USF wins prestigious award for innovative excellence in response to COVID-19 I USF News

All over the pandemic, USF Facts Technologies rapidly deployed new solutions
that aided in attempts to lessen the spread of COVID-19 and produced programs within just
weeks that furnished economic, educational and emotional assist to college students. It was
a incredible elevate that retained students on keep track of in their reports – all created doable
by It’s pre-COVID technical strategy.

“Prior to the pandemic, we experienced recognized that the amplified hunger for know-how
and speed to benefit intended that we required to adjust how we produced answers at USF,”
claimed Alice Wei, senior director for Electronic Innovations. “We wanted to be in a position to
answer to business enterprise wants and show price a lot a lot more promptly and iteratively. We developed
a tactic that leveraged hyperautomation and composable architecture, which intended
making pieces of know-how like LEGO blocks that could be swiftly assembled and
re-assembled to develop new answers as requires modified.”

Owing to the achievements of this approach, USF has been named a winner of the Gartner 2021 Eye on Innovation Award for Greater Schooling. USF was chosen by Gartner and peers from greater schooling institutions throughout
the world. It recognizes perform finished by USF for innovative excellence that drives very best-in-course
initiatives and evokes others.

“This was a true crew exertion, demanding coordinated contributions from virtually each individual
member of IT. Our accomplishment relied on our use of the scaled agile framework (Protected) and
advertising of an agile society that permits lots of groups to operate with each other at great pace
to deliver worth without breaking a sweat,” said Sidney Fernandes, vice president
and main information officer. “Key parts bundled potent partnerships concerning
interior company companions and IT that made a shared sense of ownership in remedies,
strategic partnerships with industry know-how leaders including Appian Corp., Microsoft
and Mulesoft, governance processes by now in location that enabled us to focus assets,
deliver transparency and garner customer purchase-in on why and how the improvements would effect
the university community.”

New methods bundled the development of the Return to Campus/Campus Pass, which authorized
the university to determine constructing occupancy, testing functions and other communications
approaches. An average of 8,000 persons submitted the every day symptom tracker each
working day – a former requirement to check out campus.

“Data was out there to us fast and in a consumer-pleasant format which permitted us to
approach, but also to react in near-true time to an evolving circumstance,” mentioned Donna Petersen, dean of the University of Public Well being and chair of the COVID-19 Task Force. “All
of this permitted us to maintain case numbers down and to continue on offering academic packages
in as risk-free a way as feasible.”

The rapid improvement of the CARES Act money assist software also presented learners
with a seamless, easy-to-navigate on-line system to post paperwork and particular
statements essential for thing to consider to acquire federal monetary assist. Approximately 4,000
applications had been permitted through the early months of the pandemic. 

Further automatic technologies integrated HR selecting freeze exceptions, a pass/fail
grading solution software and a program that quickly enabled pupils to fulfill practically
with advisors.

“The higher education desired the application appropriate away, but it also needed to be usable by
big figures of college students,” mentioned Moez Limayem, dean of the Muma College or university of Enterprise. “I was so amazed due to the fact working with this automation
method, our IT crew much more than exceeded our expectations. This was actually transformational.”