Information Technology Task Force
Issues & Questions

Efficiency & Effectiveness

• How could the effectiveness of UVM's IT be improved without incurring additional expense?

Standards

• Assuming that everyone agrees that we should improve or effectiveness and efficiency by embracing hardware/software standards, how should we
  • select standards (by whom by what process)?
  • supported them (by whom)?
  • encourage their use?
• How often, and under what regimen/circumstances, should standards be evaluated/changed?
• How do we assure that excessive standardization does not stifle growth, deter useful exploration or interfere with getting specialized jobs done?

Support

• What sorts of activities should be supported by the infrastructure?
  • Which activities should be "free"? Charged back?
  • Deployed by the unit needing them?
  • How do we decide which activities to centralize?
  • How do we codify our recommendations?
• What sort of "free" support should departmental units be able to expect?
  • Under what conditions (if any)?

Organization

• What IT organizational changes could enhance our ability to make our "shared vision a reality?
• Some have suggested a CIO, but what do we mean by a CIO? What would he/she/they be responsible for?
  • Making recommendations?
  • Granting approvals?
  • Chairing committees?
  • Exercising line management responsibilities?
  • Allocating IT budgets/resources?
  • Or what?

Priorities & Funding

• How do we fund IT within existing resources?
• Are there ways we could reallocate existing resources to better serve the University?
• How do we assess the resources currently being devoted to IT at UVM?
• Where should we be putting our priorities?
• How do we allocate/budget UVM's resources?
• What projects/activities would have the best return on investment?
  [in no particular order]
  • Electronic workflow systems? (eliminating paperwork)
  • Electronic calendaring/scheduling?
  • Better instructional development support?
  • A new phone system?
  • A higher bandwidth network?
  • Connection to Internet II?
  • Replacing "legacy" IT systems?
  • An administrative "data warehouse"
  • Or what?

The UVM Learning Environment

• What activities/projects are most likely to make UVM a better place, more attractive to prospective students, faculty and staff?

The Web

SJC: I think this is a MOST EXCELLENT topic for the new IT committee to consider.

• What is / should be / will be the status of the web at UVM ?
  • Is it the great Chautauqua that the academic folks seem to think it is?
  • Is it the next desktop publishing phase ?
  • Will it ever replace the Xerox machine ?
• Are ordinary people encouraged / allowed / required to create, maintain, and abandon web pages ?
  • Or should some sort of training offered / required / licensed ?
• Are there "official" pages (Are "student" pages not official)
• Should there be templates / guidelines / requirements for web pages within things like suggested / recommended / required fonts, colors, backgrounds, picts, gifs, jpgs, movs, realaudio, realvideo, passwords, filters, .....
• Should there be a special authority for managing the UVM web (just as there is that manages UVM newsletters, newspapers, and mass mailings.)
• Should there be a web advisory council ? An official web master ?
• Should there be recommendations for departmental / divisional / institutional webmaster (webmaster I, webmaster II, webmaster III,...)

Problems & Opportunities

What's Broken?

1. Disorganization or lack of coordination of IT? Unclear accountability?
2. Inconsistencies in deployment of technology, in instructional computing labs, for example?
3. Duplication of effort across multiple computing organizations?
4. A dearth of desktop computing support staff?
5. Helpline not available when needed?

What's Not? (i.e. what attributes do we wish to retain?)