Campus Profile: University of Central Queensland Copyright 1994 CAUSE. From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 17, Number 1, Spring 1994. 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 resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact Julia Rudy at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: jrudy@CAUSE.colorado.edu Campus Computing Environment UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL QUEENSLAND Founded in 1967, the University of Central Queensland, Australia, is a multicampus comprehensive public university with an enrollment of more than 9,000 full-time, part-time, and distance education students, served by nearly 1,000 academic, administrative, and support staff. With its main campus in Rockhampton and four other campuses at Mackay, Gladstone, Bundaberg, and Emerald, UCQ is an integrated regional university comprising six faculties--Applied Science, Arts, Business, Education, Engineering, and Health Science--each operating across several campuses. Importance of information technology at UCQ According to University Vice-Chancellor Geoffrey Wilson, "The Integrated Regional University concept that underpins the University of Central Queensland and its role as a major provider of distance education in Australia places special demands on the information technology services of the institution. Information technology is the means by which the University attempts to provide equity of access to University resources and services--for example, library, specialist lecturing--across its five campuses." UCQ has defined information technology as "any form of technology used by people to handle information." In recognition of the importance of IT to fulfilling the institutional mission, a committee was established--chaired by the vice-chancellor and made up of the pro-vice- chancellors, deans, division heads, regional campus representatives, and others--to provide advice on overall plans for long-term, coordinated development, implementation, and use of information technology at UCQ. Because of its non-metropolitan location and its mission of serving the distinctive needs of a diverse regional population, the University is developing a "unique role and mode of operation," according to its latest strategic plan.[1] That plan, which covers the period 1993- 1997, addresses four broad program areas--teaching, research, community service, and academic support and administration--and details important strategies for improvements in the institution's performance in each of these areas. Information technology is key to a number of those strategies, for example: * To improve UCQ's capacity to operate effectively as a multicampus institution, the plan calls for installation of videoconferencing facilities on all campuses and full connection of all campuses to the University computing network (UCQnet). * To provide higher education access and opportunity for diverse community groups as well as expand the University's international programs, the plan calls for achieving excellence in distance education. One of eleven key priorities identified in the plan focuses specifically on improving the application of information technology to support the University's programs, including goals to: * continue development of campus-wide and wider area information services; * improve IT in support of library services through development of an integrated technology based on improved access for users, especially students; and * improve administrative systems through full participation in a special inter-university project (CASMAC, see below), implementing a new personnel system, and implementing a computerized central records system, networked for secure access to appropriate users throughout the five campuses of the University. Part of UCQ's plan to improve physical facilities in relation to information technology has resulted in construction on the Rockhampton campus of a Distance Education Centre building and a designated Information Technology building. The latter provides office space for academic, technical, and administrative staff directly involved in information technology. These staff are drawn primarily from the University's Information Technology Division and the Mathematics and Computing Department. The building also houses seven seminar rooms, three computer laboratories, and six workshops. IT planning and organization Presently, the IT division reports to the pro-vice- chancellor (academic), as does the Division of Distance and Continuing Education. A close working relationship exists between these divisions and the Division of Library, Information and Media Services, which reports to the pro- vice-chancellor (research). Library/IT collaboration is also facilitated by the academic pro-vice-chancellor's membership on the library division's advisory committee. The IT division includes responsibility for academic computing, administrative computing/information systems, telecommunications (including videoconferencing), networking, data administration, and computing services for the library. The IT division comprises three major sections. Systems and Network Services is responsible for the design, cabling, maintenance, and troubleshooting of UCQnet, as well as external network connections; installation and configuration of network equipment and software; and systems management/programming for the VMS and Ultrix operating systems that the division supports for academic computing. User Services provides training in the basic use of computers and software applications as well as support for hardware and software problems and acquisitions. Executive and Administrative Systems develops and maintains University-wide administrative and executive information systems, as well as systems management of the Hewlett-Packard computers upon which those systems operate. Last year, a full internal review of IT within the University was initiated by a special committee convened for this purpose. According to Ian Jenkins, director of the IT division, "Fundamental to the review was the difficult task of trying to identify what the University should regard as core IT functions and what functions might more appropriately be performed by the faculties and divisions." While the review is still under way, one of the initial findings has been identification of the need to establish a central body to coordinate and expand the information technology contributions to on-campus classroom teaching. Networking and videoconferencing All buildings on each campus of UCQ are linked with fiber-optic cable in a distributed star topology running Ethernet, while the regional campuses are connected to Rockhampton via ISDN primary rate access links. This configuration provides ISDN telephony capability at all sites, the capacity to run compressed video from each site, and management control and reporting from a single site (Rockhampton). The fiber-optic backbone network, called UCQnet, is connected to the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet), providing University users electronic access to the Internet. Recently, the University completed its plan to establish videoconferencing links among four UCQ campuses. The video connection has been used to expand the pool of expertise available to UCQ students, as well as to streamline University administration. For example, last summer the vice-chancellor used the facility to address members of the Bundaberg Campus Advisory Committee, saving him a trip that would have taken more than a day. The campus advisory committees, which are sub-committees of the governing council of the University, now routinely use videoconferencing facilities to involve regional campus staff in committee work. The videoconferencing facility is also used for tutorials so that staff at the main Rockhampton campus can provide "face-to-face" tutorial contact for their students at the regional campuses. Similarly, staff with specialist expertise on the regional campuses use the facility to provide tutorials to students on the main campus or at the other regional campuses. The University also recognizes the potential of the video network to be put to effective use by the private sector in the region who face the same problems experienced by the University in servicing a widely dispersed population and who have consequently been quick to appreciate the possibilities presented by the new technology. Administrative systems The IT division recently finalized the implementation of new Oracle-based finance and human resources management systems which were mounted on the HP9000 UNIX box. Other legacy systems are IMAGE-based and run on the HP3000. A major activity in the coming year will be the implementation of a student records system that will be acquired through a special project, resulting from cooperation among major Australian universities. The project, known as the Core Australian Specification for Management and Administrative Computing systems (CASMAC), comes under the auspices of the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee. Its purpose is to develop a standard suite of integrated computer applications for the core areas of university management and administration, including six areas: finance, human resources, physical resources, student records, executive information systems, and research and consultancy. Two software "families" were selected for the development of the CASMAC systems, namely Oracle and Powerhouse. UCQ opted together with nineteen other institutions to join the latter. Development of the systems, which is currently under way, was contracted by this "UniPower" group to Coulson, Heron and Associates, a British company with a branch in Sydney. In addition to the CASMAC student records system, UCQ plans to implement the physical resources system and the research and consultancy system as they are developed, and to review the potential for implementing the other CASMAC systems on an ongoing basis. Distance education UCQ has been designated a national Distance Education Centre and as such has a major program of distance education designed to provide access to the University's courses to students throughout Australia and abroad. The program also meets the needs of students in Central Queensland who, because of work commitments or distance, are unable to attend any of the University's five campuses. Nearly half of its 9,000 students study in this mode. Thus, key goals of the UCQ's Division of Distance and Continuing Education (DDCE) are to encourage appropriate use of new communications and computer technologies as educational delivery media and to develop applications of these technologies and multimedia for open and distance learning. Although DDCE is responsible primarily for the delivery of distance education courses, a new area--the Instructional Technology Unit--has been established within DDCE with a broader charge, i.e., the overall responsibility of enhancing the instructional capabilities of all materials used for teaching within the University. The unit has been designed to help all of the faculties make maximum use of information technologies, with focuses on three areas: computer-aided learning, computer simulation, and expansion of commercial uses for ensuing discoveries. Library technology According to UCQ's strategic plan, a major aim of the Division of Library, Information and Media Services is to "support research, teaching, and other activities of the University by making available relevant and accurate data in all forms as quickly and efficiently as possible." Strategies include developing fast, efficient information services that provide access to information within and outside the library, and making the best possible use of recent technology developments to increase efficiency and effectiveness. The library's online catalog is accessible using computer terminals located throughout the library as well as Macintoshes and PCs connected to the network via Ethernet cards. The library has implemented the most recent standard global VTLS library software, greatly improving the efficiency of library service to customers. It provides electronic library services to remote students such as e- mail communications and dial-up access to the library catalog. A three-year development plan takes account of the transition from dependency on paper-based collections to increasing electronic access to sources of information, and from an emphasis on locally held materials to an emphasis on access to world-wide information for research purposes, as well as access to a wide range of library services by off- campus staff and students. According to division director Judith Edwards, during this period of transition the library will give less emphasis to expansion of the paper-based library collection, will increase the access to and availability of material in electronic form, will provide equity of access to staff and students regardless of location, and will educate users to develop information literacy skills and become independent information users. The library's IT plan provides for the introduction of scholarly workstations within the library with similar electronic access for remote students and regional campuses. Plans also include access for remote students to CD-ROM databases, delivery of documents by fax, and scanning of documents to student e-mail boxes. Infoserve, an information service offered by the library to business, industry, and government departments in Central Queensland, includes the supply of statistical information, online database searching, document delivery, patent searching, and current awareness services through information specialists. The University of Central Queensland lies at the center of the most rapidly developing industrial region of Australia. The institution is faced with the dual problem of meeting the local educational research needs generated by these industrial developments and maintaining its profile as a leading provider of distance education. Ian Goulter, academic pro-vice-chancellor, believes IT is a critical feature of meeting these challenges: "The continued success of the University in providing quality educational programs both in traditional classroom settings at its five campuses or through open distance learning is inextricably linked to the use of the latest developments in information technology." ======================================================================== Footnote: 1 University of Central Queensland Strategic Plan 1993-97 is available to CAUSE members from the Exchange Library (CSD0877, 30 pages, $6.00). Send e-mail to orders@cause.colorado.edu or phone 303-939-0310. ======================================================================== This article is based primarily on electronic mail communication between editor Julia Rudy and Ian Jenkins at UCQ. The Campus Computing Environment department of CAUSE/EFFECT regularly focuses on the computing and information technology environment of a CAUSE member institution, to promote a better understanding of how the information technologies are organized, managed, and used in colleges and universities of various sizes and types. ************************************************************************ 03/30/94 (meh)