CSU/Los Angeles: What Presidents Should Know About Integration of Information Technologies on Campus Background paper for HEIRAlliance Executive Strategies Report #1 "WHAT PRESIDENTS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE INTEGRATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES ON CAMPUS" Prepared by representatives of CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY/LOS ANGELES James M. Rosser President JoAn Kunselman University Librarian James I. Penrod Vice President, Information Resources Management _________________________________________________ Copyright 1992 by HEIRA. The Executive Strategies reports are published by the Higher Education Information Resources Alliance (HEIRAlliance), based on background papers prepared by teams of contributing editors from institutions of higher education. This material may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credit to the HEIRAlliance, which is a vehicle for cooperative projects between the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, and EDUCOM. _________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION In a 1989 keynote address aimed at chief executive officers for higher education, Richard L. Nolan stated that for organizations to be viable, productive, and competitive in the information economy of the 1990s and beyond, they must undergo a basic "transformation." He also asserted that: "All of you have heard the word, but you just don't get it!"[1] In February 1992, the President of Princeton University listed some perplexing symptoms of the higher education environment of this decade and set forth a number of questions regarding the future of universities, especially research universities. Dr. Shapario observed that ". . . we seem to find ourselves at a moment when the level of concern within universities is high and the public's faith in our activities somewhat lower than usual . . . whatever the reason, there seems to be a growing consensus that America's research universities are entering a period of transition."[2] The cover story of Time Magazine, April 13, 1992, led with the statement, "By the year 2000, American colleges and universities will be lean and mean, service oriented and science minded, multicultural, and increasingly diverse -- if they intend to survive their fiscal agony."[3] These comments are illustrative of what college and university presidents are hearing from many sources these days, and they provide an excellent background for a brief discussion on what presidents should know about the integration of information technologies on campus. --- Trends: The themes in the quotations above are supported by several trends in higher education: (1) Growing consumer expectations demand more sophisticated services requiring greater access to data through technology. (2) Increased telecommunications versatility provides growing support to a spectrum of activities. (3) Knowledge has become a key factor of production along with capital, people, and technology. (4) Evolving organizational structures will significantly modify or replace traditional hierarchical structures. (5) Growing numbers of sophisticated knowledge workers require expanded technical and consulting support. (6) Growing decentralized capabilities provide enhanced network and computing power to departments and individuals. (7) Advances in computing and communications are leading to a more permeable boundary between technology customers/clients and campus technology resource units. (8) The convergence of computing, telecommunications, and office automation leads to these technologies being viewed and managed as a totality. (9) The establishment of a National Research and Education Network (NREN) will make universal networking available. (10) Traditional funding resources are flat or decreasing for increasing numbers of higher education institutions. Finally, (11) public expectations and state mandates continue to grow regarding reporting requirements and accountability.[4] --- Typical Responses: Many, if not most, colleges and universities either already have or are in the process of investing in voice, data, and image networks, institutional information systems, personal computers and workstations for students, faculty, and staff -- including developing a strategic plan for information technology. They are initiating stringent budget cutting and cost-containment endeavors, especially in administrative areas, resulting in, among other things, the reduction of nonacademic staff after decades of response to institutional growth and externally mandated requirements. New paradigms such as total quality management (TQM) or continuous improvement, enrollment management, and strategic planning are being advanced. Organizations are moving toward a decentralized management perspective with the idea of empowering individuals through the organizational hierarchy, especially downward. Campuses also are focusing on the development of partnerships within the institution, with other institutions, and with government, business and community entities.[5] Given these activities it would seem that the "transition" referred to by President Shapario would be closely akin to the "transformation" described by Nolan; and, as we look toward the remainder of this decade, we could safely say that higher education leadership has finally, "got it," and that we will survive the "fiscal agony" spoken of in Time. This supposition, however, takes us to the basis of the topic of this paper. THE NECESSITY FOR INTEGRATION As meritorious as the typical responses might be alone -- and few would argue with their necessity -- they may not be sufficient to address the magnitude of the challenges before us. It is possible to move forward on all of the listed fronts without senior leadership seriously confronting the needed synthesis and the synergism, expected and unexpected, catalyzed by information technologies (IT) -- and these authors propose that, indeed, that is exactly what is occurring in many instances. To understand the importance of IT synthesis and synergism, one must recognize that in Nolan's transformation there are two fundamental principles at work. First, an underlying technology drives the transition -- in this case the technologies of computing and communications. Secondly, productivity gains require both incorporating the new technology and changing the organization structure.[6] Michael Hammer calls the application of these principles "reengineering" and defines it as, "the radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic performance improvements."[7] Gulden and Reck contrast TQM or continuous improvement and reengineering. TQM involves the institution of quality control measures to reduce production or service variability and remove defects or errors. It requires incremental and continual change to address customer/client needs. It involves information technology incidentally and only requires senior leadership involvement up front. Reengineering, on the other hand, challenges the fundamental assumptions governing the design of all work processes. Such processes may no longer be valid because IT alters the equation in significant ways. IT is a cornerstone of the redesign process. Periodic change by an order of magnitude is sought. Senior leadership involvement is focused on select but broad business processes and is intensive throughout.[8] --- Policy Issues: These concepts point to a need for policy development regarding certain issues. (1) IT planning needs to be integrated fully into an institution-wide strategic planning and management process, thereby ensuring that it is fueled/governed by institutional issues not technology issues. (2) Senior leadership needs to be involved continuously in selecting and supporting the redesign of administrative processes which incorporate integrated information technologies and has broad institutional impacts. (3) Functional management and IT management that support applications at all levels of the organization must be integrated. Finally, (4) senior leadership needs to search continually for organizational restructuring opportunities which can be accomplished through reengineering. It is important to note that TQM and reengineering are complementary processes, not competitive -- both are greatly needed, especially in this time of increased expectations and scarce resources. Continuous improvement and periodic breakthroughs are necessary if this nation is to retain the best system of higher education in the world. --- Infrastructure Issues: If IT is regarded as the driving force or enabling catalyst for transformation, synthesis and synergism must be viewed differently in building the IT infrastructure for the campus. The new infrastructure needs to be viewed as a virtual system consisting of voice, data, and image networks connecting processors of varying power, data and information repositories, and desktop devices. The individual is the center of this information universe with the ability to configure and/or reconfigure the system needed to be productive in generating or creating the desired outcomes. Such an environment needs standards, coordination and cooperation well beyond that which exists today. Joint decision- making, teamwork, and conflict-resolution skills will be absolutely necessary. The individual needs the capacity to operate within an organization-wide context, and, thus, to be able to address separate unit objectives without parochial biases. Such an environment both requires and supports continuous education, learning, and creativity. Successful enterprises in the information/service economy will be learning institutions where individuals apply what they have been taught, learn from the process, and reapply their learning and creativity to improve service levels and further institutional goals and objectives. --- Potential Impacts of Synthesis and Synergism: The new IT infrastructure can support decentralization and the empowerment of units and individuals without loss of control of the direction of the enterprise. Through reengineering, the virtual system network can provide executives with personalized summary information and the ability to derive more detailed ad hoc data if desired. It also can provide front line knowledge workers with online, real time access to information needed to address immediate concerns and resolve problems encountered by end users. Such a network has the potential to eliminate redundancy, reduce many paper driven processes fraught with error prone procedures and time lags, and to open new avenues of communications. Realizing the potentials of administrative process redesign will require commitment from leadership, organizational restructuring, adjustments in the culture of the institution, and ongoing persistence and dedication. Reengineering will not be easy, but continuing efforts can provide colleges and universities with the improved capability to meet the rigorous demands of the 21st century. CAMPUS EXAMPLES At Cal State Los Angeles a variety of committees, advisory groups, and task forces have been established to bring together a coalition of academics, administrative support personnel, and technology professionals to assure the coordination and cooperation required for the successful operation of a sophisticated institutional network. The intent of this process of discussion and interchange is to inspire a continuing evolution in institutional culture so that personal initiatives link with institutional responsibilities. Awareness is enriched by multi-directional communication. Thus, communication proceeds concurrently from the top down, laterally, and from the bottom up. Without this multidirectional communication, both the quality of the information and the likelihood of teamwork and consensus building will be inhibited. In this concept of evolution the value of involvement is encouraged and fosters a sense of community and consensus. Accordingly, as the electronic infrastructure is developed, an accompanying interwoven human support structure emerges. --- Campus Infrastructure: Like many other college and university campuses, Cal State L.A. is now well on the way to installing an IT infrastructure which incorporates several of the basic elements. A campuswide communications network capable of transmitting voice, data, and image traffic with bridges to internal local area networks (LANs) and to regional, national, and international external networks is the backbone. It is based upon an applications architecture that integrates the diverse information systems of the campus and allows for enhanced functionality of future systems. Repositories contain discipline-oriented databases of data, text, and (soon) images organized relationally to facilitate access and manipulation by knowledge workers. The hardware architecture permits access to intelligent workstations, network servers, minicomputers, the campus mainframe, a minisupercomputer, and other specialized devices. Finally, internal management systems allow for effective management of the utility and network, i.e., change and problem management, performance and capacity management, processing and recovery management, security and control management, communications management, and database management.[9] --- Scholar's Workstation Task Force: The Scholar's Workstation Task Force has been formed to address the continuing change in the technology environment and the options available for electronic resources, and to recommend an ongoing process for the Cal State L.A. community to review options and recommend a path for the campus. The process includes examination and determination of what the campus can mount, or support directly, on the campus information system called the "Scholar's Workstation Environment," and what must be available as a reference for the knowledge worker to access through broader networks or other channels. The Task Force was established and has met regularly since early 1991 to review possibilities and to provide suggestions on the direction and character of future information technology-based academic resources at Cal State L.A. This includes both the technology -- the physical characteristics and capabilities of the workstation -- and the content -- the information the workstation can access. The Task Force includes members of the Library faculty, instructional faculty, and Academic Technology Support. This has been supplemented by a systematic search for other suggestions, including a survey of all Cal State L.A. faculty to query every discipline about its current and imagined future needs. The Task Force will recommend a strategy for the campus to review systematically available electronic information opportunities or packages and to determine which of these will be supported and/or referred to in the scholar's workstation environment. A position paper will be developed for University-wide review addressing the process for maximizing the power of funds expended to ensure that all resources are available to the widest audience possible. In consideration of the nature of the hardware, networks, and ease of use, this requires careful integration of departmental and school information technology planning and expenditures with the evolution of the University-wide campus information system. The resulting process will accommodate continual changes in the environment for both technology and content. --- Strategic Planning Process: To foster awareness, consensus, and coordinated operation, part of the basic support structure includes a strategic planning and management process.[10] Operational units on campus are asked to prepare annual unit plans indicating their goals for a three- to five-year timeframe, and objectives to support each goal for the next budget year. These unit plans feed into the tactical plans at the vice presidential level which establish broad institutional parameters and result in coordinated goals and objectives for the entire campus. The budget is linked to the tactical objectives which support institutional goals and previously determined priorities; the plans are then sent as recommendations for presidential review and approval. --- Library Movement toward Electronic Media: Increasingly more journals, U.S. government publications, and other scholarly communications are available only electronically.[11] Without campus integration of information technologies, students, faculty, and staff will not have timely and cost-effective access to this necessary information. The Library at Cal State L.A. has long had interest in becoming a full partner in the emerging campus information resources infrastructure. The questions have been how much, how fast, at what cost, and toward what mix? These will be addressed through the campus strategic planning process. U.S. libraries have steadily moved to electronic media as it became available and were among the first major institutions to promote and implement standards for very large databases.[12] This impetus continues in the Cal State L.A. Library as it accesses, utilizes, and contributes to one of the major international automated networked utilities, the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) emanating from Ohio. In line with this and to realize its academic mission, the Cal State L.A. Library emphasizes the use of IT resources in all its services and operations, including reference, interlibrary loan, cataloging, circulation, acquisitions, and administration. In addition to supporting administrative functions, IT is an enabling force necessary to sustain daily the basic operations of the Library in support of instructional, research, scholarly, creative and service endeavors of the University community. The Library's commitment to electronic resources is contained in its annually revised unit plan. This includes the goal of providing leadership in integrating electronic information resources into the academic life of the campus by integrating emerging information technologies to optimize delivery of Library and academic information services, mounting electronic library-instruction classrooms, and preparing and presenting instruction guides and sessions. In line with this, the Library has submitted a proposal for a credit course which emphasizes instruction in electronic information resources. --- Resource Sharing: The campus administration encourages the Library to continue its efforts in resource sharing, including its participation in multi-type library cooperatives locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. The CSU system has in place various means for sharing resources among the twenty campuses and has several initiatives in progress. Initiatives have included interlibrary lending and borrowing, library network referrals, cooperative collection analyses, and sharing of datafiles and other electronic information resources and related costs. This resource sharing maximizes purchasing power and resources available to the scholar or student. Considerable work remains, however, in the development of a comprehensive state knowledge/information network that could link with other such entities -- state, regional, national and international. Current and present resource availability projections are intensifying attention on these efforts. REGIONAL AND NATIONAL ISSUES --- The "Virtual" Library: In most visions of the society of the future, integrated information technologies are absolutely essential for the well-being of that society. In most visions of the library of the future, electronic information resources are absolutely essential and are accessible anywhere hardware, software, and telecommunications connections are available virtually everywhere. In such visions, librarians are involved in the design of databases, in the design of user interfaces, in the selection of content, and in instruction. OCLC has utilized librarians in this way to assist in designing various aspects of their online services, including the fairly recent subject-search capability of its massive 26-million item catalog database and its recent online medical journal. In the instruction area, librarians will assist faculty, students and other users in navigating the pathway and content of electronic information, as in the preparation of a recent guidebook for accessing the approximately 1,000 library catalogs available on Internet.[13] A major impact on integrating IT in the future will be legislation, such as the High Performance Computing Act that authorized the National Research and Education Network (NREN), which will offer high-speed access for hundreds of libraries, research facilities, and educational institutions. This legislation should speed the development of the "virtual" library. --- Lifelong Learning: Lifelong learning has always been a goal of education, and will be enhanced in convenience and practicality through the use of IT. Through careful planning, implementation and use of IT, learning and earning a college degree or upgrading skills in a rapidly changing information/service economy can be enhanced without being constrained by traditional notions of how to deliver instruction effectively. Educational television and radio have long promoted distance lifelong learning. With the NREN carrying digital data to remote sites, another more powerful medium capable of providing integrated multimedia will be widely available. Educational, governmental and business organizations already are incorporating these options into their curricula, programs and activities. Moreover, major planning is taking place within the CSU to promote further development of this approach to educational delivery. --- Personalized and Human Designs: The personalization of resources is a traditional goal of education. As J. Robert Oppenheimer stated in 1954, "The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of [persons] for its furtherance these are what may make a vast, complex, ever-growing, ever-changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world nevertheless a world of human community."14 To contribute to "a world of human community," it is critical that a continual goal be the personalization of use of electronic resources. Clearly, the diversity of learning modes and other factors critical to providing a quality education must continually be borne in mind. Another level of personalization is on-demand publication, electronic publication, or personalized publication as alternative formats to journal publication. One approach suggests that each subscriber might receive only the sections of the electronic publication that are of interest. Personalization is a valued and essential, yet often illusory, element of our educational tradition and can be addressed and enhanced through the sensitive integration of IT. --- Public Policy Issues and Values: The question is asked of this exploding world of information technology whether the values context has kept pace with technological developments. In fact, the traditional value of empowering the individual through knowledge and, especially, of providing a systematic method for learning which can continue through the individual's lifetime can be strongly supported by IT. Other traditional values need further review. The concern of losing personalized consultation and feedback in the educational process must be carefully addressed. The concern that the new technology appears richer -- both in its capabilities and in its cost in terms of access for the general population -- must be carefully addressed. Our society asks that ethical questions relating to access, availability, integrity of information, copyright, and cost not be left in the hands of the technologists but be an open forum on public policy necessary for effective, efficient and responsible use of IT. For this open discussion to take place and for appropriate public policy to be developed, national leaders in all affected sectors must be involved and they must understand the issues of synthesis and synergism. Another thrust which must be supported is the sharing of resources as libraries, scholars, information seekers, and deliverers find ways to distribute resources more effectively. Copyright regulations must include options for delivery of electronic information directly from the author to the user. Further, revisions in copyright laws are necessary if access to electronic information is not to be restricted by license or contract to a limited number of people who have access to an internal campus electronic network. As stated by Duane Webster, Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries, "There is the very real potential that the principles that are at the heart of our society and the academic enterprise will be overcome by economic interests."[15] These are some of the issues that will be reviewed on the Cal State L.A. campus as we seek to make widely available and integrate the diverse information formats for our faculty, students, and other knowledge workers. We recognize that without the integration of IT, our faculty, students, and staff will be severely disadvantaged, in fact, "information impaired." CONCLUDING OBSERVATION The integration of information technology on campus is a significant issue to those responsible for leadership and management. The following checklist highlights some of the points the leadership and management of institutions of higher education should consider: * The bureaucratic model designed to serve an industrial economy must give way to a newer network model of the information/service economy. Many changes are needed to bring this about, but it cannot occur without the integration of information technologies in the network infrastructure. * The network model calls for more decentralization, the empowerment of individuals, and front-line on-the-spot decision making. Control- oriented management can no longer work, but, in the information-based organization, control is built into processes. The integration of IT makes this possible. * Non-integrated databases promote redundancy and overhead that can no longer be cost justified. The ranks of mid-managers are being significantly reduced due to severe budget constraints. The integration of IT enables both of the preceding to be addressed with improved service levels as an end result. * Customer/client expectations will increasingly demand such services as front-end, touch-tone registration and grades check, electronic-data- interchange applications such as transcripts, online advising support and graduation checks, and online real-time access to "virtual" libraries. The integration of IT is essential to such services. * The complexity of a college or university campus often requires cross-functional analysis for good decisions to be made. More and more knowledge workers who are not executives are being required to make such decisions in the course of everyday routines. The integration of IT and enhanced access to data, text, and images greatly facilitate such decision making. * The integration of IT in support of institutional goals is seldom a simple straightforward matter. Careful professional systems analysis must be an integral part of decision making and implementation. The convergence of information technologies into integrated systems offers higher education great leverage in how we manage as we face the economically and socially challenging realities of the 21st century. _________________________________________ REFERENCES 1. Nolan, Richard L., "Too Many Executives Today Just Don't Get It!" CAUSE/EFFECT, Winter 1990, p. 5. 2. Shapario, Harold T., The Future of the Research University . . . Some Informal Notes, Presentation at the AAAS Annual Meeting, Chicago, February 11, 1992, pp. 1-3. 3. Blackman, Ann, Reid, Jeannie, and Willwerth, James, "Campus of the Future, Time Magazine, April 13, 1992, p. 54. 4. Ryland, Jane, "Strategic Planning Trends for the 1990s," Report to CAUSE Strategic Planning Committee, October 1991; and, highlights from Campus Trends 1991, American Council on Education, August 1991. 5. Penrod, James I. and Dolence, Michael G., Reengineering: A Process for Transforming Higher Education, CAUSE Professional Paper Series, #9, March 1992, pp. 13-14, and Blackman, et al, pp. 54-58. 6. Nolan, p. 6. 7. Hammer, Michael, "Making the Quantum Leap," Beyond Computing, March/April 1992, p. 10. 8. Gulden, Gary K. and Reck, Robert H., "Combining Quality and Reengineering Efforts for Process Excellence," Information Strategy: The Executive Journal, Spring 1992, pp. 10-12. 9. Rosser, James M. and Penrod, James I., "Computing and Libraries: A Partnership Past Due," CAUSE/EFFECT, Summer 1990, pp. 22-23. 10. Rosser, James M. and Penrod, James I., "Strategic Planning and Management: A Methodology for Responsible Change," Journal of Library Administration, Vol. 13, Nos. 3/4, 1990, pp. 9-34. 11. Strangelove, Michael and Kovacs, Diane, Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists. 2nd ed. Ed. Ann Okerson. Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 1992. 12. American Library Association. The Library and Information Networks of the Future. Prepared for United States Air Force; Report No. RADC- TDR-62-614. Chicago, IL: ALA, 1963. 13. Henry, Marcia Klinger, Keenan, Linda, and Reagan, Michael, Search Sheets for OPACs on the Internet. Westport, CT: Meckler Corp., 1992. 14. Oppenheimer, J. Robert, Atom and Void: Essays on Science and Community (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 73. Rev. ed. of Science and the Common Understanding (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954). 15. Wilson, David L., "Critics of Copyright Law Seek New Ways to Prevent Unauthorized Use of Computerized Information," The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 1992, p. A24.