Introduction *

Assessment Summary *

Detailed Observations and Recommendations *

Other Observations *

Appendices *

Carl W. Malstrom

March 15,1999

At the request of Provost William Berry, Vice Chancellor George Ross, and the UTC Technology Committee I was asked to come to The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) to help in a campus-wide technology planning process currently under way. I was asked to address a number of information technology (IT) issues, ranging from current campus delivery and performance to proposing improved strategies and practices being used elsewhere. This report will, to the best of my ability, address all these areas in a format of 1) presenting my findings, 2) commenting on improvements and 3) plotting future direction.

I visited campus February 15–16, meeting with many of the principals in delivering, managing and using the campus IT resources. This included the campus technology committee, the college deans, the IT operational staff and managers from most areas, a group from student government, the vice chancellor for finance, the provost and the chancellor. The two days consisted of a very full itinerary which served to provide an overview of IT roles and some understanding of the many facets and missions of the institution. UTC is a relatively large and complex organization that cannot be thoroughly understood from such a limited exposure. However, based on my experience in IT management and assessment, I was able to gain a relatively good understanding of the current situation and should be able to present some useful insights in this report. The time constraints did limit the number of campus functional areas covered, the number of people interviewed, and the depth of inquiry; therefore, there may be some inaccuracies in what is presented here. Any errors in comprehension or understanding of the true UTC situation detected by the reader should be attributed to me, and I take full responsibility.

The fundamental purpose of my visit and this report is to provide some assistance to the Campus Technology Committee in preparing a technology plan for the UTC campus. The recognition that such planning is needed speaks well for the campus leadership, and I am pleased to be participating in the process. I would like to point out however, that due to the dynamics and complexity of the IT landscape, with the ever-changing needs of the university, the development of a static technology plan is a less-than-desirable objective. In my opinion, the better objective for UTC would be to develop an IT planning process, rather than just a plan, that identifies and implements the IT operational strategies that are key to the support and image of the university. This process should involve all stakeholders in the university.

The first step in technology planning for an institution such as UTC should be to develop a broad campus consensus as to the IT functions that are deemed critical to the mission of the institution. These are what I call Enterprise issues since they generally cut across organizational boundaries and are fundamental to the services and business of the university. I use the term Enterprise to help characterize those IT issues that are not generally divided by academic and administrative boundaries. The essential tasks involved in developing an Enterprise view of IT objectives are outlined as follows:

• Clearly establish and define the institutional objectives that are dependent on or involve IT for success.
• Clearly identify all the interrelated academic and administrative delivery factors that need to work and function in concert.
• Clearly identify critical delivery elements that are key to the mission and image of the university.
• Develop mechanisms for all stakeholders to contribute to defining what the Enterprise IT issues are or should be. Stakeholders include:
• Faculty
• Students
• Staff
• Administrators
• Employers
• Alumni
• Contractors
• Others
• Centrally coordinate/manage the IT resources (human and financial) so as to maximize the benefits to the institution. This means teamwork and not total central control of all college IT resources.
• Develop reasonable staffing levels and service expectations for staff.
• Develop a defined set of infrastructure services to be provided to students.
• Develop a defined set of instructional support services for faculty.
• Develop a defined technology infrastructure for instructional delivery.
• Develop plans to provide resources to support the IT objectives and be willing to realistically assess and adjust those that cannot be properly supported.

My visit left me with the strong impression that the organizational structure and many of the services being offered did not come about as the result of any formal consideration for what the institution’s Enterprise activities should be. Although there are notable exceptions, such as networking, many of the current services seem to have come about from the initiative of IT-savvy campus leaders and the IT staff defining and implementing the right things to do for the campus. It is true that much of what is implemented and supported is the right thing and is being done reasonably well, but what is missing is the recognition of and commitment to these functions as critical to the mission of the Enterprise.

Having defined the components and importance of Enterprise issues, I would now like to list those areas that I observed to be important to UTC as an Enterprise—that must be addressed in the technology planning process. I will comment further on these later in the report.

• Broad Based IT Planning—Must include all stakeholders, needs to be on-going.
• Central IT Management and Organization—Need a top-level campus technology leader (CIO?).
• Support Staff—A very scarce resource. Must promote teamwork and synergy among all (central and distributed). Look at levels of compensation, professional development, morale.
• IT Funding—Insufficient to address Enterprise issues. Study priorities, allocations and resources.
• Technology Based Instructional Delivery—Critical competitive issue for the Enterprise. Facility issues, faculty resources, planning, training, deployment, etc.
• Banner 2000—Excellent opportunity to modernize business practices, services to faculty and students. An important Enterprise benefit.
• Networking—Good plan, well implemented, need to stay on technology curve and not fall behind, look at charging model.
• Network Security—Take proper precautions to protect the Enterprise.
• Internet Connectivity—Critical infrastructure element to the Enterprise for information access and dissemination, but very poor bandwidth off-campus.
• World Wide Web—Critical to all aspects of the Enterprise in both education and administration, needs focus and resources.
• Email—Critical communication tool for the whole university community, needs focus and resources.
• Central File Servers—Define central service needs and support at proper level.

The university is under a lot of stress resulting from many challenges and opportunities brought about by the ever expanding IT capabilities. A few of the key challenges are presented here:

• IT has become the lifeblood of an institution’s ability to do business and respond to the demands of delivering a modern college education.
• In the current world of static or shrinking university budgets, it is becoming imperative that all institutional units—and particularly IT—operate as efficiently as possible, with minimal duplication of effort.
• Serious competition in the education marketplace is developing, facilitated by ease of delivery using IT. This includes new commercial players in education delivery as well as universities expanding outside their traditional place-bound markets.

These challenges are broad ranging and affect all segments of the university community. Therefore, there is a strong need to have all campus stakeholders involved in shaping the way the university views its IT challenges. For this reason, I think the planning now being undertaken by UTC should be viewed as one of planning to plan.

There are a number of IT Enterprise issues to be addressed and which I believe need broad campus input. I propose that one mechanism for developing such campus involvement is the use of a technology roundtable methodology pioneered by Steve Gilbert and his Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Group—to augment the current planning process (see Appendix B). The mission of The TLT Group and the roundtable approach is as follows:

To be most effective, a campus roundtable needs top administration support, a long term commitment and broad campus involvement. If the idea of using a TLT roundtable were rejected, I would still recommend some ad hoc method for promoting broad campus involvement in defining objectives.

An essential component for moving UTC forward in the current situation is broad based IT leadership. I suggest that UTC explore the possibility of hiring a Chief Information Officer as a part of the university’s top leadership team. This position should be filled with a senior IT person who has extensive experience in management, technology and academic areas. This position would carry out a number of important functions, some of which are:

• Help define and interpret the university’s Enterprise issues
• Define IT goals and objectives relative to those issues
• Focus the IT planning effort
• Implement adopted strategies
• Direct the efforts of all central IT staff
• Engage academic and administrative involvement at all levels
• Develop a broad base of campus teamwork
• Work to promote UTC’s IT interests in the UT System.

In my opinion the efficiency of the central IT units would be enhanced by having them they all report to one technology leader. I will quickly add that this is not a magic solution to the problem of very limited resources, but it appears that there are inefficiencies resulting from the current organization.

Another organizational issue that came up in the meeting with the deans was about central vs. distributed IT organizations. As I told them, I am of the strong opinion that the optimum model for today's campus IT structure is a balanced combination of distributed and central service delivery. A distributed only model produces too much duplication of effort, lacks proper focus on institutional issues, and is difficult to maintain in terms of personnel replacement and training. A central only model cannot be responsive enough to local unit and user needs. As we discussed in the meeting, there is a definite need for colleges to have up close and personal IT support for addressing the specific academic and administrative needs of the unit. But there are also many Enterprise issues that need to be addressed by a central organization, for the good of the whole community and to gain economies of scale. The most important issue here is that all IT entities on campus must cooperate and work together for the good of the Enterprise. A fact of IT life is that there will always be more work to do than can ever be accomplished with the resources available. Any time spent in-fighting is unproductive and lost forever and therefore cannot be tolerated.

I would like to suggest an approach to developing the all-important synergy needed among the central and local campus IT support infrastructure. In my experience, one mechanism that promotes this synergy is the development of a distributed support service (DSS). This service is based on the central IT organization’s working with the campus units to identify their IT support needs. These needs will vary from a fraction to a whole full-time employee (FTE), depending on the size of the unit. Even when funds are available for this kind of arrangement, the hiring of fractional people is problematic. To address this, the central organization, with the cooperation of the departments, combines these needs and recruits persons to fill shared positions. The departments pay their part of the person’s salary for the services they receive. The hiring, training and management is a shared responsibility of the central IT organization and the department. This type of approach has several advantages:

• Promotes cooperation between the central and distributed IT units
• Promotes better understanding of local needs
• Allows broader training and campus exposure
• Provides for better coverage during staff turnover

A good indicator of the value of such a program is that departments frequently opt to use it for providing support personnel even when their needs are at the whole FTE level. This has been our experience at NC State. If done right, this model has the potential to be a win-win situation.

The central IT staff at UTC appears to be organized as a collection of generally functional, but somewhat disjoint, service entities that are working very hard to provide good academic, administrative and networking services to the faculty and staff. The fragmented and somewhat uncoordinated system of support across the campus results in inefficiencies and confusion. The workload is growing very rapidly without any increase in staff. Therefore there is a lot of staff and student worker frustration and a high potential for burnout. The heavy reliance on student employees places an additional recruiting, training and scheduling load on the full-time staff. A review of the staff compensation and responsibilities indicates a generally low salary structure for such scarce and valuable resources.

It is clear that the staffs in all areas, both central and in the colleges, are spread very thin and are therefore to be commended for the creative effort and hard work they provide to the university. The institution is fortunate to have the services of these dedicated people. The breadth of services the campus IT units are trying to offer is wide and far exceeds the limited staff and budget resources available. The result of this is that the scope and expectations of their services need to be limited to match the available resources. Over extension of services creates a continuing level of frustration for all involved—providers, users and management alike. The irony here is that the true demand for service is unknown, and so is the missed-opportunity cost from functional inefficiencies and misdirected efforts of faculty, other staff and students. The impact of these costs on the Enterprise needs to be evaluated and better understood.

Funding current and future IT requirements is a pervasive concern of university leaders all over the country. This reality is emphasized by the following quotes from an article in the Information Technology section of a recent edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education (see Appendix C).

UTC is currently providing some reasonable IT services, albeit ad hoc, but they have not come to grips with the Enterprise issues and challenges that need to be defined and addressed.

The technology planning that is now in progress is a step in the right direction, but

the planning process can fall short if not made as broad based as possible. A statement by Susan J. Foster, VP for IT at University of Delaware, in the Chronicle article referenced above speaks to this:

There are not many easy answers to issues such as availability of funds, obsolesce of technology and increasing demand. One thing is clear—there is no fat to be trimmed from the level of IT support UTC is now providing. Some efficiencies can be effected that will enhance service, but they will not reduce costs.

I do not have any magic answers as to where to get additional funds! But, I do recommend the development of cost models for significant IT services that are being offered to the campus. This is a useful exercise for a couple of reasons. First, it establishes a firm financial value for the service, which can be used to determine its true benefit. Second, it allows for the implementation of charge-back mechanisms (partial or full) if these are deemed appropriate. As a general rule, services with no established value tend to be under appreciated or abused. Therefore, some degree of charge-back can place value on service and help ration scarce resources. Also, there are areas on campus supported by other than state allocated funds that can help pay for the services they receive if a charge-back mechanism is in place.

One area where charge-back is very appropriate is in the recovering of costs to support student facilities. UTC has, in close cooperation with the student body, put into place a technology fee that is funding some aspects of their students’ campus technology needs. The planning effort should address the development of cost models for IT services that directly contributes support for the student systems. Identifying and understanding these costs will establish a firm business case for direct reimbursement of a proportionate share of these costs. This will free up funds to be used elsewhere. This type of cost model is discussed below in the context of providing network connections.

It is recommended that serious consideration be given to putting the cost of network connections to all desktops on a firm business basis. This would require developing a comprehensive business model by identifying all the costs to deliver well-defined services to the user community. This exercise will generate a cost rate for a nominal desktop computer installation and probably some other rates for higher level differentiated services. This then exposes the true financial impact of providing services that could be used to develop a charge-back mechanism.

I know that charging for services is scary for any manager who does not currently have the necessary funds in his/her continuing budgets to cover this new expenditure. Even though rates are put in place, it is possible to mitigate the impact on current budgets by doing some internal allocation of the funds being spent on the services or by providing subsidies from other sources.

There are at least three major advantages of developing and implementing a charging structure for services provided:

• Helps deans and other administrators clearly identify the true cost impact of operational decisions, such as the hiring of new faculty.
• Clearly defines a part of the services being provided to the students, such as network connections for machines in student labs (both public and college), in such a way that the cost can be reimbursed from student fee funds.
• Allows research projects, research labs, auxiliary enterprises or any other externally funded activity to reimburse the institution for the network services they use. This assumes that the rates are developed in compliance with federal regulations governing grants and contracts.

Peer institution comparisons of IT costs are of great interest to university administrators, but the establishment and tracking of good metrics has been somewhat difficult to accomplish for various reasons. I understand the interest on the part of UTC management and the Technology Committee to gain insight into how the IT expenditures for the campus compare with peer institutions. One approach, which you may already be doing, is to select four or five UTC peer institutions and develop a relationship with them which allows sharing and comparing relevant data on your respective IT operations. This will take effort and dedication, along with expertise in both IT services and management, to sort out the data and make proper comparisons since the structure and organization of different institutions do not always lend themselves to direct comparison.

Another recommendation for getting comparative data on the costs of IT support services is to make a commitment to participate in the COSTS Project. This is an ad hoc project headed by Karen Leach, CIO at Colgate University, and David Smallen, Director of IT at Hamilton College. This project "…aims to obtain consistent and reliable data, analyze it in meaningful ways, and develop benchmarks for IT services." This is quoted from their article entitled, "What Do Information Technology Support Services Really Cost?" This article includes a status report of the project, along with the presentation of some results. It appears in CAUSE/EFFECT, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1998. A copy of the article is in Appendix C of this report, and it is also available on the Web at

http://www.educause/ir/library/html/cem9829.html

To get maximum benefit from the project, a commitment is required to gather your local data in the prescribed format and contribute it to the database for inclusion in the summary analysis. Contributing your data and keeping it updated allows you access to all the analysis and results. A majority of the currently participating institutions are in the size range of UTC or smaller. This project is gaining recognition due to its potential value, and a larger variety of different sized institutions are getting involved. This could rapidly enhance the size, diversity and ultimate value of the database.

This is an extremely important Enterprise area for UTC and many other college campuses. The issues here are complex and go to the heart of what a modern university is and expects to be. These issues are inexorably intertwined with other Enterprise areas discussed in this report; such as networking, email, and using the Web. As mentioned earlier, higher education is under a lot of pressure to use IT in new and creative ways to deliver and manage courses. The foremost objectives in this regard are:

• Using IT to enhance the delivery of course materials in the classroom
• Making the learning process more student directed, both in the classroom and out
• Using IT to enhance the student-professor interaction
• Promoting asynchronous course delivery where this is appropriate for the materials being presented
• Enhancing distance education to economically reach place-bound students in current programs or to develop new markets

This puts the faculty on the front line in determining how to effectively use IT in the delivery of pedagogy. Therefore many of the Enterprise issues that need to be addressed require direct faculty input and involvement since they so significantly impact faculty’s ability to manage classes, deliver instructional materials, conduct research, etc.

During my visit, the only faculty group I talked to was a combined meeting of the Faculty Council Executive Committee and the Classroom Technology Committee. From this very limited faculty exposure, I detected that there might be some disconnect with the faculty where participation in IT planning is concerned. As can be seen from the previous discussion, it is imperative that the faculty be in the mainstream of such planning. To the extent that this is not the case, I want to emphasize the importance of closing this loop as rapidly and tightly as possible. My earlier recommendation to implement the TLT Roundtable methodology at UTC is based in part on this concern about faculty involvement. Another recommendation that I think might prove enlightening is to hold frequent campus-wide Provost’s Forums on the use and future of technology in pedagogy.

Another outstanding issue that came up which needs to be addressed is the stumbling blocks that exist in using technology in current classrooms. There is a great deal of frustration around the fact that all classrooms are wired with network connections which, in theory, will allow an instructor to bring a computer in to do presentations. There is even an IT service that will try to get the necessary support equipment to the room at the time needed. The reality appears to be, however, that in many classrooms the infrastructure works against the use of technology. Some of the problems I heard about were:

• Improper lighting
• No control of lighting (levels or zones)
• Improper facilities for shutting out light
• Improper electrical outlets (two-prong—not up to code)
• Improperly located electrical outlets
• Lack of projection screens
• Lack of support dollars to replace expensive projection bulbs
• Lack of overhead projectors (in some cases)
• Lack of comfort conditioning (in some cases)
• Lack of enforceable classroom standards to address the above in renovations and new construction

To the extent that these issues are real, they need to be addressed as quickly as possible.

Another issue of concern to a faculty under pressure to use IT in and out of the classroom is their ubiquitous access to adequate computing tools. To the extent that the current university computers for faculty are not up to modern standards, not useful in presenting desired materials in the classroom or otherwise impair their efficiency, it is extremely important for the university to understand and address this problem. A recommended approach here is to plan, develop and fund a formal replacement schedule for all faculty computers, based on either purchase or lease. This plan would determine a useful life for the equipment (generally 3 years at this point) and a strategy for acquiring the appropriate percentage of replacement equipment each year, with some flexible deployment and relocation tactics that allows each faculty to have equipment consistent with their needs.

Another important issue is how to make decisions on what type of computer is best for the faculty needs. Type in this case refers to desktop vs. laptop. This issue is becoming more important because of the way the instructor is going to prepare and present class materials. A technology podium may work fine in some cases, but in others the instructor’s ability to prepare a PowerPoint presentation and walk into the classroom and hook up a laptop may be far more efficient. There are no clear answers here, but the discussion needs to take place, with significant faculty input. Then develop plans around what will work best.

As I understand it, the Banner 2000 system is being implemented primarily to address Y2K problems by replacing old homegrown administrative systems. It is obvious that the pressure of Y2K is primarily dictating the conduct of this project. There appears to be a good awareness and communication with the campus relative to this project. The emphasis I want to make is on the Enterprise importance of this opportunity to re-examine and modernize important portions of the university business systems.

The benefits this system offers to all those associated with the university, both on and off campus, can be very significant to the function and image of the institution. I recommend that this be continually viewed as an Enterprise opportunity and NOT just a Y2K solution.

A very important delivery component for making this happen is the use of the World Wide Web (Web) for two-way communication (data presentation and feedback) between the Banner based systems and all constituencies of the campus—prospective students, current students, alumni, faculty, staff, vendors, employers, boosters, friends, etc. A modern university is expected to use online Web-based communications to conduct large portions of its academic and business functions, such as:

• Application for admission (new student)
• Course registration (student)
• Fees payment
• Grade access (student)
• Class rolls (faculty)
• Listserv creation (faculty)
• Grades submission (faculty)
• Library data access
• Advising/degree audit (students and faculty)
• Purchase orders (faculty, staff, vendors)
• Personnel actions
• Paying bills
• E-commerce
• Alumni communications
• Many others.

The campus networking initiative, underway for the past five years, has been well conceived and implemented. The campus wiring infrastructure appears to be providing good connectivity for offices, classrooms, conference rooms and other functional areas in all major buildings. The multi-mode fiber, Cat3/5 wiring and accompanying electronics, is currently adequate for providing the intra-campus bandwidth needed, and it is provided as a free good to the campus community.

The adequacy of the network infrastructure is a moving target, however. Campus demands for increased bandwidth functionality coupled with improvements in networking architecture and technology requires a continuing and rolling plan for improvement and upgrade. The term rolling in this context means a continuing plan of acquiring and deploying the newest technology in areas where the demands are highest, relocating displaced resources to less demanding areas and retiring the oldest technology on a reasonable and predetermined replacement/amortization schedule. This is nominally 3-4 years for networking electronics and 8-10 years for cabling. There is also an issue related to the install base of multi-mode optical fiber which centers around the move to wave division multiplexing (WDM), which when deployed will require single mode fiber. This appears to be a good ways off at this point, but it does serve to illustrate how networking is constantly changing. Another given in this is that the other elements of the technology community; e.g., the computing hardware, software, deliver infrastructure and user demands, all work together to create a genuine need to do more and do it faster and better over the network.

A natural extension of on-campus networking is the need for access to campus resources from off-campus. The historical approach to meeting this need was to provide free dial-up modems for off-campus connection over telephone lines into university systems. Users could log on to campus computers to run software necessary for their education or work assignments. With the advent of the Internet and the Web, the university networking resources quickly became a potential pathway to the myriad of locations other than the university for activities that were more personal than educational. Under these circumstances the demand for connectivity skyrocketed and the university’s ability to provide adequate dial-in capabilities (phone lines and modems) became impossible without charging for the service in some form or another. The development of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) industry has provided the university community an affordable alternative for acquiring such service. The decision made by UTC to discontinue offering direct dial-in services in lieu of having users purchase access from an ISP is a good one that conserves scarce resources for other IT needs. However, the increasing need to access all kinds of Enterprise data from off campus will probably require changes to the campus network and server architecture, which is closely related to the sections that follow. This is an area that should be kept under close observation and study.

The security of stored data and network data flow is extremely important issues in the Enterprise IT environment. The authenticity of those using the critical electronic resources of the institution should be established each time they log on. For the security to offer the maximum benefit, it should be deployed in a systematic and integrated manner throughout all computing systems and the data network. A collection of computing services—all running under separate and disjoint operating systems with separate login ID’s and passwords—is not a desirable and sustainable environment on which to build the Enterprise IT structure. This can also fragment the proper handling of campus email as well (see discussion below).

Here is just a minor illustration of possible security compromises that can arise from having to use multiple ID’s and passwords. People operating on separate systems with separate log-on schemes, some which require frequent password changes in an effort to enhance security, are put in the difficult situation of having to remember specific and usually different ID’s and passwords for each system. The natural inclination is to write these things down and keep them as convenient as possible to the place where they are needed (many times right beside the computer, in plain view or easily found). This obviously minimizes the security protection provided. Using the same ID on multiple systems will minimize the problem to some extent, provided the systems can accommodate this, but the password and management issues are still difficult.

The ideal situation would be an environment with a single ID and password for access to all Enterprise systems. All systems would be networked and integrated, with central servers available just to handle access security. An authentication server would authenticate the validity of each user at login. Another server function would be to authorize that user’s access to the resources they have been given privileges to use. This is very important in managing access to specific software or services that cannot be made available to all the users who have general access to the environment.

Another security issue is the ability to track and manage access to institutional resources and the flow of email, in order to follow up on situations where users may do unacceptable things over the local network or the Internet. These types of incidents reflect badly on the image of the institution if they cannot be tracked and resolved effectively. Sometimes these involve serious crimes, which involve the highest levels of law enforcement.

I am not fully aware of all the computing systems UTC is using and the details of their integration, but my sense is that security has not been addressed as an overall and integrated issue. I know that Novell networks are being used in different areas and at different release levels of the operation system. The security that is offered for operation within and between these systems should be pretty good.

Having adequate bandwidth for communications with the Internet world is a critical and fundamental Enterprise issue. The use of electronic communications for Web access, email and interconnectivity is becoming more and more integral to the educational and business structure of the institution. Therefore, this connectivity is becoming mission critical and as such, must stay up with the true demands for bandwidth.

A major shortcoming of UTC at this point is the lack of bandwidth connecting the campus to the rest of the world. The current 1.08 Mbit serial link, that carries all UTC off-campus traffic and feeds a couple of other sites, is grossly inadequate for serving the campus Internet access needs. I understand that this is to be corrected shortly with the installation of a significant amount of additional bandwidth, which is obviously recognized as being over due. The caveat here is that this should be looked at as a short term solution since in reality the problem will not stay solved. Traffic should be closely tracked and bandwidth increased as the demand saturates the link. The importance of Internet access to any university is such that there should be little or no bottleneck here.

The World Wide Web (WWW or Web) is a fairly recent phenomenon, which is revolutionizing the access to and delivery of information, goods and services. Its impact on higher education is extremely significant, to the point that it is hard to over emphasize the importance of this technology on the future of the Enterprise. It is critically important to almost every aspect of the university. Just a few areas that come to mind are:

• Distance education
• Continuing education
• Asynchronous course delivery
• Complement class materials
• Online testing
• Course management
• Student directed learning
• Personal Web pages to enhance education
• Publication of information
• Access to libraries
• Access to software and upgrades
• Online registration
• Online grades
• Payment of fees
• Selling sports or other tickets
• Other e-commerce
• Communication with prospective students
• Online admissions
• Other institutional relations

It is fairly easy to see the impact the Web is having in so many areas, but the more difficult IT issues to be addressed center around the commitment necessary to take full advantage of this technology as a true Enterprise activity.

My impression is that UTC currently has only a minimal commitment to using the Web as an Enterprise tool. To change this, it will take planning and resources to address the deeper issues that arise when building a technically comprehensive, functional and robust environment. There will be needs for a full-time Webmaster with the depth of understanding to deal with the architectural and technology issues of scripting, testing, security, dynamics, storage, reliability, etc. The Webmaster should not be the primary content person or the only development person, but should be the technical resource who consults with content providers and designers on how to accomplish the goals they have established. Adequate computing power, disk storage and redundant hardware will be required to provide a reliable central environment for information delivery. After all, if the Web materials are central to the information utility of the Enterprise, then the reliability will have to be extremely high. The necessary software tools will have to be acquired, installed, and supported. Secure servers and software will also be needed to conduct all types of secure transactions. This can range from doing business using

e-commerce, to providing secure access for students getting their grades online, to limiting specific course content to only enrolled students when copyrighted materials are being used. Training will also be needed for users to become skilled in using the proper tools and software available.

Email is another critical service for the Enterprise that allows fast and effective electronic communications between all stakeholders in the university community. The exchange of information (between the administration, faculty, staff, and students) is vital for carrying on institutional business in a timely manner. It is also becoming equally as important to educational delivery as well. The need for communications between faculty and students outside the normal class period has always existed, but generally there have been less than optimal solutions. The use of email now provides a mechanism for asynchronous communications between the student and the instructor, which enhances the instructional environment when used properly. The effective use of this tool is still developing, and faculty is still learning how to deal with some of the new course management issues it introduces. The bottom line however is that the genie is out of the bottle, and we are not going to be able to put her back. Therefore, campus email needs to operate as a capable, reliable and seamless Enterprise activity.

It is very important to consider providing email accounts for all faculty, students and appropriate staff. This should be one of the basic services provided by the institution. For the campus to effectively use email there needs to be clearly defined email accounts provided by the institution, through which the university-affiliated person can receive official communications. It is recommended that you NOT accomplish this by trying to track the ad hoc email mechanisms your constituency may be using from outside providers (commercial ISP’s, free email services, etc.). This would be an administrative nightmare and impossible to effectively implement. In this regard, the policy most commonly adopted by other universities is one where all internal email communications are to a university-provided and maintained email account.

Since having a well integrated and capable email system is so important to the institution, IT planning should include looking at the adoption of a central client/server mail delivery system using modern delivery protocols such as POP (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) for campus-wide implementation. Some of the functions that should be considered are mail file storage, security, message tracking, compliance with standard file delivery formats, mail forwarding, and address aliasing. It is also important to consider email as more than just a text delivery medium and explore the capabilities for delivering other important data as well, such as pre-formatted documents, voice/audio files, image files, and multimedia. Another important consideration is the need to examine any free standing mail systems located in operational units whose operation and maintenance may not function properly as an integral part of a cohesive delivery system. In incidences where these exist, they should be brought into compliance with institutional objectives. The importance of addressing the issues related to central delivery, standards and protocols for email and attached file delivery can not be over emphasized.

Another Enterprise service closely related to email delivery is calendar scheduling (calendaring). This function is very important to the operation of the university, including both staff and faculty. There is a growing desire on most campuses to have a central calendaring system to enhance the efficiencies of scheduling all kinds of meetings and activities. The current status of this type of software is somewhat mixed since there are no standards in place yet, and most systems lack any reasonable degree of inter-operability. This means that to use current systems over a wide user base, everyone must be using the same vendor’s software package. This tends to be problematic when different software suites come with their own calendaring module built in, usually at no added cost, i.g., Microsoft Office/Outlook and Novell/Group Wise. Netscape Calendar is a package that is receiving a lot of attention currently and is being adopted as a standard environment in a growing number of places. It does not have any special solutions to inter-operability with other systems, but it does offer a Web interface that can make it more widely accessible. From a planning perspective any current calendaring needs should be met with an acceptable single system which is readily available to the campus. In the longer term, the standards/inter-operability issues should be tracked and the developing functionality integrated with the other Enterprise systems decisions that have to be made.

As discussed above, an integrated IT Enterprise system requires the implementation of numerous central services to address the following:

• Efficient system maintenance and updating
• Proper security
• Centralized directory services for identification, authentication and authorization
• Software management and delivery
• Central post office function for Enterprise email
• User allocation of personal partitions from central file storage
• User efficiency in using the services provided

In the case of older Novell networks, many of these services are distributed to each separate network. The newer releases provide a more sophisticated environment of integrated distributed/central directory, storage and resource management. To the extent that the campus is reliant on Novell systems, I recommend that the issues of Enterprise-wide integrated file structures and services be examined in this context as part of the overall planning activity.

I am very impressed with what these organizations are doing for the campus, with very limited personnel and financial resources available. The support structure and technical projects promoted, managed and funded by CICA are important activities that have allowed the campus to make good progress in key IT areas. The student labs appear to be well-managed and in general are meeting student needs. The Help Desk is doing a very good job in the face of sharply increasing demands. The homegrown problem tracking system and database appears to work well and provides a very good capability. The GHW-TRC seems to be addressing many important needs of the faculty, but I was not able to look into issues of demand vs. services offered. There are a number of good training opportunities being offered to the campus on a number of relevant IT topics. The Banner development team is very busy trying to meet Y2K deadlines, and the project seems to be going okay. The campus network is well-managed and providing the necessary networking services. I would again emphasize that there are many good things being accomplished on campus in the IT areas.

During my visit I did not get to meet or talk with the head of the UTC Library. I regret not having this opportunity since I believe the Library is a strong and essential player in the campus IT environment. In my opinion there is a requirement and urgency for having the key administrators of the Library and Instructional Technology working cooperatively toward a cohesive campus IT infrastructure.

An important aid to administering IT resources is having established university policies in place to deal with many of the thorny IT issues that continually arise. It was brought to my attention that there are several policy issues that have been discussed but not brought to closure in the form of finalized and approved University Policy. The following are the ones mentioned, but I am sure there are others that could be added to this list:

• Acceptable use of IT resources
• Harassment using technology
• Charging for printing (campus-wide)
• Maintaining student status (registration, continuing enrollment, after graduation)
• Email for all students
• Student Web pages

These issues also need to be included on the UTC planning agenda.

The following are some comments, in bullet form, about the campus IT services and infrastructure as they relate to the students. These observations are based on general comments, a meeting I had with a group of students and a very limited exposure to the campus student environment.

• Very few resources are going toward general student services, except for student labs and some server-based email.
• Email is not user-friendly.
• Students are using a variety of email options, many off campus.
• Would like to see email used more in course interaction.
• No comprehensive email for every student.
• No student help-desk.
• No student Web pages.
• Network connections are slow, for both Web access and library access.
• Need more accessibility to machines in student labs—either more machines or longer hours, particularly at peek periods such as end of semester.
• Do not have a good multimedia room for PowerPoint presentations.
• Students would like to see class materials accessible on the Web for study and review.
• The simpler technology in the language labs and teaching areas are problematic. Can’t make a language tape. Difficulty using video in a class setting. Very few computers in language area.
• Computer Science 110 course teaches too much on the internals of the computer and not enough on the system as a tool for solving problems.
• Some interest in using student fee funds to help train non-computer-literate professors on how to use the technology.
• Some concern about the fairness of distribution of student fee funds to colleges.
• Concern expressed that a lot of UTC students do not know how to use computing equipment effectively as a tool in their education.

It was pointed out to me that the student government group I met with is very computer literate but may be atypical in this regard as related to the whole student body.

Training is an important and growing requirement in a fast paced field like IT. Training is needed to develop proficiency of staff, faculty and students on new IT operating environments and applications software, but it is resource intensive if done in a traditional classroom setting. For staff and faculty, there is a need to learn about new systems and improve skills on current ones in order to do one’s job. For students, there is a need to gain or improve proficiency with tools that support their education but may not be a part of their current formal instruction. It is recommended that UTC address this requirement by trying to reduce formal training classes where appropriate and instead use computer based self-paced instructional modules prepared by a professional company. I suggest investigating the acquisition of computer based training courses from a vendor such a CBT (there are others as well). This vendor is friendly to higher education and provides a large selection of self-paced, computer based courses on all aspects of IT systems and software. The courses are available on both the Web and CD-ROM, depending on the delivery mechanism needed. There are at least three options for acquiring the use of these courses.

• Purchase a site license for UTC from the vendor—the most expensive option.
• Investigate the possibility of a UT system-wide license for all campuses. This option lowers the cost significantly and retains a large selection of titles.
• Investigate membership in CREN (Corporation for Research and Education Networking), which offers access to a limited number of titles on CD-ROM through bulk buying and resale on campus. This option is the most affordable but has the smallest selection of titles.

The use of these types of materials can help staff gain knowledge and/or certification in different aspects of IT systems in the most unobtrusive way possible. Faculty and students can take a just in time perspective to learning about new IT systems and software they need.

Itinerary of February 15–16, 1999 Visit

The TLT Group Publications (Information also available at www.tltgroup.org.)

1. The TLT Group Vision
2. Guidelines for a Local Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable (TLTR)
3. You Are Invited to Join the AAHESGIT LISTSERV on the Internet
4. Issues, Tips, etc. for Local TLT Rountables (3 pages)

McCollum, Kelly, "Colleges Struggle to Manage Technology’s Rising Costs, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 19, 1999, pages A27-A30.

Leach, Karen and Smallen, David, "What Do Information Technology Support Services Really Cost?" CAUSE/EFFECT, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1998, pages 38-45.

Curriculum Vita—Carl W. Malstrom