Common Strategic IT Challenges

That the USM is a System and not a collection of independent entities is perhaps best realized via the collaborative activities that are fostered. In Information Technology there are numerous opportunities for collaboration----perhaps too many to be realizable at any given time. This Plan identifies those currently identified and prioritizes them so that available resources may be effectively used to best advantage.

Collaboration may be engendered for many reasons. Some reasons that are driving decision-making in the USM are:

Identifying and developing solutions for common information technology needs that are beyond the scope of any individual campus

Seeking opportunities where the size and diversity of the USM can be used to common advantage

Developing information technology strategies that make the USM more coherent to external stakeholders such as off -campus students and prospective students, prospective employees, suppliers of goods and services, State government, and the citizens of Maryland

Providing vehicles for knowledge transfer among USM institutions in areas of Information Technology.

By and large, the opportunities that are proposed are those fitting an axiom that "the whole is more than the sum of the parts." There is little benefit and the possibility of added overhead and slow-down in encouraging collaboration for the sake of collaboration. This Plan seeks to maximize the benefits of collaboration and to minimize the costs thereof.

Collaboration can take many forms:

Establishing a common strategic direction as proposed by an inter-institutional workgroup or other vehicle;

Engage in site licensing and/or volume purchasing activities on a broad scale;

Create communication vehicles that allow progress at one institution in a common activity to be transferred to others

Build common interfaces to external systems and entities

The list below sets out the common challenges and opportunities for collaboration. Those in boldface are the likely current candidates for some form of collaborative action. Amongst the dozens of possibilities listed, several have currently been identified as immediate priorities:

The USM has had substantial success with the Maryland Enterprise Educational Consortium (MEEC) in negotiating highly leveraged software purchases. To this has been added the Educational Computing Initiative, which proposes to do something similar with regard to personal purchases of hardware by students/faculty/staff. The USM not only has been successful in initiating these leveraged arrangements; it is uniquely positioned to undertake this activity on behalf of the broad USM community. That we offer extension to other educational entities in Maryland is beneficial to all and reinforces the leadership role of the USM within the Maryland educational community. The USM Service Center has played a leading role in negotiating and managing these large-scale license agreements.

Many USM institutions have long needed to upgrade the underlying systems that support the running of the institution and provide services to the campus community. During the fall of 2000, there has been a common plan to implement applications from PeopleSoft, Inc. This plan involves 10 of the USM institutions in one way or another. Six Institutions, including Bowie State University, Coppin State College, Frostburg State University, Salisbury University, University of Baltimore, and UMES, along with the USM Service Center have formed an alliance under the "umbrella of the Center" to collaborate on their implementation and potentially for longer term support requirements. The remaining institutions are engaged in separate implementations. This will be a major effort for the next four to five years across the System, and offers potentially many other opportunities for collaboration in order to save costs of implementation, to establish common interfaces and data standards, and to create common structures for executive decision making. The perspectives of external stakeholders: citizens, State government, off-campus students of the USM can be made to appear much more seamless as well.

The USM Office has committed to lead some of the efforts in this regard:

Since there will be multiple implementation projects under way, the USM Office will coordinate knowledge transfer and best practices amongst the projects. This will include maintaining communication vehicles between projects.

It is desired by all that there be a minimum number of interfaces with State of Maryland systems. The USM Office will identify the issues with regard to State systems and coordinate implementation of interface projects.

This will require standards in data definitions in those areas where the State systems identify requirements for interfaces. There are other needs for standardized data definitions in terms of roll-ups and reporting. The USM Office will lead the discussions regarding standards in data definitions.

Information will be rolled up to campus and USM enterprise data warehouses. The USM Office will implement the USM data warehouse project and will coordinate the interfaces between that project and the campus data warehouse projects.

Much of modern systems implementation and value comes from architectures that take advantage of distributed services. This in turn depends for its performance on appropriate network connectivity. UMATS will play a fundamental role in creating an appropriate development and production environment, and will be a partner in Customer Services Systems activities.

The distributed electronic environment that is evolving requires substantial coordination in order to effect security, manage the authentication of users and the authorizations to services that they are allowed. Given that the broad USM community extends across the State, and beyond, and will transcend any individual campus, the design, implementation, and coordination of these infrastructure components will be improved by a coordinated approach.

Everything in this Plan ultimately depends on having the right people available to design, implement, and support the services described. There is a national shortage of such people. While staff are employees of each USM campus, the policies governing their hiring, employment, and retention are System wide. There are common issues across all USM institutions with regard to recruitment, retention, and training of IT staff. It will be a priority to find common solutions as well as institutional solutions to these issues.

Based on the institutions' IT strategic plans, The following initiatives in boldface identify tactical opportunities for collaboration in the areas of Learning and Teaching, IT Human Resources, Customer Services Systems, Network Infrastructure, Electronic Services Architecture, General End-User Services, Research Resources, Sustainable Models for Renewing Technology, Information Technology Policies, and Library Services.

Status as of June 30, 2001

Site Licensing and Volume Purchasing
The MEEC agreement with Microsoft is at the end of its second year of a three-year contract with two one-year extension options. Current participation in this initiative, as reported in the second annual "true-up" report prepared by the USM Service Center is 251,000.

The virus protection software license agreement with Network Associates is available to all these participants as well. This initiative completed its first year July 2001 with participation of 80,000 desktop computers from the MEEC membership.

A contract with Apple Computer, Inc. to offer a similar license agreement for the Mac Operating System and Appleworks is under legal review. Preliminary procurement work has been completed by USMSC on behalf of USM and MEEC participants and is now at a stage of enrolling a minimum of 20,000 desktops by August 30, 2001.

The Educational Computing Initiative has been a good faith approach toward offering computer hardware to students, faculty, and staff within the USM at the best available price. The USM Service Center coordinated a System-wide group to develop the specifications for an RFP which has been released to formalize this program into a broad, leveraged hardware purchase program for all MEEC institutions that would include institutional purchases as well as individual purchases. Responses are due from vendors August 2001.

Customer Services Systems
Institutions are moving from buying to implementing. Six Institutions and the USM Service Center have formed the USM PeopleSoft Consortium to work together on their implementations. Three institutions have implementation partners and the remaining projects intend to choose implementation partners and get fully underway by the end of the summer, 2001. In the meantime, there has been substantial planning, team formation, and analyses of current business processes.

The USM Office activities are underway with knowledge transfer and State interfaces being the highest priority items.

Electronic Services Architecture
On June 1, 2001, the USM held a Middleware Day to start the discussion of understanding the components of a distributed networked environment and what we need to do as a System to make this appear coherent to users of electronic services. A Security Day will be held in September 2001 to open the discussions of another component of managing a distributed environment. Working groups are being formed to follow-up with the development of strategies for the USM in these areas.

IT Human Resources---Recruitment, Retention, and Training
The USM Office held three regional focus group meetings to identify issues and strategies. Subsequent to this the IT and Human Resources leadership in the USM held a half-day workshop to develop strategies. There is now a workgroup investigating best practices, establishing cross-institutional communications, and continuing the discussion of strategies. Further developments regarding collaboration in IT Human Resource issues will flow from this workgroup.

LEARNING AND TEACHING

Strategic IT Challenge: Facilitate excellence in learning and teaching through appropriate technology initiatives and services.

Systematically integrate the use of information technology into the curriculum, enabling both synchronous and asynchronous interaction. In this area, a prime opportunity for collaboration is in licensing, deploying and providing training for learning management systems.

Learning management systems - licensing, deploying, and training
Other tools for faculty to create online content
Strategies for instructional design support
Sharing of learning objects
Regular sharing of best practices (Mentors Program etc.)
Mechanism to evaluate outcomes
Rewards and incentives for faculty, including incentives for early adopters

Expand training and support services for faculty to incorporate technology into their instruction

Survey to assess faculty needs
Campus Learning and Technology Center (share best practices)
Faculty training programs
Hire and retain support personnel

Ensure access to online supplementary materials and communication tools

Enhanced e-mail for students (share strategies)
Email discussion lists
Synchonous ans Asynchonous Conferencing Systems
Chat rooms for class members
Access to the library's on-line catalog and electronic materials in text and multi-media formats
Electronic reserves for classes as well as course syllabi and other information on the web
Access to extramural library collections, primary source materials, and large, shared databases

Create sufficient numbers of smart classrooms supportive of using technology in the learning environment

Sustainable strategies for renewing technology in the classrooms
Rooms with video conferencing and distance education capabilities

Smart classroom design and implementation directions

Develop institutional plans for integrating information technology into the curriculum

Tactical Opportunities for Collaboration

Establish an information exchange with peer universities to get information on evaluative benchmarks and best practices

Analyze and determine appropriate technology-based delivery strategies, ensuring alignment with students' needs

Instructional partnerships with IT intensive organizations

Integrate distance education strategies into the curriculum

Status as of June 30, 2001

This status report includes only the status of the current high priority items.

Learning Management Systems (LMS)
An agreement among most USM institutions is to standardize on two LMS platforms: WebCT and Blackboard. Relationships for better support, input into software development directions, beta testing, and coordinated faculty training are components of each relationship. These relationships are in the development stage, but there is interest by all parties in maturing them.

Sharing of Learning Objects
This topic is only in the conceptual stage.

Survey to Assess Faculty Needs
The USM participates in a number of national surveys to assess various components of the IT landscape. Several include components related to assessing needs and services for both faculty and students. To date, the USM has not developed an internal USM wide survey of faculty needs related to integration of technology into the curriculum. Individual institutions have done this and the Institute for Distance Education has done this in the past as well.

Faculty Training Programs
There has been substantial investment in these programs at the System level, inter-institutional level, and individual institution level. Several years ago the USM instituted the Web Initiative in Teaching (WIT) program with the goal of assisting faculty to use the World Wide Web and network resources to improve the instructional environment. A State grant in 2000 through MHEC has allowed multi-campus collaboration in undertaking faculty training in instructional technology. Finally, each campus is making significant local investments in this.

Access to the library's on-line catalog and electronic materials in text and multi-media formats
USM libraries are in the process of installing the next generation of the online public access catalog, VICTORweb. The libraries individually and collectively add to their electronic holdings as resources allow. On July 5, 2000, the Maryland Digital Library was launched providing on-campus access to 10 commercial electronic databases for the students, faculty, and staff of 49 colleges and universities, both public and private. These electronic resources, including 400 electronic books and 2945 electronic journals, are accessed through a Web-based gateway called MdUSA (Maryland University and College Statewide Access to Electronic Resources).

IT HUMAN RESOURCES - Recruitment, Retention, and Training

Strategic IT Challenge: Success in deploying and effectively using IT services depends upon having adequate and well-trained technical staff.

In order to develop, implement, integrate, maintain, operate, and effectively use Information Technology services at a higher education institution, the institution must have adequate numbers of appropriately trained technical staff. In the current competitive market for such staff, all USM institutions are struggling to recruit and retain technical staff at all levels of the institution. While this is a national problem, Universities are particularly affected. University salaries are not competitive with the corporate marketplace, the stresses of the job are becoming similar to that found in higher paying positions, and Universities have traditionally used the technologies that are now becoming the standard in all industries.

Streamline the hiring process to make USM institutions more responsive to the market.

Develop common recruitment strategies that make USM institutions more competitive in the marketplace.

Develop strategies to more effectively use our students and to retain the best of them as employees for some time after graduation.

Develop common policies that encourage retention of IT staff

Leverage our size to gain favorable pricing on technical staff training (already underway to some extent)

Restructure IT Human Resources (i.e., examine job descriptions and/or job classifications)

Status as of June 30, 2001
This has been discussed under Current Priorities.

CUSTOMER SERVICES SYSTEMS

Strategic IT Challenge: Facilitate administrative efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, and quality through the delivery of streamlined information services in an increasingly distributed environment.

The Internet has significantly changed customer expectations and the competitive landscape for higher education information services. Students, faculty, staff, and other information consumers expect 24 x 7 access to cross-functional, customer-focused information resources, web-integrated interfaces, e-business services, personalized portals, and self-serve models for performing routine transactions. To meet these expectations, the USM institutions will need to acquire and deploy integrated and secure systems for providing student services, financial services, and human resource services.

Initiative to deploy contemporary systems for student services, financial services, and human resource services

Web front end to enhance the functionality of legacy student systems - registration and fee payment

Portal and intranet web services

Data warehouses and DSS with existing legacy systems

Data warehouses and DSS as part of an integrated application suite

Unix to replace administrative VAX/VMS computers

Interface with the State

Tools to improve access to legacy data

Disaster recovery strategies and hot-site agreements

Status as of June 30, 2001
The status of the PeopleSoft project was discussed under current priorities but here are a few updates to those projects not covered there.

1. Six institutions and the USM Service Center has formed the USM PeopleSoft Consortium to work together on the implementations.
   
2. The USM Service Center institutions are able to take advantage of web-enabled legacy features, including web-registration, credit card payments over the web and more due to the joint work of the joint efforts of Frostburg State University and the USM Service Center.
   
3. Preliminary work has begun on State interfaces.and a USM-wide workgroups has issued a draft report that addresses stratagies and implications. Individual institutions may dvelop interium solutions to meet implementation targets.
   
4. The Hot-site which the USM Service Center houses continues to be at the center of its members' disaster recovery planning.

NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

Strategic IT Challenge: Upgrade and maintain intra-campus and inter-institutional network infrastructures that support the current and future electronic services of a contemporary higher education enterprise.

The campus network undergirds all current and future electronic services provided to students, faculty, staff, management, and the public. Increasing, computer networks are transforming the information technology charter from one of aligning with organizational strategy to becoming an integral part of the strategy, enabling the institutional mission activities of learning, teaching, research, and community service. Thus, the network has to be fully pervasive, providing voice, data, and multimedia services to every classroom, public computer laboratory, residence hall, faculty member office, and knowledge worker desk. It must also provide sufficient bandwidth to meet user demand for on-campus and remote services. In addition, the USM wide area network must facilitate inter-institutional communications as well as access to information resources across the state, nation, and world.

UMATS, a USM network infrastructure consortium providing wide area network connectivity and interactive video services to all USM institutions (already functioning)

Next generation high-speed networking initiatives, including Internet2 and Abilene

Strategies for incorporating new technologies into the network infrastructure such as digital video servers, wireless networks, and intranets

Explore and implement partnerships with technology companies and state agencies to deploy high-impact network services

Status as of June 30, 2001
UMATS is in the process of upgrading its infrastructure to support standards based teleconferencing. UMATS has also prepared itself to provide access to Internet2 as appropriate to faculty and others at all USM institutions. This could be extended to non-USM institutions to the degree that they connect to UMATS. The USM Office has joined the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) on behalf of all institutions served by UMATS. Similarly, the USM Office is joining the Abilene Network as a Sponsored Organization under the sponsorship of the University of Maryland, College Park.

ELECTRONIC SERVICES ARCHITECTURE

Strategic IT Challenge: Facilitate easy, secure, and coordinated access to information resources by building an enabling electronic services infrastructure.

Students, faculty, staff, and other USM customers increasingly expect online access to various information resources as well as the ability to electronically process business transactions. To meet these expectations, universities face the challenge of building an infrastructure that will enable access to a wide variety of complex electronic services, ranging from student systems and electronic course materials to digital libraries. The foundational elements to support electronic services in a networked environment include authentication and directory services, security mechanisms, a public key infrastructure, license management, and other middleware services.

Meta directories and coordinated directory services

Directory services for managing user accounts and access to network resources

Proxy servers, encryption, firewalls and other mechanisms for securing information resources

Digital signatures and a public key infrastructure

Strategies for authenticating users and inter-institutional authentication

Policies and strategies for managing licensed materials and other intellectual property

Status as of June 30, 2001
This has been discussed under Current Priorities.

GENERAL END-USER SERVICES

Strategic IT Challenge: Provide technology tools to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of students, faculty, and staff in performing their university functions.

Enterprise-wide licenses for end-user applications

Groupware, including group calendaring, document sharing, and messaging

Discipline-specific applications and computing needs

Leveraged acquisitions of personal computers (Educational Computing Initiative)

Status as of June 30, 2001
Enterprise-wide licenses for end-user applications
The status of this has been discussed above in the section on volume purchasing.

Groupware, including group calendaring, document sharing, and messaging
No collaborative work has been done on this issue to-date.

Leveraged acquisitions of personal computers (Educational Computing Initiative)
The work and extension of this is discussed above in the section on volume purchasing.

RESEARCH RESOURCES

Strategic IT Challenge: Institutional Information Technology services should provide a supportive context for successful research. Typically, the institution should focus on those things that individual researchers cannot efficiently do for themselves, or do for themselves at all.

Make grant application and management easier for principal investigators.

License and deploy grants management system(s)

Provide IT infrastructure

Provide appropriate access to commodity Internet

Provide access to next generation Internet infrastructures and services

Provide electronic tools that support collaboration among researchers

License common toolsets

Support remote experimentation, data collection, data access

Provide appropriate network capabilities

Participate in Maryland Digital Library initiatives and similar initiatives

Support discipline based preprint servers

Status as of June 30, 2001
License and deploy grants management system(s)
The majority of institutions participating in the Peoplesoft projects have licensed the grants management application. Deployment will take place after the core applications have been implemented.

Participate in Maryland Digital Library initiatives and similar initiatives
USM institutions are active participants in the MDL initiative and active supporters of finding resources that will allow MDL to grow.

SUSTAINABLE MODELS FOR RENEWING TECHNOLOGY

Strategic IT Challenge: Deploy innovative funding models that enable the sustainable renewal of technology resources at USM institutions.

No longer just a support activity, information technology has become a central strategy and resource for transforming the academic and administrative functions of the university. However, the lack of funding models for IT acquisition and support in higher education is a significant challenge. The USM institutions need to establish IT funding models that are responsive to customer expectations and institutional needs in a rapidly changing technological environment.

Strategies for implementing sustainable funding models for IT infrastructure renewal and support services

Status as of June 30, 2001
Strategies for implementing sustainable funding models for IT infrastructure renewal and support services
The e-learningMaryland response to the Joint Chairs Report in 2000 involved a model for funding new IT initiatives for the coming five years. One key component, designated State appropriations for USM IT, was not in the 2002 approved budget though it was in the Governor's proposed budget. The other components of the model: reallocation of institutional priorities, designation of future appropriations, and a student revenue stream for improved and/or accelerated IT services for students, are all still under consideration.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY POLICIES

Strategic IT Challenge: Institute policies to effectively manage the shared resources inherent in the networked, distributed campus electronic environment.

Intellectual property policy
Acceptable use policies
Security policies and practices
IT human resource policies
E-mail policies

Status as of June 30, 2001
The Board of Regents Policy on IT Policies, described in this Plan, has been approved by the Board of Regents Technology Committee. It will be presented by that committee to the full Board of Regents at the July 13, 2001 meeting. The ITCC has a standing workgroup dealing with the collaborative components of the process described in that Board Policy.

LIBRARY SERVICES

Strategic IT Challenge: Achieve access to the widest array of information resources to support the learning, teaching, research, and outreach programs of the USM institutions.

Increase access and use of library collections and electronic resources (digital libraries; large, shared databases; online journals)

Conversion of conventional resources to electronic format

Collaborative resource sharing (MdUSA initiative providing access to databases containing full-text articles, comprehensive statistical data, and reference material; Library Information Management System or LIMS initiative)