University Information Technology Steering Committee Information Update on Activities Within Information Services

Transcription

1 University Information Technology Steering Committee Information Update on Activities Within Information Services # Activity Item Description / Status 1 University governance of information technology & Information Services alignment to the University strategic objectives. Since January 2006 Information Services has worked to form a new governance structure for the University with respect to information technology. To that end the University Information Technology Steering Committee was formed, and reconstituted supporting sub committees were also created. Together these committees have responsibility for oversight of all aspects of University s information technology evolution, project prioritization and project implementation. As a result of these governance changes the PACIT and COACS committees have been dissolved. Information services will rely on these committees to provide the strategic direction and also ensure alignment of Information Services activities with that strategic direction. 2 Print Services policy Printing Services has been working with the VP Administration to draft a new campus policy that gives Printing Services subject matter expert authority over all campus print. Printing Services is to determine the most cost effective method of production using ether internal or external resources as appropriate. 3 IT Support Centre move and AH 106 renovations Information Services has moved the IT Support Centre (Helpdesk) main call center to ED549 and maintains satellite locations in AH106 and the Main Library. We have also completed renovations to the AH106 area, which formerly housed the Helpdesk. Desktop Workstation Support and inventory remain in AH Call management software Information Services has purchased, and is in the process of implementing, new call management software to track incidents reported to the IT Support Centre. The software is called Footprints and is a product of Numara Software. The intention is to make the IT Support Centre the single point of contact for all incidents and requests requiring Information Services involvement. 5 Service level agreements Information Services is in the process of setting up a service level agreement model with faculties. Our pilot project for using this model is with the Faculty of Science. We have been working closely with Science since August 06 on this and related issues within the faculty with respect to the quality and level of service provided by Information Services. We have determined their requirements, and they are channeling all support calls through the IT Support Centre as a part of this new model. A draft service level agreement has been created, and will be reviewed with Science and then with the other Faculty Administrators. This model will include all service required from IS, including application support, desktop support, research support and network/infrastructure support. 6 GroupWise The new /calendar system has been implemented. Over 1900 user accounts were moved from Exec Mail to the new GroupWise system.

2 This project does not include student/alumni users which will now be addressed in the coming fiscal year. GroupWise provides improved connectivity for mobile (e.g. BlackBerry) users. Information Services is now considering the value of developing an RFP for mobile devices and services. 7 Wireless Information Services has completed the rollout of wireless capabilities in the Education, AdHum, Lab, and Classroom buildings. We are currently working on College West and College Avenue buildings this year and plan on working on the Riddell Centre, Greenhouse Gas, Centre for Kinesiology and Health Science, Language Institute, North and South Residence and the Laboratory Building Addition next fiscal year, subject to capital funds being made available. One time funding is being provided from Government through their Information Technology Office (ITO) to allow completion of all on campus wireless needs on the ground floor of all buildings. The ITO will purchase all component hardware and transfer ownership of this hardware to the University. Ongoing maintenance and support of this equipment will then become the responsibility of the University. 8 Network refresh Information Services is in the process of replacing a substantial portion of its existing data network equipment to improve reliability, security and performance. Subject to requested capital funding being maintained for fiscal an onwards Information Services will continue to replace the existing data network such that we place the University on a 5 to 7 year refresh cycle. For comparative purposes WestGrid is on a 3 to 5 year refresh cycle, Health Care aims for a 4 to 6 year refresh cycle and U of R desktop technologies are on a 4 year refresh cycle. Depending on the results of our developing relationships with other countries and their desire for the delivery of University of Regina services the infrastructure within the U of R may require significant additional upgrade of capacity and speed within the campus itself and with respect to our access to the Internet. To that end we are planning to increase our internet band width to 100mg next fiscal year. 9 Server infrastructure refresh Information Services has replaced 12 of 18 obsolete servers, and installed 10 new servers. Most centrally stored data has been moved to a Storage Area Network (SAN). This transfer to the SAN includes Banner, GroupWise, and much of the Novell file storage. In addition Information Services has purchased additional SAN units to allow for improved data and service availability for business continuance and to allow replication of critical data in a separate location (Education 6 th floor) for disaster recovery purposes. Subject to capital funding being made available to sustain the refresh cycle, it is the intention of Information Services to continue replacement of aging servers such that servers will be taken out of service after a maximum 7 years of use. 10 Voice mail We have been notified that the vendor will not provide additional capacity beyond June 1, Information Services therefore plans to pre-purchase required capacity to allow the University to run on the

3 existing system until the summer of It is our intention to issue an RFP for replacement of the voice mail system in mid 2007 with replacement to occur in summer WebCT A Course Management System (CMS) Committee is studying the current situation with respect to the Blackboard purchase of WebCT and the UofR s future application needs for web delivered classes and associated services. The committee will be constructing and issuing a survey to gather feedback from campus users and will report results and recommendations to ACRIC and the UIT Steering Committee. Open Source solutions are being discussed in addition to continuing with WebCT. Continuation on the WebCT path will likely come at a substantial increase in cost (perhaps as high as $200K/year ) when our current version is no longer supported by the vendor and we are forced to move to replacement solutions from Blackboard. 12 WestGrid The UofR signed an MOU as non-major participant within WestGrid HPC (High Performance Computing) consortium to support application to CFI and NSERC for funding to the National Platforms Fund (NPF). The WestGrid application was successful and $20M was allocated to WestGrid and with matching provincial and institutional contributions will be approximately be $50M. Questions remain about how funding will be allocated within WestGrid; how UofR researchers will be affected by the NPF when it comes to future funding applications to CFI/NSERC (i.e. why aren t you using WestGrid ); how UofR researchers will be able to make effective use of WestGrid computing/storage resources in their research programs. David Gauthier, AVP Research is considering these issues, with advice from Randy Lewis, Mohammed El-Darieby, Malek Mouhoub, and Information Services. 13 Unplanned power outages Information Services has experienced two unscheduled power outages in The latest outage being December 22, 2007 and resulting from a transformer replacement for LBA. I/S was made aware of the results of the audit in a final report on the incident from Physical Plant. We have had follow up discussions with physical plant and are reviewing options that would mitigate the risk of a similar occurrence by using a combination of early notification from Physical Plant of all electrical changes, software management tools, and additional hardware in the form of power switching. We are currently reviewing the cost of putting these solutions in place. 14 Single sources of knowledge A significant risk faced by Information Services and in turn the university is associated with individual I/S staff members having the only knowledge regarding specific components of the information technology infrastructure or a specific and unique set of technical skills. Information Services identifies this risk as single sources (points) of knowledge. To address this we are in the process of reorganizing support staff into service delivery teams that share a common set of knowledge among 2 or more members. We have enhanced and focused

4 our training on providing additional staff the technical skills in areas where now only one person has that skill. For the foreseeable future the University remains at risk of significant service delivery delays as a result of Information Services losing these single sources of knowledge. 15 IT security An increasingly hostile security environment has created significant pressure to quickly apply ever more frequent software updates on servers and desktop computers. This is becoming a significant staffing issue for Information Services. As a result we have requested additional staffing within the I/S budget request for Misuse of IT resources Our internal process for risk identification determined that inappropriate or malevolent use of IT resources by U of R faculty/staff/students is a concern. How we might effectively address this risk is not readily apparent. As such we will be looking to consulting resources to aid with the analysis and to make recommendations during Project management framework Project management process development has been a significant focus for Information Services and to that end we have hired an Assistant Director of Customer Application Support and reporting to that Assistant Director a Manager of Projects. These two individuals are responsible for developing and implementing a project management framework and procedures to be followed in any project in which Information Services is involved 18 Contact management project In collaboration with Student Affairs IS assisted with the development of a high level requirements document for assessment of Luminus and ezrecruit and any other solution(s) that may meet the Contact Management (Customer Relationship Management) needs of the University. 19 Business analysis This is an area not currently addressed at the U of R. IS received support from the Registrar s Office, Finance, Human Resources, Physical Plant and the Library to make a budget presentation for the creation of Business Analyst positions within IS. Once filled, these positions would support units within the university with business needs assessment, business workflow, business requirements setting, application identification, selection, and implementation. The business analysts would provide ongoing support of these applications with respect to their use and enhancement so that departments can be successful in the delivery of their services. 20 Web services Information Services in collaboration with External Relations, Student Affairs, CAT and the Library have developed a responsibilities document for delivery and support for web related services for the University. This is now in review with the Vice Presidents. 21 Information project In collaboration with the Office of Resource Planning Information Services assisted in the development of a go forward project plan and high level implementation schedule to deliver on the Information Project. Given Information Services skill sets and staff availability within both Information Services and the Office of Resource Planning this project, which is technically and functionally daunting will take

5 22 Consolidation of media information several years to fully complete. In collaboration with the faculty of Fine Arts IS has begun the process of recording its AV film, DVD, CD collection within the Fine Arts media database in order to manage and present the combined collection as a single resource. 23 Student self service The University experienced significant degradation in its Student Self Service application functionality. Our analysis indicated that additional business rule edits required and implemented by the Registrar s Office were the source of the degradation in computer performance. To address this problem IS replaced the existing server with new equipment having upgraded processing capacity to sustain service availability for students, faculty and staff. We also connected the database to the SAN (storage array network) in an attempt to improve service performance, expand storage capacity, and improve the security of data. We are not yet assured the problem has been resolved. We did not experience problems in the January 07 or the March 07 registration time frames but these generate a lighter student load on the system than in September when we originally experienced the problem. We will closely monitor the September 07 registration period. Information Services will also begin a process of implementing a change management process which includes preproduction testing of changes to attempt and identify and resolve issues such as this prior to implementation in the production environment. 24 Smart classrooms Smart classrooms are an area in which IS can have a direct impact on the educational experience of professors and students. We have experienced a significant decline in recoveries in our AV area. This is primarily due to internal units demanding more time which produce little in the way of recovery dollars compared to other external revenue sources. In the past we have outfitted and maintained the suite of smart classrooms from external revenue recoveries from AV. Our external revenues no longer generate the needed funding. The sustainability of existing smart class rooms is in jeopardy. To address this decline in revenues we have asked for additional funding from the center to support the maintenance of smart classrooms. Based on current benchmark metrics we are between 12 and 20 smart classrooms short when compared to equivalently sized universities. 25 Test network lab environment In order to better conduct preproduction testing of hardware and software changes, Information Services is in the process of implementing a test network. Physical space is being developed and the necessary network components have been purchased to allow simulation of the production network. This will allow for the identification and resolution of changes in the network and application environments prior to those changes being implemented in the production environment. This will not eliminate all potential problems as we can not simulate full utilization of the network in the test environment. However this will substantially reduce the number of problems encountered in production

6 when changes are introduced. 26 Print Services web storefront Prints Services is exploring the development of a web storefront to allow web print submissions, self service stationary and business card creation, and similar print services. 27 Print Services one card system 28 Print Services multifunction devices (MFD) Print Services is looking to replace its existing Cop-Eze system with a solution that could integrate into a single one card system across campus. Print Services continues to add fax, print and scan capabilities to MFD s as opposed to purchasing new assets. The intent is to reduce overall University expenses and at the same time reduce the number of print assets on campus. By doing so we can reduce toner and maintenance costs for departments and faculties while improving the quality of the print services provided to those same departments and faculties. 29 Colour printing Print Services is exploring the addition of colour printing and copying to the copier fleet. There continues to be a proliferation of inkjet and laser devices throughout the campus. If we were able to provide a convenient, efficient, high quality, colour print and copy service we could dramatically reduce the operating cost to departments and faculty of producing colour print and copying. 30 Risk management Information Services was identified as one of the risks in the University risk assessment review. As a result Information Services with the assistance of the University Risk Management Coordinator has identified 40 potential risk issues for Information Services. The managers group within Information Services have prioritized these risks and is currently addressing the top 10 items. A report on progress has been provided to senior management. 31 Business process improvement In the unit review of Information Services in 2005 one of the issues raised was the lack of industry standard best practice for an IS department. As a result Information Services has begun the process of addressing this lack of industry standard business process. We have begun the review by defining a common view of our purpose within the University the objectives we will need to focus on and the outcomes we will need to attain in order to meet our purpose. In addition we will also define the principles of conduct by which we will treat each other and our customers in the process of accomplishing our objectives. Once that is completed we will develop the strategy map and business processes that will aid our planning and the completion of the projects and activities necessary to accomplish our objectives. The bulk of this work now started will be completed during and Disaster response plan Information Services has started development of its own comprehensive departmental disaster response plan. This in part is being done to address the responsibilities Information Services has been assigned in the University Wide Disaster Response Plan. Version one of the plan is now in review with the Manager Health and Safety. 33 Safety training Information Services had two safety related incidents in that identified a lack of training and knowledge on the part of supervisors

7 and staff. Working with the Manager of Health and Safety, Information Services conducted educational sessions for all managers and staff on safety. Follow on questions regarding supervisory responsibility and potential safety hazards were past to the Health and Safety department and these issues were addressed directly with the appropriate supervisors and staff. 34 Services description Information Services has become aware of the discrepancy between the expectations of its customers for services from IS and the actual capabilities and understanding IS has of its service obligations. To begin to bridge that expectation gap IS is in the process of developing a Service Description for the department. We have produced a first draft of the document and have begun vetting this with the Faculty Administrators Group. As expected it has raised several issues around service delivery now and for the future and we are slowly beginning to address these issues. Once complete with the Faculties we will then engage the administrative areas in a similar fashion. Once completed we will then publish the current baseline services that IS provides. This documents will be integral in the developments of our Service Level Agreements and in focusing IS and its customers on solving future service delivery needs in a collaborative fashion 35 QuickBase Information technology is attempting to improve all aspects of its business processes. We have identified a tool set called Quickbase that can assist us with internal workflows in a number of areas such as holiday requests and approvals, staff scheduling, software license management, deployed equipment management, security authorizations and updating. QuickBase is an application service provider offering from Intuit and as such the data and application are run from the United States this raises issues of data security and assured access.