Report of the Academic Information Technology Committee: June 1998

OVERVIEW

1 Background Origin of the report and charge to the committee

2 Values and Outcomes Constraints under and context within which the committee worked

3 Vision The heart of the matter; the committee's vision for the university

4 Environmental Scan Factors that facilitate or impede realization of the vision

5 Conclusions Resolution of the vision with the environmental scan; the imperative for action; the university's readiness to move forward

6 Recommendations Actions that must be taken to move the vision forward

Appendix Compilation of unedited committee members' responses citing factors that either facilitate or impede realization of the vision

1 Background

Information Technology

The system of computer hardware and software, data, and the telecommunication networks that connect them.

The university's strategic plan, Beyond 2000: Change suggests the strategic importance of information technology to the academic mission of the university in the following objectives:

Objective 1.8 Aggressively seek funding from all available sources to transform the University Libraries into an acknowledged leader in the provision of state-of- the-art support for the University's research, teaching and service initiatives, and in the contribution of valuable resources to the emerging global information network.

Objective 1.9 Enhance the research support environment, including support staff and services, facilities, computer systems, equipment and other infrastructure components.

Objective 3.1 Improve classroom, laboratory and support facilities for learning.

Objective 3.6 Improve the telecommunications (voice, data and video) infrastructure.

Objective 8.6 Aggressively market the University's capabilities and make full use of distance learning and technological innovation to provide access to the University throughout the state and interconnection with the world for teaching, research and service purposes.

Objective 8.7 Ensure that graduates are sufficiently computer literate and technologically aware to be successful in competitive employment markets or advanced degree programs.

Beyond 2000: Change, however, articulates no strategic level of university investment in information technology nor does it outline any associated action and resource plan. Moreover, no comprehensive plan has been articulated by any other major segment of the university. In the absence of a comprehensive, university- wide plan, significant investments in information technology are not coordinated. In response to this environment, chancellor Mark Emmert appointed the Academic Information Technology Planning Committee (AIT) and gave the committee the following charge:

Develop a strategic vision for academic computing. This vision should articulate a technical environment that supports, and also enables, the transformation of teaching, learning, research and service, through the application of computers, telecommunications, digital information resources, and instructional tools in both digital and analog formats. This vision should be consistent with, and supportive of, the university's vision and strategic plan as detailed in Beyond 2000: Change. The vision should have a horizon of ten years.

Consistent with the vision above, evaluate the current University of Connecticut environment, focusing on programs and services and the associated human resources, regular operating budgets (tuition and general), physical facilities and capital budgets currently being directed to those efforts.

Analyze other efforts in peer higher education institutions to strategically utilize information technology to transform teaching, learning, research and service. The purpose of such an analysis will be to benchmark current efforts and to seek examples of best practice.

Develop a three year plan which moves the university toward the vision. This plan should set yearly objectives to be implemented during the fiscal year period 1998/99 - 2000/01. The plan should lay out programmatic objectives with associated resources, including sources of funding.

At critical stages throughout the planning process, the committee should engage the university community in a review of work to-date so as to promote the development of consensus.

The committee should complete its work by submitting a final plan to the vice chancellor for Academic Administration by May 31, 1998.

In response to this charge, the committee undertook the actions that are detailed in the remainder of this report.

2 Values and Outcomes

As it began its work, the AIT committee addressed the outcomes it hoped to achieve, outcomes that describe a university environment properly supported and enhanced by sustainable levels of information technology (hereafter, IT). Much of what is reported in this section is incorporated into the subsequent vision statement. However, the following statements also have imbedded in them commentary on the current university IT environment and express a level of frustration within the university community regarding the historic absence of planning for the implementation of IT. To understand the vision statement and the recommendations that follow from it, the reader must begin with these core values, seeing them in the context of constraints identified in subsequent sections.

Plans must be capable of being implemented and sustained. Frustrations with a perceived lack of realism in planning and institutional capacity must be overcome.

Plans must reflect the university's resources realistically and must address the anticipated source of funds. Planned advances in IT must be financed through:

1) university funds currently available for IT, 2) reallocation of other university funds, or 3) funds generated through entrepreneurial outreach. Plans should not be based on "magic bullets" of special funding sources.

Plans and programs must be focused and prioritized. We cannot afford to do everything at an equally high level of excellence, especially during the early years of the program.

Our objective is to strive for "excellence," but our plans should not preclude worthwhile projects that we recognize will be rated only as "good."

Plans and programs must be compatible with the strategic directions of the university and especially with existing reports of university strategic planning task forces.

AIT plans must support and enhance personal interaction between faculty and students as a core component of the teaching and learning process. IT can leverage human resources available for direct interaction by providing additional means of communication, information access, and stimulus for analysis and problem solving.

AIT plans should facilitate and enhance reformation of teaching, learning and research in response to the interdisciplinary nature and exponential growth of new data and knowledge.

Faculty efforts to transform teaching, learning, research and service must be recognized and rewarded through the university's formal reward mechanisms.

Graduates must be proficient in technology and specifically in the technology of their discipline.

Students should feel, and be, more marketable for having experienced a University of Connecticut education.

Given these values the committee recognized that its recommended plan must create an environment in which:

Change in educational and administrative processes is systemic;

Students can attain proficiency in IT and use it to facilitate the most effective learning possible;

Faculty will be more effective because they have continued to master new technologies;

Access to the university is improved for all economic and demographic groups;

The public image of the university is enhanced;

Paperwork is reduced;

The university becomes a model for the state;

Every faculty, staff and student will know what we did and why we did it.

Based on these values, the committee developed a vision for AIT. That vision, articulated by faculty members of the committee and ratified by the full committee, follows. The committee is firmly committed to the concept of technology as a significant tool that can be used to promote the university's academic mission. However, it does not view increased use of IT as a panacea for all of the university's ills. Neither is an expanded use of IT a guarantee that any increases in productivity, in learning, research or service will be cost effective. The goal is to achieve excellence in the university's academic programs within a sustainable resource base.

3 Vision

Academic Information Technology Vision Statement

The University of Connecticut will be a leader in the use and development of IT. The university will be a community for teaching, learning, research, and service in which information technology: is integrated into daily life, enhances productivity , promotes and creates new opportunities for learning, is actively explored, and is continually renewed.

Integrating IT into the university community requires anywhere/anytime connectivity. Access must be easy and compatible with a variety of platforms and user styles. Databases must be designed for flexible use where information can be transported seamlessly across applications and platforms.

Productivity will be enhanced by university-wide uses of IT with corresponding minimization of paper flow, by adopting effective tools for efficient information retrieval, by promoting collaboration and coordination using the power of networking to bridge physical and temporal separation, and by improving the quality of work by all members of the community.

Promoting Learning means the creation of a technology-rich environment that provokes continuous growth in educational and research activities, ensures access for all learners, supports various communities of learners beyond classroom walls and university campuses, and encourages members of the university to wisely use electronic media in the classroom and research settings.

Exploration requires a university-wide environment in which individuals and units engage in continuous cycles of discovery and development--trying out and sharing new tools, ideas, and capabilities. Risk-taking is accepted as a natural part of the growth and discovery process and some university units will be recognized as "test beds" for prototyping new techniques and technology. Discovery across all levels of IT expertise will be encouraged.

Continual Renewal means the university will take a proactive and planned approach to technology, anticipating renewal needs, and ensuring that a supportive environment is created and maintained. Renewal must include the complete technology infrastructure--network (internal and broad external connectivity), hardware, software, and related support services. All learners must have access to high quality training and support.

The university will provide incentives, recognition, and rewards to promote innovative and productive uses of IT.

4 Environmental Scan

To evaluate the university's readiness to move toward the AIT vision, the committee conducted an internal (to the committee) review of factors within the University of Connecticut environment that either facilitate or inhibit our ability to fulfill that vision.

Committee members were asked to submit up to five current factors that facilitate and five factors that inhibit our move to the vision within each of the five sections of the vision: integrating information technology, productivity, learning, exploration, and continual renewal. Responses from 18 individuals were received; the results were voluminous, self-consistent and reinforcing. ⁽¹⁾

The full committee then met and, using a small group process, analyzed the responses and created a summary of facilitating and inhibiting factors. This analysis reinforced our perception of the vision itself as well-crafted and as an appropriate fit with the values of the university community as expressed in Section 2.

As might be expected, factors in our current environment that facilitate or inhibit movement towards our IT vision are often one and the same. We recognize, and celebrate, the university's efforts to address significant IT issues, but we also recognize that current attempts are insufficient to provide the degree of forward movement that is genuinely strategic. There are many instances of successful movement towards the use of IT, but the university has yet to properly address, let alone resolve, strategic issues attendant to the role of IT in the larger academic planning environment. These strategic issues relate to technology organization, integration, leadership, funding, and motivation that encourages exploration and development of IT-based solutions in teaching, learning, research, and service.

Integrating

The AIT vision statement begins with the fundamental assumption that any advance in the use of IT is dependent upon the existence of a robust tele-computing infrastructure and basic tools. Integrating IT into the university community requires anywhere/anytime connectivity. In its evaluation of our IT position, the committee acknowledges recent developments within the university that recognize the importance of such connectivity. The data communications network has expanded to include wiring of classrooms, residence halls, and upgrades to the regional campuses. Major projects are underway to develop common databases, as exemplified by the data warehouse and the student systems projects. Networked library services are significant and growing. The classroom renovation project has provided teachers with access to instructional technologies. There is movement toward supported standards for hardware and software while allowing flexibility and creativity for special circumstances. And, since organizational culture affects the willingness of the community to integrate technology, the committee recognizes an increasingly positive attitude towards adoption of IT by faculty, students and staff.

While acknowledging these advances, the committee also recognizes that current efforts toward the integration of IT fall short in a number of key respects:

They lack clarity and coordination, especially in terms of defining which individual(s) or unit(s) are responsible for various components of the IT "puzzle."

They lack predictable and sustained funding for IT resources, even within the University's newly implemented resource allocation model.

They lack strategies for providing user support, especially higher level secondary and tertiary support structures.

They lack guidance of university-wide policies that establish baseline standards for computing platforms, software, and connectivity which would resolve disparities among schools, colleges, and departments and which would improve linkages among campuses, including those of the Law School and the Health Center.

Productivity

One of the most important issues to be addressed is how the use of IT actually improves the lives of the members of the university community. The vision addresses this issue by pointing out that "productivity will be enhanced by university-wide uses of information... improving the quality of work by all members of the university community". In this view, productivity is enhanced in two different but compatible ways, either through constant outputs with lower costs or through improved outputs with constant costs. With constant outputs at lower costs, savings would become available to the cost center to sustain existing IT or to invest in new programs. Improved outputs with constant costs is appealing, but it creates an upward spiral of expectations for outputs without a source of investment funding and thus should be evaluated carefully.

UConn is already experiencing IT-driven productivity increases. Improved communication is being facilitated through increased use of email, Internet World Wide Web access, and some "intranet" publishing. Network connectivity runs at mostly adequate capacity, with most buildings connected and circuits maintained and with high-quality connectivity extended to the regional campuses. Adoption of standards for minimum administrative and faculty desktop systems and for some software suites is in place. There are a few developments that may improve productivity, including a data warehouse for sharing management information, student service systems, the extension of digital library services, some reduction in paper transactions, and the development and use of the Virtual Classroom and Electronic Course Reserves. These developments, however, have occurred without any deliberate or comprehensive university-wide effort to focus on increasing productivity.

At the University of Connecticut, there remains an inattention to mission-critical productivity issues, including a lack of analysis of how IT might be used to enhance productivity, especially on the academic side of the organization. There is no detailed analysis of productivity targets, little sense of accountability for using technology to increase productivity, and no definition of basic core competencies for students, staff and faculty.

The committee recognizes that many inhibiting attitudes exist in the UConn culture. These include lack of expectations for using electronic systems, organizational inertia, difficulty in accessing information, lack of a collaborative culture, anticipated pain in the processes of data integration, lack of recognition and rewards for innovators, fear of loss of control, excessive time frames for implementing ideas, stratified administrative systems, and defensiveness about processes needing improvement.

The committee further acknowledges gaps in standards, including: unnecessary variations in hardware and software thereby increasing maintenance costs, lack of shared meaning of data elements in management systems, and no framework for electronic data interchange between systems.

Productivity is hindered by university-wide resource constraints that inhibit our ability to innovate while simultaneously maintaining operational programs; budget decisions that fail to consider benefits or impacts of technology; inadequate provision for regular technology upgrades; limited enhancement or extension of the current network infrastructure; basic tool sets not provided or available to all faculty, students and staff; and inadequate funding for an effective mix of people, technology, and facilities.

Additionally, the committee recognizes that the university has support limitations, including lack of staff to maintain systems (e.g., websites and servers), decreasing attention to multiple generations of systems (legacy hardware and software), no well-promoted accessible help service, little help for exploring new technologies, and poor troubleshooting of problems.

When analyzing these issues, one is left with the inevitable conclusion that to properly address productivity requires a full understanding of the costs associated with a given process and how those costs can be altered through the effective application of technology.

Learning

IT has virtually limitless potential to support creativity and to foster learning communities through its power as a communications tool. The university has moved to take advantage of this power by extending the network infrastructure to offices, labs and residence halls, and by adapting many classrooms for the use of instructional technology. The university mainframe is a reliable vehicle for support of standard services such as student email. Some "plug and play" buildings, such as the Babbidge Library, the South Campus residences, and the new School of Business Administration and School of Pharmacy buildings, are being planned and constructed.

Support for IT applications to learning is effective for current levels of demand. The University Center for Instructional Media and Technology, the Computer Center's Virtual Classroom project, the University Libraries, the Faculty Resource Laboratory, and the Institute for Teaching and Learning provide a variety of important service and support functions. Grants for technology adoption are available through the Institute for Teaching and Learning. Some of these support services, however, are not readily available at the regional campuses. Recognition of the importance and success of IT applications has begun in limited ways such as the Chancellor's IT awards, the existence of the AIT committee, and occasional release time to develop courses with IT components.

With the possible exception of the extensive classroom renovation project, most current university support for learning is sufficient only within the limited scope of support for early adopters and would not be sufficient in an environment where IT was more fully integrated into the learning environment. The current environment has inadequate funding for hardware and software. "An appropriate computer on every faculty desk" should be standard policy, but faculty in many departments must use their own funds or seek grant support to purchase and upgrade workstations and must make personal arrangements for local printing.

One of the most vexing problems in encouraging the adoption of IT in teaching and learning at UConn (as well as most other institutions of higher education) is the lack of appropriate motivation and rewards for IT integration. UConn has developed neither a culture nor procedures that adequately support or reward investment of time and energy in IT. To successfully integrate IT into the academic mission, the university must acknowledge and reward academic programs in which IT developers are recognized as contributors to the broad advancement of scholarship.

Research productivity will always remain the primary goal for "Research I" universities, but significant accomplishments in other areas should also be recognized and rewarded. Universities with strong and successful implementation of IT will be competitive in attracting quality students and, in the emerging Internet 2 environment, will be successful in securing competitive research funding. Failing to reward faculty for their IT efforts will ultimately be detrimental to the university's ability to recruit quality students, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Beyond implementation, IT-related research and development by faculty, staff and students should be strongly encouraged and rewarded. This would highlight the learning of IT itself, and put the university in a leadership position for IT implementation.

As in other areas of the IT vision, leadership is essential if learning is to be enhanced through the application of technology. UConn has not had a history of administrative leaders who promoted effective communication, collaboration, and improvement of uses of IT in education. Leadership at the chancellor, dean, and department head levels is essential for the effective enhancement of the role of IT in education. Integrating technology into the academic mission requires that academic units discuss and actively plan for both the potential and the proper place of technology in the practice of teaching, learning, research and service.

Exploration and Continual Renewal

Higher education is at the beginning of what promises to be a long road of increased technological support for teaching, learning, research and service. Successful integration of technology into the academic mission requires the time and ability to explore avenues for that integration and a plan for the continual renewal and sustainability of programs once they are developed.

The university has taken advantage of its culture of independence to allow individual, enthusiastic, willing faculty and staff to experiment. In addition, student pressure, especially from graduate students, has provided an incentive for some faculty and staff to explore new IT approaches. For those individuals willing to explore uses of technology in teaching, the high-technology classrooms, the Virtual Classroom, the multimedia lab, and the Faculty Resource Lab have been assets. The university's participation in Internet 2 further serves to recognize the potential for advanced IT support.

UConn 2000 funding has provided capital to begin a funding plan for IT. However, the equipment portion of those funds is limited; it is already over solicited and has a short and fixed lifetime. As one-time capital funds, their use does not address, and may have even diverted our attention from, the need for similar levels of on-going funding. Sustainability requires standards in hardware and software along with planning and budgets for life-cycle replacement. Efforts such as the Husky PC and software site licenses represent beginning steps, but such efforts must be approached more aggressively if we are to achieve cost-effective upgrades of hardware and software, maintenance of workstations, training programs, system integration, user support and network connectivity.

The committee recognizes that both exploration and continual renewal of IT services, would be facilitated by an increased effort to partner with the private sector. Such partnerships might be sources for innovation as well as for fiscal support.

Issues of leadership, funding, and rewards continue to be unresolved for the University of Connecticut. Senior administrative leadership has yet to articulate a broad vision for IT investment within the university's mission and to promulgate that vision throughout the university's administrative ranks. In the absence of a vision and without appropriate IT leadership, individual IT visions are not coordinated. The university must develop the capacity to lead IT planning, to communicate developments and opportunities presented by IT, to administer central IT services, to coordinate distributed IT services, and to enforce accountability in total IT service provision in a manner that will make renewal of these services strong and positive. Most critical, and still lacking in the UConn environment in all of these items is communication of IT options and effective leadership in planning of future IT programs.

Once a plan is finalized, a funding model is necessary to implement it. The university has not identified elements of central funding versus distributed funding for IT expenditures. Without a funding plan, expectations abound that the University "needs to provide more funding" without any sense of the implications of increased IT funding on other budgets and other programs. Centrally funded IT services currently have no articulated performance standards nor cost schedules for service requests. IT services that are funded in a distributed model are not coordinated within the university's program assessment and resource allocation process.

If the exploration of technology integration is to move beyond the involvement of a relatively few faculty, the process must become part of the development of the academic mission. Such exploration, at the level needed to move the university forward aggressively in considering technological applications to the academic mission, absolutely requires an articulated vision, a plan for achieving it, a funding model, and a system of rewards for innovators.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Before making specific recommendations, the committee wishes to draw attention to some of the strategic issues and/or opportunities that affect the university's ability to move forward, issues of: imperative, funding, leadership, academic planning, IT planning timelines, and the potential response to this report by the University community. It is important that these issues and opportunities be articulated and be coordinated with the IT sections of the recently completed Coopers & Lybrand analysis of the university's administrative support structures, a report that has not been released at the time of this writing.

Imperative

There is vigorous debate within higher education about the value, both fiscal and pedagogic, of strategic investment in IT. Proponents believe that a significant investment is key to enabling a university to remain on the cutting edge and competitive in the areas of teaching, learning, research and service. They view IT as a necessary enabling force in the short term and a strategic investment in the long term, where keeping pace is essential. Opponents consider that the ultimate form of education and/or scholarship is found in learners collaborating face-to-face, preferably, one-on-one. They see in IT the potential for a never-ending investment in a technology with no currently proven record for improving learning, and an investment which only dilutes resources for the best form of learning. For opponents the issue is often cast as one of funding for faculty versus technology. If we are to move forward, this question must be addressed both from a university administrative perspective and from the prospect of schools and departments as they view their missions. It should be noted that it is difficult to identify a peer institution that is not making a strategic investment in information technology and most are defending that investment as a requirement to attract and retain today's high quality faculty and students.

Funding

Funding is a key element if significant advances are to be made in the university's strategic use of IT. The source of most of the cynicism that exists within the University of Connecticut about our ability to follow through on plans revolves around our ability to provide funding commensurate with our aspirations. Funding is a clear problem when one considers the resources needed to increase our investment in IT significantly. We know that:

It is unlikely that we can increase our tuition rates sufficiently to cover new costs.

We are not likely to be successful in implementing a "technology fee."

Individual schools no longer have, if they ever did, excess resources to cover anticipated costs, especially given recent budgetary reductions to meet university deficits.

UConn IT service centers are under-funded relative to demand. This is especially true of secondary support services, on-going support to local expert users, and tertiary support services, support for high-level LAN and distributed system administrators in the various schools and departments.

If we are to succeed, a source of funds must be identified. This is especially true given our short term requirements to maintain duplicative (manual/traditional vs. technological/digital) transitional processes. In this context, and given our mandate by the state to maintain tuition and fees at nearly current levels, and given the state's current interest in providing IT for education within Connecticut, the time may be right for a bold approach to the state for additional one-time and on-going funding. However, no matter what the source, a funding model for IT must be constructed commensurate with the strategic aims of the University.

Leadership

As with the debate about the efficacy of technology relative to learning, there is much debate about the efficacy of senior IT leadership in higher education. Many believe that crafting, implementing, and coordinating a comprehensive IT plan and program requires a position of chief information officer (CIO), reporting directly to the president or provost. Others believe that the future, in fact the essence of IT, resides in distributed planning and action. Thus, coordination by a high level administrator inhibits such distributed action and exerts unnecessary control. The AIT committee believes that effective leadership at a high level, however that may be achieved, is necessary to:

Build university-wide commitment to a strategic vision;

Construct and advocate the case for IT investment and support at the highest levels of university budget councils;

Provide necessary communication with deans and directors about the potential of IT to advance our missions;

Coordinate university-wide efforts, especially those involving IT infrastructure;

Effectively manage central IT resources and;

Set, communicate and enforce priority uses of university-wide IT resources.

While central IT leadership requires vision and focus in one individual, it must be noted that a critical requirement of any candidate for IT leadership would be the ability to lead the implementation of distributed IT strategies and to build planning and implementation capacity within the various schools and departments.

Again, it should be noted that almost every institution that is moving forward rapidly in the strategic investment of IT has done so with the assistance of a high level IT administrator. Increasingly, these administrators have control over sufficient fiscal and human resources to implement the university's plan, at least with respect to IT infrastructure and central services such as telecommunications, administrative computing, media services, and libraries.

Academic Planning

For IT to be effective as a strategic investment, it must be accompanied by what is known in management as "process re-engineering"--in brief, an analysis of how we do the work we do and an evaluation of opportunities for the application of technology where it can be seen to improve effectiveness and/or productivity.

This analysis cannot be restricted by the necessity to continue to do things as we do them now simply because that is how they have been done. Critical values in the academy must be preserved; however, for IT genuinely to improve the academic mission of the university, and to train students in the technologically rich manner they wish to be taught, we must engage the schools and departments in effective visioning and planning with IT as a potential tool for substantive change.

To effect successful academic planning, the university could develop an IT planning template that presents deans and directors with a series of technology-related issues that could be addressed within a broader, academic planning format. Elements of such a planning template might be the development of components that:

Build a consensus around a vision of the use of IT within a broader vision for teaching, research and service.

Create an administrative support capacity that would enable the integration of university, school and departmental administrative functionality with academic functionality to improve communication, productivity and growth towards excellence.

Address the financial aspects of the integration of information technology. Key concerns include a continuous revenue stream, whether centrally or locally provided, for equipment maintenance and renewal; sources of funds for continuing telecommunications costs; and a plan for rotating the focus of concentration for limited professional development funds.

Articulate a policy for technology integration and a plan for the continual review and updating of that policy in recognition of the rate of change in technology and the associated speed and accessibility to information the technology brings.

Address academic integration of IT in a manner that is informed by academic research and supported by ongoing reflection and evaluation.

Ensure maintenance of advanced computer systems once they are purchased and installed. The demand to maintain such systems increases with their use, and must be the focus of strategic planning.

Support continuous diffusion of technology information among faculty and staff. The increasing use of educational technology adds a burden to staff to remain current in the research on successful applications of technology to learning and thinking. The plan must include a process whereby each member of the staff would develop personal technology goals on an ongoing basis. Local reward and recognition programs should be implemented.

Consider how the use of IT might alter the use of physical space.

Recognize that staffing levels must be continuously reviewed as instruction and research relies increasingly on the use of technology. Essential technologies may need to be monitored 24 hours a day. Networks may need to be secured, backed up, and inoculated from attack on a daily basis. These new duties require continuous reassessment of staffing needs.

Address security of the physical space, where expensive educational technology is vulnerable to theft, and software security, where data systems can be hacked or used to commit crimes against computer systems outside the school.

Assess the utilization of IT for modeling the enterprise, gathering evaluative data, and providing collaborative decision support for continuous quality improvement. Without a system for knowing to what degree the application of IT is meeting the needs of the university, the system will be unsustainable and unable to grow with changing needs. It is common that once a technology is implemented, its use creates new needs for increasingly sophisticated applications. Planning for evaluation is perhaps the most essential element for ensuring success.

IT Planning Timelines

This report must generate quick action on the part of the entire university. To do so, the critical issues of strategic direction, funding, leadership and academic planning must be addressed followed by a more detailed action agenda. To be timely and action-oriented, a target date for implementation of the vision should be set at three years. During the first year, the strategic issues should be resolved. A select committee derived from the membership of the current AIT committee should be formed, augmented by IT leadership and representatives from senior administration and other IT groups where necessary. The second and third years should address goals to reach the broad vision articulated in this report.

Response by the University Community

There are two general methods to gain positive response by the university community for an increased strategic investment in IT, and they may be in opposition to each other.

The first is to propose an action-oriented agenda with a coherent theme such as, "Plug and Play by 2002." Such a theme might provide a vehicle for garnering support for the concept and could promote the idea of technology providing a ubiquitous environment for building a virtual community of learners. Funding could be structured around common devices and associated similarities of access. However, since there is such a high degree of frustration within the university about funding methods for a large scale technology investment, such a theme might only serve to exacerbate skepticism and frustration.

A more conservative, incremental, planned approach might allay fears and frustrations but may make it more difficult to garner external support and may stymie a sense of urgency. If the University desires a greater strategic investment in information technology, then a more action oriented, thematic approach may be the best approach; attention will be focused on the resolution of the strategic issues of funding and planning.

6 RECOMMENDATIONS

The committee addressed the first parts of its charge but felt that it was premature to formulate a detailed three-year plan. Until the major ideas of this vision have been presented to the university community, and until the university leadership has embraced and communicated the vision articulated in this report as a major goal, detailed plans are likely to be meaningless and relatively unsupported by significant sectors of the university.

We believe that the campus culture is ready to address the issues in this report and to work toward its vision. The time is right. There is an increasingly positive attitude towards adoption of IT by faculty, students and staff. Students strongly desire an education that is appropriately technical and that prepares them to further their education or to take up their life's work with marketable technical skills which enhance their academic knowledge. Furthermore, with increasing urgency, rapid adoption of IT may not be optional if the university is to maintain or improve its relative position among peer institutions. Within this culture, the AIT Committee makes the following strategic recommendations:

1) The chancellor and president should embrace the vision for IT contained in this report and communicate this vision to the university community as a major university policy.

2) The chancellor, the deans and directors should make investments in IT infrastructure, both capital and support-services personnel, a mission-critical priority.

3) A detailed analysis of the current IT environment within the University of Connecticut should be undertaken relative to demands and associated responses. The committee therefore recommends that an independent analyst assist schools, departments, and support units in gathering and providing data on their IT goals, the IT services that do not exist but that are desired to meet goals, the UConn IT services that are provided and/or actually used, and the degree of satisfaction with those services. The independent analyst will combine and analyze the provided data to construct and make visible both unit and integrated views of UConn's current IT situation. Furthermore, this survey should report on examples of excellence in school-based IT utilization for future reference.

4) An independent agent should also be secured to analyze the academic IT activities of peer institutions, to communicate how effective the University of Connecticut's centralized and distributed IT services are relative to those institutions, and to identify benchmark institutions relative to each of the five areas of the vision and relative to the critical issues of effective leadership, funding models, and reward systems.

5) The chancellor should, with all possible speed, identify both long-term campus leadership principally focused on IT and also the associated support services relative to that leadership. The initial assignments of that leadership would focus on the development of a process for IT planning within the regular process of the university and the development of an associated assessment process.

6) After resolving the leadership questions and after consultants report, the chancellor should issue a position paper describing the university's IT strategy. Among other things, this paper should make clear whether the university is to have an action-oriented agenda with a coherent theme and, if so, what it will be.

7) Following upon the communication of a university IT strategy, academic deans should be instructed to develop school and college academic plans that set forth local goals for the integration of technology into the teaching, learning, research and service missions of their units. These planning processes should engage the faculty in broad-ranging discussions of the potential of IT to effect change and the associated impact that effective IT integration could have on the nature of the academic enterprise. The use of an appropriate IT planning template should be encouraged.

8) The chancellor should promote IT related research, development and implementation as an integral part of the university's on-going scholarly agenda. The vice-provost for research should be charged to develop a white paper on opportunities for research at UConn in areas associated with the application of IT to research and education.

9) The chancellor should appoint a task force to develop and recommend a funding strategy for IT within the university consistent with the resource allocation model and which addresses the classes of IT services to be funded centrally, the levels of services provided at no additional charge through the centrally-funded services, and the classes of services which should be directly funded by schools and departments.

10) The chancellor should appoint a select group of faculty, academic administrators and union officials to address the issues of faculty and staff rewards within the PTR and Merit system for IT innovation directed towards teaching, scholarly contributions, and service and to develop and embrace guidelines that would remove disincentives for such innovative activities.

11) The chancellor should appoint an IT steering committee to work with new IT leadership to oversee the implementation of these recommendations and to integrate the academic, administrative and support services technology planning efforts into a comprehensive plan.

Because time is of the essence, Recommendations 1-5 should be implemented with all possible speed. Reports and studies called for in the remaining recommendations should be completed by December 1998 so that other action-oriented recommendations can be considered during 1999 for the FY1999/2000 budget cycle.

¹ See Report Appendix for the full set of responses. (Return to environmental scan)