Journey Mapping A Day In The Life Of First-Year Students

What does a day in the life of a first-year student look like? And, how is technology supporting them? These were the important questions a group of technologists, staff, and faculty asked former freshmen as part of a three-day Student Journey Mapping workshop led by UITS.

The interactive journey mapping process created shared understanding around what students were feeling, as well as their experiences and challenges navigating the university. It became clear there were opportunities to improve the technology and services for students to increase their success during their first year.

Information collected during the process has shaped Trellis CRM’s strategy for supporting students including enhancing their digital experience and ease in connecting to university services and communities. This data is also being used by UITS and other university partners to identify trends, patterns, and opportunities where there is potential to create high value, positive impact for students.

“There were a lot of things I didn’t know as a freshman,” said Amy Barrientos, a pre-business sophomore, “but making my voice heard and speaking for students who are in similar situations as me is going to help them in the future.”

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Trellis: Transforming Personalized, Digital Experiences

The University of Arizona has launched a Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) initiative, a key component within the University’s Strategic Plan. The CRM strategy, supported by software technology, will improve how the university manages its relationships, and the data and information associated with them.

UITS is leading the university-wide CRM program, named Trellis, which was officially formed in January 2019.  Trellis has set a pace for implementation at speed and scale, debuting two initial software solutions focused on student success, Trellis Advise and Trellis Progress, in fall 2019.

“Trellis holds the promise of connecting campus through collaborative processes and shared data, which will provide a more consistent experience for our students.”

Powered by Salesforce, Trellis is enabling communication, shared processes and information across the University. With a holistic view of relationships, colleges and departments can optimize how they interact with students, faculty, alumni, and industry partners to provide a more modern, personalized digital experience. 

Governance over Trellis is a collaborative effort between several cross-campus groups and leaders who help determine the program’s strategic direction. 

Leveraging Video for Online Teaching and Learning

The University of Arizona has made great strides using online synchronous meeting tools in support of teaching, learning, and business needs.

In FY19, Zoom, a cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, was made available university-wide. Zoom works on wired, Wi-Fi, and 4G connections and delivers conference room quality audio and video.

Zoom’s quality, ease of use, and collaboration across the campus IT community greatly increased user adoption. More than 252,000 hours were spent in more than 66,000 Zoom meetings hosted by more than 13,000 faculty, staff, and students.

Video helps to fulfill accreditation requirements by verifying that Arizona Online students are taking exams. More than 50,000 exams were recorded in FY19.