New Web world of services
will ease info search
BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff
On June 15, the Web architects at Administrative Information Systems
plan to unveil a reorganized Web world of UCLA business services.
This new approach will vastly simplify the search for information
by the public and campus community as well as the way many employees
do their jobs.
Employees will no longer need a complex org chart or years of experience
to be able to navigate the multilayered world of UCLA services to
accomplish a simple task. They won’t have to know that to
order phones, they need to seek out Communications Technology Services.
Parents and students hunting for campus housing can easily access
the right site and eventually apply for all types of student housing,
make credit-card payments or even print out customized coupons they
can submit with future payments.
Rather than group information by department, how-to information
on hundreds of services and common business and accounting practices
will be organized by subject area for the user’s convenience.
Links to forms, policies and related information will be available
in one place, no matter what departmental borders are crossed.
Easier to find and easier to understand, these Web pages will be
standardized, written in simple, jargon-free sentences, with each
page designed similarly so that users will know immediately, for
example, where to look on a page for contact information or navigational
features.“Going forward, the new portal and content management
system will be the key element in our strategy for using the Web
to deliver self-service administrative applications and information
to the campus,” said Vice Chancellor for Business and Administrative
Services Sam Morabito.
The gateway to this campuswide resource for staff, faculty, students
and the public — whether they are seeking information on career
opportunities or procedures for ordering a computer — is the
Administrative Portal. Using Vignette software, this UCLA resource
was inspired by “Blink,” a Web resource created by UC
San Diego a few years ago when the campus was expanding rapidly.
Many new employees had to quickly learn their jobs.
To make the portal work at UCLA, teams of employees had to think
through their roles and functions, anticipating what users want
to know, said Greg Partipilo, AIS portal manager, who has been working
for many months on this project.
“The challenge was to change our thinking from ‘where
we work’ to ‘what do we do,’ ” said Judy
Cormier, team leader for the “buying” section of the
portal.
Information has been targeted for specific audiences and their
needs, said Hilu Bloch, director of policy and personnel services,
who led the team for the human resources section. “Employees
can find information about benefits, training, conflict resolution
and other topics of interest to them,” she said. “Departmental
HR administrators have their own section with forms, how-to articles
and other resources geared to their needs. Supervisors and external
applicants also can find information of particular interest to them.”
While all UCLA business services will eventually be accessed from
the portal, the gateway will launch a pilot phase next month with
three service areas: human resources, housing and hospitality, and
buying. Other administrative services listed on the portal will
be linked to existing Web sites until they become part of the portal.
“What we’ve developed is really a campuswide publication
that can be easily updated without HTML skills,” Partipilo
said. Unlike many Web sites that remain static for months, content
will be revised regularly by designated content managers for every
service area. AIS will do final editing of content to make sure
it meets specific standards for comprehension and clarity before
it is published on the Web.
“As more and more information is included in the portal,
this will be a significant time-saver for the campus community,”
Bloch said.
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