Integrated Statewide Infrastructure of Learning Technologies Copyright CAUSE 1994. This paper was presented at the 1994 CAUSE Annual Conference held in Orlando, FL, November 29- December 2, and is part of the conference proceedings published by 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, that the CAUSE copyright notice and the title and authors of the publication and its date appear, and that notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To copy or disseminate otherwise, or to republish in any form, requires written permission from CAUSE. For further information: CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301; 303-449-4430; e-mail info@cause.colorado.edu INTEGRATED STATEWIDE INFRASTRUCTURE OF LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES Lee Alley, Ph.D. Associate Vice President for Learning and Information Technology University of Wisconsin System Administration The University of Wisconsin System includes all public higher education in the state, excluding local technical colleges. The UW System has about 120,000 students on 26 campuses. There are two doctoral degree granting institutions and ten comprehensive universities, each headed by a Chancellor. An additional institution, whose chief executive is also a Chancellor, is UWExtension. Finally, the UW-Centers is a single institution, also under a Chancellor, with 13 two-year academic campuses throughout the state. These Centers campuses feed into the other UW institutions. Foundation: Why are we doing this? Consider the case of Chris, a student of the University, and an employee of one of the state's leading firms. Her employer gives her one afternoon off each week to drive to the nearest campus of the university system, to take a course in Japanese language. Let's trace a recent afternoon at the campus for Chris. Each Wednesday afternoon she first attends the one hour lecture on Japanese. Afterward, she goes to the library to copy information needed for a student team project for the course. Then she stops by the language lab for an hour to use some special software packages that help practice Japanese reading and writing skills. From there she hurries to the Student Services Center for an appointment with an advisor who will help her go over her overall degree plan and progress toward graduation. Then it's off to the campus computer lab, to work on her part of the term paper for the student team project. As the last on-campus task of the day, she walks over to the student union to meet with her fellow students on the project team. From our "customer's" point of view, we have been in the distance education business all along, with students leaving family, work and home behind to go off to college in some distant place. But things are changing. Growing numbers of our citizens now expect, and need us to deliver a full- spectrum educational experience closer to home, job and family. This market demand, or at least anticipation of it, is spawning increasing numbers of ventures to sell education delivered over networks. But there is a difference between "education," "knowledge," and "information." Selling Internet access to databases and other recorded information can be just that, information. Use of live or recorded video of lectures might offer a higher level of information, along the lines of what we might call packaged knowledge. But what Chris is doing in her several separate visits to class lecture, library, student advising, laboratory, computer lab, and a meeting with fellow students, more closely resembles our traditional sense of a rich educational experience . That is all well and good, as far as it goes. It recognizes what we have all come to realize, that a university is an information system. But the traditional university campus is not an "integrated information system." As we look to the future, for both on-campus and off-campus, what we look for in our learning technologies is an integration of the diverse traditional elements of the university information system (libraries, computer labs, etc.). Better access to higher quality learning for all our students, both on and off campus. Our vision on how to accomplish that is: Integration of digital versions of the full spectrum of traditional instruments of education, delivered to the student's multimedia desktop computer. This includes concurrent multimedia access to: digital libraries; automated and simulated laboratories; online classroom instructional media; telecommunications for team work; high level interaction with professors; and student support services. But not all entrants into the higher education business share these objectives and visions. The historical national infrastructure of universities has been tied together by their cross-cutting academic disciplines, professional membership societies, and institutional consortia. This is now joined by an interstate commerce in higher education. Venture capital now hungrily stalks new markets for digital delivery of a wide definition of "information", including Hulk Hogan reruns on demand, home shopping, and "education sound bites" via pay-per-view. Meanwhile, American industry has finally discovered the commercial value of education as a method to leverage existing "human capital" in the work force. In the "information age" education will certainly not provide the basics of food, clothing, etc. However,it will provide an essential boost to an economic system which depends increasingly upon a more highly educated workforce. Industry does not often wait for the pace of innovation in Universities. They want it just in time, just in that place, and just that way. There appears to be an emerging trend toward large employers, especially high tech firms, going out and buying up universities. This "vertical integration" of education into the corporate structure will measure the true valuation industry places upon higher education. Both in terms of amount of value, and in what type of education is valued. Universities, especially public institutions, are not in the business of distributing information as a simple one time product. Our students are our customers, not just a product. Universities are not simply value-added resellers of high school graduates. Our "ace in the hole," our strong suit in dealing with those who would offer simply video taped "freeze-dried education," is that we are uniquely able to offer a fully rounded educational environment. An integrated educational environment that coordinates all facets of a systematic education: lectures; library and computing services; student services; lab access; etc. The components of this full-spectrum educational environment being developed by the University of Wisconsin System are described in the following section. These components are more "programmatic~ in the sense that they focus on end-user service applications. We will describe a number of projects for building the information technology infrastructure needed to support this systematic approach to education. In aggregate, about $20,000,000 is being spent on this coordinated program of upgrades to the information technology infrastructure. Building Blocks: What are the usage components being integrated? The primary end-user component applications that drive the information technology infrastructure are described below. These component applications are all considered essential parts of the overall educational environment, and therefore, strategic plans for any one application component are interdependent with the plans for all the other components. The spectrum of "educational environment applications" is made up of: 1. Classroom instructional technology and media 2. Library automation and access 3. Automated student support services 4. Automated and virtual laboratories 5. Distance education 6. Business support services An important factor in all these application areas is Systemwide sharing and coordination. The key to such a statewide collaboration is the availability of inter-campus networking facilities. At present these facilities vary by application, with some provided over the Internet, and others via dialup or leased telephone lines. The University System Administration, and the individual institutions, have invested substantially in a number of inter-campus networking arrangements. These include: WiscNet, the state's primary Internet service; WisLine, a permanent-line audio conferencing system used extensively for business meetings and instructional support; WisView, a sophisticated audiographics system for instruction; a number of emerging regional video conferencing systems; and statewide coordinated public TV and public radio educational programming. At the (last mile) campus level, the UW System is completing two major projects to place a fiber backbone network on each campus. These interconnect campus buildings. In addition, the UW System is in the process of major upgrades to intra-building wiring in the highest priority buildings. A Systemwide wiring standard has been developed to provide for the uniformity and minimum performance of these wiring projects. Classroom instructional technology and media includes the electronic systems used directly in, or in direct support of, classrooms. This includes items such as networked classroom computers, display equipment, connections to the campus network, instructor podium system, as well as the pre- developed digital courseware that "runs on" those systems. This courseware includes both software and stored information or instructional modules. At the core of the overall strategy, UW System has been fortunate to establish an important ongoing funding stream of about $5 million per year for classroom modernization. Most of these modernization projects involve substantial upgrade of the classroom instructional technology and media. All the chief librarians of the UW System institutions, and the UW System Administration's Office of Learning and Information Technology work in close collaboration. The UW System succeeded in obtaining a major legislative appropriation for a Systemwide upgrade of the institutions' library automation systems. As part of this project, the librarians have committed to working closely together toward using the same library automation system (NOTIS). The UW System libraries have begun implementing a shared, distributed library for all students and faculty at all the campuses to have equal access to. In addition, this has allowed coordinated selectivity of individual institutions to decide which subscribed digital holdings (such as periodicals indexes) to mount locally, which to leave to another campus to mount, and which to access from commercial providers and peer institutions in other states. The UW Office of Learning and Information Technology has recently arranged for several campuses to proceed with a pilot project for statewide full-text/full-image document retrieval. This project will examine usage behaviors, service quality and user satisfaction, network capacity requirements, costs, etc. The UW System takes extraordinary pride in reflecting the culture of the state in providing the highest quality support services to its students. An important aspect of the UW System has been a concern for the needs of students transferring between institutions within the UW System. For this reason, the UW System has established a uniform Systemwide Transfer Information System. A host Gopher machine has been placed at each UW institution, and standardized Gopher-based reference information is being established at each site for students to access remotely. At the end of Phase I, the TIS provides simple transferability and equivalence cross references between UW institutions. Subsequent phases will bring added user-customized intelligence to the system. A companion to the Transfer Information System includes the Degree Audit System being installed at a number of institutions. This helps students evaluate their progress toward degree at their home institution, in addition to how they would fare if transferring to another UW institution. The UW System has recently given formal commitment to standardizing on the SPEEDE national standard for electronic student transcripts and associated inter-campus processing transactions. This will help Wisconsin citizens with inter- campus transfers between UW institutions, as well as aiding in the students' holistic educational experience, by inter- connecting the student records at K-12 and technical college campuses. An important basis for these consistent UW Systemwide student support services is the ongoing program for stewardship of "common systems." A common systems committee was established recently, to help identify and recommend those learning and information technology systems which should be established for uniform Systemwide usage. More and more of the laboratory experiences of students is computer based. This lends itself to increased use of "virtual electronic laboratories" for some student instruction. As these labs become more automated, or simulated, it becomes more and more realistic to provide student access from off campus, from other campuses, and Systemwide. There is often a blurred boundary separating "instructional classroom system" from "virtual electronic laboratory systems." Some examples of these remotely accessible electronic laboratory experiences include: physiology of the ear and computer simulation of hearing losses; on-screen dissection of laboratory animals, with real time feedback on technique and student observations; experiments in musical composition; and language practice and style analysis. However, while there is considerable progress being made in isolated, anecdotal cases of remotely accessible automated laboratory systems, there has not yet matured a critical mass of these systems to constitute a major percentage of such laboratory experiences required for the typical undergraduate. This is an area we are watching closely, and expect to see much progress in the future. While the advent of low cost live interactive video does offer some prospect of added remote access to (especially hostile environments) lab practices, the availability of truly unmediated remote access to automated lab experiences is still quite far off in many areas. Meanwhile, we will continue to pursue those areas of progress as they come into existence. As in most other states, Wisconsin's leaders in government, business, and higher education have begun to expect significant improvements to equal access to education "any time, any place, in any form." However, it is likely that no state has a deeper, longer term tradition of commitment to support of the individual citizen. Wisconsin had the first public radio station. The first Public Service Commission in the nation was established in Wisconsin, reflecting the state's commitment to the social agenda of making public services equally available to each citizen. Few statewide multi-campus university systems have a separate institution, headed by a chancellor, dedicated to extension and statewide outreach. This attitude of statewide equal service to all is reflected in "the Wisconsin Idea." This ideal holds that "the only boundaries of the University are the boundaries of the state." As such, the recent advances in telecommunications technology engineering, costs, regulation, and public expectation have found an extraordinarily fertile ground in Wisconsin. The primary budget initiative for the UW System in the current legislative appropriation cycle was for distance education, with aggregate funding requests totaling about $30 million. This initiative includes new building facilities, electronic systems for distance education, faculty support staff, course redevelopment funds, and funds for faculty development. Meanwhile, a number of distance education telecommunications facility development efforts have already been organized and underway. Several UW institutions have joined or helped form regional distance education consortia with nearby K-12 and technical college campuses. The UW- Extension organization has reallocated a major portion of ongoing funding to help establish a Systemwide distance education "common ground" network. Finally, the UW System has begun to consolidate a number of the most consistent and uniform "backroom" administrative systems operations. The University of Wisconsin Processing Center was established recently, to provide Systemwide payroll, accounting, personnel and other automated services. This UWPC is governed by a board consisting of institutional business officers and also the UW System Office of Learning and Information Technology. It is expected that additional administrative operations which are done at the UW System Administration will be migrated to this consolidated processing center. The Players: Who is doinq this, and how? How does all this tie together? First and foremost, we must recognize that the student's view of the university is one of the few which spans the holistic collection of our various components. While we staff and faculty inside the structure tend to see the institution in limited slices, fragmented by the organizational hierarchy, the student comes into direct contact with every major component of the university. Therefore, one of the best ways to integrate the whole of our various information technology activities is to see the university through the eyes of our students ("customers") However, besides this conceptual discipline, a more concrete forum is needed for stewardship of the whole of information technology. The UW Learning and Information Technology Executive Council was recently established. This LITEC's role is three fold: Systemwide plans, policies, and standards for information technology. LITEC was carefully designed to be program-driven, with cognizance of technological considerations. Therefore, LITEC membership includes users of information technology, in student services areas, business services, and libraries, as well as chief academic officers. In addition, membership includes information technology experts in computing, educational media, distance education, and library automation. Because of the close cooperation with other state agencies related to K- 12, technical colleges, etc., those non-UW agencies are represented as well. The nature of things in Wisconsin is such that the University acts in closer collaboration with peer state agencies than in most states. In addition, the telecom providers have taken a very proactive role in the state. Wisconsin's Education Communications Board is charged with coordinating statewide telecommunications for all public education. Although the ECB's prime early mission focused on public broadcasting, recent expansion of the role of "telecommunications" in our public affairs has brought the ECB into even greater prominence. In Wisconsin, the Department of Administration plays a very central role in procurement, contracting and aggregation of statewide telecommunications arrangements for education and other state agencies. The UW System is cooperating with the Department of Administration on a statewide project to redesign and recontract for most of the telecommunications in the state from roughly 1997 through 2005. This "Bignet" project is expected to consolidate a number of previously separate network arrangements, for which their respective technologies have begun to converge. This major statewide networking initiative is expected to involve about $150,000 over a five year period. Wisconsin is served by about 150 telecommunications companies. Of these, Ameritech provides roughly 87% of the phone lines in the state, in 17% of the state's land area. GTE is second largest provider. The Wisconsin Independent Telecommunications Systems is an alliance of these numerous providers. Both WITS and Ameritech have begun to play a substantial role in the state, by virtue of a number of very progressive partnership initiatives, as well as in their interactions with State government in redrafting telecommunications regulations.