The University of Oregon will soon replace one of the main applications used for scheduling rooms and events on campus.
R25 — the software currently used to schedule UO classrooms, campus outdoor spaces and events at the Erb Memorial Union and elsewhere — will be retired at the end of 2018. A software product known as EMS will replace it.
Rick Haught, associate director of operations for the EMU, is among those excited about the transition. "EMS is more intuitive with a much, much better user experience," he said.
Information Services, the UO's central information technology unit, is managing the software transition, working on the first phase of the EMS rollout with Haught and other partners in the EMU, registrar's office, Ford Alumni Center and Lundquist College of Business. Those units are currently the heaviest users of R25.
"We’re happy to be working with scheduling partners on a program that will benefit users across the university as well as meet our classroom scheduling needs," said Sarah Strickler, assistant registrar for operations for classroom scheduling and curriculum.
"As a user of the current scheduling system since it was adopted, I am thrilled to be working on this new EMS system," said Frank Sharpy, facilities manager for the Lundquist College of Business. "This is a system that the entire university will be able to use."
R25 is used to schedule about 15,500 UO course sections per year, according to Strickler. Another 9,000 or so nonacademic events annually have also been scheduled in that system. However, only a limited number of UO units have been using R25 or its web version, 25Live, to either schedule rooms and events or view scheduling information.
"We wanted to find a campuswide solution for scheduling classrooms and university events in order to provide a single source of information about campus activities," said Noreen Hogan, associate chief information officer for applications and middleware in Information Services. "This will enhance our ability to coordinate emergency response, manage incidents and position events across campus."
A UO procurement committee found EMS to best meet the university's needs for a broader scheduling service.
The departments that will use the EMS desktop application will find it much easier to install and support than R25, according to Michelle Brown, assistant director of student life IT.
"The installation takes about a minute and can be initiated by the users," she said.
The last day that R25 or 25Live will allow data entry will be Friday, Dec. 7. After that, both versions of the application will be available in view-only mode through Dec. 31. Starting on Jan. 1, neither R25 nor 25Live will be available at the UO, although historical data from R25 will be archived for future reference.
The units involved in the first phase of the EMS launch will start using it Monday, Dec. 10. Starting in January, the focus of the project will shift to campus units that had been using R25 or 25Live for view-only purposes.
The university's goal is to extend the service to other campus units in the future. "We already have some departments that are excited to be part of this," Haught said.
More information about this software transition is available on the Information Services website. Anyone with questions can contact project manager Garron Hale of Information Services at ghale@uoregon.edu.
—By Nancy Novitski, University Communications