Stakeholder Meetings November 6, 2008
Students 13:00-14:30
Introductions and Opening Remarks
The purpose of the meeting and session objectives were reviewed. There will be five sessions, with groups of individuals representing Teaching and Learning, Research and Scholarship, Administration, Information Systems, and Students.
Early in the New Year a draft of the IT (Information Technology) strategic plan will be distributed. It is hoped that it will reflect the input received at these sessions.
Everyone is encouraged to read the recently released External Review of UBC’s Central Information Technology Unit. The first six recommendations of the report focus on the role of UBC’s CIO (Chief Information Officer), IT governance, and IT funding model.
The issue of UBC’s IT funding model is being addressed. There is a working group charged with determining: what infrastructure services UBC requires, the cost of scaling services to provide what is required, the cost of sustainment, and key performance indicators.
Review of Guiding Principles
For a strategic plan to succeed, it is necessary for everyone in the organization to know what the plan is, and how what they do contributes. The principles express the values for all members of the IT department to share: cooperation, sharing, helping each other, and leveraging efforts through collaboration.
We would very much appreciate feedback on the principles. Is there anything missing? Is there anything that shouldn’t be there?
Discussion of Guiding Principles
Are there questions or comments on the principles?
· The key is collaboration. Collaboratively at UBC, we don’t have a vision for outstanding student life. We do have shadow systems that could, if integrated, provide great improvements.
· We have had examples of working with IT where collaboration worked, and where it didn’t. The biggest thing is getting face-to-face with staff. Using the model of more face-to-face is astoundingly successful.
· Two things that stand out are flexibility and open standards. The best way to adapt to a changing environment is open standards. Open standards will always be there.
· I’m glad to see that access is first. Accessibility is always important – without it, there will be stakeholders who are left out. Also important is that offices reflect the confidentiality of information given to them. We need to have complete confidence in the confidentiality of the information.
· UBC IT: The ideal is to have this based on your role – what you are allowed to see, and what you need to see. We’re starting to put together a partnership in the identity management area.
· A prior step is awareness. How do we become aware of what is there? An inventory of space for example – we have a number of these – how do we know who has an interest?
· Once a department has confidentiality concerns, this will limit openness. And then people don’t know what’s out there.
· A culture of secrecy.
· We created a website for undergraduates, and wanted to use CWL (campus-wide login) for access, but couldn’t verify if a student is in the faculty. This is a barrier to other societies that would use CWL.
· UBC IT: We should get together to talk about this. Some of these restrictions are legislated, but there could be solutions. Also, we do need some more fine-grainedness in CWL.
· We have a tendency to limit the ability to do things, rather than assuming people will do the right thing.
· UBC IT: We will be holding one or two workshops on identity management, and we need use cases for such things as role management. We would really value input from anyone willing to get involved.
· UBC IT: We shouldn’t be pushing our dysfunction onto students. We’re seeking more collaboration.
· UBC IT: We need to add a principle of Openness – people bringing stuff to us.
· There is legislation that requires us to take extreme measures to protect privacy.
· It shouldn’t be necessary to collect that information. There should be a way around this.
· IT could be a leader in technology policy. Beat parliament and push for policy on issues like net neutrality.
· UBC IT: Note that the maintainers of patient and clinical data have the same concern. The identity management project is aimed at authorization, which will enable what is needed.
· Students working in enrollment have far too much access to student information – and have been known to talk about it.
· UBC IT: Are these top priorities? I ask because they came up first.
General Discussion
What are your strategic goals and priorities?
· Web sites for groups on a campus. This is something every group needs. They are too expensive and very diverse – from random designers. There should be a way to use CLF (Common Look & Feel). Developers don’t have a way to use CLF. Students don’t see consistent behaviour, and don’t know where to look – nothing is the same. They have to look at five sites to find everything they need.
· UBC IT: Note that it’s now Public Affairs, not IT, that does CLF. A better example is the common events calendar.
· The biggest problem is to get web sites that look like they belong to UBC. The events calendar is good. I rarely use myUBC – it’s not easy to use. We need a way to personalize it – make it look like your part of UBC. Students should be allowed to be how they are.
· On portals: The problem is an abundance of portals. We have myUBC, LEAP (Learning Enhancement Academic Partnership program), Finance, SSC (Student Service Centre) etc. Portals are a very Web 1.0 solution. Web 2.0 revolves around feeds – users create their own aggregations of information.
· myUBC is both ahead and behind. It allows customization, but gets its clunkiness from old applications. Most people could get by without it.
· I don’t remember visiting myUBC. It didn’t serve any purpose for me.
· One great function is email forwarding.
· It may be very skeptical to say UBCevents is successful, but, as I have said it needs to be really successful or we should just pull it off. We have a disenfranchised campus and disenfranchised students. For example, there are all sorts of different ways (for a student) to go abroad, but there is no IT solution (for a student) to know what they are. Also, alumni and employers have both said it is hard to work with UBC. We need students to see their experiences as much more integrated. Students should be telling us what they’re doing, but because we’re disenfranchised, it’s not happening.
· We need a central source where groups can develop sites based on their desires.
· If I were to build the SIS (student information system) from scratch, I would take a semantic approach. Tom is going on exchange – not sensitive – so anyone can see this. Tom is in the co-op – is sensitive – so we attach that information. So there are different kinds of lists. All these kinds of things are what departments should be able to add – and see what lists are there.
· UBC IT: The evolution of student systems, which arose from solving departmental problems, has resulted in Kuali (next generation student service system), where you always start with a person.
· From an administrative perspective we have a number of examples. First there is organizing an event. We need to have a registration system. This now requires months of notice.
· UBC IT: With Kuali, anything that is a learning event can be accommodated. Previously, only senate-approved courses were allowed.
· There is also exam invigilation: We invigilate over 4,000 exams for students with disabilities, using a cumbersome paper system. If a student needs accommodation – e.g. time-and-a-half – they get a form to take to the professor with examination information. Then they have to bring it back. This must be done 7 days in advance. We would like to put the form on a website. The student enters information, and the professor enters information. We could cut the time in half. We still have to schedule rooms, order out Braille, get the exam, etc. This is now done by email, but could be done from a secure website.
· UBC IT: What you are describing is a workflow system. UBC has a critical need for this.
· We need a good accommodation process that could be automated.
· We have other examples, such as international students with work permits. Banner (software) has a way to handle these, but manual processing takes seven days.
· The event registration service now uses PayPal (online payment solution). We would like to get a credit card service.
· UBC IT: IT doesn’t have a credit card service, but Enrolment Services does – see the Consolidated Billing service.
· How can we build payment and registration services for UBCevents? When we build something like UBCevents, we should think about these things.
· UBC IT: Note the president’s edict regarding UBCevents: “I want everyone to use this”.
· UBC IT: Is response time on the events calendar a problem?
· It’s a huge problem – especially from home.
· I can support this.
· One component is scheduling. Students need to find study space: “I’m here now”, or “my group is here now. Where is there study space available to us?” We need a system to allow this.
· This is really really necessary. The problem is that there are too few rooms available.
· But how about just eight seats in a corridor?
· But booking can be a problem. And what about kicking out those who just happened to gather there.
· So maybe just with rooms.
· UBC IT: What about other things – such as storage?
· Yes. At University of Toronto, you get storage hosted on a web site. There’s nothing like this at UBC. Also, there are no UBC Facebook apps.
· How many of you use the UBC email system.
· Answer: None.
· The problem is the eight-character name.
· UBC IT: Would a UBC email address be worth anything?
· Yes, this would be good with employers. But it should not be “interchange”, and it should be for life.
· UBC IT: If you had an alias <your chosen name>@ubc.ca, this would work?
· Answer: Yes, yes.
· UBC IT: What about wireless?
· It’s really good here – far better that at University of Alberta.
· There are places it doesn’t work – especially in residences.
· UBC IT: If we were to provide wireless in residences, we would need to prohibit some other wireless devices – there’s too much interference.
· UBC IT: We are up to trying this again.
· (In residences) students only study in their rooms, because there are ports only in their rooms.
· UBC IT: Is it acceptable to be somewhat draconian, in order to provide the service?
· Yes, but…
· UBC IT: What about outdoors? The bus loop?
· Various: On the buses!!
· It’s important for new devices, such as the iPhone.
· These kinds of devices will be used more and more – the smart phone will become ubiquitous. The expectation is to have an iPhone app with “Here I am. What study spaces are available near to me?”
· We have an interest in making the outdoor space more accommodating.
· Could we get piggy-backed onto a 3G network (mobile networking) like Rogers? So we would have our own UBC 3G service?
· UBC IT: In Canada there is no mandate to resell 3G services – it’s not like in the US.
· Getting back to the iPhone and Blackberry apps. It would be great to have UBC create apps for these.
· You just need an API (application programming interface) and a service. Computer Science students could write the apps.
· We’re missing a principle – being on the cutting edge. UBC could be a leader in open courseware in Canada.
· UBC IT: Are there other issues?
· Things aren’t as bad as we all make it sound. For example there’s the integration of CWL (campus-wide login) with Interchange (email) and other services. It could be worse.
· UBC IT: How could it be made better?
· More openness is needed. The portal is still a very valuable tool. It should be the default place for everything to go through. It should be faster and more reliable. We should focus on making it customizable – see iGoogle, which is simple to use. And let people know it’s available.
· Why not build the portal around the SIS (student information system), where people are already going?
· But people are not even using iGoogle.
· New people coming in are already having these things.
· There’s a huge diversity of people at UBC. Some want new technology and some don’t. We need to have more education to bring people on board.
· UBC IT: Regarding different styles – are there students who don’t do most of their interaction with UBC online?
· We have students with disabilities who don’t have an email address – although using email is now the required standard.
· Take down myUBC, and create a WebCT (web classroom training application) module for Netvibes (personalized web page). Go where people are already going. Don’t give them a new place.