Project: External review of UCSB technology issues [Draft; more input needed.]
Sponsor: Alan Moses, Technical Coordinator, L&S (co-sponsored by OIT?)
Summary
In a distributed computing environment such as UCSB's, the success of any large scale project depends on units and systems outside the scope of the project itself. Further, it is well known that UCSB is under-funded and under-staffed compared to other campuses. The combined effect of these factors creates a potential for any given project to succeed in terms of achieving the goals in its defined scope but to fail to deliver significant good to the campus at large due to inadequate resources at the feeder systems and services or at the project's targeted users.
If a general review of UCSB technology were commissioned, it would no doubt tell us, again, that we have inadequate funding and staffing in whatever crucial areas the review focused on. Although this is well known and not worth the investment of resources to hear it again, it is vitally important to build this information into our planning process. In particular, it is vital to know up front what limitations our funding, staffing, and organizational realities will place on any specific project.
It is difficult to explore all the dependencies and underlying assumptions of a project from within a committee charged with examining a specific issue. There is barely enough time for a committee to examine the issues directly in its charge. For the purpose of any given project, it is generally assumed that historical definitions of services and uses of funding will persist, but this may not reflect changes in priorities and funding within units, changes that may not be directly relevant to the charge of the committee or part of general public campus discussion.
Proposal: Therefore, I propose that a process be initiated and funding be provided to have an external review of the feasibility of the current ITPG proposals that have significant funding impacts and are considered high priority unfunded campus needs.
The scope of the review will be to examine the underlying assumptions and dependencies specifically of the most highly ranked priorities among the current ITPG proposals.
The targets of the review will include answers to the following questions:
- Is there organizational clarity of responsibilities between the distributed technology providers and customers for a given proposal? Are there organizational impediments to the success of the proposal?
- Are there adequate funding and staffing resources outside the direct scope of a given proposal to make even a successful implementation of the project useful and usable? Are there feeder systems and/or user limitations that could impede the success of the proposal?
- Are there medium and long term plans (5-10 year) by the distributed technical units that could have an impact on the successful implementation and use of a given proposal?
- Are there relevant trends and common experiences in industry or higher ed that could shed light on the potential for the success of the proposal?
The review process would involve:
- The formation of an ITPG sub-committee to manage the review (unless the OIT is willing to do this).
- A review of previous UCSB reviews to determine whether there are already relevant recommendations or commentary on the issues at hand.
- An analysis of potential reviewers and methods that might achieve this project's goals, resulting in a report to ITPG with a full budget.
- Upon ITPG approval, the sub-committee would dissolve, and the review would report findings directly back to the ITPG.
How This Project Supports the Academic Mission
With limited resources available for many pressing campus IT needs, if resource or organizational limitations could impede the successful use of new projects, the academic mission would be better served by addressing those underlying issues or applying the funding to other areas of need.
Funding Source
Campus funds.
Costs
To be determined; for budgeting purposes, not to exceed $60,000.
Matching Opportunities
None.
Staff Support Required
This process will require the efforts of representatives of the various campus IT service providers on the sub-committee managing the review and in providing information to the external reviewers.
Existing Resources to Be Used
None.
Project Timeline
To be coordinated with the evaluation of ITPG "context" proposals by the OIT and ITB.
Life Cycle of Result
A one-time effort on these current issues; further review may be necessary for future issues.
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