FIND A POLICY

March 2008

What's new in University-Wide Administrative Policies? Here are some highlights from the past few months. More changes can be found at http://policy.umn.edu, under the Recently Updated Policies link on the left navigation bar.

Policies, Procedures and Forms…OH MY!

The move is on! Almost one-third of all administrative policies and procedures relate to financial topics, whether it's Traveling on University Business or Accepting and Depositing Revenue. With the new financial system implementation coming soon (7/1/08), the financial policy owners have been making changes to all the documents that will be affected by this major event. In some cases, the changes are small such as replacing references to the current financial system; while in others there will be significant changes to the current process or policy. Training Services is incorporating the major information into the new courses and training materials. Closer to the implementation date, a summary of the key changes will be available to all units. And of course, the new policies and procedures will be incorporated into the policy web site.

Are there any related activities for departments and colleges? Yes! Review your own websites soon to see if there are references to the current system or terms that will be replaced (e.g., internal forms, college-specific policies). Examples to look for include: CUFS, Area, Org, Object, SubObject.

Academic Misconduct

Anonymous reporting through UReport; the addition of a formal allegation review stage; and a new appendix on securing physical evidence are just three of the key changes made to the Administrative policy/procedure on Academic Misconduct. This latest revision keeps the policy consistent with federal regulations and makes the process more efficient.

The Academic Misconduct policy is now available for a 30-day public review and comment period. Feedback received from the University community will be gathered on March 27th and considered prior to the policy change going into effect.

http://www.policy.umn.edu/groups/ppd/documents/index/policiesreview.cfm

Resolving Alleged Student Conduct Code Violations

This new administrative policy implements the Board of Regents Policy: Student Conduct Code. This document provides policy and procedural details as to whom may issue complaints, the process for complaint resolution, which hearing bodies are involved, and how appeals are handled. On the Twin Cities campus, the process change reflects the President's delegation of authority to the Provost of responsibility for deciding student discipline appeals and making decisions on interim suspension of students.

The Resolving Alleged Student Conduct Code Violations policy is now available for a 30-day public review and comment period. Feedback received from the University community will be gathered on March 27th and considered prior to the policy change going into effect.

http://www.policy.umn.edu/groups/ppd/documents/index/policiesreview.cfm

Agency Funds

The University of Minnesota acts as a fiscal agent for some entities external to the University, when the agreement is in the best interest of the University after taking into consideration its fiscal, human resource, risk management, facilities management, budget, tax, legal, and treasury implications. (An example of a current agency account is the Federal Direct Lending Program for student loans.) The policy was recently revised to provide stronger criteria around the creation and approval of new accounts as well as enhance the procedures for maintaining these accounts. See the policy history section for a complete description of the changes.

The Long and the Short of It

Significant enhancements have been made to both the policy template and the policy website main page. One enhancement provided for two views of administrative policies: a long version that included all policy content sections such as roles and responsibilities and history; and a short version that focused on the core policy elements (statement, reason, contacts, procedures, and forms). The default was to display the short version of the policy. Of all our enhancements, this one did not necessarily delight the end user. Responding to your comments, we are changing the View Default to the full (or long) version. If you wish to print a policy copy and only want the core sections, a button is still available that is labeled ' hide details'. Click this and only the first five sections of the policy will appear, and only these will print when that option is selected. Thank you for your feedback!

Updates: Board of Regents Policies

New! Commercialization of Intellectual Property Rights (under Academic) governs patents and the ownership, commercialization, and dissemination of intellectual property rights in technology created at the University of Minnesota.

This supersedes the following policies: Intellectual Property, Use of Royalty Income to Support Technology Commercialization, and Acquiring Controlling Equity Interests in Technology Licensees.

New Copyright (under Academic)

Supersedes portions of the following policy: Intellectual Property

The most current versions of policies are available on the Board of Regents website (http://www1.umn.edu/regents/). At this web address, policies may be accessed and printed using Adobe Acrobat or an unofficial (HTML) format.