Decisions Facing Academic Senate Committee on UNEX
MEMORANDUM
Jim Davis
Associate Vice Chancellor
Information Technology
2147 K Murphy Hall
Mail Code: 140501
310.206.0011
To: Sue Abeles, Glyn Davies, Nick Hernandez, Louis Hook, Jim Lazear, Tom Lifka, Sam Morabito, Sean Pine, Nick Reddingius, Glen Winans, Don Worth
From: Jim Davis
CC: Enterprise Computing Committee
Date: September 11, 2001
Re: Enterprise IT Cost Model Task Force
Background
The costs of providing institutional information technology (IT) infrastructure and services to the campus are recovered in various ways. Current funding models for operational expense and infrastructure investment are rooted in a set of assumptions and historic decisions that may no longer be relevant, and questions have been raised about equity in the resulting charges for information and telecommunication services.
Charge
The ECC decided at its July 10, 2001, to create a task force to identify options for funding institutional information technology infrastructure and services and report its recommendations for recovering cost of on-going operations, funding new endeavors, and fostering solutions that provide incentive for creative but responsible application of technology to the Committee.
w What funding strategy should apply to development, maintenance and day-to-day operations?
w Should recharge strategies be different for academic and administrative units?
w What funding options could be implemented, on what basis and what are their pros and cons?
w How will we deal with integrated web applications that combine data and other aspects that were traditionally segregated into administrative, academic and instructional computing?
w How does funding strategy affect the technical strategy for the university? What models are conducive to compatible technology strategies among the many decentralized IT groups?
w If the campus needs to implement something that requires an investment by all departments to keep technology up to date or external entities force additional costs on us (e.g., Microsoft new licensing schedule), how will that cost be funded?
The dual objective is to identify options that distribute cost fairly and to provide a structure that supports optimizing the future utility of information technology to the University. The scope of inquiry for the task force is those endeavors, projects and operations that comprise fundamental campus infrastructure or administrative support functions, or that have the potential for having campus-wide impact or benefits.
Chair
Nick Reddingius has agreed to chair the Task Force. The first meeting has been scheduled for September 17, 2001, 9 – 11 a.m., Murphy Hall, Room 2325.