SACS Recommendations 5.3
University Technology Committee
Response
2/8/01
5.3.1
The
University should increase the IT staff level to bring it in line with the UT
system.
Response: When computing the technician to faculty
ratio, the McCay Report used the figure of 436 faculty members for UTC. While the THEC formula faculty staffing
level for UTC was 436, the actual Fall 1999 FTE faculty position number at UTC
(see the OPEIR 1999 summary page at http://www.utc.edu/~opeir/FACTSUMMARY99.htm
) was 347. This reduces the technician
to faculty ratio from 17.4 to 13.88. The total UT support ratio reported by
McCay was 8.7 to 1.
The Technology Fee has funded six
full time enterprise level IT positions - three full time help desk
positions, an Assistant manager for the Student labs in the University Center,
a Media Resources support person, and a web master for University
Relations. These positions have been
very helpful in providing better service for student and faculty, and have
increased the technical staff from 25 to 30.
As computed in the McCay report, these positions reduced the technician
to faculty ratio from 17.4 to 14.5.
Using the Fall 2000 faculty position number of 341, the support ratio
becomes 11.4.
Additional Information:
Several academic areas have identified additional technology support
needs for their areas at the unit level.
In addition, the Information Technology Division (ITD) has identified
the need for nine enterprise level support positions; see Document A
(attached). If all nine were added, the
McCay ratio would go to 11.1 (the Fall 1999 actual ratio to 8.9, and the Fall
2000 ration to 8.7). This would improve
service to the University. However
given the current state funding level it does not appear to be likely that this
will happen. Using the McCay numbers,
to bring the UTC staff to the UT system ratio of 8.7 it would require an
additional 20 staff members beyond the 30 currently working (10 staff members
using the actual Fall 1999 faculty number, and 9 using the Fall 2000 faculty number). While these additional resources would be
fully utilized, there are other more pressing university needs that must be
addressed before meeting the goal of equalizing the UTC faculty to IT staff
ratio to the UT ratio stated in the McCay report.
5.3.2
If
web-based courses are to be housed on campus, the University should provide
additional staff to maintain twenty-four hour support for servers.
Response: Currently, no IT services at UTC are
supported on a 24x7 basis. Web-based
courses using Blackboard CourseInfo
are supported on a development basis by CECA and the TRC. When the University determines the number of
web-based courses that will be offered and the level of support needed for
these courses, the new requirements must be staffed appropriately. A committee is currently formulating support
guidelines for online course offerings. A requirement for twenty-four hour
on-site support would significantly increase staffing and maintenance costs. To maintain one on-site technical support
person 24x7X365 will require the University to hire five technical staff
members, and to increase the levels of hardware maintenance under contract to
24x7 support. However, HelpDesk support
could be provided at little additional cost through the existing student open
computing lab support staff. These labs
are staffed 114 hours per week, covering all seven days of the week.
There are currently three
web-based courses offered through UTC Continuing Education Division. The technology for these courses is housed
off campus by a commercial site that provides 24x7 support.
5.3.3.
The
University should ensure that the records of transfer students are carefully
monitored to ensure that all students acquire basic competencies in computer
technology.
Response: This is an
academic standards issue and will be referred to the University General
Education Committee, Academic Advisement, and the Records Office.
5.3.4.
The
University should appoint a high level Information Technology office and
reorganize the current structure so that all IT units report to the IT Officer
Response:
The University reorganized all administrative Information Technology
resources into the Information Technology Division (ITD) and appointed an
Assistant Vice Chancellor of Information Technology on October 15, 2000 to
direct the division. The reorganization consolidated the campus wide enterprise
information technology staff into one organization to provide centralized IT
support. Technical staff dedicated to supporting departmental functions remain
within the departmental units, providing support for faculty, departmental
servers and departmental labs. The IT Division supports the enterprise and has
developed a working relationship with the decentralized technical support. The
academic support functions provided through the Center of Excellence for
Computer Applications (CECA) and the Walker Teaching Center remain under the
direction of the Provost. A close working relationship between ITD and these
key academic support functions is maintained to ensure that the ITD provides
the required support to meet the academic requirements. The ITD Mission
Statement, description and major planned tasks are included as Document
B (attached).
5.3.5 The University has
initiated the technology planning process with the formation of the Technology
Committee, hiring a consultant, and conducting round table discussion. The University should develop these
activities into a formal plan that addresses the enterprise issues proposed to
the Technology Committee, a plan that is consistent with the University
mission.
Response: The University Technology Committee is in
the process of developing a campus technology plan. This plan will incorporate technology plans from all units and
divisions of the University. The
technology planning process is currently underway at the unit level. The
Technology Committee is coordinating the collection of the unit technology
plans, financial data, technology status and usage, classroom equipment,
replacement and maintenance requirements, faculty and staff development and
training, policies and standards, trends and issues and other information
needed for the planning process to proceed. The initial draft of the University
Technology Plan is scheduled to be available by Summer 2001 for campus review
and comment. The structure of the
Technology Plan under development is included as Document C (attached).
5.3.6 The University should review the much
heavier reliance on student technology fees to fund information technology
activities compared to other UT campuses.
Response: The University continues to review funding
options to support the many needs for
technology at UTC. The McCay
Report describes the funding of IT at UTC as follows; this table was extracted
from the UTC SACS Self Study Section 5.3, Analysis subsection.
|
Category |
UTC |
Total UT |
|
Total Budget |
$80 M |
$826 M |
|
Total IT Budget |
$3.3 M |
$34.2 M |
|
IT Budget w/o Tech Fee |
$1.8 M |
$26.9 M |
|
Tech Fee Revenue |
$1.55 M |
$7.3 M |
|
IT to Total Budget |
4.2% |
4.1% |
|
IT w/o Tech fees to Budget |
2.2% |
3.3% |
|
Tech Fee to IT Budget |
46.3% |
21.3% |
Over the last two years, the
Technology Committee has attempted to gain a clearer picture of actual IT
expenditures by category at UTC. The
data summary for 1999-2000 is attached as Document D. The Technology Committee believes that this
data gives a clearer picture of technology spending at UTC than does the
information in the McCay Report. The
amount spent on technology totaled $4,943,273 without including the Technology Fee
Revenue of $1.55 M. Revising the above
table using this new IT expenditure figure produces the following table.
Revised 2/01
|
Category |
UTC |
Total UT |
|
Total Budget |
$80 M |
$826 M |
|
Total IT Budget |
$6.45 M |
$34.2 M |
|
IT Budget w/o Tech Fee |
$4.9 M |
$26.9 M |
|
Tech Fee Revenue |
$1.55 M |
$7.3 M |
|
IT to Total Budget |
8.1% |
4.1% |
|
IT w/o Tech fees to Budget |
6.2% |
3.3% |
|
Tech Fee to IT Budget |
46.3% |
21.3% |
This places the UTC IT
expenditures at a much higher level than does the McCay Report. The data collected by "The College
Computing Project" (David Smallen) and the "The Costs Project" (Karen Leach and David Smallen)
from a group of colleges and universities for the year 1998/99 provides the
following comparison. While UTC seems
to be in the top 20% of those reporting on IT spending as a percentage of
E&G budget, the expenditure per FTE student places UTC in the middle range.
|
Category |
Costs
Project |
UTC |
|
% of
E&G spending on IT |
Mean 4.5% 75th percentile 5.2% "Typical" 3.5% to 5.2% |
8.1% |
|
$ per
FTE student |
Mean $1275 75th percentile $1600 "Typical $900 to $1600 |
$1040 |
The Technology Committee will continue to follow IT
expenditures in future years.
5.3.7
The
University should develop a program to evaluate the technology plans when these
are eventually approved.
Response: As described in 5.3.5 above the Technology
Committee is developing a Technology Plan for UTC and implementing a technology
planning process that involves all campus units. As the unit technology plans become available they will be
reviewed by the Technology Committee for completeness, by the technical staff
for technological feasibility and by administrators involved in IT for
reasonability of fiscal estimates and budgetary impact. It is the task of each unit to determine its
own technology requirements; these will necessarily vary given the different
educational roles played by the many units at UTC, including administrative
units. The Technology Committee will
then review all requirements and recommend to the Chancellor the direction for
enterprise level technology implementation, policies, and usage. Any technology plan for the campus must, of
course, fit within the mission priorities and budgetary constraints of the
University.
5.3.8
The
University should develop a plan to maintain currency in technology equipment
and software.
Response: As described in 5.3.6 above, UTC has heavily
invested in technology in recent years to improve and modernize its technology
base.
The University completed a seven
year planned network installation and upgrade project in 2000. The installation of the current campus local
area network followed the design plan to build a fiber optic network to allow
all campus buildings access to the campus network. The plan directed that each
classroom, office, conference room and student dorm room be connected with a Category
5 data port and Category 3 voice port.
As the plan was implemented it was adjusted to take advantage of the
advancements in networking technology and evolved from a shared 10Mbps network
to a total switched network with most
locations operating at
100Mbps. The network backbone has also
evolved from 10Mbps-shared link between three buildings to 100 Mbps and fast
ether channel connections to all campus building to include student housing. A one Ghz link is currently being tested and
will be deployed as requirements dictate. A significant investment in Network
Management tools provides for real time network monitoring, remote configuration, switch and router software upgrades and
trouble resolution. The backbone router
network has followed a similar upgrade plan which allowed the off campus
bandwidth to be scaled from a fractional 784 Kbps link to the current bandwidth
of almost 7Mbps. This followed the University plan to deploy additional
bandwidth as the requirement developed.
In addition the University PBX received planned upgrade in 1996 that
permitted the phased expansion of the system from 2000 active ports to over
3700 active ports to support the expansion of campus requirements. The
University has also completed the planned upgrade of the University alarm
monitoring system and the installation of a campus wide one-card system.
The maintenance needs of faculty
and staff for office computers will be included as a part of the University
Technology Plan when it is completed in the summer of 2001. Guidelines for the replacement and reuse of
faculty and staff office computers will be established. Although at the moment the available
resources are not sufficient to establish a fixed replacement cycle for all
computers, the Technology Committee believes that not every computer needs to
be replaced on a three-year cycle, and is working to develop a replacement
strategy for UTC.
Over the past three years when
allocating the funds derived from the student technology fee the Technology
Committee has followed its stated guidelines of funding those projects that
provide improvements in the teaching and learning for the largest number of
students. More detailed information may be found at www.utc.edu/TechFees/. A year by year summary of the $4.2 M in
projects funded by the technology fee in the last three years is attached as Document
E. The Technology Committee is
well aware of the need to remain current, as indicated by the increasing
proportion of the technology funds expended on replacement equipment. The
Technology Committee communicates its funding guidelines to the entire
campus. Through its funded projects,
the Committee promotes adherence to technology standards and requires the
sharing of technology equipment to the extent practicable. All proposals for
funding are submitted using the Technology Committee proposal sheet to ensure
all required information is supplied. During and after each funded project the
recipient is responsible for reporting back to the Technology Committee on the
status of the project and documenting the funds expended and the results
achieved.
5.3.9 The University should develop a plan to
disseminate technology policies and procedures to the University community,
especially to the faculty and staff.
Response: Faculty and staff are provided various
publications to disseminate the technology polices and procedures of the
University. The Technology Committee provides annual guidelines on proposal preparation. In addition the University Help
Desk maintains a web site of technical information and support procedures at www.utc.edu/helpdesk. The Grayson Walker
Teaching and Leaning Center provides extensive support at www.utc.edu/Teaching-Resource-Center. The Student Labs provides additional
information at www.utc.edu/StudentMicroLabs. Network Services site provides directions on
network links and support www.network-services.utc.edu.
The Center of Excellence for Computer Applications(CECA) maintains an extensive
site to provide technical support at www.utc.edu/CECA.
Media Resources Information is located at www.utc.edu/MediaResources/. Guidelines for Faculty and Staff Computer
Training may be found at www.utc.edu/acadcomp/Training/
The Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Institutional Research site provides
Fact Book Information at www.utc.edu/~opeir. When staff time becomes available, the
Information Technology Division will build an online resource collecting all of
this information into one site to make it easy to find and use. Several proposed policies are still awaiting
legal and administrative approval.
Document A
New Information Technology Division
Enterprise Support Positions
The Information Technology
Division (ITD) has identified the need for nine enterprise level support
positions. The specific ITD additional
staff requirements are shown below:
a.
Network Switch Analyst (one position) is needed to support
student networking in University housing.
All 1550 student-housing beds are now active and the UTC Place is
scheduled to open in August 2001 with an additional 400 ports. The network staff is the same size as it was
prior to any student-housing going on line.
b.
Server Administrators (two positions) The Enterprise server
requirement has expanded in complexity and types of servers requiring support.
The University needs one Netware and one NT Server administrator to maintain
service.
c.
Computer programming staff (two positions) has not expanded
to cover additional work required to support Banner, Mocs Express and the IRIS
requirements. Two programmers are
required to support Oracle and SQL server.
d.
Help Desk Support for students. (one position) Currently the computer lab is planning to
provide student help desk support with current staff of students. A technical
position is required to provide on site service to over 2000 on campus students
and over 6000 off campus students.
e.
Telephone technician. (one position) The number of lines on the UTC PBX has
increased from 1535 to over 2600 with no increase in staff. UTC place will require an additional 400
phones in August 2001 and additional 600 plus within a year.
f.
Voice Mail manager (one position). Voice mail will be installed in spring of 2001 and requires a
manager to install, train, and maintain 1000 faculty and staff voice mail and
Unified Message boxes and over 1500 student voice mailboxes.
g.
Web Support (one position) required to maintain the
University Web presence. The Web master is responsible for the design and
programming of the UTC web page.
Document B
The UTC
Information Technology Division Mission Statement
To provide Students, Faculty, and Staff of the University with Information Technology services that are available, reliable, responsive, and cost effective and delivered in a courteous and proactive manner.
The primary goal of the IT Division is to improve the University’s ability to use information technology and provide ways for the campus to claim the assets of technology, to improve teaching and learning for our students, and enhance information technology support for the campus. Monty Wilson is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and reports to Vice Chancellor Richard L. Brown.
The Information Technology Division is organized into the following four operational areas to provide functions support and leadership:
1. Technical Support Services: Rodger Ling is the Director and this area includes the Micro- Computer Support (Help Desk), the Student Computer Labs in the University Center, and Media Resources. This organization is also provides student help desk support.
2. Telecommunications: Luis Leon is the Director and is responsible for telephone services, all wiring infrastructure, the Mocs One Card system and campus alarm systems. He also manages all telecommunications projects for new construction and renovation.
3. Systems and Networking: Richard Gambrell is the Director and manages the Mocs Express, the campus network, all enterprise servers, and computers and programming. Glenda Sullivan is responsible for computer operations.
4. Business operations: Responsible for all the administrative functions, the campus operator, the issuance of calling cards, pagers and cellular phones. The staff reports to the Assistant Vice Chancellor.
The goal of ITD is to provide reliable and responsive Information Technology support to the campus and to develop an ongoing process of developing better ways to provide service to our students, faculty, and staff. To provide for enhanced coordination and to help support the definition of academic requirements Dr. Karen Adsit and Dr. Clint Smullen serve as academic requirements focal points. They provide invaluable insight on how Information Technology can provide the best possible support to improve teaching and learning on campus.
The IT division is here to
support students and faculty and is committed to providing the best possible Information
Technology support to the campus.
Key
Projects for the Information Technology Division for 2001:
The ITD organization Chart may be found at http://network-services.utc.edu/updates/ITOrgchart1_raster.gif
·
Multimode fiber &
wiring installed to all campus locations. Total University expenditure for
wiring in excess of two million dollars. All campus buildings are on the
network.
·
Continued development
of Mocs Express to provide for improved student information service and
enhancements to the Banner system.
Recruit,
retain and celebrate diversity among our faculty, staff, and students
Enhance
the opportunities for partnerships
Improve
accountability and data-driven decision making
Enhance
our learning environment
·
Technology Committee
Proposals approved to: provide additional staff for the HelpDesk and the
student labs, increase internet bandwidth, maintain key network equipment, upgrade
network for all labs, provide network connections for classrooms, and provide
and support classroom presentation equipment.
·
Completed the
deployment of a 100 Mbps network to all classrooms, offices, and most students
housing.
Document C
UTC Technology Committee
OUTLINE FOR A CAMPUS-WIDE TECHNOLOGY PLAN
Introduction
Overview of Current Status of Technology
Current
Budget for Technology
Technology
Fee Overview
Division/Vice Chancellor’s Technology Plans
(including College technology plans)
staffing
and support
desktop
replacement
classroom
equipment issues
maintenance
faculty
and staff development
standards
curriculum
and instruction integration/strategies for learning (as applicable)
pertinent
policies
Enterprise projects/Issues
UT/UTC
Policies
acceptable use policies
Network/Infrastructure
IRIS
Banner
Online/Distance
Education/Blackboard/WCB/CLN
Staffing/support
Faculty
and staff training and development
Trends & Issues
Synthesis and Directions
timeline
priorities
process
for evaluating and selecting new technologies
Plan Evaluation and Revision Process
Document D
Technology Spending at UTC for 1999-2000
Account |
Amount |
UTC Gift
Amounts |
External Grant
Amounts |
Estimated
Yearly Cost Faculty Lab Maintenance* |
|
Computing Services |
$545,605.00 |
|
|
|
|
ITD-Help Desk |
$157,539.00 |
|
|
|
|
ITD-Labs |
$278,939.00 |
|
|
|
|
Walker Teaching Resource Center |
$134,435.00 |
$21,000.00 |
$118,000.00 |
|
|
Network Services |
$254,499.00 |
|
|
|
|
Telephone Services |
$403,989.00 |
|
|
|
|
Special Projects (Mocs Express/Banner) |
$356,784.00 |
|
|
|
|
CECA |
$1,255,500.00 |
|
|
|
|
Media Resources |
$51,633.00 |
|
|
|
|
College of Education & Applied
Professional Studies |
$25,624.00 |
|
$39,496.00 |
$18,000.00 |
|
College of Arts & Sciences |
$83,227.00 |
$93,346.00 |
$94,319.00 |
$82,000.00 |
|
College of Business Administration |
$100,536.00 |
$96,639.54 |
$6,311.00 |
|
|
College of Health & Human Services |
$48,176.00 |
$45,150.00 |
$29,743.00 |
$25,000.00 |
|
College of Engineering and Computer
Science |
$100,000.00 |
|
$46,400.00 |
$60,000.00 |
|
Continuing Education |
$153,816.00 |
$72,000.00 |
|
|
|
Lupton Library |
$121,810.00 |
$23,756.31 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOTALS |
$4,072,112.00 |
$351,891.85 |
$334,269.00 |
$185,000.00 |
Total IT spending $4,943,272.85
*
Estimated yearly cost of lab maintenance performed by faculty; maintenance
estimate based on the estimated number of hours and an average faculty salary
of $30/hour/40 weeks of the year
Three Year Summary Technology Fee Funding
|
1998-99 |
$ |
% |
||
|
New
Equipment |
297,977.00 |
21.73% |
||
|
Replacement |
224,000.00 |
16.34% |
||
|
Personnel |
0.00 |
0.00% |
|
|
|
Software |
525,000.00 |
38.29% |
|
|
|
Infrastructure |
324,000.00 |
23.63% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1999-00 |
|
|
|
|
|
New
Equipment |
276,000.00 |
21.02% |
|
|
|
Replacement |
326,600.00 |
24.88% |
|
|
|
Personnel |
149,845.00 |
11.41% |
|
|
|
Software |
174,450.00 |
13.29% |
|
|
|
Infrastructure |
385,888.00 |
29.39% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2000-01 |
|
|
|
|
|
New
Equipment |
235,779 |
15.41% |
|
|
|
Replacement
Equipment |
394,921 |
25.81% |
|
|
|
Personnel |
280,909 |
18.36% |
|
|
|
Infrastructure |
440,144 |
28.76% |
|
|
|
Software/Services |
178,450 |
11.66% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 year total |
4,213,963.00 |
|
|
|
|
New
Equipment |
809,756.00 |
19.22% |
|
|
|
Replacement
Equipment |
945,521.00 |
22.44% |
|
|
|
Personnel |
430,754.00 |
10.22% |
|
|
|
Infrastructure |
1,150,032.00 |
27.29% |
|
|
|
Software/Services |
877,900.00 |
20.83% |
|
|