Minutes for IT Task Force Meeting # 1

Date: July 24, 1997

Prepared by: Roger Lawson

Present:

Ray Lavigne, Jon Crystal , Keith Kennedy, Martha Cafferky, Lauck Parke, Carol Gilbert, Joe Patlak, Deborah Shenk, Mark Fitzsimmons, Geetha Ramanathan, David Punia & Roger Lawson

Ray Lavigne commenced the meeting by thanking the committee for agreeing to participate in this planning effort and giving the committee its charge:

Why are we undertaking another IT planning task force in view of the many well-intentioned and well-founded efforts?

"The intent is to build upon the efforts of previous efforts, which have not resulted in a concrete widely-accepted plan for IT at UVM, to develop a strategy for implementation and budgeting. In April President Ramaley asked me to develop a strategic and tactical IT plan, including a proposed expansion of the Library and the replacement of the Telecommunication system. President Ramaley believes that technology and specifically information technology is critical to UVM's future."

CHARGE

• Review recent efforts to describe the IT vision and/or plan for UVM.
• Develop a vision of information technology at UVM, including a definition of the desired future role of IT on campus. Complete an assessment of the University's existing resources (hardware, software, infrastructure, people, and the information technology organizational structure). Develop a strategic and tactical (long and short-term) plan for realizing the vision.
• Recommend any changes in organization and a realistic budget plan togo along with the vision and IT plan for the campus.

The IT vision and plan must include research, instruction, and administrative information technology applications.

Examples of issues to be addressed are:

• What is the appropriate organizational structure for IT at UVM?
• What should the criteria be to evaluate the success and progress of the plan?
• Should IT be more centrally managed or should more decisions be distributed and decentralized?
• Should UVM adopt standards for hardware, software, etc.?
• What is the role of the Web in management and communication?
• How should UVM manage the Web?
• How do we provide IT support to UVM students, faculty, staff and departments, and how do we fund it?
• Given that there will be more worthwhile initiatives than we can fund and support, how do we set priorities?

These are just some of the questions and issues that should be included in the evaluation of IT and its development of an IT vision and plan.

"In terms of the timetable, I recommend that a draft report be ready for campus comments by the end of October. After review and comment by the campus, a final proposal should be delivered to the Provost and Vice President for Administration for their review and approval by January 15, 1998."

• An increased cohesion of IT implementations would foster lower support costs, enhanced IT awareness and improved communications.
• Desktop computers should be treated more like telephones: consistent and supported by the infrastructure. Failing devices or software would be expeditiously remedied (by rapid replacement if necessary) as a required part of infrastructure.
• A substantial infusion of project funds is needed to implement major modernization of legacy systems, workflow enhancements, etc.
• Our budgeting/funding mechanisms must be examined and revised to facilitate coherent deployment and support of IT to the benefit of not just individuals and their departments, but the University as a whole.
• There is currently a substantial emphasis upon and investment in the acquisition and deployment of computer hardware and software without adequate strategic management and planning for this costly and valuable resource. More emphasis should be placed upon people and their use of IT.
• Insufficient balance is being applied in the deployment of IT. For example, though a great deal of money is being spent on desktop computing hardware, a laserdisk player cannot be funded.
• There is a serious lack of parity in the deployment of desktop computing infrastructure. For example, while some departments provide their faculty and staff with powerful, modern, state-of-the-art computers, others provide virtually nothing.
• We need to make rational choices of what is centralized or decentralized. The decision process should be consistent and codified to ensure a more organized approach to IT deployment and support. Currently, logic is not always going to help one determine where to go for support or who is accountable for systems, facilities and infrastructure quality.
  [question: President Ramaley is reported to have described our curriculum as a "weed patch". How might our our current IT structure be described?]
• We need to consider the enormous expenses anticipated for the new telephone system, new library systems, and Internet II in view of other, possibly more pressing, IT needs.
• In the interest of improved cohesiveness we must not lose sight (I almost typed "site"!) of the needs of those who are not in central, main campus areas.
• There needs to be a continued recognition of the "P" in "PC"s. That is, we must assure that we do not lose but, in fact, reinforce the human aspects of distributed computing. IT coordination, cooperation, & communication should serve to aggregate and multiply our intellectual resources.
• Our IT investments should serve not as anchors (burdens) but as wings (empowerment). IT should enhance our sense of community -- improving everyone's morale, enabling creativity and generally building our personal wherewithal...
• In order to enhance our ability to collaborate we must correct some of the discontinuities caused by our IT choices. For example, document sharing and exchange is frequently frustrated by differing hardware, software and protocols.
• The University would benefit from having a consistent communications & collaboration tool set that would include word-processing, electronic mail, calendaring and document management.
• We need to assess UVM's existing IT infrastructure and resource allocation. There is a sense that, in some areas, we are behind. We need to increase or redeploy our resources to catch up with other instituions.
• We should do something "exciting" that would energize the campus and enhance UVM's reputation.
• Devices don't need to be ubiquitous, but the information and communications need to be readily available.
• We need to consider how to use IT to support learning, research, etc. away from the classroom.
• IT is too frequently regarded only as an "expense" not as a resource. We need to continue to use IT to make us more efficient and to make administrative and other transactions simple and easy to use (AKA "paperless").
• We need a coherent information plan that includes assessment, enhancement, education/training and provides integrated information/communication systems.
• "Productivity paradox" pundits suggest that though we have made enormous investments in personal computing, the "industry" (least of all higher education) has not made corresponding productivity gains. We can no longer continue to invest without recouping greater productivity advances. There are a variety of reasons for this paradox (some of which may be related to the measurement model of productivity). One of them is choosing to continue to maintain/support/employ the old methods in parallel with new systems. We need to accelerate the harvesting of the investments we have made.
• We could use organizational ideas espoused by Peter Senge (see http://www.uvm.edu/%7eprovost/accreditation/readlist.html ) to become a learning organization that
  "seeks to create its own future;
  assumes learning is an ongoing
  and creative process for its members;
  develops, adapts and transforms itself
  in response to the needs and aspirations of people,
  both inside and outside itself."

No points have been intentionally passed over. In some case I may have consolidated similar ideas under a single bullet and may have added my own "spin" to some of these ideas. If I have inadvertently (due to my faulty memory and marginal note-taking skills), left out or misunderstood/misrepresented important points, please post them to this list!

• The meeting times should be leveraged using the time between meetings to continue to discuss and develop plans electronically (using Plan-IT and email). This has the added advantage of automatically recording/publishing ideas, comments and proposals. This vehicle will also be used to gather input, comments and questions from the general campus community. Although some members felt that the discussion might be inhibited by concerns that anyone could see and possibly misinterpret comments and electronic ruminations, the consensus seemed to be that the list should remain open. [The expectation is that readers of the Plan-IT will, in addition to offering ideas and counter-proposals, will pose questions and request clarification when needed.]
• Retreats were suggested as a way to complete the paper within the recommended time frame. Suggestions ranged from a proposed 5-day retreat at the end of August to periodic half-day sessions scheduled throughout the duration of the planning effort.
• Develop a work plan to focus our efforts and avoid reproducing work already completed by earlier planning committees. It will be important to devote time to the issues at hand.

The meeting adjourned at 11AM. The next meeting will be on Thursday 1-3PM room TBA. Roger

VP Lavigne and the group discussed the need for budget sustainability; that

a detailed implementation strategy necessarily must include budget issues.

Ray also noted, while there may be some one-time funding available, funding

for changes in base budget needs will have to come from reallocation.

It was noted that the Board of Trustees is very interested in the work of

the Task Force.

The members introduced themselves and each spoke briefly about their

backgrounds and specific ideas about the work that needs to be done. The

highlights, in no particular order, were;

Dealing with legacy systems in the new and changing IT environment

Integrating disparate information systems

Improving desktop support; treating desktop computers as telephones

The difficulty of cost/benefit analyses

Interfacing different units around campus

Getting a handle on what and how we spend our IT dollars

Remembering there are other forms of IT than computers, e.g. laserdisc

players and other classroom equipment

Focus on (pedagogical) content, not hardware.

Addressing the budget inequities across units

Establishing a minimum standard for IT in the classroom and on the desktop

Equipping classrooms appropriately

Centralized vs. Decentralized purchasing and control

The politics of IT around campus

Personal IT: Looking at people and how they use IT

"Anchors vs. Airplanes" Appropriate IT for whom?

Technical literacy and training

Pooling intellectual resources

Addressing the "technology gap" between units

Keeping up with current technologies to allow innovative teaching

Assessing IT use, and the progress of an implementation plan

How does this tie in to curriculum changes that are coming; Kellogg &

Accreditation

How ubiquitous should IT be? Who needs what, when, where, and how much?

Distributed learning environments

Information sharing across campus

Paper and paperwork reduction

Work flow analysis; not just moving the same processes onto computers

Establishing a common vision for IT, with campus consensus

Dealing with the productivity paradox

Establishing supportable standards, while providing leeway to exceed them.

There was further discussion about the volume of work that has already been

done, both at UVM and by other institutions, some of which is on the web

page, more to be added. The questions posed were;

What is applicable in today's environment?

What is still applicable to UVM?

What are the important questions to ask?

Can we tailor the work that's been done by other institutions to UVM's needs?

There was general agreement that the documents placed on the web pages need

to be reviewed and that a work plan would be an appropriate topic for the

next meeting. There was discussion, and general agreement, that one or more

intensive, retreat-like sessions might be a better approach than weekly,

hour-or-longer meetings. This will be explored further. It was also

suggested that the group invite in some of the authors of past reports to

speak about their efforts.

There was some discussion of moving the target date up to mid-December to

better coordinate with the Telecommunications project.