Making Decisions With Shrinking Resources |-------------------------------------| | Paper presented at CAUSE92 | | December 1-4, 1992, Dallas, Texas | |-------------------------------------| MAKING DECISIONS WITH SHRINKING RESOURCES Geraldine MacDonald State University of New York at Binghamton Binghamton, New York ABSTRACT Information Service groups providing campus technology resources must operate with an understanding of the critical issues facing Universities in the current decade. Alignment of decisions regarding priorities in Information Services with key national issues such as academic excellence, curriculum reform, renewal of facilities, and rising library costs, is essential. This paper looks at the changing role of Information Services on university campuses and presents decision making strategies and alternative resource reduction plans. MAKING DECISIONS WITH SHRINKING RESOURCES I. Introduction It is likely that higher education will remember the 1980's as the beginning of the technology revolution on campus and the 1990's as a decade of rising costs and shrinking resources. For providers of technology services, on campus, the challenge for the 1990's is to make technology a part of the management solution, instead of a part of the budget problem. Recent reports have shown serious decreases in state support for higher education [1]. It is also clear that if any new funding arrives on campus it will not necessarily be reapplied to areas receiving budget cuts during the last two years. However, based on findings in a recent EDUCOM - University of Southern California's Center for Scholarly Technology survey[2] colleges and universities still expect to increase spending on technology. [1] ''1% Decline In State Support For Colleges Thought to Be First 2-Year Drop Ever," The Chronicle Of Higher Education, 21 October 1992, pp. A21, A26. [2] "36% of Colleges and Universities Plan to Increase Spending on Computing 31% Expect Declines," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 November 1992, pp. A17-A18. Strategic decisions about technology should be focused on the application requirements for the future. For example, in the year 2000 students will arrive in campus residence halls and "dock" their computers onto the campus network. The network will send welcoming messages to each student, review the courses they have been registered for, present reading lists and course syllabi, and review the status of any outstanding financial obligations that the student may have. Faculty will come into their offices and expect the network to download messages (which might include voice, video, text and fax). Results of large research applications running on the network would also be available as well as class homework assignments and graduate student application folders awaiting review. For campus administrators the network would provide easy access to financial information such as expenditures and investments. Deans and department chairs would have access to personnel budgets and supplies expenditures. Information services and technology resources must understand and be part of the broad issues facing universities in this decade. Knowing the above requirements, and understanding that limited resources are available, there are several key issues that can become opportunities for technology resources to grow while furthering the overall campus mission. A first priority is continued academic excellence. Universities will continue to be dependent on the quality of their faculty and students. Working against these principles are larger classes and fewer faculty. Maintaining a state-of-the-art technology environment is an obvious way to strengthen a campus's competitive edge when recruiting faculty and students. However, this process must be redefined in the l990's to include a plan for updating and replacing equipment on a regular basis with a move away from large one-time purchases which become obsolete quickly. Using technology to bring classes closer together can be fostered by creating electronic groups". At the State University of New York at Binghamton, electronic study groups (discussion groups using electronic mail) are formed automatically for faculty, upon request, for a course. The members of the study group are determined from the class registration database. A faculty member can communicate assignment and review material to the group. Students use the electronic study group to discuss class work and communicate with their peers. The technology removes the requirement of everyone being in the same place at the same time and does not require presence on campus to participate. Universities are continually moving forward to strengthen undergraduate education and concomitantly reform the curriculum. These efforts present opportunities to integrate resources such as multimedia tools, interactive classrooms and network accessible information. Increasing awareness of existing technology resources on campus and expanding availability to new sectors of the university community can provide support to the learning environment with little additional cost. II. Strategic Alliances All of the application requirements for the year 2000 mentioned above stress the underlying importance of a well-planned campus network. It is clear that current decision making should put high priority on providing network access to all members of the campus community. Completing the network is also the first in a series of eleven recommendations about technology resources recently sent to campus presidents in a report from the HEIRAlliance on the Integration of Information Technologies on Campus [3]. [3] HEIRAlliance, "What Presidents Need to Know... about the Integration of Information Technologies on Campus," HEIRAlliance Executive Strategies Report #1, CAUSE, September 1992, pp. 1-4. Although resources are limited, one way to launch new initiatives or complete existing projects is through strategic alliances with other campus service providers. An alliance with the Maintenance and Facilities department can support and fund the completion of the campus wiring plant while the Maintenance and Facilities department helps the campus address the issues of deferred maintenance and the required renewal of facilities. Working with Maintenance and Facilities can include planning for a new building with network access to all laboratories and department offices. In addition, classrooms can be prepared for students who carry small notebook computers by providing power and network access at all desks. Projection equipment, podiums for computer resources and multimedia tools can be designed into large and small classrooms. Any major remodeling job on campus can be enhanced with network access. Strategies can include low cost solutions that capitalize on existing copper wire in older structures as a transition point to eventual new network facilities. A second critical strategic alliance should be formed with the university library. In aggregate the library at the State University of New York at Binghamton is now the largest user of central computing facilities. Libraries are faced with serious increasing costs and fewer actual dollars of spending money. As libraries look to enhanced network services to strengthen the capabilities of interlibrary loan and other shared resources, the PACLink project now underway at three State University of New York campuses and eight Indiana campuses will link end users to multi-campus library resources. This software, when complete, will facilitate patron access to remote catalogs and will offset labor intensive back room operations in the library. Computing Services staff have worked with other areas in the library to provide new tools to reference librarians and to enhance network access for all library patrons [4]. The entire campus community benefits from excellent library services. [4] Geraldine MacDonald and Andy Perry, "Information Access Computing Services and Libraries: A Joint Offensive Team," Proceedings of the 1990 CAUSE National Conference, November 1990, PP- 395-402. Technology can be deployed on campus to avoid an increase in administrative support staff For example, several campus administrative offices are responsible for collecting money from students. These offices may handle cash, credit cards, or university credit cards but in all cases a record of payment must be entered into a computer system and a receipt must be printed. Computer software can be redesigned to give university administrators the option of combining these functions into common locations, under one management. New technologies, such as automatic teller machines (ATM) can be designed to handle financial obligations on the university network. Services like automated degree audit programs can accommodate frequently asked advising questions by providing reliable information to students. Advising staff can focus their attention to the more difficult, less commonly occurring academic situations. Output from degree audit programs will improve planning for academic departments. Information on the number of majors yet to complete various courses in the major sequence is a critical long-range planning tool for deans and department chairs. Along with this information, output from demand based registration systems helps university administrators to deploy scarce salary dollars to hire adjunct faculty when course demand warrants. m. Future Planning Strategies Campus budget cuts cannot easily hold an individual unit such as computing services harmless from resource reductions. Information resource providers already stretched to the limit are finding staff layoffs and hardware and software reductions difficult to absorb. Careful analysis of long term expenditures can provide valuable information to manage with reduced resources. Fig. 1 demonstrates the rising cost of computer software when compared to the overall computing budget at Binghamton. Selective cancellation of low use licenses, consolidation of duplicate licenses, aggressive pursuit of campus site licenses and vendor software consortiums can help to manage long term costs. Fig. 2 demonstrates that hardware maintenance costs are also rising at a rapid pace. Although the industry is moving away from large central systems the aggregate maintenance of many small machines is impacting long term costs. Selecting a few campus standards to be maintained by in house technicians helps to control costs for all campus units. Purchase costs of new equipment must include the costs of repairs and consider seriously the value of extended warranties in reducing the cost of ownership. Staff layoffs can be somewhat mitigated by using an industry model which discontinues subcontractors before terminating long term full-time employees. At universities part-time student employees can be viewed as subcontractors. Cutting back on student employees will require full-time programming staff to take on additional duties but will maintain-a core of trained personnel. Replacing student consultants in computer laboratories has both positive and negative results. On the negative side professional programmers are diverted from their regular tasks thus lengthening some project deadlines. On the positive side, professional programmers are exposed to the vast diversity of applications and users across the campus. This new knowledge has the potential to improve overall computing services as new techniques are applied to on-going programming projects. IV. Conclusion Managing with shrinking resources presents many challenges but should be viewed primarily as an "opportunity in adversity". Software and hardware reductions present an opportunity to eliminate the trailing edge. Reorganizing consulting services and staff responsibilities can result in better services to the entire university community. Fostering strategic alliances with other campus units can support new initiatives. [FIGURES MISSING--ANNUAL COMPUTING SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE COSTS]