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Posted by dianao on August 9, 2011

As Mark suggested in his post, this is a good discussion to have in Philadelphia at the annual conference. In fact, Brad has agreed to facilitate a discussion on Wednesday October 18th from 3:30-4:20 pm in room 201C. The session is a new approach for this year’s conference that we are calling “Open Space.” These sessions are intended to provide open space on the program so that CIOs and senior IT leaders can discuss hot topics, such as this one.

 

Beyond convening conversations, EDUCAUSE has been in discussion with third parties exploring options to bring demand aggregation services to members. The discussions are in the early stages so it is too soon to predict what will happen.

 

We have talked about aggregating demand and ways of getting better pricing as well as terms and conditions from providers over the last several months, both internally and with the EDUCAUSE board. While the benefits would be obvious, the path is complicated, as this discussion thread illustrates. 

 

We also have taken some initial steps to test community receptivity to collaboration in the ECAR study on mobility. We asked some questions about openness to cross-institutional collaborations. The survey just closed and data analysis began yesterday, so we only have high-level findings right now. Note that the data represent a random sample of institutions stratified according to Carnegie Classification. Institutional IT leaders completed the survey. Responses suggest two main findings.

 

First, member institutions seem quite open to the concept, benefits, and feasibility of participating in cross-institutional collaborations.

 

 

Disagree

Agree

Neutral

I am personally in favor of cross-institutional IT collaborations.

1

89

10

Cross-institutional IT collaborations would be a successful model for developing and maintaining higher education applications.

2

83

14

Cross-institutional IT collaborations have the potential to save higher education significant sums of money.

8

74

16

My institution might be willing to consider functional compromises required by cross-institutional IT collaborations if a strong case for savings could be made.

5

76

16

Cross-institutional IT collaborations could never work for my institution because we have unique needs.

80

3

15

Cross-institutional IT collaborations could never work for my institution because our institutional culture or leadership would oppose it.

71

8

19

 

The challenge, however, may be achieving momentum.

  • Approximately half of respondents indicated they would join a cross-institutional consortium or deploy its solutions "at the same time as most of our peers."
  • About 8% would join and 15% would deploy ahead of peers.
  • About 14-15% would lag peers in joining or deploying.
  • 8% said their institution would never join and 2% said their institution would never join or deploy.

 

 

 

Comments

This has been a great discussion and I wanted to add one additional point. 

Recently, ECAR held its annual symposium. This was my first time attending and we had a very powerful discussion on what it will take to move forward -- changing our behaviors to work collaboratively on shared solutions to common problems led by Brad Wheeler. Brad did a great job facilitating a discussion and we identified many areas where we could benefit by collaboration.  I know our community can do this because we have done it before:

ECAR - with close to 400 institutional members supporting IT research
Sakai -- with over 350 institutions cooperating on LMS
REN-ISAC - with over 350 institutions cooperating on security
Internet2 - with over 220 institutions cooperating on advanced networks
InCommon - with over 220 institutions cooperating on federation
InCommon Certificates - with over 120 institutions uses the certificate service.
Kuali - with over 50 institutions cooperating on a variety of applications development projects.

What we have to be prepared to do is build trust amongst ourselves. My campus is not doing all of the above -- yet -- but I know that for the five we are participating in my institution receives tremendous value from our participation. 

When we meet at EDUCAUSE we should spend time on what the barriers are to collaboration and what it would take for us to change our behaviors, both among institutions and the organizations, to facilitate collaboration

Jack Suess -- VP of IT at UMBC




Posted by: jack on August 9, 2011
Thanks Diana, and thanks Brad for kicking this off and volunteering to lead what I'm sure will be an important discussion at our annual conference.

Demand aggregation through joint purchasing is certainly one idea.   There are also services that we can provide for ourselves as a community more cost-effectively than the solutions we find in today's highly imperfect markets.  Jack laid out a few of these in his note.

As Mark noted, we also need to appreciate the importance of information in improving marketplaces (Econ 101).  I assume the recent sharing of bandwidth prices was illuminating, especially for the schools paying in the $30s and $40s per Mbps/mo.  Ouch.  

Not everyone has the same number of choices, but even imperfect marketplaces are improved when both sides have information.  The Bains/Hurons/etc. doing studies of procurement within universities find the same kinds of disparities in prices paid when individual units do their own buying without full information or coordination.  Brad has also noted the work of Ted Bergstrom and Paul Courant on how this plays out in our library community with the major publishers.  A couple of interesting reference points (thanks for sharing these Brad) are:
  http://www.arl.org/bm%7Edoc/mm11sp-bergstrom.pdf
  (see especially the pricing info in the middle of the slides)
and for some drama about how they got the data:
I have no reason to believe our numbers for ERP solutions would be any different.

I'm not so naive as to believe that any single approach to collective action would be a slam-dunk for us in IT, so we're well-advised to process the obstacles before proceeding down any particular path.  But I am still naive enough, and encouraged by some of our substantial successes over the last decade, to believe it's worth trying hard to work together to bring some of our best opportunities to fruition.  The risks and costs of trying many of these approaches are low and the potential payoffs high -- for all of us.

There's also an element of (enlightened) self-interest that we shouldn't be missing.  When Sakai was announced by the founders my institution was not looking for an alternative LMS.  But we saw some handwriting on the wall leading to escalating prices and inability to control our costs.  So we signed on as a Sakai Foundation charter member just to help create an alternative that we had no immediate expectation of using.  Fast forward just a few years and our vendor was explaining to us how they needed to triple our costs to be "fair to their owners and shareholders" since that's how much they were charging other customers.  We were sure glad there was an enterprise LMS available for us to migrate to -- and we haven't looked back since.  And we were equally glad there were competitive sources of commercial support to help us meet some specialized local interface needs so we could meet a tight migration timeframe.

So I'd like to underscore Diana's comments regarding your Board's interest in understanding how, as an organization, EDUCAUSE can reduce IT costs for our members.  ERP costs are one of the big-ticket items for most of us, but we are very interested in ideas from all of you about your ideas regarding our opportunities to improve our chessboard and how we can work together to deliver value to our community.

best, david

------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Lassner                                           david@hawaii.edu
Vice President for Information Technology 
   & Chief Information Officer                    Voice: +1 808-956-3501
University of Hawaii                                Fax: +1 808-956-5025



Posted by: dlassner on August 10, 2011
I'd like to add support, but with a voice emphasizing small-to-middle institutions, where my university fits.  I completely agree with Jack that there are many groups out there that we can work in successful collaborations.

I find, for my institution, those arrangements that give our university far more than we invest work best.  I'm not happy or proud of that; we'd like to invest, but the resources and the capacity to take on work just are not present. 

So, for us, groups like REN-ISAC, where there's a tremendous amount of valuable sharing, with minimal resource commitment, work best.  We use Moodle with minimal changes, although in that arena we've been able to hire and keep a very talented developer who gives back a lot on his own time.  Our membership in JASIG helps us with our portal, but we've not been able to contribute anything.  I don't see this model changing, and I suspect many small to middle universities wonder how they can benefit with little to nothing to contribute.

Just something to keep in mind.  I'd like the small-to-middle CIOs to chime in and correct me if I've got this wrong.  What do you look for in collaborative partnerships?  What do you want out of the arrangements, and what do you think you can contribute?

Theresa

Posted by: rowe on August 10, 2011
Brad,

I am very interested to participate in this "productive conversation among the buy-side".  The Educause conference would be the perfect venue.

I am paying Blackboard (LMS), Banner (student information system), SAP (ERP) and Documentum (document imaging and workflows). 

Nagwa Nicola
CTO
The American University in Cairo

Posted by: Nagwa on August 10, 2011
Theresa,

Your point concerning size is very valid. Small to medium size institution are in a unique position relative to consortial negotiations.  Several areas I have noted from experience are:

  1. Cost per student – often the cost for larger institutions is much less then smaller institutions for software licenses (in the past I have paid at least 10x the cost per student).  Obviously there is a base cost issue associated with software but why should smaller institutions shoulder the burden when economies of scale already present challenges.
  2. Staffing - Ability to contribute to consortial efforts due to lack of specialization of staff based on the number of task versus number of staff
  3. Staffing – Ability to support open source software again based on lack of specialization and ability to support custom coding. 
  4. Impact on negotiations or specifications – for both PR – U of X adopted Y - and volume reasons the voice of smaller institutions is often minimized
  5. Difference in mission – smaller institutions must differentiate themselves from larger institutions or online learning to compete.  This difference often plays out in how systems are implemented or what features are important often increasing the need to customize.
Smaller institutions will have to own some greater burden due to the choice to differentiate themselves in the market place by size.  However, my hope would be that the burden could be minimized as we serve a valuable need in education.

James

Dr. James R. Dalton 
Vice President for Information Technology
Information Technology
P: 540-375-2400
F: 540-389-4236
dalton@roanoke.edu
Like us on Facebook


From: Theresa Rowe <rowe@OAKLAND.EDU>
Reply-To: EDUCAUSE Listserv <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:15:13 -0400
To: EDUCAUSE Listserv <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard

I'd like to add support, but with a voice emphasizing small-to-middle institutions, where my university fits.  I completely agree with Jack that there are many groups out there that we can work in successful collaborations.

I find, for my institution, those arrangements that give our university far more than we invest work best.  I'm not happy or proud of that; we'd like to invest, but the resources and the capacity to take on work just are not present. 

So, for us, groups like REN-ISAC, where there's a tremendous amount of valuable sharing, with minimal resource commitment, work best.  We use Moodle with minimal changes, although in that arena we've been able to hire and keep a very talented developer who gives back a lot on his own time.  Our membership in JASIG helps us with our portal, but we've not been able to contribute anything.  I don't see this model changing, and I suspect many small to middle universities wonder how they can benefit with little to nothing to contribute.

Just something to keep in mind.  I'd like the small-to-middle CIOs to chime in and correct me if I've got this wrong.  What do you look for in collaborative partnerships?  What do you want out of the arrangements, and what do you think you can contribute?

Theresa

Posted by: dalton on August 10, 2011

I want to respond to Theresa’s query and chime in with some more detail about what James speaks of in regards to small-to-middle size institutions. I’m sorry to be longwinded about this, but maybe it’ll help to speak some about our class of institution and the challenges we face. For the abridged version, jump to the last paragraph. J

 

Looking at the U I work for, which falls into the small-to-middle sized institution, I can agree with Theresa. We have over 4,000 students with over 400 employees and an IT staff of just 8 (that includes myself so I am very involved in getting my hands into technology projects). In order to leverage the IT staff talents here, we tend to want to outsource the creation of systems and/or use contractors for implementations. My staff tends to do a high level of care and feeding after that fact. So our preference is to purchase out-of-the-box software in whatever form that might take and then tailor to suit our needs. There’s one system that we use highly because of how we work, Crystal Reports/Business Objects, that allows us to “customize” (if I dare say that word) the ERP and some of our other systems. Otherwise, we stick to using options and configurations rather than outright custom coding.

 

To further explain…  We use mostly pure commercial software (Datatel, ANGEL, etc.) and just a bit of open source (Shibboleth for example). And because of our IT department structure, we look toward hosted or commercially/consortium supported open source, if and when we do use open source. Shibb comes to mind as an example. The State of Ohio is currently implementing Shibboleth/InCommon across all the state institutions and is highly encouraging all the private institutions (UNOH is a not-for-profit private) to do so as well. At the state level there are many resources that all Ohio institutions can share using a federated authentication system. So there are resources available through OARnet and well as through InCommon that helped us to implement and new support such a product. As for something like Moodle, we are indeed looking at it closely. However, our choice would probably be with a commercially supported version (MoodleRooms for example and the ERP interfaces that Datatel has produced). We’re just not likely to have the resources on staff to download and install the latest version of Moodle, write a bunch of ERP interface code, then try to migrate all our current LMS content ourselves. So we need a high level of support from someone outside of our organization (consultants possibly) who are the experts at this to do what I like to refer to as “jumpstarting the process for us”. This allows us to keep the IT staff small yet keep all our systems supported.

 

From what Theresa seems to be saying, I’m afraid we would too would probably not be a very rich resource in contributing to code bases. However! I do believe we have other resources to share. For instance, we do have budgets with funding that could go into other directions. For example, we do pay fees to OARnet and Incommon and get their services in return. We also pay the big bucks to Datatel and Blackboard. But we may end up one day redirecting that and paying MoodleRooms or some other consulting/hosting company to help us implement and support a Moodle implementation. And we also have very good expertise on staff that can contribute to the crowd sourcing of experts in the various kinds of IT that could be leveraged so that coders could take and build the applications.

 

So, I think Theresa, James, and I very likely have staff members (probably as do other small-to-medium institutions) of talented individuals in their own right and funds that could be redirected to support collaboration efforts even if it might be less so in just shear code sharing. I would rather invest resources into a project like Kuali or Moodle if I know that indeed, we could implement it out of the box and get support for them in some very reliable form and fashion. If it saves me even say 50% for what I’m currently paying for in my LMS budget for example and it does the job, it all then makes perfect sense and has a big business justification for a migration/implementation to support a community driven effort.

 

Jeff

 

Jeffery A. Le Blanc
VP for Information Technology


1441 N. Cable Rd.
Lima, OH 45805
jaleblan@unoh.edu
Office: 419.998.3107
Fax: 419.227.1280
www.unoh.edu

 

 

From: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Theresa Rowe
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 8:15 AM
To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard

 

I'd like to add support, but with a voice emphasizing small-to-middle institutions, where my university fits.  I completely agree with Jack that there are many groups out there that we can work in successful collaborations.

I find, for my institution, those arrangements that give our university far more than we invest work best.  I'm not happy or proud of that; we'd like to invest, but the resources and the capacity to take on work just are not present. 

So, for us, groups like REN-ISAC, where there's a tremendous amount of valuable sharing, with minimal resource commitment, work best.  We use Moodle with minimal changes, although in that arena we've been able to hire and keep a very talented developer who gives back a lot on his own time.  Our membership in JASIG helps us with our portal, but we've not been able to contribute anything.  I don't see this model changing, and I suspect many small to middle universities wonder how they can benefit with little to nothing to contribute.

Just something to keep in mind.  I'd like the small-to-middle CIOs to chime in and correct me if I've got this wrong.  What do you look for in collaborative partnerships?  What do you want out of the arrangements, and what do you think you can contribute?

Theresa

Posted by: jaleblan on August 10, 2011
James,

This is a bit of a tangential point given the primary focus of this discussion but I wanted to jump in to briefly comment on point #3 below.

As a mid-size institution who has successfully adopted and deployed a range of open-source solutions, including Sakai, I have come to see the concerns that are often expressed over open-source solutions as largely myths.  Yes, if you opt to highly customized your code, whether that is through use of open-source or homegrown solutions, you need staffing to support that customization.  This said, running enterprise open-source solutions, in my experience, is just like running proprietary enterprise software in that you need staff to support your infrastructure (if you choose to host in-house) but you do not need programming staff as you can just run these systems "out of the box".  There are also a range of commercial support vendors now in many of the open-source spaces who, because their success depends on high-quality support, can provide top notch support for any major problems (again, just as a support contract with a proprietary software vendor might provide assurance if you run into a major issue).

Finally, I know that smaller institutions sometimes feel that they don't have much to contribute to open-source communities and that is a factor in them shying away from using this option.  I like to point to Marist who has been able to contribute to the Sakai community, through helping to support the teaching and learning community, in ways that I think people see as being very valuable.

Again, the comments are a bit off topic but I like to get this perspective out when folks are talking about small- mid-size institutions and issues of open-source adoption.

Josh
p.s. for full disclosure, I'm currently serving as Chair of the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors.

-----------------------------
Joshua Baron
Senior Academic Technology Officer
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, New York  12601
(845) 575-3623 (work)
Twitter: JoshBaron



From:        "Dalton, James" <dalton@ROANOKE.EDU>
To:        CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Date:        08/10/2011 09:31 AM
Subject:        Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard
Sent by:        The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>



Theresa,

Your point concerning size is very valid. Small to medium size institution are in a unique position relative to consortial negotiations.  Several areas I have noted from experience are:

1.        Cost per student – often the cost for larger institutions is much less then smaller institutions for software licenses (in the past I have paid at least 10x the cost per student).  Obviously there is a base cost issue associated with software but why should smaller institutions shoulder the burden when economies of scale already present challenges.
2.        Staffing - Ability to contribute to consortial efforts due to lack of specialization of staff based on the number of task versus number of staff
3.        Staffing – Ability to support open source software again based on lack of specialization and ability to support custom coding.
4.        Impact on negotiations or specifications – for both PR – U of X adopted Y - and volume reasons the voice of smaller institutions is often minimized
5.        Difference in mission – smaller institutions must differentiate themselves from larger institutions or online learning to compete.  This difference often plays out in how systems are implemented or what features are important often increasing the need to customize.
Smaller institutions will have to own some greater burden due to the choice to differentiate themselves in the market place by size.  However, my hope would be that the burden could be minimized as we serve a valuable need in education.

James
Dr. James R. Dalton
Vice President for Information Technology
Information Technology
P: 540-375-2400
F: 540-389-4236
dalton@roanoke.edu
Like us on Facebook




From: Theresa Rowe <rowe@OAKLAND.EDU>
Reply-To: EDUCAUSE Listserv <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:15:13 -0400
To: EDUCAUSE Listserv <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard

I'd like to add support, but with a voice emphasizing small-to-middle institutions, where my university fits.  I completely agree with Jack that there are many groups out there that we can work in successful collaborations.

I find, for my institution, those arrangements that give our university far more than we invest work best.  I'm not happy or proud of that; we'd like to invest, but the resources and the capacity to take on work just are not present.  

So, for us, groups like REN-ISAC, where there's a tremendous amount of valuable sharing, with minimal resource commitment, work best.  We use Moodle with minimal changes, although in that arena we've been able to hire and keep a very talented developer who gives back a lot on his own time.  Our membership in JASIG helps us with our portal, but we've not been able to contribute anything.  I don't see this model changing, and I suspect many small to middle universities wonder how they can benefit with little to nothing to contribute.

Just something to keep in mind.  I'd like the small-to-middle CIOs to chime in and correct me if I've got this wrong.  What do you look for in collaborative partnerships?  What do you want out of the arrangements, and what do you think you can contribute?

Theresa

Posted by: josh.baron@mari... on August 10, 2011

I’m delighted with the substance of the discussion on this thread.  We are all at an important moment as we think about how our collective actions can shape the opportunities and costs for each institution.  I’ve received a number of comments off list, and the conversation on-list continues to be rich.  No need to wait  until the EDUCAUSE annual meeting and the Wed @3:30p time for this discussion.  This list gives a great venue for thoughtful ideas, observations, and discussion.

 

Of Nickels, Pennies, and Shekels

 

I’d like to build on Theresa’s (and others’) comment by noting how very, very important broad adoption is among institutions of ALL sizes.   As we collectively launched the various Community/Open Source projects through the last decade, we hoped for and designed those communities to have software producing and software consuming participants.  We chose to make the software licensing as open (promiscuous!) as possible to enable frictionless reuse with a vibrant set of for-profit firms competing to provide services, hosting, support, and even enhancements to the open intellectual property. 

 

The hopeful design of that ecosystem is now evident in many of the software projects that Jack Seuss mentions, and most mature in Moodle/Sakai, uPortal/CAS, and now Kuali Financial and Research Admin (Kuali Coeus) (there are also others too....).  That ecosystem is enriched with every adoption as it grows the marketplace of ideas, discussions, insights, and frankly, the attractiveness for the commercial support sector, and that’s a darn good thing. Smaller institutions have been vibrant participants in those communities in ways other than writing code.  But they sometimes contribute mightily in code as well…San Joaquin Delta College assessed their options and found the best value to be an investor in creating Kuali Financial rather than paying more money out in licensing and maintenance fees.

 

For institutions who find better economics in hosted software (SaaS) or vendor-managed, the rich commercial options around open source is providing some great options while ALSO enriching the software for everyone.  Institutions can also switch to a different support provider without losing the software and the hard work of their implementation if support pricing becomes egregious or services lapse.  See Inevitable Unbundling below*.

 

But…

 

All of our community projects have been financed on the table scraps – pennies and shekels – relative to our collective software spend in our industry.  Theresa’s previous post noted the value of the more mature LMS offerings and that Kuali Student was just not there, but let’s all recall that in the early/mid 2000’s, the open source LMS’ were just not there yet either.   Today we enjoy rich options.    And to be fair…. note that six of Kuali’s eight community projects have code that is implemented and in production at institutions (OK…Kuali Mobility doesn’t go live at IU for another 8 days, but we’ll round up).  And MUCH development is in process. 

 

My point is that we can’t fall into Stephen Kerr’s classic conundrum of “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B.”*  If we want these alternatives and the market discipline that they bring to pricing an innovation for essential types of software, we do need to find ways (as David Lassner noted) to invest more than just our relative pennies in creating/sustaining those options.  Small institutions’ interest in and advocacy for these paths demonstrably generates commercial engagement and investment.  We know that to be true.  Thus, my view is that as institutions look ahead to their software needs, they may wish to consider how their engagement and advocacy in the near-term can shape their options and costs in the future.

 

Great discussion.

--Brad

 

*Wheeler, B., (2004). The Inevitable Unbundling of Software and Support, Syllabus, March.

 

* Kerr, Steven. (1975).  On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B

Academy of Management Journal. December, 18, 000004, pg. 769

 

 

 

From: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Theresa Rowe
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 8:15 AM
To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard

 

I'd like to add support, but with a voice emphasizing small-to-middle institutions, where my university fits.  I completely agree with Jack that there are many groups out there that we can work in successful collaborations.

I find, for my institution, those arrangements that give our university far more than we invest work best.  I'm not happy or proud of that; we'd like to invest, but the resources and the capacity to take on work just are not present. 

So, for us, groups like REN-ISAC, where there's a tremendous amount of valuable sharing, with minimal resource commitment, work best.  We use Moodle with minimal changes, although in that arena we've been able to hire and keep a very talented developer who gives back a lot on his own time.  Our membership in JASIG helps us with our portal, but we've not been able to contribute anything.  I don't see this model changing, and I suspect many small to middle universities wonder how they can benefit with little to nothing to contribute.

Just something to keep in mind.  I'd like the small-to-middle CIOs to chime in and correct me if I've got this wrong.  What do you look for in collaborative partnerships?  What do you want out of the arrangements, and what do you think you can contribute?

Theresa

Posted by: bwheeler on August 10, 2011
A point of clarification and I apologize if I missed it. The 18th is Tuesday so is the meeting Wednesday or Tuesday?

Julie Ouska
CCCS. 

Posted by: jouska on August 10, 2011
Best, -j ______________________________________________________ Julie K. Little, Ed.D. Vice President, Teaching, Learning, Professional Development EDUCAUSE 1150 18th Street NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20036 ph: 865.250.9450 fax: 800.887.5324 jlittle@educause.edu ______________________________________________________ The Best Thinking in Higher Ed IT http://www.educause.edu ______________________________________________________ From: "Ouska, Julie" > Reply-To: CIO Listserv system > Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:37:55 -0600 To: CIO Listserv system > Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard A point of clarification and I apologize if I missed it. The 18th is Tuesday so is the meeting Wednesday or Tuesday? Julie Ouska CCCS.
Posted by: jklittle on August 10, 2011
As a very small institution (850 student headcount, 45 faculty, about 120 staff), I struggle with collaboration. I believe I need it and we have very good local collaborative partnerships (mostly joint purchasing), but with schools many times larger. I wish I could provide more in the partnerships, but I end up largely riding the coattails of the larger institutions receiving much more benefit than what I put into the relationships.

That being said, our IT function is actually large for the institution's size at 12 full time staff and we are heavily invested in open source within our infrastructure (75% of our servers are Linux, our virtual environment and SAN are both based on Linux and open source solutions, and we've successfully run a pilot Asterisk (VOIP) server for several years that I am very tempted to roll into production), but we are users of open source, not contributors. I have had no problem with that since the open source solutions implemented on campus are of general, global interest. As I look to open source higher ed software like LMS, ERP, and even library systems, I don't want to just be a consumer. These are specific packages that, in my opinion, require greater involvement; we don't just want to run what someone else thinks the software should be. We need to advocate, contribute, and influence these projects (as best we can, of course). While this seems daunting at first, I don't believe it is even for a small school like Luther Seminary.

As I look at companies like Sunguard, Datatel, Jenzabar, etc, I see a form of collaboration. The basic point of buying one of these packages is for schools to stop writing, maintaining, and supporting their own, individual AR (or name a module) code and pay a single provider to write, maintain, and support the code for multiple institutions. In effect, all of Jenzabar's customers (of which we are one) pool our financial resources to develop software we can all use. As I look to higher ed open source projects, I see schools pooling financial resources to develop software all can use. The difference is the profit margin demands of the for-profit company and the fact that anyone can download and use the open source software even without adding resources to the pool. Thus, I don't believe size really matters: we're pooling financial resources either way and both models have support structures behind them. My relative contribution may be small compared to other institutions, but I can still participate. The work and relationships are different between a vendor and a community-based project, but there is still some volume of work and relationship needed.

I expect we are in a special position given our history with open source and a larger staff relative to other small intuitions, but I am very much behind any broad higher ed collaboration effort in demand aggregation (I'd love to have just one joint pricing program replacing the multitude I manage now), software development and support, and I'll dare to say it - data center aggregation.

Ted Wilder
Senior Director of Technology
Luther Seminary
651-641-3586


Posted by: enwilder on August 10, 2011
Message from shelw@berkeley.edu

Another dimension to this discussion is the trend in the broader IT industry away from traditional perpetual licenses and maintenance agreements to service models.   Those offer advantages of scale to smaller schools but can equally provide service to the largest amongst us. However, the possibility of vendor lock in and escalating costs in a SaaS model are equally risky. Thats where community power can really make a difference.     Just think about something simple like legal agreements (ha!).   The first subscribers to Google didn't have many other schools to evaluate risks against and the early contracts had gaps that advantaged Google.   Work done at Minnesota, Hawaii, Brown, and others dramatically improved the contract- not just for themselves but for the whole community. More recent efforts lead by CIO's at Duke and Virginia have established common RFP terms for online services from Google and Microsoft that are further improvements - and we all will benefit.    Coordinating those advances and making them visible really helps shorten the evaluation and decision cycle for all.  The new Net+ work in Internet2 will further expand this type of aggregation activity for emerging cloud services as well.

Further, SaaS need not be limited to commercial entities.   The University of California system developed a business continuity planning tool which was originally adopted by all the UC campuses and med centers.   Over 100 universities downloaded the early versions of that code which we made freely available.  Later that code base (at the request of schools that had downloaded it)  was converted to software as a service architecture and  donated to the Kuali Foundation.  That allowed the code and service to continue to grow beyond the UC system. Today there are over 60 universities using the service Kuali Ready (kuali.org/ready) that is available to any institution regardless if they are members of the foundation or not.  The costs are based on a sliding scale costs from $4000-$11,000 a year with the discounted prices for Foundation members -thats all in full service with no software to download.    That project has expanded into Canada hosted at the University of Toronto and includes investing partners who may not even be involved in other Kuali projects - Tufts, Illinois, Penn State, Cal State and more.    (Full disclosure Berkeley is a founding member and I am currently chair of that project board).   The aggregation of our demand allowed us to determine the method and model of supply (moving from a traditional code base to a SaaS model) and work out the economic model that allowed the service to break even while being available to an ever expanding community of interested schools.

The conversation in Philly should be very rich and I appreciate everyone who has chimed in thus far and Brad Wheeler for kicking it off.

Shel

Shelton Waggener
Associate Vice Chancellor
Chief Information Officer
University of California, Berkeley
phone: 510.642.4096



On Aug 10, 2011, at 5:15 AM, Theresa Rowe wrote:

I'd like to add support, but with a voice emphasizing small-to-middle institutions, where my university fits.  I completely agree with Jack that there are many groups out there that we can work in successful collaborations.

I find, for my institution, those arrangements that give our university far more than we invest work best.  I'm not happy or proud of that; we'd like to invest, but the resources and the capacity to take on work just are not present. 

So, for us, groups like REN-ISAC, where there's a tremendous amount of valuable sharing, with minimal resource commitment, work best.  We use Moodle with minimal changes, although in that arena we've been able to hire and keep a very talented developer who gives back a lot on his own time.  Our membership in JASIG helps us with our portal, but we've not been able to contribute anything.  I don't see this model changing, and I suspect many small to middle universities wonder how they can benefit with little to nothing to contribute.

Just something to keep in mind.  I'd like the small-to-middle CIOs to chime in and correct me if I've got this wrong.  What do you look for in collaborative partnerships?  What do you want out of the arrangements, and what do you think you can contribute?

Theresa

Posted by: listserv-anon on August 10, 2011
Message from timothy.chester@pepperdine.edu

Is this session on Tuesday the 18th or Wednesday the 19th?

Sent from my iPad 2 with a Pepperdine Orange smart cover!

Posted by: listserv-anon on August 10, 2011

Wednesday October 19, 3:30-4:20 pm in room 201C.

 

From: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chester, Timothy
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 2:59 PM
To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard

 

Is this session on Tuesday the 18th or Wednesday the 19th?

Sent from my iPad 2 with a Pepperdine Orange smart cover!


Posted by: dianao on August 10, 2011

This post should probably be titled "Data Points on the Chessboard."

For the past several years The Campus Computing Survey has asked CIOs and other senior campus IT officers a number of questions about Community/Open Source development, deployment, and potential migration plans.  The two data tables below, from the 2010 Campus Computing Report, map the current levels of campus  interest and commitment, and also provide best estimates of migration to Open Source ERP applications over the next several years.

The data below – plus the continuing campus conversations about community/open source – remind me of the opening statement from the introductory lecture of a graduate seminar on public policy  (a long time ago):  "implementation is the movement of cup to lip"  said the sage professor at the seminar table.  The Campus Computing data suggest that the distance remains significant.  

By way of background:  Beginning with the 2004 survey, Campus Computing has documented an "affirmative ambivalence" about Open Source ERP applications among senior IT officials.  More than three-fifths of the 2010 survey respondents (62.0 percent c agree/strongly agree that “Open Source will play an increasingly important role in our campus IT strategy,”  compared to 58.7 percent in 2009 and 51.9 percent in 2004.   However, less than a third of the 2010  survey respondents (29.1 percent, compared to 29.7 percent in 2009 and 28.9 percent in 2004) agree/strongly agree that Open Source currently “offers a viable alternative” for key campus administrative or ERP applications such as student information systems, campus financial systems, or personnel/ human resource software.  The continuing message is that Open Source is coming, but has yet to arrive.

Table 1presents the data about the campus strategy for Open/Community Source tools (I.e., backroom/back office resources) and also Open/Community Source applications (I.e., "front of screen resources" for a wide range of non-technical users).  Not surprisingly,  the numbers for using "tools" are higher (across all sectors) than for applications. Too (and also not surprising), very few institutions view their campus strategy as one of "contributing" - an institutional commitment to development/enhance Open Source tools or applications.



Table 2 suggests that aside from LMS and content management areas, few CIOs/senior campus IT officers believe that there is a high probability that their institutions will move to Community/Open Source ERP applications in the next five years. (The question, asked in fall 2010, had a target date for migration by fall 2015).  With the exception of the LMS, these numbers have been relatively constant (I.e., flat) for over the past few years.  

That's not to say that things could not change.  The successful experience of those institutions that were early adopters of Open Source LMS platforms over the past few years has clearly provided both confidence about the application and has served as a case study for migration for a growing number of institutions.  The percentage of campuses participating in the annual Campus Computing Survey that report an Open Source campus-standard LMS has almost tripled in recent years from 7.2 percent in 2006 to 21.4 percent in 2010.  The gains for Moodle have been particularly striking: up from 4 pct in 2006 to 16 pct in fall 2010: moreover, fully a third of private four-year colleges are now Moodle institutions.  Sakai has shown less dramatic growth to date but continues to gain ground and recently secured significant "wins" with the announcements that Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill will soon migrate from Blackboard Learn to Sakai.



Many factors will affect the landscape of the campus ERP market over the next five years.  Jack Suess (vice president for IT at UMBC; see below) cites trust.  My conversations with campus IT officers suggest that trust really is coin of the realm, and the trust factor(s) apply to both community/open source development activities and also to traditional/proprietary providers.   (I'm reminded of a conversation with one CIO in the months following the Jan 2004 Mellon Foundation announcement that provided seed funding for work on Sakai:  "is the choice going to be between my current vendors and my academic colleagues?  I'm not sure that I'm prepared to trust either of them.")   Trust is earned.  Opinion and epiphany are no longer sufficient factors for the committees and campus officials responsible for IT strategy and IT budgets.  

Time will also be a factor.  The early adopters will require time to deploy, test, and "stretch" new applications, and then to report  their experience with new ERP applications and providers, be these providers open/community source developers or more traditional software vendors/providers.  (Witness the transitions in the LMS market: it is a cycle that requires several years.) Too, often missing from the opinions and epiphanies of the early movers are the financial case studies that provide additional documentation (and comfort!) for (IT and non-IT) campus officials about the impacts and benefits of migration.  Evidence – documentation from other institutions about their experience with known and new platforms and providers – has become increasingly essential in the new cycle of campus ERP reviews.

I hope this data above prove to be useful and informative.   As in the past, my thanks to all who participated in the 2010 Campus Computing Survey.  My hope is that more of you will complete the 2011 Campus Computing Survey when you receive the email invitation towards the end of this month.   The results of the 2011 Campus Computing Survey will be presented at the EDUCAUSE Conference in Philadelphia.  The 2011 survey presentation is scheduled for Thursday morning, October 20th (9:00 am / Meeting Room 113 B/C)  and is also scheduled as part of the EDUCAUSE Conference live (online) program.

Casey Green
Campus Computing

PS:  For the record, Campus Computing has no stated position on community/open source applications and deployment: to paraphrase the statemenmt attributed to Sgt. Joe Friday, we're interested in "just the facts, just the facts."  Also, in the interest of full disclosure, the following firms that provide ERP or LMS resources and services to colleges and universities are corporate sponsors of The Campus Computing Project:  Blackboard, Datatel, Desire2Learn, Epsilen, Instructure, Jenzabar, Longsight Group, Oracle, Pearson/eCollege, Moodlerooms, rSmart, and SunGard Higher Education.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Kenneth C. Green   818.990.2212
 The Campus Computing Project®
 www.campuscomputing.net
 cgreen@campuscomputing.net
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


==========================================


Posted by: caseygreen on August 10, 2011
I am really enjoying this conversation and look forward to continued discussion at Educause.   I see the discussion focusing on open source, but I also think we need to look at other ways of doing business.   I think we often do not harness our purchasing power when we go at it individually.   Nor do we harness our own staff and resources as well as we could.   We, here at the Colorado Community College System, run Banner (a single instance) for our 13 community colleges (151,000 students).  We also run centralized Exchange and are about to centralize 9 existing VoIP systems, add two more and run VoIP for 11 colleges.   We also provide the WAN for all 13 colleges.   Although centralization sometimes has its own issues, I do believe we get more bang for our buck due to economies of scale.   We have 4 DBA positions (one is vacant) dedicated to Banner and all its add ons such as ODS/EDW, Flex Reg, Degree Works, and Imaging.  I can't imagine 13 schools running ERPs without having significantly more DBAs than 4. We have similar economies with Exchange support and highly skilled network support staff.    I get frequent calls from CIOs who are concerned about being consolidated into a system structure and "losing control of their ERP", but I honestly think it is inevitable whether it is a vendor supplied ERP or open source.   I don't believe we can continue to be islands.   It doesn’t make economic sense.  We have a system structure so that lends itself to consolidation, but there isn't a reason 10 small schools couldn't band together and do something similar.   For the most part our colleges have relatively small IT staffs, dedicated to desktop and lab support, adds/moves/changes, local systems and applications, LAN support, web support etc.  They can engage with their college constituents on a much more focused and personal basis.   

As an example of other ways to consolidate, we just reduced our SmartNet maintenance costs by consolidating into a single contract for all the colleges and the system office.  It took 3% off the top and eliminated the annual increase (conservatively estimated at 8%) for the next five years.  System-wide it will save about $1M over the next five years.  We can still add and delete equipment as needed over the five year period.  So the colleges have the autonomy they need to decide what equipment to have on maintenance or not, we put in a little sweat equity annually billing back the colleges once Cisco bills us, but overall it puts some money back in the colleges' pockets for the next five years.

Julie

Julie Ouska
CIO/VP, Information Technology
Colorado Community College System
(720) 858-2781
julie.ouska@cccs.edu



From: Casey Green <cgreen@campuscomputing.net>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:18:21 -0600
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard


This post should probably be titled "Data Points on the Chessboard."

For the past several years The Campus Computing Survey has asked CIOs and other senior campus IT officers a number of questions about Community/Open Source development, deployment, and potential migration plans.  The two data tables below, from the 2010 Campus Computing Report, map the current levels of campus  interest and commitment, and also provide best estimates of migration to Open Source ERP applications over the next several years.

The data below – plus the continuing campus conversations about community/open source – remind me of the opening statement from the introductory lecture of a graduate seminar on public policy  (a long time ago):  "implementation is the movement of cup to lip"  said the sage professor at the seminar table.  The Campus Computing data suggest that the distance remains significant.  

By way of background:  Beginning with the 2004 survey, Campus Computing has documented an "affirmative ambivalence" about Open Source ERP applications among senior IT officials.  More than three-fifths of the 2010 survey respondents (62.0 percent c agree/strongly agree that “Open Source will play an increasingly important role in our campus IT strategy,”  compared to 58.7 percent in 2009 and 51.9 percent in 2004.   However, less than a third of the 2010  survey respondents (29.1 percent, compared to 29.7 percent in 2009 and 28.9 percent in 2004) agree/strongly agree that Open Source currently “offers a viable alternative” for key campus administrative or ERP applications such as student information systems, campus financial systems, or personnel/ human resource software.  The continuing message is that Open Source is coming, but has yet to arrive.

Table 1presents the data about the campus strategy for Open/Community Source tools (I.e., backroom/back office resources) and also Open/Community Source applications (I.e., "front of screen resources" for a wide range of non-technical users).  Not surprisingly,  the numbers for using "tools" are higher (across all sectors) than for applications. Too (and also not surprising), very few institutions view their campus strategy as one of "contributing" - an institutional commitment to development/enhance Open Source tools or applications.



Table 2 suggests that aside from LMS and content management areas, few CIOs/senior campus IT officers believe that there is a high probability that their institutions will move to Community/Open Source ERP applications in the next five years. (The question, asked in fall 2010, had a target date for migration by fall 2015).  With the exception of the LMS, these numbers have been relatively constant (I.e., flat) for over the past few years.  

That's not to say that things could not change.  The successful experience of those institutions that were early adopters of Open Source LMS platforms over the past few years has clearly provided both confidence about the application and has served as a case study for migration for a growing number of institutions.  The percentage of campuses participating in the annual Campus Computing Survey that report an Open Source campus-standard LMS has almost tripled in recent years from 7.2 percent in 2006 to 21.4 percent in 2010.  The gains for Moodle have been particularly striking: up from 4 pct in 2006 to 16 pct in fall 2010: moreover, fully a third of private four-year colleges are now Moodle institutions.  Sakai has shown less dramatic growth to date but continues to gain ground and recently secured significant "wins" with the announcements that Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill will soon migrate from Blackboard Learn to Sakai.



Many factors will affect the landscape of the campus ERP market over the next five years.  Jack Suess (vice president for IT at UMBC; see below) cites trust.  My conversations with campus IT officers suggest that trust really is coin of the realm, and the trust factor(s) apply to both community/open source development activities and also to traditional/proprietary providers.   (I'm reminded of a conversation with one CIO in the months following the Jan 2004 Mellon Foundation announcement that provided seed funding for work on Sakai:  "is the choice going to be between my current vendors and my academic colleagues?  I'm not sure that I'm prepared to trust either of them.")   Trust is earned.  Opinion and epiphany are no longer sufficient factors for the committees and campus officials responsible for IT strategy and IT budgets.  

Time will also be a factor.  The early adopters will require time to deploy, test, and "stretch" new applications, and then to report  their experience with new ERP applications and providers, be these providers open/community source developers or more traditional software vendors/providers.  (Witness the transitions in the LMS market: it is a cycle that requires several years.) Too, often missing from the opinions and epiphanies of the early movers are the financial case studies that provide additional documentation (and comfort!) for (IT and non-IT) campus officials about the impacts and benefits of migration.  Evidence – documentation from other institutions about their experience with known and new platforms and providers – has become increasingly essential in the new cycle of campus ERP reviews.

I hope this data above prove to be useful and informative.   As in the past, my thanks to all who participated in the 2010 Campus Computing Survey.  My hope is that more of you will complete the 2011 Campus Computing Survey when you receive the email invitation towards the end of this month.   The results of the 2011 Campus Computing Survey will be presented at the EDUCAUSE Conference in Philadelphia.  The 2011 survey presentation is scheduled for Thursday morning, October 20th (9:00 am / Meeting Room 113 B/C)  and is also scheduled as part of the EDUCAUSE Conference live (online) program.

Casey Green
Campus Computing

PS:  For the record, Campus Computing has no stated position on community/open source applications and deployment: to paraphrase the statemenmt attributed to Sgt. Joe Friday, we're interested in "just the facts, just the facts."  Also, in the interest of full disclosure, the following firms that provide ERP or LMS resources and services to colleges and universities are corporate sponsors of The Campus Computing Project:  Blackboard, Datatel, Desire2Learn, Epsilen, Instructure, Jenzabar, Longsight Group, Oracle, Pearson/eCollege, Moodlerooms, rSmart, and SunGard Higher Education.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Kenneth C. Green   818.990.2212
 The Campus Computing Project®
 www.campuscomputing.net
 cgreen@campuscomputing.net
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


==========================================


Posted by: jouska on August 10, 2011
This is great stuff, folks.  One more issue to consider when we're talking about collaborative purchasing, particularly in the case of procuring commercial products (this will be less true for community/open source projects)... I had a conversation with a vendor recently who was very upfront about providing better pricing for joint purchases: there has to be something in it for the vendor.  Either reduced sales costs (e.g., less negotiation required) or reduced ongoing service costs (centralized billing or support), or by getting a bigger total sale (because some members of the joint arrangement wouldn't purchase at all if they had to buy it individually).
 
What's interesting about this is that the same is true for the cost efficiencies on our side.  We don't really gain much benefit if several of us jointly purchase a particular product, but then each of us installs and supports it locally.  We don't save much if the consortium is signing the contract but we insist that each of our individual legal counsels review it.  And we totally lose out if we join in a buying consortium just because the opportunity is there and the price is right--and better yet, someone else has done the legwork--only to find out much later that the product is wrong for us.
 
When you stop to think about this, it all seems pretty obvious, and yet I think we tend to oversimplify (and downplay) the issues around joint procurement.  Just some food for thought to add to the conversation.
 
Eric
 
--
Eric Bird
Associate Vice President for Technology and Chief Information Officer
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
621 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115
ph: 617-879-7878
fax: 617-879-7979
email: eric.bird@massart.edu
From: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv [CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Ouska, Julie [Julie.Ouska@CCCS.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 6:35 PM
To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard

I am really enjoying this conversation and look forward to continued discussion at Educause.   I see the discussion focusing on open source, but I also think we need to look at other ways of doing business.   I think we often do not harness our purchasing power when we go at it individually.   Nor do we harness our own staff and resources as well as we could.   We, here at the Colorado Community College System, run Banner (a single instance) for our 13 community colleges (151,000 students).  We also run centralized Exchange and are about to centralize 9 existing VoIP systems, add two more and run VoIP for 11 colleges.   We also provide the WAN for all 13 colleges.   Although centralization sometimes has its own issues, I do believe we get more bang for our buck due to economies of scale.   We have 4 DBA positions (one is vacant) dedicated to Banner and all its add ons such as ODS/EDW, Flex Reg, Degree Works, and Imaging.  I can't imagine 13 schools running ERPs without having significantly more DBAs than 4. We have similar economies with Exchange support and highly skilled network support staff.    I get frequent calls from CIOs who are concerned about being consolidated into a system structure and "losing control of their ERP", but I honestly think it is inevitable whether it is a vendor supplied ERP or open source.   I don't believe we can continue to be islands.   It doesn’t make economic sense.  We have a system structure so that lends itself to consolidation, but there isn't a reason 10 small schools couldn't band together and do something similar.   For the most part our colleges have relatively small IT staffs, dedicated to desktop and lab support, adds/moves/changes, local systems and applications, LAN support, web support etc.  They can engage with their college constituents on a much more focused and personal basis.   

As an example of other ways to consolidate, we just reduced our SmartNet maintenance costs by consolidating into a single contract for all the colleges and the system office.  It took 3% off the top and eliminated the annual increase (conservatively estimated at 8%) for the next five years.  System-wide it will save about $1M over the next five years.  We can still add and delete equipment as needed over the five year period.  So the colleges have the autonomy they need to decide what equipment to have on maintenance or not, we put in a little sweat equity annually billing back the colleges once Cisco bills us, but overall it puts some money back in the colleges' pockets for the next five years.

Julie

Julie Ouska
CIO/VP, Information Technology
Colorado Community College System
(720) 858-2781
julie.ouska@cccs.edu



From: Casey Green <cgreen@campuscomputing.net>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:18:21 -0600
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard


This post should probably be titled "Data Points on the Chessboard."

For the past several years The Campus Computing Survey has asked CIOs and other senior campus IT officers a number of questions about Community/Open Source development, deployment, and potential migration plans.  The two data tables below, from the 2010 Campus Computing Report, map the current levels of campus  interest and commitment, and also provide best estimates of migration to Open Source ERP applications over the next several years.

The data below – plus the continuing campus conversations about community/open source – remind me of the opening statement from the introductory lecture of a graduate seminar on public policy  (a long time ago):  "implementation is the movement of cup to lip"  said the sage professor at the seminar table.  The Campus Computing data suggest that the distance remains significant.  

By way of background:  Beginning with the 2004 survey, Campus Computing has documented an "affirmative ambivalence" about Open Source ERP applications among senior IT officials.  More than three-fifths of the 2010 survey respondents (62.0 percent c agree/strongly agree that “Open Source will play an increasingly important role in our campus IT strategy,”  compared to 58.7 percent in 2009 and 51.9 percent in 2004.   However, less than a third of the 2010  survey respondents (29.1 percent, compared to 29.7 percent in 2009 and 28.9 percent in 2004) agree/strongly agree that Open Source currently “offers a viable alternative” for key campus administrative or ERP applications such as student information systems, campus financial systems, or personnel/ human resource software.  The continuing message is that Open Source is coming, but has yet to arrive.

Table 1presents the data about the campus strategy for Open/Community Source tools (I.e., backroom/back office resources) and also Open/Community Source applications (I.e., "front of screen resources" for a wide range of non-technical users).  Not surprisingly,  the numbers for using "tools" are higher (across all sectors) than for applications. Too (and also not surprising), very few institutions view their campus strategy as one of "contributing" - an institutional commitment to development/enhance Open Source tools or applications.



Table 2 suggests that aside from LMS and content management areas, few CIOs/senior campus IT officers believe that there is a high probability that their institutions will move to Community/Open Source ERP applications in the next five years. (The question, asked in fall 2010, had a target date for migration by fall 2015).  With the exception of the LMS, these numbers have been relatively constant (I.e., flat) for over the past few years.  

That's not to say that things could not change.  The successful experience of those institutions that were early adopters of Open Source LMS platforms over the past few years has clearly provided both confidence about the application and has served as a case study for migration for a growing number of institutions.  The percentage of campuses participating in the annual Campus Computing Survey that report an Open Source campus-standard LMS has almost tripled in recent years from 7.2 percent in 2006 to 21.4 percent in 2010.  The gains for Moodle have been particularly striking: up from 4 pct in 2006 to 16 pct in fall 2010: moreover, fully a third of private four-year colleges are now Moodle institutions.  Sakai has shown less dramatic growth to date but continues to gain ground and recently secured significant "wins" with the announcements that Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill will soon migrate from Blackboard Learn to Sakai.



Many factors will affect the landscape of the campus ERP market over the next five years.  Jack Suess (vice president for IT at UMBC; see below) cites trust.  My conversations with campus IT officers suggest that trust really is coin of the realm, and the trust factor(s) apply to both community/open source development activities and also to traditional/proprietary providers.   (I'm reminded of a conversation with one CIO in the months following the Jan 2004 Mellon Foundation announcement that provided seed funding for work on Sakai:  "is the choice going to be between my current vendors and my academic colleagues?  I'm not sure that I'm prepared to trust either of them.")   Trust is earned.  Opinion and epiphany are no longer sufficient factors for the committees and campus officials responsible for IT strategy and IT budgets.  

Time will also be a factor.  The early adopters will require time to deploy, test, and "stretch" new applications, and then to report  their experience with new ERP applications and providers, be these providers open/community source developers or more traditional software vendors/providers.  (Witness the transitions in the LMS market: it is a cycle that requires several years.) Too, often missing from the opinions and epiphanies of the early movers are the financial case studies that provide additional documentation (and comfort!) for (IT and non-IT) campus officials about the impacts and benefits of migration.  Evidence – documentation from other institutions about their experience with known and new platforms and providers – has become increasingly essential in the new cycle of campus ERP reviews.

I hope this data above prove to be useful and informative.   As in the past, my thanks to all who participated in the 2010 Campus Computing Survey.  My hope is that more of you will complete the 2011 Campus Computing Survey when you receive the email invitation towards the end of this month.   The results of the 2011 Campus Computing Survey will be presented at the EDUCAUSE Conference in Philadelphia.  The 2011 survey presentation is scheduled for Thursday morning, October 20th (9:00 am / Meeting Room 113 B/C)  and is also scheduled as part of the EDUCAUSE Conference live (online) program.

Casey Green
Campus Computing

PS:  For the record, Campus Computing has no stated position on community/open source applications and deployment: to paraphrase the statemenmt attributed to Sgt. Joe Friday, we're interested in "just the facts, just the facts."  Also, in the interest of full disclosure, the following firms that provide ERP or LMS resources and services to colleges and universities are corporate sponsors of The Campus Computing Project:  Blackboard, Datatel, Desire2Learn, Epsilen, Instructure, Jenzabar, Longsight Group, Oracle, Pearson/eCollege, Moodlerooms, rSmart, and SunGard Higher Education.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Kenneth C. Green   818.990.2212
 The Campus Computing Project®
 www.campuscomputing.net
 cgreen@campuscomputing.net
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


==========================================


Posted by: ericbird on August 10, 2011
Message from mark.berman@mcla.edu

I've been following this discussion with a great deal of interest. I also work at a small school, we are about 2000 students, and Ted has articulated many of my own thoughts. We also use a good deal of open source software but have no resources to contribute to the code base. When we do make modifications they are very small and very specific to our own situation. I am very interested in the large community source projects such as Sakai, Moodle, and Kuali, but none of those have fit our needs so far and it is important to us that our own needs, specific as they are to our institution, get met. I think we do have something to contribute to these projects and it is our knowledge of the needs of small schools. We may not have the staff time or local skillset to contribute to the code-base, but we can contribute our own time as managers to the oversight and direction of these projects if that would be helpful. I look forward to the discussion in October. - Mark -- Mark Berman, Chief Information Officer MCLA - Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts 375 Church Street, North Adams, MA. 01247 413-662-5062 Please respect the environment and do not print this message. Ted Wilder writes: >As a very small institution (850 student headcount, 45 faculty, about 120 >staff), I struggle with collaboration. I believe I need it and we have >very good local collaborative partnerships (mostly joint purchasing), but >with schools many times larger. I wish I could provide more in the >partnerships, but I end up largely riding the coattails of the larger >institutions receiving much more benefit than what I put into the >relationships. > >That being said, our IT function is actually large for the institution's >size at 12 full time staff and we are heavily invested in open source >within our infrastructure (75% of our servers are Linux, our virtual >environment and SAN are both based on Linux and open source solutions, >and we've successfully run a pilot Asterisk (VOIP) server for several >years that I am very tempted to roll into production), but we are users >of open source, not contributors. I have had no problem with that since >the open source solutions implemented on campus are of general, global >interest. As I look to open source higher ed software like LMS, ERP, and >even library systems, I don't want to just be a consumer. These are >specific packages that, in my opinion, require greater involvement; we >don't just want to run what someone else thinks the software should be. >We need to advocate, contribute, and influence these projects (as best we >can, of course). While this seems daunting at first, I don't believe it >is even for a small school like Luther Seminary. > >As I look at companies like Sunguard, Datatel, Jenzabar, etc, I see a >form of collaboration. The basic point of buying one of these packages is >for schools to stop writing, maintaining, and supporting their own, >individual AR (or name a module) code and pay a single provider to write, >maintain, and support the code for multiple institutions. In effect, all >of Jenzabar's customers (of which we are one) pool our financial >resources to develop software we can all use. As I look to higher ed open >source projects, I see schools pooling financial resources to develop >software all can use. The difference is the profit margin demands of the >for-profit company and the fact that anyone can download and use the open >source software even without adding resources to the pool. Thus, I don't >believe size really matters: we're pooling financial resources either way >and both models have support structures behind them. My relative >contribution may be small compared to other institutions, but I can still >participate. The work and relationships are different between a vendor >and a community-based project, but there is still some volume of work and >relationship needed. > >I expect we are in a special position given our history with open source >and a larger staff relative to other small intuitions, but I am very much >behind any broad higher ed collaboration effort in demand aggregation >(I'd love to have just one joint pricing program replacing the multitude >I manage now), software development and support, and I'll dare to say it >- data center aggregation. > >Ted Wilder >Senior Director of Technology >Luther Seminary >651-641-3586 > > >
Posted by: listserv-anon on August 11, 2011
I’ll be there. God bless, Sam Young Chief Information Officer Point Loma Nazarene University Individualization ~ Achiever ~ Learner ~ Belief ~ Activator ________________________________ From: Diana Oblinger Reply-To: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:02:14 -0700 To: "CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU" Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard Wednesday October 19, 3:30-4:20 pm in room 201C. From: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chester, Timothy Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 2:59 PM To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard Is this session on Tuesday the 18th or Wednesday the 19th? Sent from my iPad 2 with a Pepperdine Orange smart cover!
Posted by: syoung on August 12, 2011
A bit of history - CAUSE (College and University Systems Exchange) actually started in 1962, spinning off from CUMREC (College and University Machine Records Conference - now defunct). The acronym was suggested by an IBM sales representative to one of the original universities. It was incorporated in Illinois in 1963, and one of the first formal meetings took place in Chicago on the day President Kennedy was assassinated (November 22, 1963). It was a volunteer association until the national office was opened September 1, 1971 in Boulder, Colorado with 25 institutional members and a staff of two people. An early grant of $20,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation gave it a jump start.

We actually maintained and distributed systems from a library of source code for shared systems, some on punched cards, and some on magnetic tape. It's not clear than any of the proprietary systems originated from any of the systems in the CAUSE Exchange Library, but some of them did have their beginnings in institutional systems.

CAUSE and Educom merged to form EDUCAUSE in 1998 with offices in Boulder, Colorado and Washington, DC. There are brief histories of both organizations on the EDUCAUSE website.

Cheers,
Chuck Thomas
=================================
At 07:49 AM 8/9/2011, Robert Paterson wrote:
Full circle. Do you all recall that before EDUCAUSE there was Educom and CAUSE. And CAUSE was an acronym for “College and University Software Exchange” where institutions actually shared home grown administrative system code.
 
I may be wrong, but I think I recall that several of the originators of the first “store bought” administrative systems came out of this product development….

 
The organizations CAUSE and Educom seemed to be much less the “professional associations” EDUCAUSE has evolved into.
 
Dr. Robert Paterson
Vice President, Information Technology, Planning & Research
Molloy College
Rockville Centre, NY 11571
516-678-5000 ex 6443
 >>>snip<<<

----------------------------------------------
Charles R. Thomas, NCHEMS Senior Consultant & CHESS President
1100 N Lake Shore Dr 16B,  Chicago, IL 60611
TEL: 312-951-1876  CELL: 312-315-0455
Email: crt@northwestern.edu   Web: www.nchems.org/about/chuck ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: crthomas on August 13, 2011
Thanks for the clarification Chuck. I was trying to point out that our beginnings were sort of what we are now discussing...I'm guessing many folks have come into the business more recently...
Best,
Rob
 
Dr. Robert Paterson
Vice President, Information Technology, Planning and Research
Molloy College
Rockville Centre, NY
 
Posted by: rpaterson on August 13, 2011
Casey - I just wanted to thank you for your initiative in running the Campus Computing Survey and your insightfull use of the data to respond to this and other threads that come up. In this case your review of the data and insight of Jack and you on the issue of trust seems right on the mark. This really helps the entire CIO community, of all folks we should appreciate data and information. I appreciate your responses and efforts. See you in Philly. Thanks Steven Conway Texas A&M University at Galveston ________________________________ >From: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv >[CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Casey Green / Campus Computing >[cgreen@CAMPUSCOMPUTING.NET] >Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 4:18 PM >To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU >Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard > > >This post should probably be titled "Data Points on the Chessboard." > >For the past several years The Campus Computing Survey > has >asked CIOs and other senior campus IT officers a number of questions >about Community/Open Source development, deployment, and potential >migration plans. The two data tables below, from the 2010 Campus >Computing Report, map the current levels of campus interest and >commitment, and also provide best estimates of migration to Open Source >ERP applications over the next several years. > >The data below ­ plus the continuing campus conversations about >community/open source ­ remind me of the opening statement from the >introductory lecture of a graduate seminar on public policy (a long time >ago): "implementation is the movement of cup to lip" said the sage >professor at the seminar table. The Campus Computing data suggest that >the distance remains significant. > >By way of background: Beginning with the 2004 survey, Campus Computing >has documented an "affirmative ambivalence" about Open Source ERP >applications among senior IT officials. More than three-fifths of the >2010 survey respondents (62.0 percent c agree/strongly agree that ³Open >Source will play an increasingly important role in our campus IT >strategy,² compared to 58.7 percent in 2009 and 51.9 percent in 2004. >However, less than a third of the 2010 survey respondents (29.1 percent, >compared to 29.7 percent in 2009 and 28.9 percent in 2004) agree/strongly >agree that Open Source currently ³offers a viable alternative² for key >campus administrative or ERP applications such as student information >systems, campus financial systems, or personnel/ human resource software. > The continuing message is that Open Source is coming, but has yet to >arrive. > >Table 1presents the data about the campus strategy for Open/Community >Source tools (I.e., backroom/back office resources) and also >Open/Community Source applications (I.e., "front of screen resources" for >a wide range of non-technical users). Not surprisingly, the numbers for >using "tools" are higher (across all sectors) than for applications. Too >(and also not surprising), very few institutions view their campus >strategy as one of "contributing" - an institutional commitment to >development/enhance Open Source tools or applications. > >[cid:0D41D2D0-F7A3-4BFA-B642-188DDDEDDFEC] > > >Table 2 suggests that aside from LMS and content management areas, few >CIOs/senior campus IT officers believe that there is a high probability >that their institutions will move to Community/Open Source ERP >applications in the next five years. (The question, asked in fall 2010, >had a target date for migration by fall 2015). With the exception of the >LMS, these numbers have been relatively constant (I.e., flat) for over >the past few years. > >That's not to say that things could not change. The successful >experience of those institutions that were early adopters of Open Source >LMS platforms over the past few years has clearly provided both >confidence about the application and has served as a case study for >migration for a growing number of institutions. The percentage of >campuses participating in the annual Campus Computing Survey that report >an Open Source campus-standard LMS has almost tripled in recent years >from 7.2 percent in 2006 to 21.4 percent in 2010. The gains for Moodle >have been particularly striking: up from 4 pct in 2006 to 16 pct in fall >2010: moreover, fully a third of private four-year colleges are now >Moodle institutions. Sakai has shown less dramatic growth to date but >continues to gain ground and recently secured significant "wins" with the >announcements that Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill will soon migrate from >Blackboard Learn to Sakai. > >[cid:316C0110-83FA-4B97-A6A3-FD6C8AD8F38B] > > >Many factors will affect the landscape of the campus ERP market over the >next five years. Jack Suess (vice president for IT at UMBC; see below) >cites trust. My conversations with campus IT officers suggest that trust >really is coin of the realm, and the trust factor(s) apply to both >community/open source development activities and also to >traditional/proprietary providers. (I'm reminded of a conversation with >one CIO in the months following the Jan 2004 Mellon Foundation >announcement that provided seed funding for work on Sakai: "is the >choice going to be between my current vendors and my academic colleagues? > I'm not sure that I'm prepared to trust either of them.") Trust is >earned. Opinion and epiphany are no longer sufficient factors for the >committees and campus officials responsible for IT strategy and IT >budgets. > >Time will also be a factor. The early adopters will require time to >deploy, test, and "stretch" new applications, and then to report their >experience with new ERP applications and providers, be these providers >open/community source developers or more traditional software >vendors/providers. (Witness the transitions in the LMS market: it is a >cycle that requires several years.) Too, often missing from the opinions >and epiphanies of the early movers are the financial case studies that >provide additional documentation (and comfort!) for (IT and non-IT) >campus officials about the impacts and benefits of migration. Evidence ­ >documentation from other institutions about their experience with known >and new platforms and providers ­ has become increasingly essential in >the new cycle of campus ERP reviews. > >I hope this data above prove to be useful and informative. As in the >past, my thanks to all who participated in the 2010 Campus Computing >Survey. My hope is that more of you will complete the 2011 Campus >Computing Survey when you receive the email invitation towards the end of >this month. The results of the 2011 Campus Computing Survey will be >presented at the EDUCAUSE Conference in Philadelphia. The 2011 survey >presentation is scheduled >for Thursday morning, October 20th (9:00 am / Meeting Room 113 B/C) and >is also scheduled as part of the EDUCAUSE Conference live (online) >program. > >Casey Green >Campus Computing > >PS: For the record, Campus Computing has no stated position on >community/open source applications and deployment: to paraphrase the >statemenmt attributed to Sgt. Joe >Friday, we're interested in >"just the facts, just the facts." Also, in the interest of full >disclosure, the following firms that provide ERP or LMS resources and >services to colleges and universities are corporate sponsors of The >Campus Computing Project: Blackboard, Datatel, Desire2Learn, Epsilen, >Instructure, Jenzabar, Longsight Group, Oracle, Pearson/eCollege, >Moodlerooms, rSmart, and SunGard Higher Education. > >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > Kenneth C. Green 818.990.2212 > The Campus Computing Project® > www.campuscomputing.net > >cgreen@campuscomputing.net> >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > >========================================== > > >
Posted by: conways on August 13, 2011




-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Conway [conways@TAMUG.EDU]
Received: Saturday, 13 Aug 2011, 1:22pm
To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU [CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU]
Subject: [CIO] FW: [CIO] Our Chessboard

Casey - I just wanted to thank you for your initiative in running the Campus Computing Survey and your insightfull use of the data to respond to this and other threads that come up.  In this case your review of the data and insight of Jack and you on the issue of trust seems right on the mark.   This really helps the entire CIO community, of all folks we should appreciate data and information.

I appreciate your responses and efforts.   See you in Philly.

Thanks
Steven Conway
Texas A&M University at Galveston

________________________________
>From: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv
>[CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Casey Green / Campus Computing
>[cgreen@CAMPUSCOMPUTING.NET]
>Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 4:18 PM
>To: CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
>Subject: Re: [CIO] Our Chessboard
>
>
>This post should probably be titled "Data Points on the Chessboard."
>
>For the past several years The Campus Computing Survey
><http://www.campuscomputing.net/summary/2010-campus-computing-survey> has
>asked CIOs and other senior campus IT officers a number of questions
>about Community/Open Source development, deployment, and potential
>migration plans.  The two data tables below, from the 2010 Campus
>Computing Report, map the current levels of campus  interest and
>commitment, and also provide best estimates of migration to Open Source
>ERP applications over the next several years.
>
>The data below ­ plus the continuing campus conversations about
>community/open source ­ remind me of the opening statement from the
>introductory lecture of a graduate seminar on public policy  (a long time
>ago):  "implementation is the movement of cup to lip"  said the sage
>professor at the seminar table.  The Campus Computing data suggest that
>the distance remains significant.
>
>By way of background:  Beginning with the 2004 survey, Campus Computing
>has documented an "affirmative ambivalence" about Open Source ERP
>applications among senior IT officials.  More than three-fifths of the
>2010 survey respondents (62.0 percent c agree/strongly agree that ³Open
>Source will play an increasingly important role in our campus IT
>strategy,²  compared to 58.7 percent in 2009 and 51.9 percent in 2004.
>However, less than a third of the 2010  survey respondents (29.1 percent,
>compared to 29.7 percent in 2009 and 28.9 percent in 2004) agree/strongly
>agree that Open Source currently ³offers a viable alternative² for key
>campus administrative or ERP applications such as student information
>systems, campus financial systems, or personnel/ human resource software.
> The continuing message is that Open Source is coming, but has yet to
>arrive.
>
>Table 1presents the data about the campus strategy for Open/Community
>Source tools (I.e., backroom/back office resources) and also
>Open/Community Source applications (I.e., "front of screen resources" for
>a wide range of non-technical users).  Not surprisingly,  the numbers for
>using "tools" are higher (across all sectors) than for applications. Too
>(and also not surprising), very few institutions view their campus
>strategy as one of "contributing" - an institutional commitment to
>development/enhance Open Source tools or applications.
>
>[cid:0D41D2D0-F7A3-4BFA-B642-188DDDEDDFEC]
>
>
>Table 2 suggests that aside from LMS and content management areas, few
>CIOs/senior campus IT officers believe that there is a high probability
>that their institutions will move to Community/Open Source ERP
>applications in the next five years. (The question, asked in fall 2010,
>had a target date for migration by fall 2015).  With the exception of the
>LMS, these numbers have been relatively constant (I.e., flat) for over
>the past few years.
>
>That's not to say that things could not change.  The successful
>experience of those institutions that were early adopters of Open Source
>LMS platforms over the past few years has clearly provided both
>confidence about the application and has served as a case study for
>migration for a growing number of institutions.  The percentage of
>campuses participating in the annual Campus Computing Survey that report
>an Open Source campus-standard LMS has almost tripled in recent years
>from 7.2 percent in 2006 to 21.4 percent in 2010.  The gains for Moodle
>have been particularly striking: up from 4 pct in 2006 to 16 pct in fall
>2010: moreover, fully a third of private four-year colleges are now
>Moodle institutions.  Sakai has shown less dramatic growth to date but
>continues to gain ground and recently secured significant "wins" with the
>announcements that Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill will soon migrate from
>Blackboard Learn to Sakai.
>
>[cid:316C0110-83FA-4B97-A6A3-FD6C8AD8F38B]
>
>
>Many factors will affect the landscape of the campus ERP market over the
>next five years.  Jack Suess (vice president for IT at UMBC; see below)
>cites trust.  My conversations with campus IT officers suggest that trust
>really is coin of the realm, and the trust factor(s) apply to both
>community/open source development activities and also to
>traditional/proprietary providers.   (I'm reminded of a conversation with
>one CIO in the months following the Jan 2004 Mellon Foundation
>announcement that provided seed funding for work on Sakai:  "is the
>choice going to be between my current vendors and my academic colleagues?
> I'm not sure that I'm prepared to trust either of them.")   Trust is
>earned.  Opinion and epiphany are no longer sufficient factors for the
>committees and campus officials responsible for IT strategy and IT
>budgets.
>
>Time will also be a factor.  The early adopters will require time to
>deploy, test, and "stretch" new applications, and then to report  their
>experience with new ERP applications and providers, be these providers
>open/community source developers or more traditional software
>vendors/providers.  (Witness the transitions in the LMS market: it is a
>cycle that requires several years.) Too, often missing from the opinions
>and epiphanies of the early movers are the financial case studies that
>provide additional documentation (and comfort!) for (IT and non-IT)
>campus officials about the impacts and benefits of migration.  Evidence ­
>documentation from other institutions about their experience with known
>and new platforms and providers ­ has become increasingly essential in
>the new cycle of campus ERP reviews.
>
>I hope this data above prove to be useful and informative.   As in the
>past, my thanks to all who participated in the 2010 Campus Computing
>Survey.  My hope is that more of you will complete the 2011 Campus
>Computing Survey when you receive the email invitation towards the end of
>this month.   The results of the 2011 Campus Computing Survey will be
>presented at the EDUCAUSE Conference in Philadelphia.  The 2011 survey
>presentation<http://www.educause.edu/E2011/Program/SESS070> is scheduled
>for Thursday morning, October 20th (9:00 am / Meeting Room 113 B/C)  and
>is also scheduled as part of the EDUCAUSE Conference live (online)
>program.
>
>Casey Green
>Campus Computing
>
>PS:  For the record, Campus Computing has no stated position on
>community/open source applications and deployment: to paraphrase the
>statemenmt attributed to Sgt. Joe
>Friday,<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Friday> we're interested in
>"just the facts, just the facts."  Also, in the interest of full
>disclosure, the following firms that provide ERP or LMS resources and
>services to colleges and universities are corporate sponsors of The
>Campus Computing Project:  Blackboard, Datatel, Desire2Learn, Epsilen,
>Instructure, Jenzabar, Longsight Group, Oracle, Pearson/eCollege,
>Moodlerooms, rSmart, and SunGard Higher Education.
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Kenneth C. Green   818.990.2212
> The Campus Computing Project®
> www.campuscomputing.net
>
>cgreen@campuscomputing.net<https://mail.tamug.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx
>>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
>
>==========================================
>
>
>
Posted by: aKatz on August 14, 2011
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