TOP-ED Program FAQ
FAQ
What is the TOP-ED Program?
The Technology Optimization Project for Educational Data (TOP-ED) is an initiative that seeks to modernize, optimize, and coordinate technology solutions for managing curriculum, student assessments, and faculty evaluations at UI COM. It includes the domains of technology and business process as well as the supporting organizational structure and skills development to help the campuses better align with one another and with the University and UI system.
For more details, please refer to the program vision, goals, objectives, timeline, governance, and guiding principles.
Who is involved with the TOP-ED program and what are their roles?
| Group | Roles and Responsiblities | Meeting Cadence |
|---|---|---|
|
Program Sponsor Dean Rosenblatt |
|
Update as Needed |
|
Executive Sponsors Dean Curry Dean Heiman Dean Van Neck Program Coordinator Nick Kane |
|
Weekly Meetings |
|
Steering Committee |
|
Monthly Meetings |
What projects are involved with the TOP-ED Program?
The TOP-ED Program involves several projects across three phases of work. Below is an overview of different projects, including timeline and activities performed or planned.
Phase 1: May 2023-August 2023
- Functional “Discovery”: Document current service delivery and technical support challenges with existing technologies from functional users of the technology.
- Technical “Discovery”: Document UI COM technology landscape and identify challenges with existing technologies from technology perspective, including integration and data flow review.
- Phase 2 Scope: Identify root causes and confirm Phase 2 scope.
Phase 2: September 2023-May 2024
- Program Management: Develop the TOP-ED Program vision, mission, goals, and guiding principles to guide future projects. Leverage the program to coordinate and oversee multiple projects that are interdependent and collectively will contribute to the successful delivery of broader operational efficiency outcomes across all phases of work.
- Change Management: Embed change management practices into all projects to ensure community engagement is widespread for awareness and change adoption. Change management will be a critical component of the TOP-ED program to ensure changes to the Professional Medical Student education are adopted throughout UI COM.
- Educational Technology Application Evaluation: Review existing UI COM applications and conduct peer benchmarking, prepare for issuing a new request for proposal (RFP) and evaluate options.
- Align TOP-ED Program to UI COM Strategy: Align the TOP-ED Program to the UI COM Strategy to enhance and support UI COM Professional Medical Student educational objectives and improve operational effectiveness.
- Banner Optimization: Assess Ellucian Banner to understand the current state of the Banner functionality in use at UI COM. Document existing barriers to the use of Ellucian Banner, including upstream and downstream impacts of either Banner adoption (or lack thereof), as well as compliance risk.
- Business Process Analysis: Conduct current state analysis for (7) key processes: student enrollment, registration, grade submission, leave of absence, step 1 monitoring, satisfactory academic progress, and course requests. Document process flow diagrams, intersections across processes, and high-light deviations, then develop recommendations to improve processes, including actions to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and consistency.
Phase 3: May 2024-June 2025
- Educational Technology Application Evaluation: Conduct vendor demonstrations, gather input from the UI COM community, decide on which new technologies to procure.
- Elective Course Assessment: Focus on aligning the course numbering scheme in both Banner and Oracle Apex systems across the Chicago, Peoria, and Rockford campuses. This includes a detailed review of course listings in Oracle Apex and Banner, identifying overlaps and gaps, working with the curriculum leadership on rationalizing the list, and documenting a recommended rubric for course classifications to be updated in Oracle and Banner.
- Business Process Redesign: Redesign (2) processes: leave of absence and grade submission. Document the ideal state for each and confirm where activities will be managed, including any consideration for the future-state educational technology application.
- UI COM IT Strategic Plan: Work collaboratively with UI COM academic and administrative constituents, and COM IR to develop a high-level, 3-year IT strategic plan that aligns directly to the overall UI COM strategic plan.
- UI COM IT Governance Structure: Assist UI COM with establishing formal IT governance combined with a Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) infrastructure to support IT demand. Initial focus is to create a structure to support IT procurement investment.
- Data Governance Assessment: Conduct comprehensive review of data management and governance, then develop recommendations to support establishing a data governance program focused on people, processes, and technology.
Phase 4: July 2025-June 2026
- Educational Technology Implementation: UI COM selected Acuity Insights as the new platform to support curriculum management and student evaluation/assessments. Implementation will commence following contract negotiations.
- Educational Technology Application Evaluation: UI COM’s Assessment team continues to evaluate cloud-based testing solutions. UI COM is meeting with vendors to review products and obtain access to sandbox environments. UI COM will prepare recommendations determine the best solution for managing test activities. gather input from the UI COM community, decide on which new technologies to procure.
- Elective Course Redesign: Implement new course numbering scheme in both Banner and Oracle Apex systems to enable integration flow and eliminate data entry. This work includes collaboration with UIC Office of Academic Program Development, UIC Registrar, and COM IR. Particular attention will be given to existing solutions that require course data, including Oasis, MedHub (E-Value), and Qualtrics.
- UI COM IT Strategic Plan Implementation: Continue to refine the plan with the COM IR team. Following refinement, share and socialize the UI COM 3-Year IT Strategic Plan across the College.
- UI COM IT Governance Implementation: Introduce the new UI COM IT Governance process to enhance transparency, accountability, and alignment of IT initiatives with institutional goals. Establish a structured, inclusive process for decision-making and resource allocation to support new IT investments through this process. As a second phase, COM IR will develop a similar structure and process to manage IT operational activities.
- UI COM IT Service Management Assessment, Design, and Implementation: Engage with COM IR resources to review the existing TeamDynamix instance to understand capabilities and limitations. Develop key requirements for enhancements, including service catalog, service definitions, service tiers, incident management, change management, workflow and routing, and dashboards. Ideate on future-state design, then build and implement the changes. This work will include collaboration with COM IR, other COM users with TDX, and UIC Technology Solutions.
- Data Governance Program Launch: Officially launch the Data Stewards Council and host a Data Governance retreat to socialize UI COM’s data governance framework to improve data quality, integrity, and strategic use. Implement structures to support consistent, organization-wide data management practices.
Why did we investigate Ellucian Banner?
The current state assessment from Phase 1 identified an opportunity to leverage more of Ellucian Banner’s existing functionality, operational data store (ODS) and data warehouse (EDW) to reduce UI COM’s data fragmentation and improve business processes. Understanding Banner is the core system of record at the University of Illinois, UI COM’s ability to utilize Banner as the single source of truth for data will significantly improve operations at UI COM, centralize data to support technology integrations, support academic progress monitoring, and maintain compliance.
How will TOP-ED impact UI COM curriculum?
The goal for the TOP-ED Program is to create an improved operational environment, enable meaningful impact to the experience of students, faculty, and staff, and support UI COM’s educational goals and objectives. For UI COM to fully leverage Banner as the single source of truth, it will require slight modifications to the curriculum schedule which are still being determined. Curriculum content and material are not expected to change.
How will my job be affected?
The TOP-ED Program is not aimed at workforce reduction nor is that an intended outcome. The goal for TOP-ED is to alleviate the significant amount of manual work, streamline processes, improve efficiency, and enable individuals to focus on student service and mission-related work. Organizational structure and workforce alignments will be assessed as new technologies are procured to ensure that process and technology adoption are as consistent across UI COM.
Who will be tasked with the work for TOP-ED?
Various constituent groups will be involved across UI COM, including Educational Affairs, Student Affairs, Curriculum Affairs, Faculty, COM IR, as well as the UI System including University Registrar, University Financial Aid, AITS. We are continuing to identify the relevant groups to engage as the work evolves and will continue forming relevant working groups as needed.
Who was involved with the Acuity Insights selection?
This decision was guided by valuable input from over 200 faculty, staff, and leaders across all three of our campuses, engagement with System and University partners, and assessment of RFP vendors, all through feedback, interviews, surveys, and vendor demonstrations.
What benefits does Acuity Insights provide to faculty and staff?
- A more intuitive, user-friendly experience that reduces administrative workload.
- A modern, uniform platform to collect and analyze clinical assessments of students from Phase 1 through Phase 3, faculty evaluations, and course evaluations.
- Personalized schedules for students, linked to course data including learning objectives.
- Ability to use student assessment data for competency-based education, student support and decisions about student promotion.
- Faster, more accurate data access to support decision-making and reporting;
- A dynamic curriculum map of our educational content, with program objectives linked to course and session objectives.
- Better system integration with existing platforms to reduce redundancy and improve consistency.
What benefits does Acuity Insights provide to students?
- Transparent, prompt access to faculty and resident assessments of your performance.
- A modern interface for accessing curriculum, schedules, and course materials.
- Better organization and accessibility with a centralized location for all of your academic information, improving efficiency and reducing confusion.
- A streamlined process for submitting course, peer, and faculty evaluations, making it quicker and more intuitive to provide feedback.
How will our technical teams support the Acuity Insights implementation?
- Data migration from legacy systems (e.g., Oracle Apex, Benware, Admissions) to Acuity Insights.
- Provide technical expertise to inform future-state integrations.
- Provide technical expertise on service management requests, design, and workflow.
- Provide technical expertise on teaching & learning content delivery.
- Provide technical collaboration with Educational Affairs, Student Affairs, UIC Technology Services and AITS.
How can I prepare for the implementation?
- Stay Informed – Visit the Acuity Implementation website. Attend information sessions when scheduled in the future.
- Share Your Thoughts – Your feedback will help shape this transition to meet your needs. Please reach out to our team: Contact the Team.
What is the implementation timeline?
The implementation timeline including key milestones is described on the Acuity Implementation website.
Who can I contact to ask about the Acuity Insights project?
If you have any questions about the selection process or impact to the education community, please contact Heather Heiman, Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education, hheiman@uic.edu. If you have any questions related to the implementation activities, please reach out to our project manager, Amy Bretz, abretz@uic.edu.