Computing & Information Technology Budget Proposal

 

CIT Performance         Considering current challenges, organizational constraints and funding limits, CIT’s performance has been remarkable. The attached “UVM IT at a Glance” gives one an idea of the broad scope of information technology at UVM. While much of this has been accomplished in cooperation with other UVM departments, CIT plays a critical role in supporting technology coherence and interdepartmental collaboration. UVM’s IT environment has been consistently rated among the top universities since the ratings began in 1997. Most recently, in a report published in Forbes, UVM IT environment was rated 37^th out of 351 leading U.S. colleges.[1]

 

This aside, there are areas where CIT is not able to offer optimal services: Helpline and other support staffing ratios are such that many requests for assistance cannot be served. Email and Web infrastructure has sometimes been overwhelmed by growth in demand. Adding server capacity, even when financially possible, has not always been sufficient – a more scaleable, vendor-supported architecture is needed in some cases. A number of administrative departments have no institutional programming talent to call upon when needed. When departments cannot get the services they need from CIT, they frequently hire staff (temporary or permanent) or consultants to implement distinct “silo” solutions. This usually increases institutional costs, and too frequently, this approach results in incompatible solutions with their attendant collaboration challenges.

 

While many of CIT’s services are not directly impacted by an increased student population, individual student support clearly is. In order to maintain IT client support quality, CIT student support staffing will also need to grow. Planned increases in residential students can be expected to place a disproportionate burden on support resources.

 

CIT Strategic Goals and Actions          CIT’s Strategic Goals matrix is attached.

 

Financial Management CIT’s financial management has been consistently judicious and conservative. While CIT’s funding has been repeatedly cut, budgets have been balanced and a modest reserve for institutional IT needs has been maintained. Not surprisingly, CIT’s resources are never sufficient to adequately support every worthwhile project. When we must decide how to use limited resources, our choices are governed by alignment with the institutional mission and informal return-on-investment (ROI) analyses.

 

CIT capital funding is very limited (approximately $250,000/year for all general fund departments). CIT has to spread these funds to cover life-cycle costs for many deliverables. In recent years, when job market conditions made it impossible to consistently fill positions, unused salary funds were used to supplement the equipment reserve. This permitted CIT to make investments in hardware and software infrastructure to help meet rapidly rising demand. Over the last year or two, this resource has declined, limiting capital resources for hardware and software. Operating and salary funds have also been cut substantially over the past decade.

 

CIT’s income-expense activities are carefully managed to ensure that costs are as low as possible without unduly damaging service levels. When appropriate, we have reduced staff and cut other costs to save UVM funds. Telephone and network port charges, for example, have been reduced. While many universities have been unable to sustain microcomputer sales and service without a general fund subsidy (e.g. through Purchasing), UVM has been able to keep our operation in the black while providing important services to the University at no incremental cost.

 

Budget Requests

 

Capital Budget Increment     One of the biggest challenges of anyone developing an IT budget is building in sufficient fungibility to assure that the unit can respond to rapid changes in user demand, emerging technologies and sudden threats. For this purpose, CIT has long maintained an “equipment reserve”. This reserve is always used to meet institutional needs (not departmental needs). In general, this has meant that CIT has not needed to make specific ad hoc requests for hardware and software purchases in response to unexpected demand. Unfortunately, several sources that have traditionally fed this reserve have declined, and we are finding that we must request funds that in earlier years we could fill using our reserve. An increase in the reserve budget will reduce the need for special requests. A list detailing the past institutional use of this reserve is attached. To cover similar institutional expenses in the future, we propose that the capital budget be increased by $250,000.

 

Client Support Staffing       CIT provides computing and networking advice, guidance, education, publications, and problem resolution assistance for approximately 15,500 UVM students, faculty, staff, and other affiliates. Services in these areas, which are provided by 10.4 FTE regular staff and eight trained and skilled student employees, include telephone (Help Line), walk-in support centers (daily hours at Microcomputer Services, Multimedia Development Lab, and CTL), and on-site support. Unfortunately, most of our efforts are now reactive, and often come too late: increasing disruption and attendant demand for services. Higher rates of computer ownership, increased integration of computing into our daily lives, higher expectations, intense executive support, lack of information literacy, illegal file sharing, and sharply escalated threats from malicious software has resulted in frustrating call queuing at the Help Line; large crowds during walk-in help hours; an unacceptable average of 18 days to complete a help request, and client wait times that often exceed two weeks for on-site help. The damage to client productivity is substantial. Very little time is available for proactive work such as teaching, publication, and research into new technologies. Client surveys confirm that our services are needed and appreciated, but are insufficient to meet demand. Several remedies would improve this situation. Additional staffing at the Information Technology Professional level at the Help Line, walk-in support, and on-site would have the most direct impact, decreasing wait times while permitting more proactive, problem-avoidance work. Even three additional positions, one providing a full-time professional at the Help Line and two working at the walk-in support centers and on-site, would improve our client support ratio for general computing needs from 1,490 to 1,157, or 1.5 hours per client per year, up from 1.2. Cost for 3 FTEs at FY 2004 salary levels ($34,000): $102,000 plus benefits for 3 FTEs

 

Automated Workstation Management Productive and secure use of computers must be addressed at the server, network, and workstation levels, as well as through client education and awareness. Effective management of individual workstations is one of the most promising areas for investment, and one of the most critical, given the continual damage and complaints generated by unpatched computers today. Adding workstation management services to our current Active Directory infrastructure would benefit the University by ensuring that departmental computers have up-to-date software, enhanced security settings, and current security patches. In the future, these services should be extended to student computers. Cost for one position at the Information Technology Professional Senior level (to work alongside the requested Security Engineer) at FY 2004 salary levels: $41,000 plus benefits.

 

Technical communications and publications. Significantly increased education, communication, and marketing would improve student, faculty, and staff productivity, while reducing the demand for problem resolution. One position at the Information Technology Professional Senior level, dedicated to teaching, Web and print publications, and marketing, would make a positive difference. Cost at FY 2004 salary levels: $41,000 plus benefits.

 

Administrative Support. CIT general fund departments lost our only secretarial support in earlier budget cuts. This results in managers and other IT professionals using relatively costly time for their own paper correspondence, mail sorting, reserving rooms, scheduling meetings, and other facilitation. This is wasteful use of those resources. We propose one Technical Secretary to support 49 employees in 5 departments. Cost at FY2004 salary levels: $26,000 plus benefits.

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Unfunded necessities.

 

Business Continuity           As a regular practice, CIT makes investments in infrastructure designed to reduce the risk of disruption to UVM's business continuity. These investments are made with allocations from within CIT's budget and must be balanced against providing additional direct services. Though UVM has made significant investments in business continuity planning (see attached deliverables cost study), we are still at considerable risk. Most of UVM’s critical systems are in a single, potentially vulnerable room. While we have offsite backups, a minor disaster could cause a major disruption to the information systems the University is increasingly dependent upon. At a minimum, we should have off-site replication of our institutional Web pages, email system, and, eventually, ERP systems.

 

The acquisition of Trinity and the construction of a new telephone switch room in Mann Hall presented an opportunity to dramatically increase our failover options with relatively small investments. CIT paid to expand the switch room to provide a second server farm site where we could deploy backup servers which could be used in the event Waterman was taken offline by a disaster. CIT is requesting additional central funding to speed up the process of adding failover capabilities to servers that are required to run both the network and essential application systems. We propose that a study to design and estimate the cost of such a system be undertaken so that critical infrastructure could be protected in FY06. For planning purposes, we estimate $200,000 one time for redundant offsite equipment, plus $65,000 base increase in reserve.

 

Security It is obvious that we face rapidly increasing cyber attacks on several fronts. We must ramp up our security mechanisms if we are to hope to provide reliable, secure systems. Each of the following new activities requires both equipment and staffing.

• Network Upgrades to network traffic analysis and control devices.
  
  
• Servers More segregation of network traffic combined with new intrusion detection features.
  More proactive security scanning.
  
  
• Personal Computing    Deploying a more effectively managed desktop. Automatic security updates.

 

• User education campaign for students and a separate campaign for faculty and staff.

 

$200,000 one-time for security hardware & software, $65,000 for annual life-cycle cost, plus a security engineer $60,000 (+ benefits)

 

 

Unfunded opportunities.

 

Business process automation.             Business offices that “own” a dedicated business analyst/programmer in CIT have consistently improved service and improved efficiency by using these resources to develop new automation and self-service programs. But not all offices receive this kind of support from CIT. We recommend expanding the list of offices that we directly support. One or two new positions could provide dedicated analysis and automation services to new customers. A list of underserved departments includes: Dean's Offices; Grad College; Student Affairs; Orientation; Work Study; Athletics; Police Services; Office of International Education; Catcard Office; Center for Health & Wellbeing; Parking and Transportation; Bookstore; Environmental Safety; Academic departments; Career Services; and possibly others. Cost for 2 FTE @ $60,000: $120,000 + benefits

 

Network Enhancements      Much of UVM’s campus network is obsolete, relying upon wiring installed 20 years ago. Because CIT runs the campus network on a cost-recovery basis, we depend largely upon our customers to recognize the importance of a modern network and fund appropriate network upgrades (as Residential Life, CIT, Medicine and others have done). After visiting UVM, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) External Advisory Panel on Research Competitiveness advised in their report that UVM bring our entire network up to modern standards, and that we not leave the funding decision up to individual departments. They recommended a substantial increase in our rates to fund a campus-wide upgrade. This could be addressed in a number of ways, but we should not delay network refurbishment in critical research buildings. We think the best way might be for the budget process to grant upgrade costs for buildings housing researchers who are in the greatest need. We would be happy to provide technical assessments, but are disinclined to judge research priorities. Though costs vary substantially and a complete site survey will be required for detailed estimates, Network Services has estimated the cost of bring most campus buildings up to contemporary network standards at $20 million (very roughly).

 

Wireless Network  The demand for and expectations of wireless networking continue to grow. Since wireless is not well suited for charge-back, CIT has used reserve funds for modest expansion of the wireless network. However, additional investments are needed to increase usability, to ensure appropriate security, and to improve our competitive position with our peers. We request $100,000 to expand the wireless network. The locations of this expansion would be determined using feedback from students, faculty and staff.

 

Classroom support (presentation technology) -- Life-cycle funding.     The number of rooms for which CIT provides networking, computers, and presentation technology has grown steadily and will be further expanding by an anticipated 15 rooms on Trinity Campus. The University has funded most classroom and meeting room technology enhancement work over the years with one-time money, without a corresponding base budget allocation for maintenance, supplies or life-cycle replacement. A new prioritization process for classroom spending -- a collaboration of CIT, the Registrar's Office, the Vice President for Undergraduate Education, and Physical Plant -- considers pedagogical and scheduling needs, encompassing both physical room features and technologies (see attached).

 

In FY 2004, there is a budget of $216,326 for classroom and meeting room presentation technology projects, coming largely from a one-time $175,000 allocation from the Provost for classroom projects. Most of the FY 2004 classroom projects are faculty-requested enhancements; life-cycle equipment replacements were largely deferred, with the CIT Media Resources budget covering the most pressing needs.  In FY 2005, projected needs for the most critical life-cycle replacements, maintenance, and requested enhancements total $348,025.

 

Assuming those needs are funded in FY 2005, the most critical needs for FY 2006 funding include $30,125 for maintenance and repairs, $215,100 for life-cycle replacements in Registrar-scheduled classrooms, and $38,000 for life-cycle replacements in other rooms, for a total of $283,225. This figure does not include enhancements that faculty, deans, and the registrar may request; the planning cycle currently does not look that far ahead. Nor does it include maintenance and life-cycle replacement for the new Trinity rooms; most of that impact will be seen in FY 2007.

 

In light of the 2002 and earlier Maguire reports, in which classrooms with advanced and reliable technology were identified as key in attracting and retaining undergraduate students, it is essential to provide up-to-date, reliable, and well-supported technology-enhanced classrooms. If we expect to improve student perception of value, additional investments will be required.

 

Moving toward life-cycle base budgeting for the current room inventory (currently zero) would require a base budget of $397,967, exclusive of staffing costs and future enhancements (see attachment, "Projected Annual Classroom and Meeting Room Presentation Technology Costs").

 

Electronic Mail Infrastructure           UVM’s existing infrastructure has been strained by the rapid increase in email volume and reduced funding. Though IT staff have worked around the clock, lack of funding has begun to manifest itself in unacceptable performance and reliability. We intend to issue an RFP to help us identify a suitable solution. We do not know how much a more robust and scaleable email infrastructure will cost. It depends to a large extent upon what the University wants and how much the administration is prepared to fund. Published industry average total cost of ownership estimates range upwards to $221 per user per year (Microsoft 2000 Exchange[2]). CIT’s current per user cost[3] has been computed to be $2.15 per year in our recent cost of IT deliverables study[4]. We can safely assume that any replacement system will cost considerably more.

 

Web Server Infrastructure     UVM’s new web design has substantially increased the load on UVM’s web servers which are no longer failsafe. If one of the two servers fails, the other will not be able to pick up the load without potentially severe performance degradation. While we expect to be able to fund a modest upgrade in FY05, we expect web server loads to continue to increase requiring annual upgrades for some years to come. Average annual life-cycle upgrade cost estimate: $20,000

 

Support for Additional Portable Information Manager Devices        Each personal digital assistant (PDA) architecture requires specialized expertise and time. To date we have been able to provide calendar-only support for the Palm family of devices. Adding more comprehensive support (wireless, email, special applications) would require additional staff education and time. We are currently getting requests for support for the PocketPC family (e.g. Axims) and Blackberries. To add full support for Palm and PocketPC would require an additional .5 FTE to support. We are less familiar with Blackberry, but understand that it also requires a dedicated server. We estimate that fully supporting Blackberry would add a minimum of .5 FTE. Providing full support for all three architectures would require an additional FTE at an estimated cost of $34,000 plus benefits.

 

WebCT and Related Course Management Systems          UVM faculty currently employ both WebCT and Blackboard (funded and used by the College of Medicine) systems plus Respondus, an assessment tool that works with both course enhancement systems. [Though it is not our decision, we would support the adoption of a single course management system.] While the cost of WebCT was once well below market, mandatory license fees have been rising rapidly to a level consistent with competitors, such as Blackboard. The annual license fee, originally less than $1000/year; is now about $27,000 (FY04). Costs for FY06 are unknown, but could be 20% more than current costs (est. $32,000). As more and more faculty employ WebCT in their courses, WebCT servers will require upgrades FY06. Estimated cost of server replacements: $30,000.

 

Academic Web Portal         UVM has had a persistent desire to improve student communications and sense of community. We feel that an academic Web portal could go a long way to enhancing both. According to the 2002 Educause Core Data Service, 89% of doctoral institutions had either implemented, were implementing or planned to implement a Web portal. We have fallen behind most of our peers in this important area. An academic Web portal could be as valuable to the academic and student community as enterprise resource planning systems are to administrative aspects. There is a wide range of capabilities and costs for academic portals. Depending upon how comprehensive we wish to make it, the costs could range upwards from a few hundred thousand dollars. For planning purposes, we estimate that a respectable job could be done for $500,000, but a more thorough analysis is will be necessary.

 

Research Competitiveness     Because of lack of demand and limited resources, CIT does not currently provide high-end compute-intensive servers for research. While CIT Academic Computing Services provides support for teaching, learning, statistical research, new media, and humanities computing, we do not currently provide programming support for research applications. Over the last year, there has been an increased interest in a “Center for Computational Science” for faculty researchers. We agree that such a center could help UVM’s research competitiveness and that it should be faculty driven. However, constructing a completely distinct, separately administered facility would not be in the interest of institutional efficiency or effectiveness. We suggest that such a facility should be separately funded, professionally administered, and governed by a council made up of faculty researchers. CIT would be willing to host this center including financial management and administrative oversight. Funding is to be determined based primarily upon research needs and funding resources. Though high-end computers can be extremely expensive, we understand that most current research activities require little more computing power than currently available. [We are currently discussing the pooling of existing campus research computer systems with some leading faculty researchers.] We estimate that about 70% of the costs will be for staffing and space.

 

Enterprise Resource Planning            It is currently unclear what effect this will have on CIT workload. Based upon the staffing experiences at other institutions, we anticipate that these complex and comprehensive systems will require more CIT support than the number currently assigned to the legacy HRS and FRS.

 

Attachments:

1. UVM IT at a Glance
2. CIT’ Strategic Goals Matrix
3. CIT Equipment Reserve Multi-year Summary
4. CIT Budgeting by Deliverables Study
5. Classroom Technology Life-cycle Cost Estimates