Binghamton University Long Range Information Technology Plan
A Vision of the Future: Binghamton 2008
Envision yourself in the year 2008. Your options for where and how you work will seem unlimited by the standards of a few short years ago. Wherever you work, from your breakfast table or car or office, it is through a digital, personal, wearable Assistant which is your electronic link with your department, friends, campus and world. The Assistant has consolidated much of what in 2003 was your phone, PC, organizer, radio, TV, camcorder and DVD. The Assistant provides you with a comprehensive, standardized, input and output "portal" to cyberspace.
As a teacher, student, researcher or staff member, you find your Assistant to be an invaluable extension of your personal and work environment. Operating across wireless networks, responding to your voice commands, and always “on”, your Assistant reports to you on work you gave it to do the night before, lists your incoming mail, voice and video messages, maintains instant communications with those whom you identify, arrays and organizes before you (the way you want it) the world of entertainment and the resources you need for work and play, schedules the activities of your home appliances, and virtually “scurries off” in cyberspace to carry out your new commands.
In all your roles, you find that the physical boundaries that once constrained your schedule and activities have been greatly reduced. A variety of tasks that used to require your presence, like shopping, banking, or seeking entertainment are now accomplished from your home, office, or room. You still have to go out to get a haircut or play softball, but work, holiday shopping, and a "trip" to the library can all be accomplished from wherever you are. To the extent that your work or needs can be helped by an information or processing solution, your Assistant will be able to search out and seamlessly arrange for the application of the needed technology.
When you finish work and go home (if you leave home to work), the Assistant travels with you. But when it is idle, it can, at your discretion, revert to an institutional resource, available with other idle personal machines to work on problems submitted through the ubiquitous network by any authorized users who need additional computing power. At these times, your Assistant becomes a small part of a huge common computing resource available to all; providing massive, generalized computing power to the campus community and the world.
This draft plan is intended to update and replace the University's second Long Range Information Technology Plan, adopted in the Spring of 2000. The earlier Plans articulated a set of technology goals for the campus and listed steps for accomplishing those goals. Significant progress on the goals of earlier plans was made via the implementation and operation of a high-speed campus network and connection to Internet2, the establishment of a more decentralized and responsive technical support environment for campus users, the large-scale replacement and upgrade of our business systems, the wholesale upgrade of classroom, lab and server equipment and software, and the creation of a new standard for general and multimedia classrooms.
The format of this plan is as follows:
- Vision of the Future: 2008
- Executive Summary
- The University’s Goals
- Mission of CSET
- Governance
- Approaches and Practices
- Plan Objectives
- Conclusion
Information Technology has changed rapidly over the last five years. The trends toward faster, smaller wireless devices enables mobile computing and consolidates the features of many of today’s computing, communication and home-entertainment devices. These developments have direct application for teachers, students, researchers and staff.
This Long Range Information Technology Plan: 2003 is the second major revision of the University’s long-range information technology (IT) plan, and attempts to build on the accomplishments of those earlier plans.
The format of this new IT plan describes a vision of the future in 2008, the University’s goals, our mission statement, governance and goals for the coming five years in the context of these University goals.
This IT plan is intended to guide the activities of Computing Services and the Educational Communications Center, which together carry out the functions of Computing & Educational Technology (CSET). The CSET mission is to provide collaboration, leadership, and expertise in designing IT solutions for the University’s goals, and provide on-going support for those solutions. In order to accomplish this goal, the CSET should provide the highest levels of customer service and encourage the active participation and collaboration of the campus community.
Governance of CSET for academic computing and networking issues is vested in the joint Faculty-Administration Academic Computing & Educational Technology (ACET) committee. Governance for administrative computing matters is vested in the Executive Computing Priorities Committee (ECPC).
The University's own strategic plan, A Plan for the Future, as modified by the SUNY Memo of Understanding and Vice Presidents’ Goals into the Five Major Goals of the University calls for:
· a 25% expansion of the student body,
· continued emphasis on excellence in teaching,
· increasing levels of funded research,
· creating an inclusive university community, and
· reaching new targets for the University’s capital campaign.
In the context of the University’s long-range goals, this Plan's major objectives for the next five years are to employ IT to:
· Establish a set of approaches and best practices in CSET that ensure the productive use of resources, the measurement of outcomes, and user participation in setting priorities for “Projects that make a difference”.
· Accommodate the University’s expanded enrollment targets through targeted improvements to the IT infrastructure and development of more efficient business systems.
· Leverage resources that can assist the faculty in delivering more effective teaching through teaching space improvements and the acquisition of helpful educational technology.
· Improve support for funded research by offering IT resources to faculty to help in grant writing, research, and reporting the results of research.
· Support inclusion in the campus community by offering people tools and infrastructure that enhance communication and collaboration in work and play.
· Develop additional, external sources of resources for IT initiatives.
III. Binghamton University's Goals
Combining the University’s Plan for the Future, the SUNY “Memorandum of Understanding” and the annual goals of the University’s Vice Presidents yields the Five Major Goals for the University. They are:
- Grow enrollment to 15,000 students,
- Continue to build on Binghamton’s reputation for excellence in undergraduate and graduate education,
- Grow funded research to $27 million per year,
- Build an inclusive and supportive University community, and
- Advance the University’s capital fundraising campaign.
This long-range information technology plan is targeted to support the University’s goals.
The plan calls first for renewed efforts in CSET to employ approaches and good practices that will foster more productivity in its projects, more adaptability in setting and pursing its priorities, and more accountability in measuring and achieving positive outcomes to goals.
The plan calls second for a series of initiatives to support the University goals.
The central information technology organization in higher education operates under two apparently contradictory directives, both of which should support the University's goals.
First, resources, systems and services provided by IT must be dependable and consistent from day-to-day, to ensure the uninterrupted work of those who depend upon them.
Second, IT must work with its customers to identify new and more effective uses of information technology, and constantly improve the systems and services on whose stability users depend.
The mission of Computing Services and the Educational Communications Center provides collaboration in developing a shared vision of the future, leadership in identifying and initiating viable solutions, expertise in implementing those solutions, and support for solutions in place. These activities are to be carried out while meeting the highest standards of customer-service organizations, and with the intention of providing the best computing, networking and classroom environment in higher education for the resource level available.
Governance of the computing and educational technology functions at Binghamton is vested in two standing committees.
The Faculty Senate and Administration have jointly established the Academic Computing and Educational Technology (ACET) committee to provide guidance for academic computing and educational technology initiatives. The ACET includes representatives of the faculty, administration, undergraduate and graduate student organizations, and of Computing Services and the Educational Communications Center. The Committee maintains ties with other committees advising on academic computing and classroom technology issues, and regularly appoints subcommittees to examine IT issues of interest. Activities over the last two years have concentrated on classroom equipment requirements, the question of whether students should be required to have computers, desired levels of research support and revision of the University’s computing and networking “acceptable use policy”.
At the same time, priorities for business and academic support systems are set by the Executive Computing Priorities Committee (ECPC). Major current projects governed by ECPC are development of a new student registration system (OSS), upgrade of the Pegasus Finance and HR systems, extension of student, self-service web access to the degree audit reporting system (DARS), and implementation of the Resource 25 campus room scheduling system.
At the direction of the first two long-range plans (located at http://computing.binghamton.edu/lrp/index.html), CSET has initiated and followed through on many projects which have significantly improved the University’s information technology infrastructure. Among these initiatives are the creation of a high-performance campus network with multiple, high-speed external connections, the construction of classrooms with significant resources supporting education, the wholesale replacement and upgrade of administrative systems, the implementation of equipment replacement programs that maintain equipment and software at peak performance levels, and the reorganization and rebuilding of end-user training and support groups.
In spite of these signal successes, the selection, management and assessment of appropriate projects within CSET remains relatively informal. CSET’s management and faculty advisors believe that more formality could improve productivity, involve more of the community in decisions concerning support, and ensure more efficient execution of projects. The goal should be to ensure that CSET’s projects are initiated in response to validated University priorities and that they are “projects that will make a difference”.
To that end, projects that are taken on by CSET should adhere to the following principles and practices listed below.
- General principles:
- Stay current while maintaining reliability and efficiency: In order to get good value for resources spent, vendor-supplied operating systems and applications software should be upgraded regularly (provided they have established a record of reliabililty) to stay reasonably current with technology.
- Promote self-service: In order to improve operational efficiencies and data accuracy, self-service options should be used wherever practical.
- Improve integration: Wherever practical when changes are made, CSET should enhance inter-operability between legacy systems and new core business systems.
- Ensure the user’s voice: Users of IT should be able to easily provide input about and evaluate the services which serve them.
- Promote professional development: as an educational institution, we should leverage our skills to provide excellent training for any new service and for other skills our workforce will need.
- Seek sources of external funding and external partnerships: IT should seek to supplement state funding for as many of its projects as is practical from outside sources.
- When a major project is proposed, a set of statements should be a standard part of the proposal, including:
- Project charter: a detail of the project scope, purpose, sponsors, participants and timelines, in a standard format.
- Return on investment: a detail of expected costs, funding, outcomes, opportunity costs, benefits, and paybacks to ensure implementation of “technology with a purpose”.
- Stakeholder impact review: a detail of focus group or polling results of the impacts of the project on those who are affected.
- Security review: a detail of any project security impacts and issues.
- Accessibility review: a detail of accessibility concerns and issues.
- Measurement: a detail of how the progress and outcomes of the project will be reported.
- The University should develop a process which manages the selection and prioritization of proposed projects. Once approved, a project should:
- Follow a consistent method of project management,
- Periodically and publicly report progress (via the project manager), and
- Be reviewed in a post-mortem upon completion.
The objectives of this IT long-range plan are described below in the context of the University’s five major goals. CSET’s objectives in achieving the University’s goals are presented as a series of three components, along with subordinate tasks, below.
- The first component is “research and development”, and lists tasks that should be undertaken to explore potential initiatives in support of a particular University goal.
- The second component is “maintain and upgrade current services”, and lists tasks that should be undertaken to improve and keep current the services and resources already in place.
- The third component is “new services and service extensions” which lists new initiatives (or the elimination of services) which should be undertaken to meet University goals.
University Goal I: Increase enrollment to 15,000 students.
IT Objective: Maintain a scalable campus network and connections to external networks sufficient to handle the University’s growth, allow seamless communication among machines for academic, research and university business purposes, and ensure necessary external communications.
- Component: Research & Development
o Task: Develop a security plan for the campus network and user machines. The plan should address access, backup, authentication, encryption, virus protection, intrusion detection and public key infrastructure (PKI) use on campus.
o Task: Develop guidelines and investigate methods for judiciously rationing network resources among competing uses.
o Task: Review options for efficient use of the network for telephones and data.
o Task: Develop a plan for supporting widespread use of mobile devices as the next step in the evolution of the personal computing model.
o Task: Evaluate the support needs of off-campus students.
o Task: …
- Component: Maintain and Upgrade Services
o Task: Continue the on-going effort to replace network components and enhance network performance to meet the rising demands on the network.
o Task: Work to improve the current methods of screening emails for viruses, controlling spam, and detecting network intrusions.
o Task: …
- Component: New Services & Service Extensions:
o Task: Roll out wireless networking to the non-residence hall buildings on campus.
o Task: Setup virtual private network (VPN) software to establish secure network zones.
o Task: …
IT Objective: Support and enhance the university’s business and communications systems to handle increases in enrollment or where there is a demonstrable return-on-investment in cost-reduction, efficiency or increased service.
- Component: Research & Development
o Task: Investigate the use of barcoding to reduce mailing costs.
o Task: Investigate the benefits of a campus-wide calendaring system.
o Task: Experiment with LINUX on the mainframe as a potentially more efficient means of providing UNIX servers for multiple applications.
o Task: …
- Component: Maintain and Upgrade Services:
o Task: Upgrade Oracle applications on campus to 11i.
o Task: Upgrade the mainframe to improve performance during peak registration and continually upgrade operating and applications software to maintain currency.
o Task: …
- Component: New Services & Service Extensions:
o Task: Work to test and develop on campus our “next generation” student system in the Oracle OSS.
o Task: Complete the upgrade of DARS and its transformation to a self-service application.
o Task: Expand the hours of operation and types of payments that may be made through the BUSI credit card payment application.
o Task: Install the Resource 25 software to enable distributed campus room scheduling.
o Task: …
IT Objective: Develop CSET into an IT service provider recognized for its good practices to improve CSET’s productivity and efficiency in support of the University’s long-range plan goals.
- Component: Research & Development
o Task: Propose and help develop a process for up-front review of technology projects
o Task: Develop performance and measurement standards for major current services.
o Task: Each semester, target a particular service for review and improvement.
o Task: …
- Component: Maintain and Upgrade Services:
o Task: Expand the offerings of the Technology Training Center (TTC) as a demonstration site for the use of the latest training technologies.
o Task: Develop regular methods for reporting the results of the CSET user survey to supervisors and users, to enhance their ability to contribute to the improvement and evolution of CSET’s service offerings.
o Task: Reemphasize the system analyst’s role as a “reengineer” of efficient operational practices as well as a developer of systems.
o Task: …
- Component: New Services & Service Extensions:
o Task: Offer facilitation to campus reengineering efforts.
o Task: Develop benchmarks of other institutions to guide reengineering and best practices efforts on campus.
o Task: …
University Goal II: Continue to build on Binghamton’s reputation for excellence in undergraduate and graduate education.
IT Objective: Improve the effective use of technology for teaching and learning to a level used by at least half of the faculty.
- Component: Research & Development
o Task: Work with the ACET subcommittee to survey and report on faculty needs for educational technology.
o Task: Provide statistics on use of blackboard to ACET.
o Task: Develop measurement and feedback approaches to better understand Blackboard’s use and its benefits and shortcomings.
o Task: Continue to review with the Classroom Environment Committee (CEC) the campus’ standards for classroom equipment.
o Task: With ACET, develop maintenance and upgrade recommendations for department-owned labs and classrooms.
o Task: Work with the ACET to define potential desirable approaches to distance learning.
o Task: Make recommendations about how faculty can access laptops for use in the “laptop-ready” classrooms.
o Task: Work with the Pod Committee to examine and propose future uses of the pods.
o Task: …
- Component: Maintain and Upgrade Services:
o Task: Upgrade Blackboard and Academic Oracle servers as necessary for performance.
o Task: Continue efforts to renovate and bring to “laptop-ready” status all general use classrooms.
o Task: Continue to upgrade selected classrooms to full “multimedia” status.
o Task: …
- Component: New Services & Service Extensions:
o Task: Upgrade to next level of Blackboard software.
o Install IBM’s “gift” mainframe for the Watson School and ready it for use.
o Task: Make LINUX available for widespread use by engineering and other classes.
o Task: …
University Goal III: Grow funded research to at least $27 million per year.
IT Objective: Enhance the resources available to support research computing and high-performance networking to the level that allows continued growth of sponsored research by 10% per year.
- Component: Research & Development
o Task: Develop measurement and feedback approaches to all services implemented as a result of the recommendations of the ACET subcommittee on Research.
o Task: Do follow-up surveys with researchers to identify and refine our plans to support researchers.
o Task: Identify the IT resource needs of graduate students.
- Component: Maintain and Upgrade Services:
o Task: Review and upgrade commercial data services and the “StatMart” server.
o Task: Continue the regular upgrade plan for the New Media Center.
- Component: New Services & Service Extensions:
o Task: Establish a regular upgrade plan for the Research Computing Support Center
o Task: …
University Goal IV: Continue building an inclusive and supportive University community.
IT Objective: Use the campus network as a vehicle to support collaboration and personal communication for students with faculty, friends and home, to the extent that it becomes a recognized factor on student surveys as contributing to the quality of campus life.
- Component: Research & Development
o Task: Develop measurement and feedback mechanisms for all uses of the campus network by students.
o Task: Research the best packages for enterprise messaging and webmail.
- Component: Maintain and Upgrade Services:
o Task: Establish a regular upgrade cycle for resources in the “group study” rooms in the pods.
o Task: …
- Component: New Services & Service Extensions:
o Task: Enable the tools to let departments “push” necessary information directly to faculty, staff and students.
o Task: …
University Goal V: Enhance the University’s fundraising capabilities.
IT Objective: Look for external sources of funding to supplement state funds, increasing that component by at least 1% of total budget each year .
- Component: Research & Development
o Task: Identify areas of likely funding in consultation with the Research Foundation.
o Task: Research every proposed major project for available outside funding.
o Explore the potential for selling services like Oracle application implementation consulting to other organizations.
o Task: …
- Component: Maintain and Upgrade Services:
o Task: Offer unique, campus-developed programs like our documentation repository and Oracle self-service financial reports for sale to other institutions.
o Task: …
- Component: New Services & Service Extensions:
o Task: Offer Blackboard training to other institutions on campus for fees.
o Task: …
o
Readers are invited to comment on this plan by sending comments to the ACET at large via its listserv at <acet-l@listserv.binghamton.edu>.
Last updated Aug 17, 2006