- Author: Jodi Azulai
Be an active participant in your performance review discussion. It will empower you and shows that you care about your work and your development.
To prepare, review your:
- Job description
- Objectives set for the review period
- Any documentation, notes, status reports you have drafted or even a self-assessment
Continue reading here.
Check out the ANR Learning and Development website to explore learning resources, training topics, and career planning tools. Use the career planning tools to:
- Learn the difference between skills and competencies
- Identify UC Core Competencies
- Fill out a self-assessment to contemplate your skill strengths and skill gaps
SiteBuilder Training
The CSIT Web Development team is bringing several SiteBuilder training sessions to several locations:
- Monday, May 7, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in Davis
- Thursday, May 17, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at Hopland (FULL)
- Thursday, May 24, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at Kearney
The classes are designed for ANR people in need of proficiency in creating and maintaining websites.
Learning topics:
- The basics to get up and running with SiteBuilder
- Best practices in web design
- Search engine optimization
- Employing images
- Social media integration
- Web accessibility
- Introduction to new designs and functionalities of the future SiteBuilder platform
Register at http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=24549. A training location may be added in Southern California.
Register for the New Employee Administrative Orientation
Wednesday, May 23, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
UC ANR Building, 2801 Second Street, Davis, CA 95618
Learn more and register here.
Who should attend: All UC ANR employees (academics, staff and affiliated staff on campuses, counties and RECs) who have not participated in an administrative orientation in the past. Priority will be given to those hired by ANR within the past year.
- Learn about ANR's vision and mission
- Learn about ANR structure and individual programs and units
- Interact with ANR leadership and directors
- Meet and network with new colleagues from around the state
- Get answers to burning questions about health benefits, AggieTravel, and more!
You bring the coffee, tea, or beverage and we will bring you the first virtual WebANR Café Thursday on May 17 at noon: Planning makes Perfect: Best Practices for Engaging Webinars.
During this webinar, Brook Gamble, community educator specialist with the California Naturalist Program, and Steven Worker, 4-H academic advisor will help you:
- Improve your understanding of the critical steps for preparation, implementation, and post webinar follow-up
- Introduce ZOOM capabilities
- Introduce tricks of the trade to keeping webinar participants engaged and not checking their e-mail
Join us at:
https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/963167636
(646) 558-8656 or + (669) 900-6833
Webinar ID: 963 167 636
WebANRs will be recorded and linked to the WebANR Café Thursday page.
Use Your Subscription to Corporate Executive Board Learning & Development
As a UCANR employee you have automatic membership to a top-notch professional development resource. Interested in cultivating your career to the next level of performance? If yes, check out Corporate Executive Board (CEB) Learning & Development. It takes seconds to register or reset a password and participate in webinars, download job aids and participate in discussion forums.
Here is a quick list of a few CEB resources:
Resources for All Employees – Develop yourself as a high-performing employee, not only effective at your tasks, but also as someone who contributes to others' performance and uses others' contributions to improve your own performance.
On-the-Job Activity Builder – Use this interactive tool to build employee development plans with recommended on-the-job learning activities, based on the competencies you select.
Manager Guide: Holding Effective Career Discussions – Guide your direct reports through identifying and progressing toward their career aspirations.
Manager Excellence Resource Center – Find manager development and employee development resources at this online portal (separate from the L&D member website).
- Author: Bruce Lidl
Usually, as an IT communicator, my job is to inform people about an amazing new technology or service. A new tool or offering that will profoundly impact their work experience and propel their company or university into a new era of success (we hope!).
That is not my task today, however. Instead, my first announcement as UC ANR IT Communication Specialist is… me.
Last week, I joined CSIT to support ANR web development and to assist IT in getting the word out about all the cool new things we are building. I, myself, am not likely to have a profound impact on your daily work, at least in comparison to the ANR Portal or SiteBuilder 3.0, but what I can promise is to keep you very well informed about the powerful tools and services that CSIT provides.
Often, the role of an IT communicator is to be a kind of translator, taking very technical topics and making them understandable, and useful (!), for a general audience. Luckily, I love technology and have a hard time NOT telling people about it, as my friends and family would eagerly confirm. After a short career in academia, I have spent the last decade or so working for technology companies, both big and small, to bridge the gap between the bleeding edge and the safe middle of the road. Ultimately, no technology has value beyond its ability to empower the user, and I am very excited to assist in deploying great IT tools in the service of ANR's mission of healthy food, healthy environments and healthy communities.
Please don't hesitate to email me or drop by my desk if you have any technology questions*. I would love to hear from you and I look forward to getting to know you and ANR better in the coming weeks.
*(topics including but not limited to: SiteBuilder, Portal, Collaborative Tools, Survey, web development, web design, SEO, blogging, social media, computer hardware, digital video, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, comic books, German philosophy, the films of Stanley Kubrick, anything from Joss Whedon, and pretty much anything labeled as “nerdy.”)
- Author: Kevin Taniguchi
Here are some basic keyboard shortcuts (in parentheses for ) that will help while using our web applications!
Select all: CTRL+A (command+A)
Copy selected: CTRL+C (command+C)
Cut selected: CTRL+X (command+X)
Paste: CTRL+V (command+V)
Undo: CTRL+Z (command+Z)
Redo: CTRL+Y (command+Y)
Find: CTRL+F (command+F)
And here are some other more general shortcuts
Save a file: CTRL+S (command+S)
Capture a screen shot: PrtScn (command+shift+3)
Capture a screen shot of a specific window: Alt+PrtScn (command+shift+4)
Cycle through open applications: Alt+Tab (command+tab)
Minimize current window: Windows Key+*down key* (command+M)
- Author: Dave Krause
Recently, the ANR Catalog was updated to a new system. This change included new URLs for items, including free publications. If you have any links in your Site Builder sites to specific publications, free or otherwise, you may need to update these links.
The free publications are now located here: http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/Items.aspx?hierId=1100. You can also search the entire catalog for individual publication listings: http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/.
- Author: Jon Wilson
Today, we made some considerable changes to the Social Media Asset in Site Builder. The changes are on the Twitter side; the Facebook behaviors are unchanged.
Twitter Mode
In contrast to the one-size-fits-all solution of yesterday, there are now three ways you can use the social media asset to display tweets. Each method has its pros and cons.
Above is a screenshot of the 'Edit Asset' page for the updated Social Media Asset in Site Builder 3.
"Search" allows you to display tweets that match a search string.
Pros:
- it allows you to mix and match multiple usernames and hashtags
Cons:
- it is unable to display tweets that are older than 5-14 days (this is Twitter's own limitation on the search index)
Example configuration: @UCANR,#food2025,#bananas,@ANRWebTeam
"User" allows you to display tweets from a single user's timeline
Pros:
- it displays tweets regardless of age, which is great if you want to display tweets for a user who tweets infrequently
Cons:
- it is limited to a single user
Example configuration: @ANRWebTeam
"List" allows you to display tweets from a public twitter list (what is a Twitter list?)
Pros:
- it allows you to display tweets from several users (regardless of the age of each tweet)
- lists are easily configured on Twitter's website
Cons:
- lists can only contain users; no hashtags!
Example configuration: list owner: 'UCANR', list name: 'uc-anr'
Note: Existing social assets configured for twitter have been converted to use the 'Search' mode described above. Of course, you are free to update your assets however you like.
Hopefully, we've made it easier for you to display tweets of interest on your site. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go retweet a tweet I saw earlier.