April 2014

 

Organisation Design

Discussions with College and University Services representatives about the organisation design are continuing. These discussions are focused on defining new research management support roles and structures across the University and involve detailed consideration of current and potential future activity in order to deliver the University’s vision.

Thanks to the significant input from College and University Services representatives, good progress has been made. However, the Project Board appreciates the significance of this stage of the project, and it is important to us to go on gathering feedback and comment during May to make sure we are on the right track.  The evidence we collect will include analysis based on existing research projects to make sure we have configured proposed job roles correctly so they match the processes required. Thank you very much for your patience during this phase. Once discussions are concluded, our thoughts and plans will be shared more widely for further comment.

 

System Implementation

Agresso Business World (ABW) has now been upgraded (to Milestone 4 Update 01) in preparation for the new research module next year.

The final research system development was delivered by the supplier at the end of April.  This development provides an online tool within Agresso to allow principal investigators to create a new project and capture key information relating to the project. Upon creation the system will generate the project number which will remain with the project throughout its life. The tool will be installed to our research build system environment and initial testing completed by the project team. A review of the functionality and assessment against the system requirements (defined from the end to end research management processes) will commence during May.

The Project Board has approved the proposed approach to data migration.  Work on a proof of concept to validate the approach has commenced to ensure that reporting requirements will be met and that electronic documents associated to current and historical research projects can be accessed in the future.  Cleansing of data within the current research system has begun with input from stakeholders across the University.    

The Project Board also approved the proposal regarding the implementation of sub project numbering to replace the existing use of parent and child projects on multi partner research projects.  The proposal was developed after consultation with a number of key stakeholders.  Information regarding this change will be shared with a wider group of stakeholders to allow further feedback. It is planned that this change will be implemented in Agresso in advance of the new research system to mitigate against the risks associated with implementing multiple system changes at the one time.

Work continues with stakeholders from the Colleges regarding the criteria for an automated project approval workflow. Testing of the approval workflow proof of concept is currently being carried out by the project team in conjunction with the system supplier. Once identified issues have been resolved, a small group of stakeholders will be invited to review the solution to confirm it meets requirement and complete informal testing using a variety of project scenarios.