Academic Information Systems: From Segregation to Integration


Copyright 1992 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 
1992. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is 
granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for 
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        ACADEMIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS: FROM SEGREGATION TO INTEGRATION
           by Gerald Bernbom, Donald Grinstead, and Barry M. Rubin

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Gerald Bernbom is Assistant Director, Data Administration and Access, at
Indiana University. His unit is responsible for data administration,
database administration, security administration, data dictionary
management, campus-wide information systems, and the information center.
He was previously Associate Registrar, responsible for student
information systems.

Donald Grinstead is Associate Director for Financial Analysis Support at
Indiana University. His group is responsible for the development of
management and external financial reports, cost and tax accounting,
budget administration, and contracts and grants administration. He was
previously manager of the Academic Information Systems group within
University Computing Services.

Barry M. Rubin is an associate professor in the School of Public and
Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. His research in the MIS
field has focused on differences between public and private sector
organizations in information systems analysis, development, and
implementation. He was previously Associate Executive Director of
University Computing Services.

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ABSTRACT: The isolation of administrative information systems from 
academic systems in a college or university promotes the segregation of 
essential institutional data which could be used to further the academic 
mission. Through integration of systems across diverse technology 
platforms and opening access to institutional data, Indiana University 
has begun to expand the concept of Academic Information Systems (AIS). 
This article describes the evolution of AIS at Indiana and the forces 
behind that evolution, portrays the AIS planning process and 
implementation mechanisms, and draws conclusions that are generalizable 
to other institutions.


What does the "resource landscape" of higher education look like as we
enter the 1990s? Libraries are being told to increase inter-library loan
activities rather than increase their acquisitions budgets. Academic
departments are being asked to examine their classroom activities and
take on more with fewer available resources. Administrative departments
are being closely scrutinized to identify areas which can be cut or
merged to squeeze more resources for use elsewhere in the institution.
The push to spread diminishing resources as far as they will go will be
a continuing theme for higher education in this decade as we face
limited budgets, increased costs, and stable or declining student
enrollments.

Technology and information resources have promised, and often
delivered on the promise, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
our organizations. Much of the investment in technology over the past
decade has yielded significant results: reduced clerical effort,
streamlined procedures, electronic access to scholarly resources, higher
quality information about our basic business functions, and so forth.
The challenge now is to broaden the focus of our attention, to look for
areas of greater integration in the use of information and the
application of technology. We not only need to build better systems for
independent areas of our organizations; we must also construct systems
that can assist us in furthering cooperation and resource sharing among
the interdependent units of the institution.

Automated information systems, which have historically been viewed
as strictly administrative, are now of growing interest to academic
units who are developing strategic and financial plans for the next
decade. Many academic units are discovering "closets" of information and
associated systems which have been isolated from all but those who
directly maintained them. These discoveries are expanding the role and
definition of what have been traditionally called Academic Information
Systems (AIS).


ACADEMIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS AT IU

In Indiana University's[1] evolving Academic Information Systems plan, 
the keystones of the AIS are: (1) coordinated planning for academic and
administrative information and applications, and (2) the integration of
departmental, institutional, and external information in a coherent and
easily used way. Academic Information Systems should invite and enable
collaborative efforts among the various information providers (the
academic and administrative departments) and service agencies (computing
centers, telecommunications, etc.) of the institution.

Defining the needs of academic users

The earliest implementations of AIS at Indiana University were
oriented to providing academic users with the most basic computing and
communication tools: programming languages, statistical packages,
electronic mail, bulletin boards, spreadsheets, word processing, and so
forth. The needs of academic users soon expanded beyond these
boundaries. With the advent of online library services, faculty and
students expressed the desire to integrate these services with other
remote systems and local data files. In addition, faculty and staff in
academic units began to see the value--and to envision the possibility--
of having direct access to information about enrollments, student
demographics, grant balances, and departmental budgets, rather than
depending solely upon other campus agencies to provide this information.

During the late 1980s, a variety of constituent groups at Indiana
began to articulate these needs in the form of specific proposals. For
example, the Online Database Forum, made up of representatives from the
libraries, computing centers, and a variety of academic disciplines,
expressed the desire to support access to numerous local and remote
specialized full text databases and indexes. And a committee made up of
faculty, registrar's office staff, and central computing staff developed
plans for online access to class rosters.

Impediments to addressing AIS needs

In the past, college and university information systems were
primarily directed towards a given department or discipline. In most
cases, these systems were designed to automate manual procedures and did
not lend themselves to a general audience. Even if a system was
generally well developed for users who were external to a given
department, there was still considerable difficulty in gaining access to
the system if it resided on a different computer or network from the one
the client was primarily using.

There were also differences arising from how administrative versus
academic computing centers viewed the services that should be provided.
The administrative computing approach assumed that the user needed a
system which provided specific, pre-defined processing and static views
of data files in a "cradle to grave" support structure. The academic
computing approach urged the importance of user self-reliance with an
emphasis on providing convenient access to tools and resources. While
both of these approaches have merit, neither provided optimal service in
isolation from the other.

At Indiana University, academic departments were similarly isolated
from potential funding sources for systems which relied upon
institutional data (traditionally kept on IBM mainframes). These funding
sources were generally targeted at large scale administrative systems.
As a result, some of the expressed needs of the academic departments
could not be accommodated without the direct involvement of a partner
agency (such as the registrar's office) that did have access to the
administrative system funding mechanisms.

Planning activities for computing at Indiana were also separated by
the distinction between academic and administrative units. While a
three-year plan existed for Academic Information Systems in the academic
computing environment, it concentrated on service delivery mechanisms.
This plan did not address content issues, access to existing
administrative information systems, or access to institutional data
resources that existed on the administrative computing platform.

AIS islands

While segregation ofinformation systems activities and resources
characterized IU's computing environment throughout the 1970s and most
of the 1980s, attempts to bridge the gap were made during the latter
part of this period. The Academic Information Environment (AIE) is a
VAX-based information system--built on the Campus-wide Information 
System (CWIS) model--which has evolved into an effective information 
access vehicle. The AIE already incorporates many of the features 
envisioned for an Academic Information System. The services provided via 
the AIE include: access to electronic mail and bulletin boards, event 
calendars and announcements from various student groups, access to 
remote database services (such as the Dow Jones News Retrieval Service), 
access to Internet services, and access to selected administrative 
applications and services of the University. To address the need to 
provide tailored access to services, the AIE lets the user define his or 
her own keywords which will bypass the menus and deliver the service of 
choice.

In anticipation of the online catalog, the University Libraries and
the academic computing center developed the Library Information and
Reference Network (LIRN). This is a subsystem of the AIE that provides a
variety of services, including access to remote bibliographic databases,
an electronic library reference desk, a way to renew library materials
electronically, a mechanism by which library materials may be requested
for delivery directly to a campus office, and access to the online
catalog which is running on an IBM mainframe computer.

The University Service Environment (USE) is a statewide service
presentation similar in many respects to the AIE, but tailored to
systems which reside on the IBM mainframe. While USE does not currently
provide access to all IBM systems and services, it does enable the use
of some systems which are of particular importance to academic
constituent groups who have not had access to IBM systems in the past.


ADMINSTRATIVE SYSTEMS AT IU

The 1970s and early 1980s were also a period of vigorous growth for
administrative information systems at Indiana. By the mid-1980s a large
number of mature, integrated information systems were in place: student
records, financial aid, student accounts, human resources, purchasing,
and student advising, to mention only a few.

Most systems designed during this period had as their primary
purpose the support of some operational or functional area of the
University. But, unlike systems of a decade earlier, the systems of this
period accomplished more than the automation of a set of defined tasks.
They were, in two important respects, information systems.

First, the systems were characterized by the creation and
maintenance of large information repositories, providing a rich
aggregation of information resources which were available to support the
system itself and to support other management needs of the University.
Second, these systems were characterized by online data access as their
primary means of interaction with the user. The users of these online
systems were, in most cases, information specialists--either staff in 
the primary user office itself (the registrar, the bursar, etc.) or
specially trained staff in one of the academic or academic-support units
(professional advisors, academic deans, etc.). For these users at least,
delivery of information had become an important system design criterion.

These two factors--the assembly of a rich information resource and
the initial steps toward information delivery as an essential system
feature--provided the foundation for the changes in information systems
the University has seen in the last five years.

An important stimulus for the change that occurred was the
realization on the part of several administrative departments that their
service mission to the University required expanding the client base for
their information delivery systems from a small number of information
specialists to the entire University community of students, faculty, and
staff. The computer literacy movement of the mid-1980s, the widespread
installation of personal computers across the campus, and the beginnings
of a high-speed data network to connect desktop computers with central
computing resources made this realization almost unavoidable. The result
was a change in thinking, a paradigm shift from information systems for
the "information elite" to information systems as a public service.

Early efforts at integration

Beginning in 1986-87, some early steps were taken by administrative
units at Indiana to provide true "public service" information systems to
the University community at large. The first of these were simple
information display systems, similar to public bulletin boards: the
human resources office brought up a weekly job posting bulletin; the
registrar implemented a set of daily closed class listings.

Based on the success of these initial efforts and the positive
response received from students and faculty, more ambitious plans for
public service information systems were developed. Early in 1989, the
registrar implemented an electronic class roster delivery system for
faculty. For some time, faculty had been taking paper rosters
distributed by the registrar and key-entering selected data from these
into local databases or spreadsheets on personal or departmental
computers. This new system offered faculty the option of receiving class
rosters electronically, delivered via e-mail on the campus network.

Early in 1990, the academic advising units and the registrar
implemented a student-oriented presentation system for the University's
online advising system. This system extended the capabilities of the
DARS advising system (purchased from Miami University) by giving each
student the ability to access his or her own academic record and
advising report from any terminal or workstation connected to the campus
network, or from any personal computer equipped with a modem. Similar
efforts to these have also been made in the financial systems area,
where faculty and staff now have expanded access to the online
purchasing system and the online statement of account.

Discovering new needs

These early experiences pointed up a number of differences between
public service information systems and their more traditional
counterparts. In the design of traditional information systems, the
designer has the opportunity to meet face-to-face with the system users 
--possibly a representative sample of management and front-line staff 
who will use the system or, in some cases, with the entire population of 
eventual users. Public service systems at a large university are 
designed not for dozens or even hundreds of users, but for any of 
several thousand potential users. And since use of a public service 
system is entirely a matter of choice for the user, finding a truly 
representative sample of users before the system is implemented is 
extremely difficult--a situation which hinders the traditional process 
of gathering user requirements.

A mature set of practices and procedures are in place for the
support of traditional information systems--user documentation, on-site
user training, expert hotline consulting, timely notice of system
changes and upgrades, and so forth--all of these practices made possible
because the information systems have a defined user base that is known
to the computing support organization. Again, with a large, and largely
anonymous, user population, traditional support mechanisms need to be
re-evaluated and re-tuned when applied to public service information
systems.

As described above, traditional information systems are typically
developed under the sponsorship of the department(s) that will use the
system. Like most universities, Indiana University has a formal
structure in place for the proposal, review, and funding of systems
development projects. While many public service information systems do
have a natural sponsor (such as the registrar for student systems), the
traditional process of selecting and prioritizing information systems
development cannot work as well when the real end users of the system
have little or no voice in the funding process. In particular, because
the user base is so diverse and diffused, there is no focal point around
which proposals for new public service information systems may be
gathered; the end-user public must rely on traditional IS user
departments to propose or develop new systems and services.


CONVERGENCE

The convergence of academic and administrative interests at IU which
brought attention to bear on the concept of Academic Information Systems
as a unique application area came from three sources: a University-level
planning process, the restructuring of the University computing
organization and, most importantly, from the grassroots--the academic 
and
administrative constituents in the community at large.

At the University level, an academic strategic planning process
directed by IU President Thomas Ehrlich resulted, in Spring 1988, in the
publication of IU: One University--Indiana at Its Best. Building on this
University-wide plan, the vice president for administration and finance
began an administrative planning process, one outcome of which was the
publication of a Statement of Administrative Philosophy which begins
with this common-sense, yet critically important statement: "All
administrative activities are dedicated to serving and advancing the
academic work of our students and faculty." With this statement came a
clear priority in the information technology arena for focusing
attention and resources on information systems for students, faculty,
and academic staff--in other words, a priority for Academic Information
Systems.

Organizational factors

During this same time period, a reorganization of computing was
begun at IU. A merger of academic and administrative computing in 1989
brought together the critical mass of experience, insight, and human
resources needed for a convergence of effort on the development of
Academic Information Systems[2]

As important as these top-down organizational factors may have
been, the undeniable momentum for Academic Information Systems came from
the grassroots. The unmet information needs of the students, faculty,
and academic staff assured that, under almost any set of organizational
circumstances, progress would be made on delivering a new style of
information system to meet these needs. The early AIS initiatives (the
online library catalog, AIE, etc.) and the early administrative system
initiatives (the online class listings, faculty rosters, etc.)--and the
success of these early efforts--all but guaranteed that attention and
resources would continue to be focused on the delivery of this type of
system.

Technology factors and computer priorities

Technology factors are closely interrelated with organizational
factors in providing the impetus for Academic Information Systems. The
convergence of academic and administrative initiatives in turn has
provided direction to the IU computing organization in setting its
technology priorities.

Among its highest technology priorities, University Computing
Services has placed significant emphasis on the installation and
operation of a campuswide and statewide high-speed network based on the
TCP/IP protocol. This network is the backbone on which information
delivery to the desktop of students, faculty, and staff is being built.

Also among its highest priorities, University Computing Services
has envisioned a world which places the user at the center of a rich
information and computing environment, and which delivers seamless
access to this environment via the workstation. Although many steps are
necessary to achieve this vision, its practical realization in the near
term will be an extension of the AIS information delivery model to the
workstations and personal computers of students, faculty, and staff.

Finally, University Computing Services, in partnership with its
users and advisory groups, has adopted a philosophy of information
management that says that the value of information as an institutional
resource is increased through its widespread and appropriate use. The
delivery of institutional information through various Academic
Information Systems is consistent with this belief; public service
information systems which serve thousands of users, rather than tens or
hundreds, have the capability of adding significantly more value to the
institution through their widespread dissemination of useful
information.


PLANNING FOR AIS

To address the needs and take advantage of the converging organizational
and technology factors, and the evolving computing priorities identified
above, IU initiated an end-user process for planning the future of
Academic Information Systems. This process began with the formation of
an Academic Information Systems Subcommittee that is a joint undertaking
between the University's academic and administrative computing advisory
committees.

The charge to the AIS Subcommittee evolved from a primary goal of
both the academic and administrative advisory committees: to develop
long-range (five-year) plans for computing at Indiana. This is being
done in cooperation with staff from University Computing Services, who
are providing assistance with the evaluation of future technologies in
this context.

As a joint undertaking, the AIS Subcommittee was asked to prepare a
plan that addresses both academic and administrative computing needs.
The components of the plan include a vision statement, an environmental
analysis, specification of general goals, and a measurable set of
objectives.

The first and most important component of the plan is the vision
statement, which provides the definition of the AIS concept. Among the
key features are that AIS should:

  *  extend the boundaries of the University by facilitating a greater
sharing of academic and administrative information across all computing
platforms,

  *  be based on a cooperative relationship among the research,
instructional, library, computing, and administrative communities, and

  *  provide reliable, efficient, integrated, and accurate delivery of
information from its repository to the desktops of all students,
faculty, and staff.

The vision statement of the AIS plan also identifies the
characteristics of the information delivery system to be developed at
Indiana. Specifically, this information delivery system should:

  *  encourage use by the novice as well as the expert,
  *  provide standard tools for data display and manipulation,
  *  operate or be accessible at the workstation level,
  *  allow for customization by each user, and
  *  be deliverable over the network.

These characteristics represent a direct response to the need for an
integrated, easy to use, information delivery environment.

The second component of the plan, the environmental analysis,
identifies the nature of the existing AIS environment at Indiana
University and elsewhere, and provides the baseline to evaluate what is
needed to achieve the vision. Key conclusions from the environmental
analysis are that Indiana does have some basic information access
mechanisms in place along with the network infrastructure to deliver
these mechanisms to the workstation. Although the full complement of
workstation-based tools needed for seamless information delivery are not
yet available, the resources to develop these tools are present in
University Computing Services through its workstations division and its
program for distributed computing. Comparing Indiana University's AIS
efforts to those of other major universities, it is apparent that AIS is
a relatively new area for most institutions. While fledgling efforts
such as IU's AIE do exist on many campuses, no mature implementations of
AIS as envisioned by the planning effort have yet evolved.

Five general goals have evolved from the planning process. These
are also directly traceable to the unmet needs detailed in the preceding
sections, and the AIS Subcommittee feels that the goals encompass all of
the major areas of effort required to address the unmet needs. The five
goals are:

  *  Provide an integrated information delivery environment which will
evolve to encompass image, sound, and text data.
  *  Provide integrated access to local (campus) and external databases
that support the needs of the University community.
  *  Provide access to software tools that facilitate location,
identification, organization, and presentation of AIS data.
  *  Provide access to the technology and infrastructure that
facilitate selecting, organizing, and filtering AIS data.
  *  Provide documentation, education, and support for the AIS
environment.


IMPLEMENTATION MECHANISMS

There are four principal mechanisms for implementing these planning
efforts. The first of these are the annual implementation plans for
"application areas." Application area plans are one-year, tactical plans
that focus on specific clusters of end-user technology and support:
database and spreadsheet, graphics, programming languages and operating
systems, and so forth. These plans provide University Computing with a
means to prioritize, acquire, and provide support for end-user computing
tools and technologies.

Second is the process by which University Computing Services budget
priorities are established each year. This process represents a
combination of University Computing staff, senior management, and
advisory committee recommendations. The AIS plan objectives will have a
major impact on the establishment of these budget priorities. Even when
new funding from the University administration is not forthcoming to
support a high priority project, reallocation of University Computing
Services' base budget generally takes place to ensure progress on high
priority projects and objectives.

The third implementation mechanism is the $1.1 million systems
development fund that is used by the University to subsidize the
development of information systems. The focus of AIS corresponds with
one of the University's highest priorities for new systems development:
implementing information systems that directly meet the needs of
faculty, students, and academic staff.

The final implementation mechanism is the day-to-day activities of
the AIS Subcommittee itself. Not only is this subcommittee charged with
long-range and implementation planning responsibilities, but it is also
responsible for recommendations as to the function, design, and content
of the current information delivery environment available on the central
academic computing systems (the AIE) and the administrative mainframe
(USE).

Together, this set of implementation mechanisms is providing the
University and University Computing Services with sufficient
opportunities for making the AIS vision a reality. This is true even in
an era of cost containment.

Indications of success are already evident. The University's
administrative computing advisory committee has begun its own five-year
planning activities for the development and management of information
resources. In the course of meetings to begin subject area plans (i.e.,
student information, financial information, human resources, and
physical facilities), it has become apparent to the authors and others
that the AIS philosophy has been wholeheartedly adopted by the
University's key information providers, and that several AIS-oriented
goals are appearing in the initial subject area plans.


CONCLUSIONS

There are five major conclusions we are able to draw from Indiana
University's experience with AIS planning. The first is that we have
been able to identify a working definition and concept of Academic
Information Systems that can be jointly agreed on by faculty,
administrators, and academic staff. This concept also includes
guidelines for an effective information delivery system.

Second, the role of advisory committees in establishing AIS needs,
directions, and implementation is indispensable. If it was not for the
computing advisory groups at IU and their willingness to work together
to establish the AIS concept, we might still be planning for separate
information delivery mechanisms that would not effectively meet the
University's needs.

Third, there has been an evolution of forces leading up to the
identification and delivery of effective AIS services. Not only are the
technologies required for integrated information delivery currently
emerging in forms that can be tailored to the requirements of an
effective AIS environment, but campus needs have evolved to the point
where delivery of this type of information is essential.

Fourth, IU's experience confirms that productive planning and
implementation for AIS are possible. The convergence of technology and
end-user demand were significant factors in this development.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Indiana's experience can be
generalized to other institutions of higher education. While the merger
of administrative and academic computing at Indiana certainly helped to
ease the communication process between the administrative and academic
community, this was not the sole factor in the evolution of AIS
planning. Even before the creation of a unified computing organization,
the technologies, computing priorities, and user needs we have
identified were already evolving towards making the Academic Information
Systems concept a reality.

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Footnotes:

1 Indiana University includes eight campuses with a total enrollment 
of nearly 94,000.

2 Editor's note: see "Metamorphosis in Computing Services at Indiana
University" beginning on page 15 of this issue of CAUSE/EFFECT, for a
detailed account of the merger of academic and administrative computing
centers at IU.

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