Academic Systems Stewardship

Overview

The University of Maryland Baltimore is committed to having world class systems in support of each of the major areas of endeavor: Education, Research, and Service. The Center for Information Technology Services (CITS) is responsible for providing all enterprise level systems and services in support of these areas. In this role, CITS has led the development of enterprise services in support of human resources, payroll, accounting, procurement, research proposal development, research post award management, space and facilities management, enrollment and academic support.

As the technology sophistication of the UMB community, including students, has increased, many new systems and services are being explored and planned for implementation. These new services include enterprise approaches to high performance computing, voice-over-IP and unified messaging, secure broadband access to the campus wireless network, and enterprise identity management and authorization to use these systems and services.

In order to optimize resources available to build and support enterprise systems, CITS has worked with the UMB campus leaders to form governance structures for each major technology area. These structures provide feedback on current services in order to enhance them, identify priority weighted new initiatives, and help to provide advice, perform user acceptance testing, and implementation support for these services. These governance structures have worked well as steering committees, cross-functional and advisory groups.

Advances in communications have opened a new field of academic support requirements for CITS. These include leveraging social networking tools for desktop education and collaboration as well as “on-the-go” services provided through wireless and /or remote access points. The Educational Technology Committee and multiple subcommittees provide valuable input for these new services. The campus Communications Directors, Courseware Developers, and Student Services Directors provide other valuable perspectives. Each of these groups will be incorporated into the CITS’ planning and assessment activities. Senior leadership within CITS will lead and facilitate the work of appropriate campus bodies to assist in ensuring that the highest priority strategic projects are articulated well enough for resource planning. That planning includes architectural assessments leading to hardware and software acquisition, a reasonable scope statement, project management services, and human resource planning by the campus and CITS. In the absence of dedicated development/infrastructure teams to address this new work, much of this activity will be coordinated through an Assistant Vice President’s office. Projects will be raised to the consciousness of CITS Management though regular reporting to the Management Team. The Management Team will identify information needed to fully plan for ideas emanating in the academic community. The Assistant Vice President will ensure good communications among all relevant parties. A brief description of this work is attached.

Purpose:

To have the Assistant Vice President take a leadership role in communicating with school and department personnel to identify needs and interests, and then work with them and CITS management to prioritize, coordinate, and oversee the implementation of academic and learning systems initiatives.

More specifically, the AVP will:

· Be the point person within CITS that schools can go to for direction and decisions.

· Play the leading role representing CITS on campus/school based committees for enterprise academic learning initiatives and systems.

· Coordinate campus-wide initiatives, and oversee in partnership with school and department academic leaders, as well as CITS leadership, the implementation, management and support for:

· IT Plan action items

· Enhancements and upgrades to existing academic systems

· New technologies

By participating in campus governance groups for academic systems, the AVP will be able to manage projects and services to ensure that the goals of the campus’ Strategic Information Technology Plan are met in a timely, cost-effective way. This will be done by assisting governance groups to understand the related nature of certain initiatives, the importance of maintaining systems to the current level of function and security, and to identify emerging technologies that can extend services appropriately. The AVP will work with school and department representatives to ensure archival and retention policies are created. He will also coordinate resources with academic units and the Center for Information Technology Services (CITS) to ensure the timely implementation of updates to current systems and the application of new technologies that support the learning mission of the University.

A document will be maintained that lists all systems currently supported or under consideration. The table will include lists of responsible parties for managing, maintaining, and enhancing academic systems and services. It will reflect current priorities for each known project and will identify possible new opportunities. The AVP will be working with the various governance groups and appropriate CITS staff during the implementation, testing, and support of systems and services. A current status of each action item will be shared with the Vice President and CIO, CITS Management, and with academic technology personnel in the Schools.