canheit | on the edge | june 15-18, 2008 | university of calgary collaborative computing on an...

CANHEIT | On the EDGE | June 15-18, 2008 | University of Calgary

Collaborative Computing on an Institutional Level

Steve Breeck,

Harold Esche,

Bill Richardson

University of Calgary


University of Calgary

30000 students

2300 faculty, 2700 staff

$800M budget

$250M in research

Students from 80+ countries

16 Faculties/53 Depts/30 Institutes

Big and Complex!


The History of IT at the University of Calgary

(in only one slide)

First IT Unit in 1961

First CIO in 2004


The Typical Question:

Should IT be Centralized vs Decentralized?

Organizing IT


Organizing IT

The Really Important Questions:

What are the desired outcomes?

What services are important to the University?

Do you want operational excellence?

Do you want innovation?

What does the University need from IT in 5 years?

Are you going to be a CIO or an IT Director?


Fundamental IT Equation

operational excellence+

service focus +

collaboration

=

Really Cool Stuff


ITAG

Integrated

Technology

Action

Group


What does ITAG Do?

Whatever it wants to do!

Communication between units

Identification of important issues

Delivery of solutions


First ITAG Project:Integrated Help Desk

Support environment in 2005– IT responsibilities split across campus– UCIT integrating their support services– Unit support level vary from full to none

– Users have to decide what their IT related problem was and who to call


The Vision

User says to us,

“I have a problem with my computer”.

And an integrated Help Desk determines what that means and what to do to solve the problem.


Pilot Project - Technical

Main players:– UCIT– Haskayne School of Business– Faculty of Kinesiology

Determine roles and responsibilitiesCreate an experts list of who knows what and who to contactIntegration of incident reporting toolsSix month pilot with concluding report to ITAG and the faculties


Pilot Project - Political/Cultural

Talking to people in the faculties about their support needs and desires

Educating support staff on the benefits of integration

Educating faculty and staff on how to use the new system– Use the new system, phone, email, web– Don’t come to my office and ask for help


Pilot Project Results

Surveys have indicated that users were generally satisfied with the Integrated Support model

There continue to be some people who preferred the old system


Support environment 2008

– Original participants– Department of Geography– Faculty of Communications

and Culture

– Campus Infrastructure– Human Resources– Engineering – in the works– Medicine - in negotiation

Technical environment–Update incident management software and phone system–Ongoing work to improve self-support systems, FAQS, on-line how-to’s

Participants


UNITIS Project

UNIT Information System (UNITIS)

Developed internally by Department of Math over last 10+ years

Improved business processes

Improved data quality


UNITIS Project

Simple Goals

Provide real-time, accurate information to websites (and administration)

Align best practices within unit, but still allow flexibility

Improve data quality

World Peace


Hurdles

Technical issues (easy part)

Development of concise project goal

Political challenges– Crosses potentially all information silos– Does not align with traditional funding models– No project champion at senior level

Evolving IT governance model


UNITIS - now

Evolution from concept to a product

Joint development effort with active development across faculties.

Deployment across many departmental units

Business plan developed

CANHEIT presentation next session! (Cassio Room)


File Storage Project

Project created by ITAG to address common file storage issues

Develop a plan to implement a best-practices approach to campus data storage

Implement a storage project working model

Make available campus wide


Storage Challenges

Many types of storage & storage infrastructure

Need for better storage management policies

Data protection and Disaster Recovery capabilities


Laptop Encryption Project

Proposed by UCIT Security Officer

Prevent the loss of confidential information & intellectual property due to the theft or loss of a U of C laptop by making the data inaccessible to unauthorized users

Cross platform support

Keep it simple for end user


Campus Information Management Project

Newest ITAG initiativeLooking at all information on campus and how it is gathered, stored, distributedNot an “IT problem” - this touches all aspects of institutional activitiesWill required buy-in from all levels of the universityTechnical problems will likely be minor compared to cultural challenges


Looking into the future

The future is here. It’s not just widely distributed yet.

William Gibson


With that view …

Integrated IT Help Desks becoming Integrated Everything Help Desk?

A “311” Service.

Department-centric services becoming Individual-centric services?

A user-maintained service “mash up”.


Some learnings

– Day-to-day responsibilities slow progress on projects Sometimes hard to reach consensusDifficult to get interest from non-IT folks

+Provides a place to build relationshipsIntegrated is better than central or siloIt takes time, but it is worth the effort


Questions or Comments

?

canheit | on the edge | june 15-18, 2008 | university of calgary collaborative computing on an...

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