds in its charge as well as to seek the Budget Group's advice on requests directly benefiting student and research computing needs.

For more information

For more information on SGG, its prioritization and funding processes, or about the projects approved during FY16 (those listed above or others), please contact Nancy Ware or Jeff Bubin.