March 4, 2013

KU's Research Caliber: strengthen skills, technology, and retaining top performers

• KUCR representatives met with representatives from Perceptive Software to identify documents and processes that can be improved and made more efficient through use of ImageNow software.

Pursue System Improvements: implement tools that increase faculty and administrative efficiency; collaborate with KUMC where feasible

• Training sessions for the Financial Manager's Workbench (FMW) software package have been conducted over the last few weeks. The goal is for FMW to replace departmental shadow systems used to track/forecast sponsored project expenditures as a forecasting/budgeting tool for sponsored projects.
• The KU-L/KUMC research policy committee has been charged with reviewing all research related policies on both campuses in an effort to identify policies that can be combined. Three policies have been identified, rewritten and are pending approval. Additional policies have been identified and will be rewritten by the committee.

KUCR Efficiency: strengthen operations, processes, and overall effectiveness

• The research award data integrity project is progressing as expected. It is anticipated that the project will be completed mid-April. The purpose of the project is to improve the accuracy of research related reporting and metrics by better utilizing delivered functionality in PeopleSoft and creating effective and efficient business processes. The research award data integrity project has focused primarily on two areas thus far: business process redesign and data cleanup planning. This project will greatly increase the accuracy of research related reporting and increase efficiency within the units of RGS.
• The RGS website redesign was launched on December 27th. The redesigned site utilizes the new KU template.