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Projects Updates for theme: all

  1. November iCAP Transportation Meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Transportation iCAP Team
    Electric Vehicle (EV) Task Force
    2024 Campus Bike Plan
    Facilitate campus-wide sustainability events

    The Transportation Team had their November meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12th, from 1:00 - 2:00pm. We discussed the student research projects and heard an update on the EV Charging survey from Denissa Darmawi. We ended by discussing the problem of motorized transit on the quads and what might be helpful to discourage it. The meeting minutes are attached!

    Our next meeting is December 10th, 1:00 - 2:00PM.

    Attached Files: 

  2. Work Order Created for Removing Parking Blocks for Shipping Container Delivery

    Associated Project(s): 
    Shipping Containers for Bicycle Storage

     Work order #11210322 was created for the Labor Shop to remove the parking blocks on the south-west side of the parking lot E-28 for shipping containers delivery in the gravel lot between the Abbott Chilling Tower and the Personnel Building. These parking blocks will have to be removed before Friday, November 22, 2024 and should be re-installed in the same spots after the delivery has been made, and no later than Friday, December 6, 2024. 

  3. Illini Lights Out 11/8

    Associated Project(s): 
    Illini Lights Out

    At Friday's Illini Lights Out event,  2209 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $336 in energy costs. This also prevented 2.7 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 300 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a huge impact

  5. iCAP Energy Meeting November 2024

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy iCAP Team
    Building-Level Energy Efficiency
    Rooftop Solar Potential
    Solar Power on Campus

    The Energy Team met on Tuesday, Nov. 12th, from 3:30 - 4:30 PM. We provided updates on building energy efficiency efforts, explored occupant engagement strategies, and continued progress on solar rooftop initiatives. A draft recommendation for campus-wide energy upgrades was reviewed, and we discussed the upcoming agrivoltaic solar project. The meeting minutes are attached!

    Our next meeting is December 10th, 3:30 - 4:30 PM.

    Attached Files: 

  9. Sustainability Council Meeting 11/05/2024

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability Council

    The Sustainability Council met on Nov 5, 2024. The primary agenda items included: 

    iCAP 2025 development process

    • a)    Timeline
    • b)    Progress on iCAP 2020 goals
    • c)    Challenges and opportunities going forward 
      • i.    Trends in energy efficiency and space
      • ii.    Funding opportunities
      • iii.    Dealing with the question of divestment

     

    The slide deck and minutes are attached.

    Attached Files: 

  10. Campus Trash Pick-Up

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Sustainability Month

    On October 10th, 2024, iSEE hosted it's semesterly Trash Pick-Up in honor of Campus Sustainability month. Volunteers picked up litter near Boneyard Creek and around the Bardeen Quad, and sorted the litter into trash or recycling bags. In total, 40 lbs of litter were collected.

  12. iCAP Portal Admin Meeting - December 6, 2024

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability iCAP Portal

    Agenda

    • [Michael] Updates:
      • Recommendations: added iWG Team
      • Project page: showing list of associated iCAP Teams only to logged in users
      • Recommendations search page:
        • Only showing links for Recommendations; made the rest plain text
        • Added column for latest Recommendation Update status
      • Trimmed down content in Project Updates listings so they're easier to scan:
        • Before: associated projects, full description, public & private files, notes, visibility
        • Now: associated projects, summary description, notes, visibility
        • Open to feedback!
      • Project page: "Add Project Update" and "Add new Metric" links on Project page now auto-fill the current Project!
      • Recommendation page: "Add Recommendation Update" on Recommendation page now auto-fills the current Recommendation!
    • Continue discussion of new Recommendations process
    • (Time permitting) Discussion of how to handle projects with large numbers of metrics (see notes from Sarthak & Michael's discussion)

    Discussion

    • Project Updates listings: can descriptions expand/collapse instead of just truncating?
    • New Recommendations process
      • Recommendations:
        • For description, enter summary of recommendation rather than iWG assessment
        • Add files column to Recommendation Updates table
        • Michael will investigate ways to show more of the story for each recommendation (incl. teasers w/expandable descriptions?)
        • Description field: "Original Recommendation" heading
        • Keep Recommendation Updates listing reverse chronological
        • Move Supplanted By box up to second position, right after iCAP Team
      • Recommendation Updates:
        • Use status at the time of the update rather than current status
        • For titles, use descriptive sentence rather than single word status
    • Sheri: duplicate locations in iCAP Portal
      • Send list to Michael; he'll merge them
    • SSC embed on ECE kiosks - will that become out of date with new SSC Projects approach?
      • We could potentially use the SSC embed, or a variation on it
      • Joyce Mast has retired; Catherine Somers is the current contact
    • May want to add SSC and possibly Public Affairs recognition to footer
    • Embeds: add card option for listings
    • Discussion of how to handle projects with large numbers of metrics

    TODOs

    • ✅ Update Add Project Update links on Project Header Layout projects
    • ✅ Project Updates listings: can descriptions expand/collapse instead of just truncating?
    • ✅ Recommendation pages:
      • ✅ Show most recent status prominently
      • ✅ Description field: "Original Recommendation" heading
      • ✅ Move Supplanted By box up to second position, right after iCAP Team
    • ✅ Merge duplication locations
    • ✅ Sort Recommendation Updates listing alphabetically (also look into adding sort options)
    • Investigate ways to show more of the story for each recommendation (incl. teasers w/expandable descriptions?)
    • Michael will reach out to Sheri to get SSC Projects embed working on SSC website
    • ✅ Update SSC link on iCAP Portal homepage to go to SSC Projects page
    • May want to add SSC and possibly Public Affairs recognition to footer
    • Embeds: add card option for listings

  13. Monarchs Need Milkweed Oct Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Increase Pollinator-Friendly Areas

    Below is an update from Brent Lewis on Oct 17th about the Monarchs need Milkweed recommendation:

     

    FYI, I’m close to getting a $2.5k bag of milkweed seeds delivered to me.  😊  We are getting this in the portal and ordered so Grounds can get this spread out this fall. 

     

    I’m hoping we can still get pots in the ground this fall too.  I see plenty of plants available at Midwest Groundcovers nursery in St. Charles, IL.  Deb is working on that.

     

    Additionally updates from the Land & Water Clerk which were provided at the Campus Sustainability Celebration:

     

    Milkweed Seeds for Monarch Butterflies

    •Received a grant for planting milkweed across campus to support monarch butterfly populations which are important pollinators

    •Seeds and plants will be planted around campus in late fall in low and no mow areas

    •Working to clarify no mow and low mow  zones on campus to support the growth of native plants, also making it easier for the planting of milkweed

     

     

     

  14. Google Analytics changes impact the user counts for the Portal

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability iCAP Portal

    This is likely due to the change in Google Analytics’ reporting system. They moved from “Universal Analytics” (UA) to “Google Analytics 4” (GA4) which included a significant change in the way they count things like pageviews. It’s not exactly that the numbers we had before were inaccurate, nor that the new numbers are inaccurate, it’s that they’re being counted in a different way. Here are 2 major differences:

    1. UA tracked each device as a user; GA4 tries to track the same person across multiple devices (e.g. phone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer)
    2. UA would count the same person visiting on different days as different users; GA4 will track the same person visiting multiple times as a single user in a given report. So if you ran a report for 2 days, the same person visiting twice would count as 2 users in UA, but only 1 user in GA4. Now expand this out to an annual report, and you can imagine how the numbers can become much lower if you have a fair number of repeat visitors.
    3. GA4 may be doing a better job of honoring browsers’ Do Not Track requests, plus over time more people may be using extensions that block 3rd-party cookies and traffic, like Google Analytics.

     

    To demonstrate how point #2 above can lower our numbers, here are some tables comparing longer-term reporting periods with sums of shorter-term reporting periods:

     

    Monthly vs. Annual

    Month

    Users

    Jul-23

    1532

    Aug-23

    2765

    Sep-23

    2711

    Oct-23

    2579

    Nov-23

    2099

    Dec-23

    1702

    Jan-24

    1902

    Feb-24

    2180

    Mar-24

    1974

    Apr-24

    2565

    May-24

    2001

    Jun-24

    1728

    TOTAL

    25,738

     

    Comparison:

    • Total users in single report from Jul 1, 2023 to Jun 30, 2024: 24,548
    • Difference between reporting methods: 1,190
    • % more users when broken down by month: 5%

     

    Daily vs. Monthly

    Day

    Users

    1-Oct-23

    87

    2-Oct-23

    115

    3-Oct-23

    116

    4-Oct-23

    156

    5-Oct-23

    125

    6-Oct-23

    86

    7-Oct-23

    68

    8-Oct-23

    63

    9-Oct-23

    129

    10-Oct-23

    125

    11-Oct-23

    109

    12-Oct-23

    113

    13-Oct-23

    80

    14-Oct-23

    49

    15-Oct-23

    54

    16-Oct-23

    141

    17-Oct-23

    122

    18-Oct-23

    116

    19-Oct-23

    90

    20-Oct-23

    70

    21-Oct-23

    42

    22-Oct-23

    69

    23-Oct-23

    109

    24-Oct-23

    108

    25-Oct-23

    132

    26-Oct-23

    186

    27-Oct-23

    124

    28-Oct-23

    60

    29-Oct-23

    80

    30-Oct-23

    126

    31-Oct-23

    109

    TOTAL

    3159

     

    Comparison:

    • Total users in single report from Oct 1, 2023 to Oct 31, 2023: 2,579
    • Difference between reporting methods: 580
    • % more users in October 2023 when broken down by day: 22.5%

     

     

    For anyone who’s interested, here’s a bit more information about the differences between UA and GA4:

     

    I hope that helps explain some of the difference. I am surprised the number dropped in half – that is a pretty substantial change. If you’d like, I can spend some time delving into that in more detail to see if there’s something going on, but my hunch is that it’s mostly attributable to the change in the way Google Analytics records and reports its data. I’m not an expert at Google Analytics; if you know anyone who’s good at analyzing Google Analytics reports, we could invite them to take a look and see what they notice.

     

    </Michael>

     

    Michael McKelvey

    Office for Mathematics, Science, & Technology Education

  16. CTAC fall 2024 meeting recording and slides

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Transportation Advisory Committee (CTAC)
    2024 Campus Bike Plan
    ADA Transition Plan and 2017 Supplement
    Bike Share with Veo

    CTAC meeting was held on Thursday, October 24, 2024, focusing mainly on

    1. 2024 Campus Bike Plan: Public Input - Accepting feedback until October 31, 2024. The public input form can be found here: go.fs.illinois.edu/BikePlanPublicInput
    2. Long Range Transportation Plan 2050: https://ccrpc.gitlab.io/lrtp-2050/
    3. Lincoln Avenue Corridor Study - Between Green St and Florida Ave - CCRPC
    4. Lincoln Avenue Corridor Study - Between Florida Ave and Windsor Rd - F&S TDM

    Please see attached the slides from meeting. To view the recording, please go to https://uofi.box.com/s/kvpjfs26kyqwofjkri0y8gwocbqye5jp

    Attached Files: 

  17. Weekly digest

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    The Bike Center received a few more donations and started processing the abandoned bike pile which they'll continue to tackle throughout the week. There was a mention in E-Week for their Kids Bike Giveaway and already have donations lined up. 

    Visitors: 66
    Sales: $575.10
    Bikes (refurb): 1 for $140
    Memberships: 8 for $240
    Tires/tubes: 9 for $69

  18. SSLC newsletter promotes SSC Working Groups

    Associated Project(s): 
    Student Groups with Sustainability Focus
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
    Student Sustainability Leadership Council (SSLC)

    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) ♻️

    The Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) is a student-led organization charged with distributing two student fees: the Sustainable Campus Environment Fee and the Cleaner Energy Technologies Fee. With the ultimate goal of making the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign a leader in campus sustainability, the SSC reviews, recommends, and funds projects that increase environmental stewardship, inspire change, and impact students. Feel free to attend our weekly or biweekly meetings to learn more about SSC, workshop your projects and ideas, meet more people, and overall get more involved in sustainability on campus!

     

    Working Groups and Meetings- SSC Calendar

    • Food and Waste: Biweekly on Mondays 2:30-3:30pm (Oct. 28th, Nov. 11th, Nov. 25th)
    • Education and Justice: Biweekly on Tuesdays 4:00-5:00pm (Oct. 29th, Nov. 12th, Nov. 26th)
    • Energy + Transportation and Infrastructure: Biweekly on Tuesdays 5:00-6:00pm (Oct. 29th, Nov. 12th, Nov. 26th)
    • Land, Air, and Water: Biweekly on Wednesdays 4:30-5:30pm (Oct. 30th, Nov. 13th, Nov. 27th) 
    • Communications: Weekly on Tuesdays 6:00-7:00pm
    • Social Initiatives: Weekly on Thursdays 5:00-6:00pm

  19. iCAP 2025 input sessions

    Associated Project(s): 
    NRES 285: iCAP Sustainability Ambassadors
    iCAP 2025

    Our campus has made enormous sustainability progress under the 2020 Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Now we need your help identifying goals and priorities for iCAP 2025!

    iSEE is sponsoring a series of input sessions throughout the fall where U. of I. students can share their ideas and learn about the objectives that the iCAP teams are considering, as well as the progress they have made so far. Join us to share your suggestions for moving our campus closer to net-zero carbon emissions!

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