Recommendations for technology tools the University of Oregon should use for communications and collaboration will be the subject of a town hall meeting Monday, Nov. 18.

Matt Riley, the University of Oregon's chief technology officer, and Jessie Minton, vice provost for information services and chief information officer, will host the meeting from 9:30 to 11 a.m. in the Knight Library Browsing Room.

Students, faculty members and staff are invited to attend.

The tool recommendations are the result of an information gathering and analysis project conducted in the spring and summer.

Prompted by the need to replace the UO's 30-year-old telephone system, Information Services launched the Communications and Collaborative Technologies Program, formerly referred to as Unified Communications, to broadly address communication and collaboration tools, from telephones and videoconferencing to instant messaging and text messaging.

"Instead of just buying new desk phones, we wanted to think about what kind of system or systems might better meet the evolving communications needs of the UO community," Riley said in April.

Earlier this year, staff from Information Services and two consulting firms, Presidio and The Northridge Group, conducted interviews, focus groups and observation sessions with almost 200 UO staff, faculty members and students to assess communication and collaboration needs and methods. The team received additional feedback through a survey.

The consultants then conducted detailed analyses of available tools for communications and collaboration, from which the UO project team developed a suite of recommendations for the UO. At the town hall meeting, Riley will be sharing those recommendations with campus.

Anyone with questions should contact the project team at unifiedcommsprogram@uoregon.edu.

—By Nancy Novitski, University Communications