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![[Undergraduate Handbook]](http://www.unimelb.edu.au/img/sitebar/fill.gif){kind=small} |
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Information Technology Policies, Strategies & Procedures Guide 6. Systems Development |
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[? Search] [Top] [Contents]
[Prev: 5. Desktop Software and Licences]
[Next: 7. Equipment Acquisition and Disposal]
- 6.1. Administrative Systems
- 6.1.1. Administrative Systems
- 6.1.2. HR/Salaries: Genesys
- 6.1.3. Student Administration:
- 6.1.4. Finance System: Themis Financials
- 6.1.5. Research Grants and Research Publications
- 6.1.6. Printer Registration
- 6.2. Systems Development and Integration
- 6.2.1. New Systems
- 6.2.2. SDI Initiated Developments
- 6.3. CWIS
- 6.3.1. Publishing
- 6.3.2. Useful URLs
Systems Development and Integration (SDI) an organizational unit of the IT Strategies and Developments department in Information Services develops and integrates the core University information systems. These systems support the core business processes of the University, its operational and decision support requirements, compliance with statutory reporting and managerial obligations in a timely manner.
The core systems support the following business functions:
Student Administration
Scholarships
Payroll/HR
Finance
Research Grant Management
Research Publications Management
Webraft for online teaching
Management Information Systems (MIS) for decision support
Web access to the above core systems is provided via:
Student Information Systems (SIS) provides student access to:
Examination results
Examination timetable
Personal detail
Course planning
Subject changes
Online applications
Webmenu provides staff access to:
Personal detail via the Employee Kiosk
Leave applications
Casual Payments
Budgeting
Internal Orders for purchasing
Management Information Systems
In 2000 the University undertook a review of administrative systems. The review recommended to replace the core systems with an Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) suite. It is expected that a new ERP Finance System will be in place by 1 January 2003
Genesys is a database application developed in SDI for Human Resources, and includes the following functions: organisational administration, personnel details, staff movements, payroll, leave, workforce planning and reports.
Inquiries about Genesys should be directed to Human Resources in the first instance (ext 44335) or hr-genesys@unimelb.edu.au.
Merlin is the student administration database. It was developed by SDI for the use of faculties, departments and Student Administration. Merlin contains student records including personal details, academic results and fees. It is used for enrolment, re-enrolment, fee administration, examinations, course planning, statistics and reports. Ad-hoc queries can be made on the database using GQL.
Inquiries about Merlin should be directed to the Merlin Hotline (ext 46010).
MUFAS, the former University Finance system, was replaced in January 2003 with Themis Financials. The rationale behind replacing MUFAS was that it had limited functionality, particularly in respect of research and commercial income. It was based on a cash accounting model, could not easily be adapted to cater for accrual accounting and served more as a sophisticated accounting system, rather than a management tool.
Themis Financials allows for the enhancement of data retrieval and analysis to support executive decision making and external accountability, including user tools for scenario modelling and special report generation. It also provides relevant financial information for budget, analytical and management purposes through unified budgeting and reporting across all fund sources available to the University.
Themis is based on Oracle Financials, and has been customised to suit the University's requirements. Details of the customisation are available at:
http://www.usp.unimelb.edu.au/finance/docs/Oracle_Customisations.pdf
The successful rollout of Phase 1 of Themis Financials in January 2003 was made possible through extensive analysis, implementation and user training efforts. Further information about Themis modules currently in use is available at: http://www.usp.unimelb.edu.au/finance/objectives/new.html
Modules to be introduced as part of the Phase 2 implementation is available at: http://www.usp.unimelb.edu.au/finance/planprog./timeline.html
Inquiries about Themis should be directed to the Help Desk on ext. 49300. To log a Themis query online go to: http://idwww.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/itsc/
The Research Grants system manages the University research funding effort. It monitors research performance and supports analysis and planning. The system meets the University requirements for external accountability.
If you would like a printer registered with any of these systems:
Use the web based printer registration form and submit it electronically:
http://idwww.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/itsc/ or, complete the printer registration form at the Reception Counter in the IT Operations.
SDI develops systems used University-wide.
Proposals for new systems should be presented to the Systems Co-ordination Group for assessment and allocation of funding. Systems Co-ordination Group is a committee chaired by the VP Administration with a wide membership of stakeholders, which meets each year in September.
Systems Co-ordination Proposals should be prepared by the sponsoring department in conjunction with Systems Development and Integration (SDI) in Information Services. Contact the Director of SDI sdi-info@unimelb.edu.au.
The Systems Summit Proposal should include
Functional Specification - What the system should do. What is the process? What is the anticipated outcome?
Justification based on cost and/or quality benefits.
Estimated cost including staffing costs
System scope.
System Co-Ordination approved submissions are notified by the end of the year.
Progress of projects is monitored by a Steering Committee which meets regularly to discuss major issues and general progress. All stakeholders are represented at the steering committee including the relevant Central Business Unit, SDI and the sponsoring department.
In April, a progress report for each project is submitted to the Systems Co-Ordination Group.
After development, the programs are exposed to rigorous testing, and when the sponsoring department and the relevant Business Unit are satisfied with the result, the programs go into production. SDI provides ongoing background support for all projects, including Disaster Recovery, Backup, System Administration and Data Base Administration.
Proposals that involve existing systems in any way should be directed to the business manager for the system. The business managers are listed below. These business managers should also be contacted for proposals for system that would fall within their jurisdiction.
Student related projects - General Manager Student Administrations
HRM/Salaries - Manager, Systems, Human Resources
Finance - Director Financial Operations
Research Grants - General Manager, Office of D.V.C. (Research)
SDI may act as a sponsoring department if a need exists and no other sponsoring department can be identified. SDI sponsored developments include:
The aim of these projects is to produce an information system architecture that is universally accessible, platform independent and underpins web browser access for all core database systems and information resources in the University. Additions to this project include search engines, improved proxy serving, and programs for collection of statistics on usage.
The CDD aims to develop standard data definitions across all the major University systems to encourage data integrity and integration across all University information systems. It enables inter-system information exchange and improves the efficiency and effectiveness of University corporate data management for decision making and planning.
SGML - Standard Generalised Markup Language - is an internationally agreed standard for electronic publishing. This project aims to revolutionise the information that is needed in multiple formats such as paper, WWW and CD-ROM. It allows the maintenance of a single source document for all formats. As such, it improves data integrity and efficiency. The technology supports access privileges with built in validity checking as in a database. Presentation formats are flexible and easily adjustable and the formatting process can be automated.
A number of University publications are being published using SGML including the Undergraduate Handbook, Information Technology Policies, Strategies and Procedures Guide, the Personnel Policies and Procedures document as well as the Finance Policies and Procedure.
The Undergraduate Handbook was being used as a pilot project to demonstrate the potential of SGML and tackle practical implementation issues.
For further details contact Systems Developments & Integration if you wish to create large documents.
A Management Information System (MIS) is continuing enhanced based on data warehousing technologies, to support decision making, planning and ad-hoc query requirements. Data warehousing is the process of consolidating data from multiple sources into one or more query databases providing users with a user friendly query tool to easily access business information models.
Conditions for Use of The University of Melbourne Campus-wide Information System (CWIS) and Conditions for Electronic Publishing using The University of Melbourne World Wide Web (WWW) facilities are outlined below and described in detail at
http://www.unimelb.edu.au/webcentre/webcentre/tools/guidelines/
Documentation on the CWIS can be found at
http://www.its.unimelb.edu.au/cwis/
University faculties and departments are encouraged to publish information useful to current students, prospective students, staff, and the general community on CWIS. General information on how to publish documents are available at:
http://www.its.unimelb.edu.au/cwis/wwwhosting/publish.html
Any faculty or department may setup their own WWW server. Any staff member or student can potentially use the University Network and WWW to publish information. Documents can also be served from accounts on central systems such as Ariel and Rubens. See 'Central Computing Systems' Section 3.1 for more information about Ariel and Rubens.
Publishing on Ariel
http://ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au/
Publishing on Rubens
http://rubens.its.unimelb.edu.au/pub/rubens/serving_docs.html
For information about publishing facilities for students see
http://www.studentit.unimelb.edu.au/itguide/online/homepage.html
A Home Page (HP) is the first single page, or point of contact, for a faculty, department or organisation. The subsequent pages that the Home Page leads to should simply be referred to as 'pages', often qualified with the title of the page, such as the 'Faculties and Departments Page', 'Personal Page', etc.
A HP must contain The University Crest, the name of the person authorising the page and its contents, the email address of the author, the date of creation of the page, the date it was last updated, and an assertion of University Copyright. The name of the person maintaining the data and/or responsible for the design of the page may also appear.
Each HP must link to a departmental or Faculty HP. All Faculty and department HPs must have a link to the University HP. The University HP will be on a server maintained by Information Services. It is recommended that HPs are set up on a server dedicated to WWW publishing.
No HP may have a stub which points to a page which is blank or states that it is not yet ready. All links must connect to a valid page containing current information.
The Head of Department (or nominee) is responsible for ensuring that data on Home Pages is current. Home Pages with non-current data may be removed.
Personal Pages (PP) are 'Home Pages' set up by individual staff members or students of the University. Their purpose is to present information which is relevant to the author's activities in the University. PP do not reflect the views, policies or opinions of the University.
PP must contain a disclaimer stating that: 'This page, its contents and style, are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, policies or opinions of The University of Melbourne', the name of the author, the date the page was last updated and a pointer to a departmental HP.
A PP must not display an official image, graphic, logo or trademark of The University of Melbourne.
All WWW publishing should conform to the HTML standard. The use of proprietary extensions (e.g. Microsoft or Netscape extensions) is strongly discouraged. Current information on the HTML standard can be found from the following URL
Pages should be accessible and look professional, irrespective of the browser being used. Authors should view their pages using more than one browser on multiple platforms or use the HTML validation service available from:
Communications Office is now responsible for web publishing and guidelines. See
http://www.unimelb.edu.au/webcentre/tools/guidelines/
Individuals and departments may use Ariel or Rubens accounts to serve WWW documents. Disk space is generally constrained on these systems so it may be necessary to fill in a form to request additional disk space. See 'Central Computer Systems' Section 3.1 for more information.
Space on Information Services central CWIS server, http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ is limited and generally restricted to information of University wide scope or interest, for example, The Personnel Policy and Procedures Guide.
A 'virtual web server' service is available allowing departments to have their own web server, with its own URL, hosted on the University Web server. Detail of the 'virtual web server' service is available from
http://www.its.unimelb.edu.au/cwis/wwwhosting/virtual.html
You do not need to get links made to your page for it to be available for browsing. If you would like a particular page to contain a pointer to your page(s) then you should negotiate directly with the maintainer of that particular page. Most pages will contain the name or email address of the maintainer. Inclusion in other pages is often a matter of time as people write new pages.
Be careful when you create hyperlink to external site. Such a link should only be provided when there is a clear benefit to the users of the University
Official guidelines for determining the scope of access to administrative and academic information are under development.
Consistent with the University's Intellectual Property statute, the interim recommendation is that academic sources of a general informational nature could have their access permissions set with a wide network scope (i.e. public access) but course materials and other documents should be published with access restricted to on-campus or through valid user account authentication or via dial-in through authorised accounts on the University Network.
Server administrators should familiarise themselves with their server's documentation on how to configure their servers and served documents for the required access and security.
The University's CWIS project aims to provide access to University information to members of the University community, prospective students, and academics from other educational institutions. Many of these users will be visiting the CWIS using World-Wide Web client software over slower speed links outside the University (the average WWW user is connected via a 14400 bps modem). Publishers of documents on the CWIS should therefore keep the needs of these users in mind when designing graphics for their documents. These guidelines provide an outline of various sizing limits to make pages more 'friendly' to these users.
Information about the University of Melbourne's web server
http://www.its.unimelb.edu.au/cwis/#www
Information on Open Source WWW Resources
Comparison of servers
Obtaining software mirrored on the University FTP Server
Microsoft Internet Information Server ships with Windows NT v4.0
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/
Tucows site is a good reference site for NT and Windows 95 software
[? Search] [Top] [Contents]
[Prev: 5. Desktop Software and Licences]
[Next: 7. Equipment Acquisition and Disposal]
Created: November 1996
Last Modified: 30 March 2007
Authorised by: Vice and Deputy Principal(Information), Information Division.
Maintained by: Pham Ho it-pp@unimelb.edu.au
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