Readers Respond: Mechanisms to Create "Partnerships" Between Central IT Organization and Departments for Planning, Systems Developme nt, Training, and/or Support *************************************** Copyright CAUSE. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear,and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information technology in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission.For further information, contact CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301, 303-449-4430, e-mail info@CAUSE.colorado.edu *************************************** READERS RESPOND Question: What mechanisms are you using to create "partnerships" between your central IT organization and departments for planning, systems development, training, and/or support? Partnerships between the University of Alberta's Computing and Network Services (CNS) and departments are being developed to ensure sharing of expertise, application of economies of scale, campus education on the use of information technology, and setting of IT directions and standards. Partnerships include: * advisory committees on networks, numerically intensive computing, technology and standards, and information systems, with faculty and student representatives; * extended help desk functions with CNS staff and faculty computing support staff; * collaboration in implementing a research ring on campus with workstations networked via our FDDI campus network backbone and running DQS and PVM; * a "service reps" service that assigns CNS staff to departments to help them with IT planning and problem resolution; and * collaboration with the faculty of education in the establishment of a courseware centre. Monica Beltrametti Director, Computing and Network Services University of Alberta, Canada mbeltram@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca Columbia University has been engaged in a formal partnership approach to its Student Information System acquisition and implementation since Spring of 1990. More than a partnership, the University has changed its organizational approach to distributed computing and created an SIS group within the user area. The SIS project reports to the Deputy Vice President for Student Financial and Information Services, along with the University Registrar, University Bursar, Executive Director of Student Financial Services, and Career Services Center Director. Working closely with the central Administrative Information Services division (AIS), SIS has full authority, responsibility, and accountability for the successful implementation and support of the new system. AIS and SIS are full partners, with programming staff loaned to the project, with technical systems staff supporting the mainframe and communications infrastructure, and with joint project teams implementing the many SIS modules. We have found the partnership to be a great success, both in terms of deliverables and user satisfaction with the software and its introduction into the community, and in terms of ongoing strategic planning. Indeed, this approach of distributing systems project management to the "end user" office now forms the prototype for other systems projects, including the new alumni systems, the new facilities systems, and financial systems. We believe in great part the success can be attributed to the close working relationship of the principal user-stakeholders (bursar, registrar, financial aid director, etc.) and the SIS project director. Decisions about project delivery, dates and functional requirements, budget management, system enhancements, and user training and report generation and distribution, all are made in a context close to the application users, under the guidance and direction of the vice president ultimately responsible for student services at the University. In less than one calendar year we had the base system installed, 125,000 student demographic records converted, and over 400,000 detailed financial records converted. Less than a year after loading the software (AMS SIS Legend Series), we ran our first registration on the system, and less than a year after beginning the conversion, we ran our first full billing cycle and had two fully operational pilot schools "up" on admissions and financial aid. Implementation continues in a phased approach, with more schools coming onto the admissions and aid modules, with the implementation of the housing sub-system, and further work on the transcripts, degree audit, and additional modules within student accounts. The success of our SIS project is in great part dependent upon the partnership with AIS and with our corporate partner, AMS. Partnerships mean shared resources, shared risk, and shared success. I define distributed computing as the distribution of the application systems responsibility, authority, and accountability to the business office responsible for the application service involved. Only in partnership with the central AIS unit can this model be successfully realized, as it has been at Columbia University. Mark A. Olson Deputy Vice President Student Financial and Information Services Columbia University (NY) mao@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu The University of Minnesota has just adopted a Vision and Strategies for Computing and Information Technologies, which defines the "Electronic Commons" as the vision for the role of information resources within the University. We are now initiating an intensive Information Technology Planning Project to develop the detailed technology plan for implementation of the vision. The vision was created by a user-driven Advisory User Committee comprised of faculty from several colleges, staff from several administrative departments, undergraduate and graduate student representatives, and management and staff from the libraries and academic and administrative computing organizations. Extensive use of electronic mail and Gopher kept a broad constituency informed of progress and provided a means for input from a broad segment of the University. The planning project is designed for broad participation and buy- in. It recognizes and draws expertise from four general constituencies in the planning process: Central Information Resource Providers, Distributed Information Resource Providers (college and department level), a Customer Oversight Council (faculty, staff, and student users of academic and administrative computing, libraries, networks, etc.), and a Policy Oversight Council (deans and vice-presidents). E-mail and Gopher will be heavily used to disseminate information and solicit input from the University community. A project management committee consists of the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Computer and Information Services, the Assistant Vice President for Administrative Information Systems and Operations Development, and the faculty chair of the Customer Oversight Council. Don Riley Acting Associate Provost for Academic Affairs University of Minnesota drriley@mailbox.mail.umn.edu At Lawrence University, partnerships between Computer Services (CS) and administrative departments have grown up spontaneously because we empower our users. Over time, each of our larger departments (Admissions, Registrar, Development, Business Office, Institutional Research, Library) has supplied from within a user capable of planning and often implementing system enhancements, communicating requests clearly with CS, and supplying much internal training and support. These individuals serve as the first contact for most internal problems. As much as time permits and always when needed, CS works one-on-one with these liaisons in an effort to maintain University-wide standards. For smaller departments, many still relatively new to computing, we request that a single contact person be designated to communicate needs and problems to us. In this way we hope not only to encourage discussion within the department before contacting CS for help, but also to foster growth toward departmental self-sufficiency. During the initial period when most training and support comes directly from CS, we offer the needed support and simultaneously encourage individual users to help one another. In addition to direct communication between CS and individual departments, an administrative computing council has been active for the greater portion of the last twelve years. The present council serves as a forum for discussion of inter-departmental data flow issues, policy setting, problem solving, and planning for the future. All offices are encouraged to be represented at meetings and to participate in any training sessionssponsored by the council. Detailed minutes and position papers are circulated electronically to a wide readership among administrative staff. Jeanne Loehnis Assistant Director of Computer Services Lawrence University (WI) loehnisj@lawrence.edu Last year I presented the advisory committees at the California State University, Hayward, a plan for all major departments to participate in the implementation of our newly purchased administrative software. Basically, the plan called for each major office to identify, at a minimum, one person to administer the database and one person to be trained by the vendor along with IT staff. The trainer will then have responsibility for training the rest of the support staff within that office and for conducting campus-wide workshops for other campus faculty and staff as appropriate. We have taken similar steps in the area of microcomputer support which is just getting off the ground. We intend to have key staff within departments/schools that will act as first-line support. Budget cuts this fiscal year forced me to lay off six full time support staff, one unit director, and two temporary staff members. Without the above mentioned plan in place I would not have been able to keep our administrative project moving forward. The project has slipped some, but the situation would have been a lot worse. The user support staff participating in the implementation are excited to be a part of the team, and are having a ball! Shawn Hernandez Associate Vice President, Computing Services California State University, Hayward hernand@mr.csuhayward.edu Two years ago, our president requested that we write a new information technology plan. This request was one of the first assignments given to our newly appointed associate vice president, E. Leon Daniel. In the process of preparing that plan and reorganizing information technology, it seemed imperative that we create a decision-making partnership between academic and administrative computing. Therefore, as part of the plan, an Information Technology Advisory Committee was formed composed of an equal number of representatives from academic schools and administrative divisions/areas. This committee meets monthly to review all plans; its approval is required before action will be taken by the Information Technology Steering Committee which is chaired by our president. This partnership has been very effective; we have in the past two years moved forward with the installation of a campus fiber network. Full equipping of all our faculty and staff will be realized within the next eighteen months. Also, we have built several new student laboratories, refurbished older laboratories, and replaced old computer technology. The entire college is solidly behind this very collegial effort. John T. Reed Director, Academic Computing and User Services Metropolitan State College of Denver (CO) reed@zeno.msc.colorado.edu Information Services at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, encompasses academic computing, administrative computing, telephone services, and audio-visual services. We have an advisory committee that is part of our campus governance structure; in particular, it is a subcommittee of the Educational Policy Committee, which is a standing committee of our Campus Assembly. Our advisory committee consists of representatives from all collegiate units and from some administrative units. We also have a telephone services advisory committee that consists of administrative staff from finance and operations. This is really a historical holdover from the days when telephone services reported to finance and operations. Eventually I expect the function of this committee to be taken over by the advisory committee mentioned above. We are also heavily into TQM, so that means we have a number of quality improvement teams running, some of which include faculty and staff from other units. In particular, our Distance Education and Communication Team and our Instructional Computing Team both have faculty, and the DEC team has some administrative staff as well. A number of our staff do training of various sorts. We are now moving towards more self-paced training facilitated by video and software training packages. We also maintain a Help Desk that is telephone-based. We are currently considering whether we should change the location and staffing of the Help Desk to allow us to accept walk- in traffic in addition to phone traffic. Linda L. Deneen Acting Director, UMD Information Services University of Minnesota, Duluth ldeneen@ub.d.umn.edu Penn State has a long list of user "partnerships"and wouldn't trade them for the world. In 1985, we set out on a program called the "user initiative" to examine the structural impediments to full user involvement in administrative computing. To our amazement we found policy, procedural, technical, training, and security hurdles that kept users at a second-class status. They were able to use the computer to input data, but a glass ceiling, so to speak, prevented users from rising higher. The user initiative changed all that. With new policies, procedures, training, and security regulations, our users are taking a much larger role. Today, any office in the University can have its own programmers, analysts, and other system specialists to do anything that a person in the central administrative computing office can do. Whole subsystems are developed by users and brought on-line to join the rest of the University's systems. More than 150 individuals outside the central administrative computing office now work as partners with the forty people in the central office to further the University's administrative computing agenda. Only four of the 150 individuals were obtained through new budget lines. The rest were obtained by reallocating existing budget dollars from clerical and staff positions to computer- capable positions. The career path of a computer specialist at Penn State, today, may move in and out of the central administrative computing organization with the time outside bringing a new user perspective to the central staff. We believe the user initiative is successful because it is harmonious with the reality that all jobs and all organizations are including information technology as a success factor. The user initiative empowers distributed offices to move as rapidly or as slowly to their automation goals as they desire. Ken Blythe Director, Office of Administrative Systems The Pennsylvania State University kcb1@ms.psu.edu Partnerships between the central IT organization and departmental users are critical. At Texas Christian University, we work hard to establish the central IT organization as one that is here for user service and support. The user departments are not required to use us; we want them to have a choice and to use our services because they believe in them and feel that they get good support. To promote this we have established user liaisons in each department. These liaisons are responsible for their department's computer systems. This primary IT contact is used in each department for planning, systems development/enhancement, training, and data control aspects. The central IT organization does not have a data control activity within it. Each department has control of entering their data and running batch jobs involving updating, reporting, and back-up needs for their application. User liaisons are the primary contacts for other users on campus who need information from their system. They are the experts for their applications and use IT for support whenever it is needed. When IT gets involved it is on the request of user liaisons, and we help them to determine what is required to support them. Whatever is needed, the user liaison is in control and IT trains the liaison, provides necessary documentation, and gets a sign-off from the liaison that the need has been met. The liaison then takes that back to the department and performs whatever functions are needed for that department, as an agent of IT. Dave Edmondson Assistant Vice Chancellor, Information Services Texas Christian University mis0001c@tcuavm.bitnet Readers Respond: Mechanisms to Create "Partnerships" Between Central IT Organization and Departments for Planning, Systems Developme nt, Training, and/or Support