Wednesday 8 November 2017

Staff Newsletter Issue 56

Contents

• Announcements
• CTIL news
• ASC news
• University news
• What's on
• Blogs
• From the editors

Important news about your expenses

As we're fast-approaching the launch date of the OneUniversity Finance on Mon 4 Dec, the Business Transformation team will be keeping you regularly updated on important news, including a weekly email update each Friday. This includes a change in the way you claim expenses. Continue to submit expenses in the traditional way until 5pm on Tuesday 21 November, after which there will be a freeze on claims until we switch to OneUniversity.

The message is, if you have any expenses submit them soon!

Read more about this on the Business Transformation blog.

eVision/SITS upgrade

You will not be able to access eVision or SITS on Mon 20 & Tue 21 Nov because IT are upgrading the platform.

ID cards for new staff members

New members of staff, to get your ID card, please send a suitable photograph by email to enquiry@dundee.ac.uk. Include your staff number and start date in the message. The Enquiry Centre team are no longer able to accept print photos for scanning, nor are they able to take your photograph. When your card is ready they'll email you - please wait for that message before going to collect it.

Data protection – pause, plan, document

As you'll know, the UK data protection laws change on 25 May 2018. One area that will still require our attention is the need for proper planning when collecting, storing, using or disposing of personal data.

This is known as 'data protection by design and default' in the new General Data Protection Regulation. That regulation also requires that we capture much of the detail of our plans in something called a 'Data Protection Impact Assessment'.

The good news is that the questions we have to ask ourselves are familiar:

• Do we need all this personal information (data minimisation)?
• Do we know why we have it, where it came from and/or why it is lawful for us to have it?
• Do we need the information to be personally identifiable or could we work with anonymised or pseudonymised data?
• Do we have the right technical (UoDIT, Estates) and cultural (Legal, EDPU, Procurement, RIS, TASC) controls in place to mitigate any privacy risks?
• Have we thought about who can access the information and on what basis?
• Do we know how long we will need the information?
• Have we given people the right information about why we have their personal data, what's going to happen to it and what their rights are in respect of it? (You’ll already be familiar with terms like 'fair processing/privacy statements' and/or ‘informed consent’).
• Can we evidence and account for the above?

Information Governance are working with draft templates for areas like Data Protection Impact Assessments and privacy notices at present. If you've looked at the list of questions and are worried about an aspect of your own teaching, research or administrative activity please do get in touch dataprotection@dundee.ac.uk. They will help you work through your concerns or direct you to other key colleagues in, for example, UoDIT, Legal or the Research Data Management team in the Library & Learning Centre.

Remember too that Data Protection Impact Assessments will be mandatory in many circumstances from 25 May next year, so this is a good time to ask any questions you might have. Please send them to dataprotection@dundee.ac.uk and the Information Governance team will try to help.

Enquiry Centre closure (Mon 27 Nov)

The Enquiry Centre will be closed until 2pm on Mon 27 Nov for staff training.

Normal opening hours are Mon-Fri 9am-5pm (Wed 10am-5pm).

Your 50 favourite items in our archives

As part of the University 50th anniversary, you've been choosing your favourite item in our collections. Posters showing all 50 can be viewed on the Archive Flickr page.

My Dundee January maintenance

My Dundee will be taken down for maintenance at some point between Thu 4 & Tue 9 Jan 2018. This is necessary to update the service to the most recent security, feature and stability patches.

If you have any critical activities requiring My Dundee access during this period, please email elearning@dundee.ac.uk as soon as possible.

Questionmark OnDemand go-live

The project to upgrade Questionmark (the University's primary quiz tool for formative and summative assessment) to the cloud based 'OnDemand' service is continuing after a previously reported delay. The project is on course to be completed after a controlled transition by February 2018. CTIL will be contacting Schools directly to organise training on the new system. Read more on the CTIL Blog.

Pilot updates

This year, CTIL is running pilots for two new services in support learning and teaching: Panopto is a video platform that can support anything from formal lecture capture to class video blogging; Learning Spaces is a platform for providing WordPress sites for staff and student to support learning activities. The pilots have already attracted a good number of volunteer test cases, but CTIL is very interested in hearing from anyone interested in using either of these services. For more information on these pilots, please go to the CTIL Project page.

Academic Skills Quick Query Drop-In Service

ASC are piloting a drop-in service for students who have an academic skills question that could be quickly answered. Please do promote this to your students. 

ASC Zone (Main Library, opposite the café) between 9-10am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Help with Excel and SPSS

If your students use Excel or SPSS, point them to the new sections on the LEARN Smart toolkit, for tips and online tutorials on using both tools effectively.

Workshop on new student transitions resource (Wed 29 Nov)

The 5 Element Induction Model is a new transitions resource for building academic competencies and supporting wellbeing, which was successfully piloted at the University of Edinburgh. Academic developer Abby Shovlin will be introducing this tool and discussing how we might be able to learn from and develop this approach here at Dundee.

Wed 29 Nov, 12-3pm, Strawberry Bank Ideas Lab, Main Library.

More information and to book.

Sharing Good Practice Seminar on professional recognition with the Higher Education Academy (Wed 6 Dec)

Thinking of Fellowship of the HEA? Not sure how to get started? Whatever stage you are in your career, come along to this seminar to find out more about the benefits of Fellowship and how to go about applying.

Wed 6 Dec, 12.30-1.45pm, Dalhousie 2G13.

More information and to book

CASTLE Annual Report 2016-17

The CASTLE Annual Report for 2016-17 gives a comprehensive review of our wide-ranging activities, which we will build on and carry forward as the new Academic Skills Centre.

How machines can help us argue

The Centre for Argument Technology (ARG-tech) was recently commissioned by the BBC to produce data analytics that were released live as programmes were transmitted. You can read more about it on the BBC website article 8 ways to win an argument. Associated with it is an app where you can test out your argument skills - go to www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects/moral-maze, and if you like it, please share it.

Act of Remembrance (Fri 10 Nov)

There will be a short act of remembrance for those killed in war, in the Chaplaincy Centre from 1.10-1.20pm on Fri 10 Nov.  All welcome.

Careers Service: Successful Interview Skills (Tue 14 Nov)

This session will introduce you to the interview experience, what to expect at interview and how best to present yourself, skills and attributes to selectors.

Tue 14 Nov 1-2pm, Dalhousie 2S13  Sign up on the Careers Portal (log in required).

Leverhulme Centre office warming (Fri 17 Nov)

The newly refurbished creative space for the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science (Ewing first floor) will be open to all staff across the University to pop in for a look on Fri 17 Nov from 2pm onwards.  Everyone is welcome to come and see where the team works and perhaps talk about a way for you to work with them.  There might even be cake!

Main Library 1st floor redevelopment - official opening (Tue 21 Nov)

Our Rector, Mark Beaumont, will officially open the main library 1st floor redevelopment at 3pm Tue 21 Nov. 

All students and staff are invited to the event which will include refreshments and an opportunity to view the new, innovative and flexible study environment.

Shinty taster session (Thu 30 Nov)

The University Shinty club are running a St Andrews Day staff taster session. It's completely free, and all equipment will be provided.

ISE Hall 2, Thu 30 Nov 5.30-7pm.
 

OPD: Coaching approaches, two-day course (Fri 8 Dec & Tue 9 Jan)

Our transformation into a high performance community will rely on our people recognising and using transformative leadership styles.

Coaching Approaches gives you an exceptional insight into the most important theories and tools you need to transform the performance and approach of your people.

Book via OPD: http://bit.ly/2h1KPco

10 design principles to help us build a better website

As part of the process of starting again and building a new and improved university website, the design team in Web Services are making big preparations to make sure they are ready.

Visit the Web Team blog

If you wish to communicate around the University, this fortnightly newsletter is just one way to do that. Please check our Methods of Internal Communication webpage, and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

The next newsletter will be distributed on Wednesday 22 November - the deadline is 4pm on Friday 17 November.