UC OATS’ First Year

The University of California recognizes that community involvement is important for faculty and the university. While faculty are encouraged to participate in professional work and research outside of their role with their UC university, there are policies in place to determine the amount of outside work that can interfere with the duties of their position.

The UC Outside Activity and Tracking System, or UC OATS, is a UC-wide web-based system for easy recording and tracking of outside professional activities. The system enables faculty to comply with UC’s Conflict of Commitment policies.

Watch the story of UC OATS (6m 33s):

UC OATS – Almost One Year In

As the system approaches the first-year anniversary of its release at UC San Diego, the University of California project team is celebrating a systemwide award for technical innovation, and UC San Diego is launching local WalkMe in-system user guidance.

Technology Award

UC OATS received a golden Larry L. Sautter Award for Innovation in Information Technology on August 11, 2020. The Sautter Award encourages and recognizes innovative information technology in support of the university’s mission, and nominations may be submitted by faculty and staff from any of the ten UC campuses, six health systems, the UC Office of the President (UCOP), Agriculture and Natural Resources, Hastings College of the Law and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Learn more about the Larry L. Sautter Award.

Introduction of WalkMe

The UC San Diego project team for UC OATS welcomes the addition of WalkMe in-system guidance, going live in August. WalkMe offers step-by-step walkthroughs that will enhance existing system tutorials and provide on-the-spot user support.

Heather Zion, a member of the WalkMe build team, says, “We are hopeful that the aspects of the UC OATS system that were less intuitive will be made more manageable for faculty, staff, and administrators with the addition of WalkMe tools. We’ve actively listened to end-user feedback since the time of our launch last year. Our takeaways from that feedback have been invaluable and were absolutely instrumental for the WalkMe build we’re about to release."

"User feedback just makes systems better," Heather continued. "We feel confident the WalkMe in-system guidance implementation for this system will really help.”   

WalkMe is currently only scheduled for UC San Diego users, but there is interest from other campuses using UC OATS.