Maryland's Public System of Higher Education

While the USM is "institution centric," there are many activities that an individual institution would not undertake or which are more efficiently done collectively. Historically, inter-campus data networking and video conferencing is an example of the former, and the common Online Public Access Catalog (Victor) is an example of the latter. The activities in this section affect all institutions in the USM and thus strategic directions for these core services are critical to all. These are broad areas that we must inherently address as a System.

UMATS

UMATS is a USM network infrastructure consortium for providing wide area network connectivity (inter-institutional connectivity) and interactive video services to all USM institutions. UMATS' services focus on the needs of its member institutions as they adapt to emerging technologies. UMATS also works to include outside educational partners and find ways to bridge the geographic and social divide. A new engineering plan, business plan, and cost allocation model are being developed.

USM Libraries

The University System of Maryland Libraries is a consortium of 13 libraries on the campuses of 11 state supported four-year colleges and universities in Maryland. The USM Libraries currently share in the use of a Library Information Management System (LIMS) and a gateway architecture utilizing the site search software MdUSA, which integrates access to a number of both locally hosted and remote electronic information services. The Council of Library Directors is responsible for managing LIMS, and includes representatives from liaison institutions St. Mary's College, Morgan State University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore Health Sciences and Human Services Library.

Specifically, the upgrade of LIMS will provide Web-based and other client oriented Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for all authorized public and staff users to:

the Online Public Access Catalog,

the staff based functions of the LIMS,

electronic resources via the MdUSA gateway,

locally transcribed and/or digitized multimedia content, available via the LIMS Online Public Access Catalog client but made available via digital library applications server software.

MdUSA (Maryland University and College Statewide Access to Electronic Resources) is the gateway enabling cooperative sharing of subscriptions to electronic resources for the University System of Maryland (USM) and Maryland Digital Library (MDL) campuses.

MDL is the Maryland Digital Library initiative providing access to electronic resources for students and faculty at universities and colleges across the State of Maryland. Approximately 57 public and private academic libraries across the state participate in the MDL initiative. In a digital library environment, users can gain access seamlessly to electronic resources and to the substantial collections of more traditional forms of material that libraries collect. More than 200,000 students and faculty have access to databases, e-books, electronic journals, and reference works.

University System of Maryland Service Center (USMSC)

The Service Center is a unique IT service organization consisting of six institutions of the University System of Maryland (USM), Institutions that participate fully in this information technology consortium service are Bowie State University, Coppin State College, Frostburg State University, Salisbury University, Towson University, and The University of Baltimore.

The purpose of the Service Center, as it was initially established, was twofold. First, to maximize the flexibility available to the institutions thus allowing them to utilize their IT staff in addressing institutional specific needs. Second, to eliminate duplication of effort by focusing the resources of the Service Center on software requirements and future IT needs of all institutions. In recent years, the Service Center has played an important role for other USM institutions by coordinating and managing system wide IT contracts and services. In the past year, the Center has expanded its efforts to leverage volume based collaborative negotiations and purchases to include the one-of-a-kind Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC) participants.

Articulation and Electronic Transfer of Transcripts

The USM Articulation Office assists prospective transfer students from the community colleges with their course selections and transfer processes. Artsys is an information system that supports the Articulation Office in translating academic course equivalencies and facilitating transfers between Maryland community colleges and USM institutions.

The Artsys software also supports the electronic interchange of transcript, academic, and certain demographic data between academic institutions.