Posts Tagged: October 2016

AggieTravel replacing MyTravel in November

AggieTravel is replacing MyTravel, the UC Davis travel and entertainment expense reporting system. ANR's go-live date for AggieTravel has been rescheduled to mid-November. This delay is due to a slow-down in the implementation schedule across the UC Davis campus in order to provide more support to each group that joins.

“Thanks to all of you have already spent time in the AggieTravel test area familiarizing yourself with the system,” said Sally Harmsworth, associate director of Business Operations. “The test area will continue to be available until go-live.”

To visit the AggieTravel test area, go to https://implementation.concursolutions.com and log in with loginID@ucdavis.edu. The password is “welcome1.”

A recording of an in-person training is available:

• Aggie Travel Training, Pt.1 Duration: 00:47:25
• Aggie Travel Training, Pt.2 Duration: 1:25:57

A schedule of in-person training in Davis is available at http://afs.ucdavis.edu/systems/aggie-travel/at-project/sys-train-depl/training.html.

Additional information and resources for AggieTravel are available at http://afs.ucdavis.edu/systems/aggie-travel/index.html.

Harmsworth will relay updates received from the UC Davis AF&S Travel Department.

 

UC archivist begins curating UC Cooperative Extension history

Going back to 1917, farm advisors in Merced County wrote meticulous weekly logs, documenting the number of miles they drove, the farmers they met, the phone calls they took and the trainings they held.

“It is a wealth of information about their activities, and I think it will be a really great resource for research,” said Lisa Vallen, a professional archivist who is working in the UC Merced library under a memorandum of understanding with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The logs, plus annual reports and a collection of photos dating back to 1916 are among the first documents that Vallen will review as she embarks on a year-long pilot project to curate and preserve the history of UC Cooperative Extension.

A native of the Midwest, Vallen earned a bachelor's degree at Lake Forest College and a master's degree in library and information sciences from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).  While completing her graduate degree, she worked on preserving the UIUC library physical collection, digitizing theses and dissertations and processing a collection of author H. G. Wells' personal correspondence, publishers' correspondence, and other printed materials.

Vallen wrote about her experience with the H.G. Wells material on the UIUC Non Solus Blog. She quoted a letter written by Wells in 1945 to his brother Frederick about his frustration at not being credited for predicting the atomic bomb 30 years before it was dropped during World War II.

“I'm all right & everything misses me. I explained the inevitableness of the atomic bomb half a century ago & it is rather infuriating to have all these journalistic halfwits explaining that here's something Mr. Wells did not foresee,” the letter said.

Vallen has also written about the challenge of digitizing old, brittle publications in an effort to provide a usable surrogate for books that can no longer circulate due to their fragility.

“In many cases, we hold the only copy of record and it is incredibly important for this copy to be preserved and readily accessible to our users,” Vallen wrote in the UIUC Preservation Every Day Blog.

In her UC Cooperative Extension work, Vallen found that Merced County office has 393 cubic feet of historical items, totaling about 164,000 in number. There are photographs for which copyright must be established, publications that may already be digitized by UC ANR or UC Davis, weather and climate data, and plant and insect specimens that may or may not have historical value.

“First we'll be going through and identifying materials, arranging the materials, recording metadata, such as date, author and title to create descriptions,” Vallen said. “And then we can begin digitizing.”

UCCE in Ventura County is also part of the pilot. Vallen said the county office has 700 photographs dating from 1916 to the 1950s, and many are mounted on cards with hand-written captions.

“Photos on their own are great, but when they come with context, it has additional value,” she said.

Humboldt County UCCE historical items will round out Vallen's work under the current MOU, but staff and academics at all UCCE offices are encouraged to locate historical materials for preservation, including annual reports, project summaries and raw data.

“They don't have to do anything with it, just hold onto the material they have,” Vallen said. “Even if they think something isn't historical or I wouldn't be interested, I'd still like for them to hang on to it until I have a chance to view it.”

Crucial Conversations training registration opens

ANR Learning & Development is sponsoring two “Crucial Conversations” trainings in spring 2017:

1. Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 1-2, 2017, in Davis, at 2801 Second Street.  On Wednesday, February 1, the training is from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Thursday, February 2, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

2. Wednesday and Thursday, April 26-27, 2017, at the South Coast REC in Irvine.  On Wednesday, April 26, the training is from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Thursday, April 27, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

3. You may also select “I can participate in either session” when you pre-register.

Training is open to all UC ANR academics, UC ANR staff employees, and Cooperative Extension county-paid employees who have not taken the Crucial Conversations training in the past.  All expenses related to the training (registration fee, travel, lodging, meals and training materials) will be reimbursed by UC ANR funds according to UC travel policy.

Twenty participants will be accepted for each training course.  Individuals selected to participate in the training will need to participate the full period of the training. Therefore, if you cannot commit to the full 14 hours of training, we ask that you not pre-register for the training.  We also encourage you to inform your supervisor of your interest to participate in this training.

If you are interested in the training, please pre-register by Nov. 30 at http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=19111.

Individuals who have pre-registered will be notified on December 9 of their acceptance to participate in the two-day training.  A waiting list of those interested but not selected to participate in the training will be established in order for the trainers to contact you should individuals cancel from the training.

“Crucial Conversations” provides tools for talking when stakes are high, emotions are strong, and opinions differ.  The objectives of the 14-hour training are to provide the participants tools that will assist the participant in:

• Building greater personal influence and power
• Moving “stuck” work-related relationships and projects forward
• Improving personal, team and unit results
• Reducing stress from team frustrations and blocked communication

Your program-certified trainers Jan Corlett and Linda Marie Manton thank you for considering participation in “Crucial Conversations” training.  If you have questions, please contact Jan Corlett at Jan.Corlett@ucop.edu.

IPMinfo app now available for Android devices

IPMinfo app, which was released last year for iOS devices, is now available with advanced features for Android devices. The app provides biology, symptoms of damage and management options for pests and diseases. The pest information is available in English and Spanish.

The free app, which currently has information about strawberry pests and diseases, has been well-received by the industry, according to Surendra Dara, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in San Luis Obispo County, who developed the app.

Dara plans to add details on weeds and disorders and multiple crops. The strawberry and vegetable crops advisor is taking a short sabbatical leave until Jan. 31 to develop content for vegetables for the app. A new version for iOS devices will be released in the near future.

Dara welcomes feedback through the app or via email at skdara@ucanr.edu.

Details about IPMinfo can be found at the Google Play Store at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fission.ipminfo.

 

ANR to close Dec. 23-Jan. 2 for winter holidays

ANR Human Resources has announced this year's winter holiday closure schedule. ANR Units, including Research and Extension Centers, BOC Kearney, UCCE county offices and the Second Street Building in Davis, will be closed from Friday, Dec. 23, 2016, through Monday, Jan. 2, 2017, except for essential services. ANR offices will reopen on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2016.  The schedule will be the same for ANR employees at UCOP.

ANR holidays will be observed on

• Friday, Dec. 23, 2016; Monday, Dec. 26, 2016
• Friday, Dec. 30, 2016; Monday, Jan. 2, 2017

December 27, 28 and 29, 2016, will be curtailment (closure) days.  Employees will be given the option of using accrued vacation, compensatory time off (CTO), or leave without pay for the curtailment days. In the event an employee has not accumulated a sufficient amount of vacation time before December to cover the three days, arrangements can be made to allow those individuals to borrow against future vacation time. 

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