How The University of Texas at Austin is Revolutionizing Campus Operations for Operational Excellence
Innovative technology for effective and efficient campus operations has been readily available for higher education institutions, but adoption has been slow. Change can be overwhelming, it takes time, consumes resources, and modernization does not always equal transformation.
GIS provides The University of Texas at Austin the ability to reimagine how we do business to become an unrivaled world-class campus operations organization. In this blog I will explain how we got started, how we are evolving, and what the future holds for Campus Operations.
With a variety of purpose-driven legacy systems deployed on campus, GIS could be mistaken for just another tool. What makes GIS truly unique is its ability to create, join, query, edit, and analyze both graphical and tabular data in a centralized location and provide business intelligence outputs for campus decision making through not just maps, but dashboards and other visualizations.
GIS allows us to augment and unify data sources, provides a platform for collaboration, facilitates a single version of truth through real-time editing, and delivers robust dynamic mapped information to support operational management of campus.
Building the Basics
My name is Sue Stewart, Assistant Director for Campus Geospatial Assets with Operations Support for Campus Operations and 10 years ago we started our revolution by migrating our legacy utilities CAD composite into GIS. The next challenge was to integrate a decades-old backlog of hand-drawn updates; these used objects like curbs and buildings as references, so we turned our focus towards an updated basemap. We used this effort as an opportunity to categorize and classify our hardscape. Next came our first dynamic online campus map, which was our first major milestone. We then built tools for campus construction to incorporate their pedestrian and vehicle impacts, including barrier-free routing, which to this date remains highly popular with the campus community.
We started to receive a lot of requests from campus for additional mapped data on the main campus map, so we devised an approach to consistently evaluate data through a scoring matrix to focus on important campus needs.
Although we weren’t resourced to produce any additional map data, through a series of passion projects, we collected and published information for after-hours building entrances, blue emergency phones, barrier-free entrances, and automated external defibrillators.
Leveling Up
After an organizational transfer to Campus Operations, the interest and investment in GIS solutions exploded! Before then we were focused primarily on utilities and the campus map, but our role has expanded tremendously to include support for real estate, emergency management, planning, and facilities.
Today we are mapping campus owned property, dispatch layers for our police department, daily authorized UAV flights, and landscaping areas. We are moving our utilities into Esri’s new Utility Network models for data refinement, scenario planning, and outage tracing. Most recently we were asked to provide mapping support for our Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during civil protests on campus and were able to quickly deploy the ArcGIS Emergency Management solution for improved coordination, providing all agencies with a single version of the truth.
Dreaming Big
We have demonstrated the value of GIS through focused, impact-driven campus solutions and University leaders remain impressed with what they’ve seen so far.
Within the next year, our goals are to complete a robust pilot of ArcGIS Indoors, expand EOC support to include all large campus events, collaborate with Austin Fire Department to provide critical response data to protect people and places, and build a planning tool for a comprehensive 10-year plan for campus construction, renovation, replacement and renewal.
And we’re not slowing down – we’re already envisioning a campus wide roll-out of Indoors to support campus needs including space management, comprehensive accessibility initiatives, business continuity and emergency plan mapping, and new GIS utilities construction deliverables standards.
The Game Plan
Solidifying GIS adoption is a marathon, and not a sprint, so you need to come up with a game plan. To ensure we stayed on course we used Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle approach to develop our brand strategy.
Most campuses are their own boroughs, so research city open data portals data and categories to come up with a list of potential data sets. Document the owner, impact, audience, and current state and use it to establish attainable, realistic goals. You’re going to need a support system, so identify champions, influencers, and partners and help them understand that together everyone achieves more.
Reach out to your Esri account representative for solutions and leverage internal and external subject matter experts or professional service providers to alleviate some of the burden. Small wins matter so make sure you take time to celebrate your accomplishments.
You will hit walls - many, many walls - but don’t be discouraged and keep moving forward. With GIS you are limited by your imagination to revolutionize your Campus Operations for Operational Excellence.
If you have any additional questions feel free to leave a comment or email me at sue.stewart@austin.utexas.edu. I will also be presenting at this year’s Esri User Conference and invite you to attend my session Robust GIS Foundations for Smart Campus Operations where I will focus on our campus safety GIS initiatives.