DRAFT June 17, 1996
The strategies proposed by the Standards & Cooperation Program Group in the FY1995-1999 Information Resources Strategic Plan (IRSP) dealt with
Other FY1995-99 strategies related to the charge of Standards & Cooperation might include
A brief status report on the progress of these strategies follows, as well as a short discussion of additional issues that may be proposed as strategies in the next IRSP.
Provide and maintain an up-to-date baseline of desktop microcomputers for faculty and staff offices and student labs.
Action Items:
Although this strategy has not been implemented exactly as suggested in the action items, progress is nevertheless occurring in this area. The General Access Labs have been successful in maintaing up-to-date hardware platforms, due largely to the fact that each GA Lab budget includes an annual allocation for hardware upgrades. This allocation is based primarily on the numbers of computers in each lab.
Within the colleges and schools, the Provost set aside $500,000 in Fiscal Year 1996 specifically for the replacement of older computers. [This amount was provided in addition to $1.6 million allocation to the colleges and schools for research and instructional equipment.] With this allocation, the Provost instructed the Deans to provide "a general plan for the expenditure of these funds by February 1, 1996, and a final report concerning their actual expenditure by August 1, 1996. General plans were submitted by the College of Arts & Sciences, College of Education, College of Music, School of Community Service, and the School of Merchandising & Hospitality Management. The College of Arts & Sciences requested and received an additional allocation of $200,000. Most of the college/school plans indicate that the funding allocations are sufficient to provide up-to-date computers for the majority of faculty and staff.
Within the administrative departments, there remains a need for upgraded computer hardware.
Action Items 2, 4, and 5 have not yet been accomplished. Action Item 3, the establishment of a minimum new purchase standard, has been accomplished for IBM-compatible microcomputers, which constitute the majority of desktop computers at UNT.
To indicate progress in the overall level of desktop platforms, the following method was applied: A spreadsheet was prepared, showing counts of each type of microcomputer by account number. This data came from inventory records in the Microcomputer Maintenance Shop. In addition, total FTE counts for each account were estimated, using FTE figures for permanent faculty and staff from the FY96 UNT Budget, as well as an FTE calculation applied to the wages budget for each account. Teaching Assistants and Teaching Fellows were not included among these FTE's. These faculty/staff FTE counts were compared with the counts of a "minimum supported hardware" standard, which generally discounts computers that are older than 386DX33 and the older Macintosh computers.
According to this spreadsheet calculation, it appears that all colleges and schools, with the exception of the College of Music, have sufficient minimum-level PCs for their faculty and staff. However, other areas, most notably Business Affairs, Athletics, Fiscal Affairs, Administrative Affairs, and Student Affairs still appear to have significant needs, totalling over $1 million.
Other caveats should be mentioned concerning the conclusions derived from this data:
[These caveats, as well as other possible factors yet unknown, point out the need for additional confirmation/discussion with division heads, which as of this draft date is in progress.]
It is difficult to measure the amount of staff time used specifically to replace hardware platforms. A more significant measure might be amount of staff time freed by having to support fewer platforms. However, considerable staff time is still needed to accomplish a related strategy -- Migration to Graphical User Interfaces (see below).
This strategy should remain in the IRSP on an ongoing basis with a HIGH priority.
Establish a baseline level of staff support for distributed computing.
Action Items:
An Ad Hoc Committee has been established to study the Distributed Support Issues described in this strategy, as well as address related issues brought forth by the NCHEMS' UNT Information Technology Review and issues identified by the Group UNT's Toward a Fiscally Involved Community. The Ad Hoc Committee made an interim report at the March 1996 meeting of the Information Resources Council, and that report was forwarded to the UNT Budget Committee (VP's Brownell, Diebel, and Pole) in time for consideration as a part of the University FY 1997 budget process. As a result, it appears that 12 FTE in new positions will be allocated to the distributed computing support areas, as recommended in the report, at the start of Fiscal Year 97. Funding for these new positions will be derived from a combination of existing departmental funds and unallocated funds.
The final report of the Ad Hoc Committee was presented to the IRC at its May 1996 meeting. Discussion and adoption of the report is scheduled for the June IRC meeting. It contains a number of recommendations to improve standardization and coordination, both of which will improve user service levels. Central to these recommendations is the formation of a Distributed Computing Support Management Group to establish the standards and other tasks. It is expected that this group will be established and begin its work during the summer of 1996. The Final Report specifies that the work of the DCSMG be evaluated after one year.
In the next IRSP, this strategy should be replaced with a strategy to maintain an effective user-to-support personnel ratio across the campus. Strategies for improved standardization and coordination, as recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee, should also be included. These should be assigned a TOP priority.
Participate in selected software site license and volume purchase agreements.
Action Items:
An Ad Hoc Committee of the IRC was formed to address the above items, with Richard Harris as chair, and the committee has met once. They agreed that site licenses would greatly reduce the risk of non-compliance on a university-wide basis, and hence decided to delay further action until Novell and Microsoft systems site licenses contracts were signed. Those contracts are now in place, although the funding source for the Microsoft systems license beyond Fiscal Year 1996 is yet undetermined. Other site licenses, such as Microsoft applications, are not being pursued at this time; however, departments can acquire individual licenses for a low cost, thanks to pricing available through Texas Department of Information Resources. The Ad Hoc Committee for Software Licensing Compliance plans to meet again soon to revise the 'Guidelines for Software Licensing Compliance' proposed by UNT Internal Audit.
It is anticipated that the action items will be completed within the current fiscal year. The general strategy of participating in software site licensing programs should be a ongoing strategy. Perhaps the strategy should specify WHICH site licenses, such as Novell (includes WordPerfect and Groupwise) and Microsoft Select for Systems (includes DOS and Windows) will be acquired/continued, and how they will be funded.
Conduct a program to encourage IBM-compatible computer users to migrate away from DOS and utilize instead the more powerful and easier-to-use graphical user interfaces. (Reducing support requests for old technology should enable support staff to better concentrate on support of new technology.)
Action Items:
A standard image of Windows and other commonly-used software is placed on the hard disk of MOST of the new computers acquired through UNT's Microcomputer Maintenance Shop. This was made possible, in part, through the central funding of the Microsoft Select for Systems (MS SFS) site license. This license covers upgrades and new copies of MS DOS and MS Windows, at a cost of about $25,000/year. Other expenses include staff time to develop and maintain the standard disk image that is copied to new computers. The Computing Center has not committed to continue funding the annual cost of the MS SFS license past Fiscal Year 1996.
Courses for faculty and staff in the use of Windows are offered through Human Resources. However, many users continue to experience problems, perhaps because the available training has not met their needs, or because they have not been able to devote time to their training needs. The standardization measures proposed by the Ad Hoc Committee for Distributed Computing Support could perhaps ease this problem.
No measurement standards are established for this strategy.
This strategy should remain in the next IRSP, with improvements as suggested above. This priority should remain as HIGH.
UNT NetWare file servers are being migrated to the next version of the network operating system, NetWare 4.1. This operating system enables increased integration, in that services and resources are generally available from the 'network system' rather than from a particular file server. This concept provides a more 'seamless' environment to the typical user. This migration should be complete before the end of 1996.
The migration to the e-mail systems provided by Groupwise (primarily for Mac and PC users) and Simeon (primarily for UNIX users) is well underway. These systems are linked so better meet the communication needs of all faculty, staff, and students. A critical component of the completely integrated e-mail system is the directory system which permits users from any particular e-mail system to look up usernames in all of the systems. This directory system (which follows a standard called X.500) is still in the initial stages of development; it should be made a HIGH priority strategy in the next IRSP.
Development of an "integrated cross-platform user-ID standards and management system" was also included as an action item under the strategy of resource integration. An informal working group within the Computing Center developed a standards document which was circulated internally as well as to other areas of the University for comment. It currently stands as a reference document for developing systems which support a universal user-id requirement, but its central component requirement, a directory services database product like X.500, remains a project yet to be endorsed or acted upon by the Computing Center.
While not a specific strategy or action item in the last IRSP, the development of World Wide Web resources at UNT is another way that resources are being integrated into what seems like a single system, wherein users don't have to log in and log out or know the exact location of the information they seek. A new strategy to encourage comprehensive WWW planning and development is needed as a HIGH priority.
Continue ongoing operations that support the information technology UNT now depends upon to accomplish its mission.
Action Items:
To varying degrees, the above ongoing operations have continued to receive personnel and financial resources. It is suggested that, in the next iteration of planning, the above list be expanded to give a less general description of information techology services, better enabling (1) a measurement of effectiveness for each specific service, and (2) a measurement of the potential impact of any change in the level of that service. A more detailed list is proposed below:
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