Wichita State University
Information Technology Priorities & Plans
Preamble
In Fall, 2003, the University Technology Committee provided an Academic Subcommittee and an Administrative Subcommittee with charges related to Information Technology (IT) Priorities and Planning. The Academic Subcommittee comprised members of the faculty, staff, students and community and met several times during the fall semester and under the guidance of Gerald Graham, completed its charge. This report from the Academic Subcommittee focuses on the elements of their charge:
To assemble a plan that comprises:
1. Vision Statement
2. Mission Statement
3. Goals
4. Priorities / Success Indicators / Work Plan Items
Pockets of IT excellence exist across the WSU campus as well as an increasing awareness of the need to share that expertise with each other and with other institutions. What has emerged is the recognition of the value of joining forces with other institutions and organizations with similar interests and strengths in order to develop a recognized niche of expertise. Creative and motivated IT staff (UCATS & MRC) provide support to all members of the IT community. A visionary and progressive library staff has implemented strategies to increase online and wireless connectivity to library services. An air of enthusiasm and readiness prevails in many areas. Human resources, knowledge, and skills are increasing. Several externally funded grants have supported technology innovation for faculty and students and that innovation and enthusiasm has been shared with many across the university.
WSU Television is a dedicated cable television channel operated by Wichita State University on the Cox Cablevision system serving the city of Wichita and surrounding communities. From its inception in early 1981, WSU TV has strived to share the academic and cultural resources of Wichita State University with the Wichita community. Through WSU TV's active Telecourse program, more than 33,000 students have earned academic credit from Wichita State University. Locally produced programs such as Studio B, WSU Insight, WSU On Campus, and WSU Archive have helped cement the special synergy that exists between the University and the community. KMUW, housed at its present facilities since March. 1981, has broadcast since April 26, 1949 when it was the first 10-watt noncommercial FM station in the United States, the first noncommercial FM station in the State of Kansas, and the second FM station in the state. Blackboard is the Learning Management System supported at WSU. Presently, more than 800 campus courses utilize the system, with over 600 faculty and more than 12,000 student accounts. Blackboard includes a variety of tools and resources designed to support both traditional and online courses. Internet 2 provides data communication with other Internet2 connected sites including sites on Abilene, the vBNS, several federal agency networks and international research and education networks. Global Learning strives to combine global reach through modern communication technologies, and Global Perspectives, through interaction with learners and faculty of diverse cultures, to produce the Global Graduate. A growing need for professional development is met through a variety of formal and informal networks across the university including UCATS and the Center for Teaching and Research Excellence
WSU's ability to develop and provide a robust IT environment is impeded by factors both from outside and from within the University. From the outside, the current soft economy, decreasing state support, and fewer grant opportunities combined with increased competition for student enrollments have the potential to diminish the University's ability to maintain or enhance its fiscal base. In addition, rapid changes in technology overwhelm traditional resource replacement models and challenge society's ability to maintain viable ethical, legal, and cultural standards. From within the University, the IT environment struggles to keep up with rising expectations from students, faculty, and staff for more bandwidth, more advanced equipment, cutting edge applications, and increased technical expertise. Underdeveloped policies limit the University's ability to take advantage of appropriate standardization. Finally, the University's technology advancement may be hindered by resistance to change brought on by information overload, fear, disinterest, or inertia.
WSU lacks a seamless, integrated technology structure across campus or registration process for any students, but in particular for online students living in different states and in other countries. Registration and admissions staff are somewhat unfamiliar with the notion of students taking courses at WSU but not living in the area. WSU has been slow in forming partnerships with other universities. The university is just starting to develop collaborative on-line courses with other universities. WSU needs to explore a series of shared courses (Undergraduate as well as Graduate) taught by faculty at different institutions as in the Global Learning program. This need is particularly important for a mid-sized university like WSU that can make use of expertise at other universities while sharing expertise with them.
IT products, both hardware and software, continue to grow in functionality and to decline in price. As technology becomes ever more pervasive, the principle cost of the technology will shift from buying the machines to supporting the machines and the people who use them. The development of the Kan-ED network may provide an opportunity to deliver educational resources and interact in ways that have not been feasible before. Membership in the Internet2 network creates additional opportunities for education and collaboration. The university must be able to respond rapidly to take advantage of specific opportunities as this connectivity is deployed.
Students have expectations that will influence IT development and deployment at WSU. They expect to utilize and expand their skills through our educational and research programs. The university supports IT through program definition and resource allocation, the development and integration of IT throughout the programs of the university. The faculty and staff are responsive to these initiatives, and have the capability to carry them out.
The nation, as well as major employers of our graduates, is sending a strong message that we must ensure our graduates are globally oriented. To this end, the Global Learning program, which depends on modern communication technologies and revised educational strategies, is well underway and will differentiate WSU in the market place. As of March 2003, there are nine course and program transformation projects underway. This increases WSU's global reach to 19 overseas institutions in 10 different countries covering 11 time zones. More than 34 faculty here and overseas are in the process of transforming some 18 courses in programs across the colleges of education, engineering, fine arts, business and liberal arts and sciences that will provide global learning experiences for more than 1,000 students here and overseas. This program is set to grow but it will require improvements to IT infrastructure, professional development and learner preparation in order to be a major advantage for WSU.
The issues of greatest concern for the immediate future of WSU are broadly: infrastructure, networks, access and content. Important aspects of the IT infrastructure include the provision and support of master classrooms with ITV (Interactive TeleVision) equipment and the replacement cycle for computers in general, but more specifically those in student computer laboratories. The bandwidth upgrade process for wire networks and the proliferation of secure wireless networks are very important. Improvement in access, using IT, can best be accomplished through improvements to satellite campuses, particularly the provision of ITV capability, wireless networks for students, greater use of Blackboard and ITV access for students for global learning team interactions. Always, the quality of the content is important, so continued investment in new and better online information sources is a priority.
An important consideration for Academic activities is the streamlining and increased efficiency of administrative policies and procedures that will be enabled with new systems of software and hardware. An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system and improved Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system are essential to ensure the efficiency and competitiveness of WSU as well as to improve the quality of education and associated services for our students.
In support of the needs of WSU, the Academic Subcommittee proposes the following:
Vision
Wichita State University will provide Information Technology that is accessible anywhere, anytime, and that is integrated into teaching, learning, scholarship, research, and service.
Mission
Wichita State University will supply fully integrated and secure information technology resources to meet the evolving needs of its faculty, staff, students, and university community. The university will collaborate with others regionally and globally, to provide and participate in education, research, scholarship, professional development, and service for national and international users.
Goals
1. Ensure that IT (Information Technology) supports the university’s missions for research, scholarship, education, service, administrative, and consulting functions.
2. Establish and maintain standards for interoperability and gain advantage through economies of scale in the acquisition process and minimize maintenance costs and complexity of the university’s IT infrastructure. Continually revise, monitor and communicate those standards to all parties. Integrate these goals with plans for maintenance and replacement.
3. Institute a sustained process of faculty and staff development by meeting their learning needs to ensure ROI (Return On Investment) from new IT resources. Precede full implementation with thorough training for faculty and staff based on a skills inventory and ongoing needs analysis.
4. Ensure that all aspects of the university’s IT system are sustainable in terms of its funding base. Establish life cycles for IT components and plan on a replacement cycle and its funding. Success in this goal will involve the establishment and maintenance of an IT inventory for budgeting purposes. An IT inventory is essential for continuing to meet the needs of a growing, globally-oriented student body, industry and community.
5. Improve accessibility to and transparency of all the university’s information resources for faculty, staff, and students as appropriate while ensuring the required levels of security. Continually monitor and update accessibility and transparency to ensure their long term adequacy.
6. Use modern communication technologies to establish and maintain a variety of collaborative networks for research and teaching.
7. Work towards becoming a model of achieving measurable returns on investment by integrating IT for industry, business, social services, education agencies, the arts, and the community.
Plans
To accomplish the above goals, the committee recommends the following:
1. Create an institution-wide, automated knowledge base with information about all IT resources, such as hardware, software and a staff and faculty skills inventory. This needs to be measured against goals to assess the prevailing gap to calculate funds needed to close it.
2. Establish and maintain university-wide policies, procedures and guidelines for IT.
3. Translate the IT gap to funds required and thence to a university-wide technology fee per credit-hour.
4. Identify and promote exemplars of IT applications that improve and promote efficiency and productivity to the university community.
5. Annually revise priorities for IT based on input from stakeholders.
Working Group
Dr Sue Abdinnour-Helm, Chair, FREDS, Business School
Dr David Alexander, Physics, LAS
Mike Allumbaugh, LSI Logic
Julie Bath, Graduate Student
Tom Brock, Director, TV Services, Media Resource Center
Dr Jeri Carroll*#, Chair, Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education – Co-Chair
Steve Dickerson, Assistant Director, Academic Computing, UCATS
Dr Kathy Downes, Associate Dean, Information Services, Library
Ken Frazier, Boeing Wichita
Dr Ian Gibson
f, Educational Leadership - Administration, Counseling, Education & School Psychology, College of EducationDr Gerald Graham, R.P.Clinton Distinguished Professor of
Management – Facilitator
Business School
Chetan Gubbi, Student Government Association
Dr Steve Hedden, Dean of Fine Arts
Adam Kice, Student Government Association
Dr Ravi Pendse, Director of Center for teaching & Research Excellence, CISCO Fellow, Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Greg Rasmussen, USD 259
Dr Glyn Rimmington*#
f, Boeing Distinguished Professor of Global Learning – Co-ChairJan Riordon, Nursing, Health Professions
Dina Stewart, LSI Logic
Russ Widener, Music, Fine Arts
Skip Womack, Learjet/Bombardier
Mike Wood, Director, Media Resource Center
Dr David Wright, Faculty Senate IT Subcommittee, Graduate School, Sociology, LAS
Dr Peter Zoller*
f, Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs & Research and CIO* University Technology Committee
# Faculty Senate IT Subcommittee
f
Faculty Advisory Council on Global Learning
Schedule
Friday, October 11th, 2002 2:00-5:00 PM Hughes Metroplex
Brainstorm a Vision, Mission and SWOT Analysis
Friday, October 25th, 2002 2:00-5:00 PM Hughes Metroplex
Review Vision, Mission and SWOT and brainstorm Goals
Friday, December 6th, 2002 2:00-5:00 PM NIAR
Review Vision, Mission, SWOT and Goals and Brainstorm Strategies
December-January
Assemble Draft Plan for Comment and Share with Administrative IT Strategy
Group
February-March
Circulate to stakeholder groups for Feedback
May
Submit Revised Draft to University Technology Committee
June/July
Incorporate suggested changes.
August
Submit to University Technology Committee Retreat for adoption