Catch up on missed sessions
Want to catch up on missed sessions? Watch the recorded sessions on the WatITis 2021 Streams Channel (need to login with UWaterloo credentials)
The WatITis conference is held online on December 8, 2021. Please note that the session schedules are currently tentative and may change without notice.
* indicates a 20 minute session
Session 1 (10:15-11:05)
How WCMS3 Uses Pattern-lab for its Theming and how Other Web Applications Can Use It
Eric Bremner, Martin Leblanc
45 min.
The current WCMS3 is using Pattern-lab for all of it's web theming. Learn how the WCMS developers used pattern-lab to make most of the content using one component pulling in many different components. Also, learn how other web applications can plug-in to the pattern-lab instance to make web applications on-brand and look like uwaterloo.
Decisions Workflow Software Use Case: Learn Tools v4
Gina Reichard, Sean Warren, Mike Gaspic
45 min.
In 2020, IST acquired Decisions (https://decisions.com), a workflow software application. This session will provide an overview of Decisions by sharing a recent implementation of Learn Tools v4, which was developed using Decisions. Learn Tools is the application that updates course information in Learn based on information provided by the RO in Quest.
Attendees will see Decisions in action and learn how and when it should be considered as a development tool.
MyCreds - Digital Transcripts and Credentials Speakers
Cathy Newell Kelly, Dylan Gardner, Stacey Mahoney
45 min.
MyCreds is Canada’s new, official credential wallet for post-secondary learners and graduates. MyCreds connects schools, students and employers through a trusted network and unified document certification and sharing platform. The Centre and the Registrar’s Office will talk about the on-boarding process, how the system works and cover benefits to students, employers and UW staff.
CRM Success Beyond the System
Daryl Dore, Scott O'Neill, Tom Graham, Nigel Henriques
45 min.
Every day across campus there are people who collect, curate and utilize the information we have about our external constituents to help deepen the connections that support our institution. Some of this effort occurs in market leading Customer Relationship Management systems, and a lot happens successfully using desktop tools such as Excel and Outlook. While this is a technology conference, this session will be focused on the practices required for CRM success independent of the technology.
This panel will include some CRM leaders from across campus to share insight and answer questions around their data management and other vital CRM practices. Through the chat there will be opportunities to ask your questions about practices, challenges and plans for constituent data management. Even if you don't do a lot of CRM activity the lessons on data quality will apply to various systems and use cases.
Waterloo's Equity Survey: Data Management and Processes Speakers*
Rohem Adagbon, Lannois Carroll-Woolery
20 min.
Waterloo's Equity Survey launched in June 2021 to students and employees. The purpose of the survey is to capture aspects of personal identity and help the University understand the makeup of its community in order to identify equity gaps in our programs, services and policies. The nature of the data required the university to develop robust processes to protect participant confidentiality. This presentation will outline the processes developed to manage and protect equity survey data.
WFH-Adjustment to Life on Another Planet Speaker*
Kate Wood
20 min.
One IT girl's story of her and her faculty's experience with the transition to work from home, highlighting challenges and lessons learned in the new environment including defenses, remote meetings in general, power outages and cloud storage for people who were not really geared to understand what that meant. Talk will have interactive components (breakout rooms), allowing the audience to discuss their experience too with a chance to debrief and take home some lessons before we go “back to normal.”
Session 2 (11:15-12:00)
2020-2021 Campus Wireless Refresh
Dave Aldwinckle
45 min.
I will describe the latest campus wireless refresh and related topics.
- Project goals
- Approach
- Expectations
- Components (Hardware, Identity platform, Operations/Administration)
- Wi-Fi basics
- Wi-Fi 6 enhancements
WCMS 3: The Cause of, and Solution to, All Life's Problems
Kevin Paxman
45 min.
By WatITis 2021, WCMS 3 will have been out for nearly 6 months. This talk will start with a (mostly) honest look back at the rocky road to release, migrations, and the challenges of creating training materials on a system that is changing every day. Next, we’ll look at the possibilities opened up by WCMS 3, and hopefully showcase some awesome real-world examples. Finally, we’ll look at what’s coming over the next few months, and take a peek at long term plans.
Boosting Change Adoption through a Change Champion Model
Samantha Murray, Pam Fluttert
45 min.
Implementing enterprise wide change initiatives within a decentralized system can be challenging. This session will explore how the University of Waterloo successfully implemented Change Champion Networks to support enterprise wide change initiatives. Successes and lessons learned will be shared.
Sustainable IT
Andrew McAlorum, Mat Thijssen
45 min.
As part of a pilot program through Green Economy Canada, in collaboration with HP Canada, University of Waterloo’s Sustainability Office and Information Systems & Technology are partnering to transform our IT landscape through sustainable IT best practices. From sustainable IT procurement through ecolabels such as EPEAT and Energy Star, eco-friendly printing, the energy management benefits of cloud, virtualization, and work from home solutions deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic, to the surprisingly complicated business of implementing procedures around computer shutdown outside normal operating hours, this project is far-reaching in scope, including ‘quick wins’ and more aspirational objectives, with the aim of incrementally helping the University reach its sustainability goals. Join us to learn more about how IT can impact real change in the green campus journey.
Cyber Security State of the Union
Jason Testart
45 min.
A high-level update of cyber security events of 2021, the threats, new developments, and where we should focus our efforts.
Session 3 (1:00-1:50)
Quest in the Cloud Project
Connie van Oostveen, Chris Voutsis, Daryl Dore
45 min.
An IaaS project is underway to host Quest in Oracle's Cloud Infrastructure, with a go live date of February 2022. This presentation will cover the benefits, project approach, and all the cool things this cloud implementation will help us do. We will also talk about some of our learnings and adjustments with regards to this cloud implementation. There may be a demo of the tools as well.
OXREF: Open Extended Reality for Education Framework*
Ishan Abeywardena
20 min.
In this presentation, I will introduce the Open Extended Reality for Education Framework (OXREF), which is a conceptual framework proposing a holistic solution to XR object creation, implementation and deployment covering pedagogical, technical and administrative perspectives. Increasingly, many governments and institutions around the world are making major investments in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies preparing education systems for the future. However, many of these investments remain isolated pilot projects which tease at what the potential future of education could be, but unlikely due to scalability and sustainability. Based on literature and empirical evidence, I have identified that (a) the lack of content, tools and skills; (b) the lack of sound pedagogy and instructional design; and (c) sustainability to be major barriers to the wider adoption of XR in education. The contribution of the OXREF is the ability to build immersive XR projects in a scalable and sustainable manner promoting openness, accessibility, equity, reuse and collaboration by harnessing the full potential of OER and free and open-source software (FOSS) while utilizing cloud-based infrastructure for large-scale distribution and outreach.
Keywords: OXREF, open extended reality for education framework, extended reality (XR), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), XR in education
Technology-Enabled Automation Process Improvement Framework (TEAPIF): A Case in Optimization and Efficiency at the University of Waterloo*
Jason Greatrex, Daspina Fefekos
20 min.
The purpose of this presentation is to present a case study of an empirical technology-enabled automation process improvement framework (TEAPIF). The TEAPIF framework applies automation to streamline and optimize key activities and incorporates multi-constituent notifications, bookings, and visual reporting enhancements, while minimizing human reliance; thus, decreasing manual errors, compounding omissions, and wasteful redundancy for quicker and more efficient administrative support results for Online Learners within the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL) at the University of Waterloo. The main takeaway is that the TEAPIF framework are highly transferrable and adaptable and the example provided will help demonstrate the versatility and applicability to apply to other institutional and departmental process.
Evolving the Edtech Ecosystem at uWaterloo (level 100)
Andrea Chappell, Mary Power, Dina Meunier
45 min.
Educational technologies (edtech) is the term for digital technologies used to facilitate teaching and learning. The importance of a robust edtech ecosystem was heightened by the pandemic-related shift to remote learning in spring 2020, which universally increased instructor and student reliance on edtech. Well before the pandemic, in 2019, representatives from three collaborative groups, Instructional Technologies and Media Services (ITMS) in Information Systems & Technology (IST), the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE), and the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL), had identified goals and initiatives to evolve edtech at the University. Our goals are focused on helping the University achieve the 2020-2025 Strategic Plan theme, “Developing talent for a complex future”, especially one of the theme’s objectives: “Continue to advance an agile, technology–enabled learning ecosystem that supports high-quality, open content and digital learning options.” Please join us to hear about this initiative and our progress to date and have a voice in evolving edtech at Waterloo as we invite your thoughts on work so far!
Extended Reality Technologies in Teaching: Opportunities and Obstacles*
Mark Morton, Gillian Dabrowski, Amna Idrees
20 min.
This session will report on the findings of a research project in which we interviewed instructors who have used Extended Reality Technologies (XR) at the Universities of Waterloo, Guelph, and Manitoba. We asked the instructors why they used an XR technology, how successful it was, opportunities for XR technologies that they identified, obstacles they encountered, and more. The project was funded by the Desire2Learn Innovation Guild, and the project investigators are Mark Morton (CTE), Gillian Dabrowski (CEL), and Amna Idrees (Systems Design).
Note: by Extended Reality technologies, we mean both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.
PHP 8*
Liam Morland
20 min.
PHP has come a long way. Let's look at what is new in PHP 8.0, released fall 2020, and 8.1, expected to be released just weeks before the conference. We'll look at new language features, how you can use them to improve your code, and how to update your existing code. Remember, PHP 7.3 goes out of support in fall 2021.
Getting the Most Out of Microsoft 365
Wendy Hague, Matt Harford, Jan Willwerth, Stephen Markan, Corrine Kraus, Susan Willsie, Lisa Tomalty
45 min.
Over the past year we’ve moved almost all employees to Microsoft 365 email. With this change, employees are now using cloud technology for email and various apps, to share and store files, and to participate in meetings. The presentation will help attendees gain a greater appreciation for how the various Microsoft applications and tools can be used to optimize their personal or team productivity as both an instructor and as an employee.
Session 4 (2:00-2:45)
SOC Hatemail: What Next?
Mike Patterson
45 min.
So SOC has notified you of a vulnerability or potential security incident involving one or more of your systems. What will we want you to do next?
I last gave a version of this talk on campus in 2009 and enough time has passed and things have changed that it might be worth a refresher.
The Project Management Office as an Enabler
Pam Fluttert
45 min.
Projects are change initiatives which may involve implementation of new technology or processes, a move, an event, or the launch of a new service. The Project Management Office (PMO) within Information Systems & Technology offers a number of valuable services that can help departments, teams, or groups successfully implement change initiatives. The PMO's journey, future direction, and services which may be of assistance to you and your teams will be discussed during this session.
Additional information about the Project Management Office can be found on our web site (https://uwaterloo.ca/ist-project-management-office/).
Cloud Fast Forward: Partnering for Success in the Cloud
Gregory Smith, Anne Paulson
45 min.
Cloud information systems often come with the promise from the vendor of “Just turn it on and let it run”, “No setup required”, and “You don’t need your IT people anymore!” Inevitably, all of these promises turn out to be untrue!
The Departmental and Campus Applications group leads information systems implementation and support. Over the past 4 years, we have created a program that we call “Cloud Fast Forward” to help ourselves, and our campus partners, evolve to meet the new realities, challenges and opportunities of a cloud-based information system world. In this presentation, we will share our key lessons for repeatable success in both implementing new cloud systems, as well as moving existing on-premise systems to the cloud.
Because that's where the money is: Ransomware as a growth industry
Terry Labach
45 min.
Despite years of experience, Internet-based financial crime continues to plague businesses and organizations. Financial losses due to ransomware continue, instigated by relentless cybercriminal gangs spread across the world. Higher education institutions are not immune to such attacks.
Terry will review some of the most audacious ransomware attacks of the past few years. He’ll demonstrate how the victimized organizations were vulnerable and how they could have defended themselves. Could it happen here?
Portal to the Cloud
Pavol Chvala
45 min.
I will detail Portal's migration to the Cloud, as far as large custom-built applications go. I will highlight the steps we took, the strategies we developed to mitigate risk, and ultimately the lessons we have learned along the way.