Strategic Planning Committee Minutes, April 8, 2002

Strategic Planning (SPC) Committee Minutes
April 8, 2002

MEMBERS PRESENT:: Bruce Morton, Jaynee Groseth, Jon Wraith, Greg Johnson, Mary Noll, Bill Brown, Michelle McLendon, Mark Sheehan, Betsy Centa, John Carlsten

MEMBERS ABSENT: Kay Chafey

OTHERS PRESENT: Ben Sharp.

The meeting was convened by Chair Bruce Morton at 3:00 PM.

Mark Sheehan, Executive Director and CIO, Information Technology Center, discussed with the committee current IT services on campus and his view for the future.

Information technology has become more cost effective as use increases, because as capacity geometrically increases, the cost remains relatively consistent. However, expectations increase and tend to keep up with capacity, so costs do not go down. There does not appear to be any relenting on expectations, so there will be no cost savings to the university.

There would be cost savings in networking, except that band width would need to be added, so costs would increase. Fiber appears to be the future, not wireless, because of the limited capacity of wireless. The ITC capital budget provides money to upgrade from thin wire to CAT 5 cable for all major campus buildings. There is money in the FY03 ITC capital equipment budget to replace routers and hubs on campus with switches.

At MSU, the ITC budget is about $5 million of the approximately $70 million in the general fund (or about $130 million in the general fund and research). A benchmark for universities is to designate about 5% of the total university budget for central IT services. In addition to the $5 million spent by ITC, colleges and departments at MSU buy computers, software, and services. The new Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC) will look at the total amount of money spent on IT at MSU, not just central services.

How does MSU decide what level of service to provide and what is the responsibility of MSU to provide certain services? Policies can help decide the level of service. The Information Technology Task Force recommended that an ITAC be established. One purpose of the advisory committee will be to help set policies. Internet usage can be filtered (traffic shaping). A wider opening on the network is allowed for some kinds of traffic, and some traffic (such as music and videos) is limited.

Montana University System computer policies are to be approved by the Board of Regents in May. These policies inform users of university computer facilities regarding their rights and responsibilities, under existing state law. Individual e-mail is not monitored at MSU. Even if it were desirable, there are not enough resources to do so.

Director Sheehan serves as the Executive Director of ITC at MSU- Bozeman and is the CIO of the MSU campuses. He is aware of what happens at the other MSU campuses but has no authority or control over them. He meets with the directors of the other MSU campuses every other month and interacts with them as needed. He is in touch with Ray Ford, his counterpart at UM on many issues, and they are in agreement on most of these issues. Because Commissioner of Higher Education Crofts is interested in IT issues, he and the two Executive Directors meet five or six times each year.

At MSU-Bozeman, "800" telephone numbers no longer go through the state system. Summitnet provides this service, as well as internet connectivity (which is used mainly for Banner) between the universities and other state institutions. AT&T provides DS3 to share TV programming between KUSM and KUFM in Missoula.

The Montana Information Technology Services Division oversees IT communications for state agencies. Because universities, as educational institutions, operate differently from other state agencies, some restrictions on state employees may not be appropriate for university students and faculty.

MSU is one of about 153 universities and research labs using Internet 2. It provides a site more appropriate for research than other kinds of internet usage. Traffic to and from Internet 2 subscribing institutions goes through an Internet 2 router.

It would be helpful if MSU could increase funding to Banner to increase its functionality. MSU did an outstanding job of getting Banner up and running as quickly and economically as it did. However, Banner has a lot more to offer, if money and time were available to study the options and bring some of them on line. Banner's transaction handling capabilities are better than its reporting capabilities. To get all the desired reports out of Banner, buying a data warehouse would be a good move.

When new students come to MSU, they will find that MSU has good student computer facilities. Student computer fees are used for continual upgrading. High schools still depend heavily upon Apple, and at MSU, 90% of computer usage is Windows. This usually is not a huge obstacle for in-coming students. Students will usually find much greater internet connectivity at MSU than in their high schools.

Faculty new to MSU may be acquainted with Internet 2, and if they are from one of the other subscribing institutions, they are familiar with its positive features. Some faculty think MSU has better IT facilities than the school from which they come, some think it does not. One area where ITC could be of help to faculty is in providing assistance with statistical research design.

UM and MSU are similar in IT services. MSU has better servers, but UM is ahead on Banner because they started the process earlier. Both schools have similar financial constraints and work within the framework of the ITSB.

During discussion, it was pointed out that many computers and other equipment are purchased out of research funds but are partially or eventually used for instruction. Would it be possible for instruction to support the upkeep of these computers with an instructional maintenance budget? Smart podiums and other features in classrooms are supported by student computer fees. Many universities have programs to update all faculty computers regularly, so faculty don't have to depend upon research funds to do this.

A list of things ITC does not do was distributed (included at the end of the Minutes). The list could be included as strategic thinking continues. New Faculty Information - Information Services was also distributed (and is included at the end of the Minutes).

Other Issues:

• The preliminary SWOT analysis has been delivered to UPBAC.
  
• SPC will continue to absorb and assimilate a lot of information to come to a collective understanding of strategic thinking and planning and to develop a common knowledge base. This is preparatory to a second SWOT analysis, during which the campus will be engaged.

1. Provide all IT support for campus
   • Distributed computing support is a "best practices" model
2. Manage the Library automation system
   • Library manages its own hardware ,software, and data
3. Coordinate training of faculty in the development of Web-based or multimedia course materials
   • Burns Telecommunication Center manages WebCT and does training (ITC does manage the hardware and some aspects of the software for WebCT)
     
   • BTC also provides instruction in development of multimedia materials
4. Provide campuswide multimedia ("audio/visual") services
   • EHHD has a central media services office
     
   • Other colleges and departments have more or less scattered resources
5. "Own" all campus networks (particularly wireless)
   • New, aborning network security policies will probably put more responsibility on ITC for ownership of all networks
6. Coordinate videoconferencing
   • BTC coordinates MetNet
     
   • Internet 2 videoconferencing will make the technology more available, but will not meet the need for organized scheduling and site coordination (camera movement, microphone selection, etc.)
7. Coordinate distance education
   • ITC manages some technologies useful for distance education, but the Provost's office is more nearly the "owner" of distance ed. initiatives

Computer and Network Services Available to Faculty

• Equipment purchases
  • Dell
  • Compaq
  • IBM (very seldom used)
  • Apple (relatively little used)
  • SGI
  • Sun available through arrangement with University of Montana
• Network connections
  • IP addresses ($19 for new ones)
  • Data jack activation (about $150 to activate existing jack)
• Helpdesk
  • Consultation (live) 994-1777 (CALL THIS NUMBER TO ARRANGE ALL SERVICES LISTED HERE)
  • System status line (automated) 994-1888
• World Wide Web services
  • Consultation
  • Page Design
  • Website management
• Statistical and mathematical services
  • Consultation
  • Project management
• Programming services
  • Consultation
  • Project management
• Telephone services
  • Desk set
  • Long distance
  • Voice mail, other services
• Software standards
  • Microsoft Suite
    • Exchange/Outlook
  • Corel Suite
• Distributed support
  • Local service providers may be available - consult your college/department office

• Scheduled preventive maintenance occurs weekly between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. on Thursdays and between 6:00 a.m. and noon the third Saturday of the month. During these times you can expect the campus network, the Internet, and all ITC-managed systems to be unavailable. (In practice, however, the scope of maintenance activities in any given period is typically narrower; i.e., many systems are unaffected.)
• Typically, no fee is charged for brief ITC consulting services. Extended consultations and maintenance labor are billed at an hourly rate of $38 per hour (plus parts in the case of maintenance). Fees associated with projects undertaken between faculty and ITC are negotiable.

Network Services

• Most campus buildings are wired for Ethernet ? 10Mb/sec & 100Mb/sec. Bandwidth in older buildings may be limited by the shared?network implementations there. We are redesigning the campus core network to replace older technology (FDDI/10Mb Ethernet) with newer technologies including redundant Gigabit switches at the core and 100Mb switched Ethernet distribution.
• We provide network services based primarily on the TCP/IP ("Internet") protocol system: e-mail, Web services, etc. Accounts are available from ITC for POP Mail, Microsoft Exchange mail, logon access to central Unix services, etc. Contact the Help Desk (994-1777) to apply.
• ITC and a number of colleges and departments operate file and print services based on Windows NT (Novell, Appletalk, and NFS services are not typically available here and we are in the process of phasing out the former two from the core network)
• MSU is one of three connection points to the international "commodity" Internet from within the statewide data network (called Summitnet). Our Internet service provider is Verio and we are connected by a 7.5Mb/sec link to its Seattle point of presence.
• Internet 2. MSU-Bozeman is a NSF vBNS High-Performance Connections grantee; we have chosen to implement this Internet 2 connection as a DS?3 (45Mb/sec) connection to the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP at the University of Washington using the Abilene Internet 2 network. No special effort is needed to use Internet 2. If you are communicating with another Internet 2 site, your network traffic will be routed automatically over that network rather than over the commodity network.

• In 1999 we completed the initial implementation of the Banner2000 administrative information, system. (Banner is a product of SCT Corporation.)
• Banner serves all four campuses of MSU; central servers and databases are located here in Bozeman; satellite Web and forms servers are located at the other campuses.
• Banner applications are based on an Oracle database. Services to student and faculty clients are Web?based and as a result are easy to access both on and off campus, and are easy to learn to use.
• While the system now serves all critical, core business functions, we completed the installation in just 18 months and many of Banner's higher-level functions have yet to be made fully available. This situation improves daily, but much remains to be done because of limits on human and financial resources and because the Banner product suite is so extensive.
• As a new faculty member, you are most likely to encounter Banner in advising, managing your personal information (mailing addresses, etc.) through a Web browser - and in receiving your paycheck! Banner information can be accessed on the Web through the address, https://atlas.montana.edu:9000/. If you need help with your user identification code or PIN, contact the MSU Help Desk at 994-1777.