The rapidly growing dependence on Information Technology (IT) in the majority of white and blue collar jobs and in academic study has resulted in history's greatest single leap in improving efficiency in customer service, reducing operation costs and, in the academic world, in improving delivery of teaching aids and disseminating information. But these improvements happen in proportion to the importance the organization gives IT as a strategic tool. Just as few large organizations operate without a Chief Financial Officer to manage assets, few today operate without a high level Chief Information Officer type (CIO) position to manage IT.
Within its brief operating window the 'Plan IT' Committee could not possibly define all the issues/problems, assess resources, set policies and priorities, or come up with a multi-year plan for resource deployment, training and development requirements. What we can effectively do is define the importance of IT at UVM and create an organization that will address the problems the committee has outlined and provide a campus-wide 'IT Vision' over the long term. The organizational structure needed to enhance the campus-wide IT infrastructure should be managed by a senior-level CIO with the latitude to review and coordinate the University IT projects, provide and enforce IT guidelines and standards, and have additional budget capabilities to approve IT projects faced with delayed pay backs or costly upstarts. This is not IT micromanagement but rather macromanaging the IT infrastructure. Coordination of IT projects in both the University's administrative and academic areas would allow us to improve campus flow of information, achieve volume discounts on software/hardware standard products, and reduce or rechannel support costs.
To be effective, the CIO must be in a senior management position reporting to the President. The CIO would lead an advisory 'University IT Committee' of key high-level IT college and department leaders to work on campus IT issues and review policies and procedures, but ultimate decision making responsibility must belong to the CIO. The committee would likely consist of both academic and administrative IT leaders or consist of two committees divided along academic and administrative lines. The CIO would have the following responsibilities:
* Oversee an annual IT review of departments not unlike the yearly budget process review. A disproportionate amount of time at UVM is spent managing budgets and personnel and little time is spent managing departmental IT. Questions and issues discussed in the review would include:
* Approval of IT projects with extended multiyear costs exceeding $xxxx. Departments would present IT projects to the CIO, his/her staff and the University IT committee(s) for review and approval.
* Establish University IT standards. The current IT infrastructure consists of various mainframe and mini computer systems; HP, IBM and Sun client-server machines; Windows NT, Novelle and Apple network systems; desktop computers using DOS, Windows, Win95, IBM-OS2, various Mac OS and several flavors Unix operating systems; and the use of several different software packages for word processors, spreadsheets, FTP, 3270 emulators, Email, calendar scheduling, relational databases and Web browsers and other diverse software packages across campus. We complain about software and network support by CIT, Network Services and our fellow department employees but the unmanageable mix of technology makes software and hardware support very difficult. Additionally, we gain from the economies of scale when procuring higher volumes of standardized software and reap the benefits of network-based software upgrade facilities.
The Business School's use of hardware and software standards, such as Windows NT and Microsoft Office 97 products, resulted in reduced support costs due to students and faculty becoming proficient in use of the software/hardware and gaining the ability to rely on each other rather than a separate support structure.
* Recognize, evaluate and implement new technologies. Future developments in such technologies as JAVA based tools, software applets, network based computers and others yet to be announced, will require someone with the skillset and time to evaluate their potential deployment at UVM. Currently this task is often inefficiently duplicated department by department.
* Apply funding to deploy special IT projects across campus. The expansive use of data network communications and PhoneMail on campus, improved Res Hall infrastructure, and creation of computer labs were a direct result of such central funding and forward thinking.
* Develop IT training curriculum from the various Continuing Education/Church Street, CIT and academic courses and workshops for faculty, staff and students. The university's commitment to IT deployment on campus could be emphasized with requests for IT training in performance appraisal goals, awards of research stipends to faculty for inclusion of IT technology in the classroom, and required further IT training in certain job descriptions.
* Develop an IT infrastructure that supports off-campus students, alumni, faculty and staff.
* Work with academic departments to integrate IT into their coursework.
* Pursue outside IT funding or ventures with government or private sector sources.
Funding is often the core issue at UVM. On this point I would defer to others more familiar with the budget trough allocation. I would suggest the CIO would not seize or centralize existing department IT funds, but perhaps the current IT funding might be frozen and additional general funding given to the CIO to fund campus projects. The CIO would work with the Provost as a management peer to coordinate IT budget allocations. The CIT department would report to the CIO (allowing for some existing central funding) but other departmental IT groups would not directly report to the CIO. All departments and their IT support groups would be subject to yearly IT and budget reviews, major project review and standards set by the CIO office.
Students/parents, faculty and staff demand a strong IT infrastructure at this university. Their perception of UVM's IT strength, real or imagined, might be one reason for selecting or not selecting UVM. Such perceptions might also be used as a criteria for existing students, faculty and staff to leave UVM for other institutions. Students who have become accustomed to the current IT support on-campus, such as their Res Hall room Ethernet connections, may elect to leave UVM if the best IT services they can get while living off campus is a crowded lab, a 14.4 baud modem bank or the TogetherNet connection back to UVM for their junior and senior years. Likewise, faculty and staff are equally as frustrated with connections back to UVM from off-campus. We need to view IT as a key UVM asset managed by the University's top senior management.