IAM
The Identity and Access Management (IAM) program objectives are developing and maintaining governance over the university’s critical services and systems by engaging with stakeholders and business owners, defining, communicating and enforcing access policies, and controlling risks by managing identity life cycles of entities such as people, services, and robots.
IAM has many streams including but not limited to the following:
- HR
- Alumni Account Management
- Banner Access Management
- Active Directory Management
- Dental Management System (AxiUm)
Banner Upgrade
The technical currency of the core business systems needs to be maintained on an on-going basis. This has been neglected since around 2013 so much-needed upgrades are in progress. The migration of the Banner eco-system to the Ellucian/AWS cloud was the first step in 2018-2019 in achieving technical currency – the migration included a mandatory upgrade to a more recent Banner 8 version. Upgrade to Banner 9 moved the UoS to the most up-to-date releases and enabled the University to take advantage of up-to-the-minute features and functionality.
The end result of this project was a Banner 9 technical platform from which the business units will be able to take advantage of the latest functionality through the project's realization initiatives.
Argos Reporting Project
The Evisions Argos reporting solution is an enterprise reporting application designed for Higher Education. It integrates with Banner and other data sources to deliver the information necessary to make timely, better-informed decisions. It is flexible, powerful, and easy-to-use and facilitates the standardization of data elements across the enterprise. The project was initiated and completed in 2018-2019 and since completion of the work, the University administration had a consolidated reporting mechanism across the business units and a well-trained staff to develop and maintain operational reports effectively and efficiently with consistency in the use and interpretation of the data. Business users developed hundreds of reports using the Argos tool.
Banner Workflow Project
Banner Workflow is a process management engine that is designed to work with Ellucian’s Banner ERP modules, namely Banner Student and Banner Finance at the University of Sharjah.
There were two main drivers for introducing Banner Workflow at the University in 2018-2019:
- The University currently has a high number of Banner customizations which are expensive and cumbersome to maintain. Additionally, these customizations significantly complicate technical upgrades of the system to the extent that Banner has not been upgraded since 2013. Banner Workflow functionality was planned to significantly help in the elimination/reduction of customizations by providing baseline functionality to effectively manage process flows.
- Banner Workflow provides the functionality to allow existing manual processes to be automated, as well as to improve the efficiency of semi-automated processes.
UOS Go Mobile App Project
The Ellucian Mobile Foundation services are designed to provide the university with an institutional branded version of Ellucian mobile. The University named its UOS Go 2018-2019. Ellucian Mobile helps students stay connected to the University like never before. Students should have access to great features that make their campus experience more effective, more efficient, and more fun. Ellucian Mobile is a valuable application as it is connected with the core students Banner system and allows students to check academic information, news, campus map, calendar, and apply for all University services.
Lab simulation solutions
The University of Sharjah has initiated a project to convert the scientific laboratories at the university into digital laboratories remotely in order to ensure the continuation of the educational process and the keenness of the university administration to improve the learning process and put students at the highest levels of readiness to keep pace with the challenges and digital transformations that suit the labor market and innovation in the scientific and research community.
The university provided a set of digital laboratories that allow students and faculty members to work in virtual laboratories and obtain accurate practical results in addition to linking these laboratories to the Blackboard educational platform and enabling teachers of these courses to obtain reports and results within the university’s digital educational platform Blackboard, where the Students log in to this digital platform Blackboard and perform their laboratory duties remotely and save their work within the Blackboard,
The laboratories include most of the science colleges such as Faculties of Medicine, Engineering and Sciences.
Blackboard Upgrade and Ultra
Blackboard Learn is the course management system utilized in the university of Sharjah. In September 2020-2021, Blackboard LMS was upgraded to the new Ultra Experience. This is the most significant update to Blackboard, which includes a redesigned landing page, and Ultra Course View that provides a simple, streamlined course experience for Faculty and students.
The new Ultra Experience provides a modern look and feel, intuitive workflows, and an improved mobile experience. In addition, the new interface offers powerful tools like the Activity Stream and institution page that consolidate the need for the best teaching experience. Everyone will experience the change and improvements. The updated Ultra Course View is modern, intuitive, and easy to use. Grading is streamlined, content is quicker to build, and it is easier than ever for students and faculty to connect with one another.
Faculty Evaluation System
Faculty evaluation is a workflow-based system where all the faculty submit their request for their annual evaluation to the department chair and dean, after the approval from the dean and chair its goes to the central committee for the last stage. Based on the evaluation the University of Sharjah extends faculty contracts.