PACAC Guidelines for Sustainable Budgetsapril 26, 2010

PACAC Guidelines for Sustainable BudgetsApril 26, 2010

Executive Summary

The economic downturn that began in 2008 will severely impact NAU budgets for the foreseeable future. Planning for a sustained budget reduction requires new sustainable budget strategies, especially when considering investments in the fast changing world of technology. This document reviews current sustainable technology budgets at NAU and proposes some guidelines for the new reality NAU faces in managing future technology investments.

An important point is realizing our budgetproblems operate over too long a time frame to adopt a strategy of simply freezing all technology investments. For one thing, over relatively short time periods, some of our current products will reach their end of life and no longer be viable to perform their current function. Further, the cost of vendor licenses and maintenance contracts for key technologies increase each year. Because we rely on technology to meet our mission in undergraduate residential education and distance education, we need a strategy to maintain these investments during hard budget times.

The global budget strategies put in place for the FY10 budget year are rapidlybecoming a part of our new sustainable budget culture. These global strategies include focusing resources on university priorities, reducing travel, cutting costs as much as possible, and taking an “all funds” approach to operational budgets. This paper complements these strategies by recommendingcompatible guidelines specific for maintaining academic computing investments.[1]

Needs Assessment

1. Review existing technologies to make sure this isn’t a duplicate.
2. Clearly list the reasons for maintaining a current service or starting a new service in terms of a core institutional priority.
3. Explain the scale of impact in terms of the number of students and number of faculty.
4. Consider the scope of the request to determine if it is a departmental or enterprise investment.

Impact

1. Address accessibility and ADA requirements up front.
2. Explore how a proposal might save money by phasing out an older technology.
3. Explore using a pilot with a formative assessment to test any new technology or process.
4. Clearly identify the support services needed to sustain the new service.
5. Work collaboratively to explore how the new service will fit into existing services.
6. For centralized proposals contact ITS to fill out the ITS Software/Services Procurement Check List (see Appendix A).

Funding

1. Sustained funding is critical. One-time money is not a sustainable budget model.
2. Look for obvious funding sources that do not require state funds.
3. Use Tri-University system-wide solutions if they are available.
4. Investigate open source, or very low-cost, alternatives to vendor-provided solutions.
5. Out-sourcing and cloud-computing are new options for some services.
6. Using virtualization, thin-clients, or other strategies can sometimes save money.
7. Shifting the cost to the student is sometimes the only available funding option.

Introduction

The Provost Academic Computing Advisory Committee is charged with advising “the President, Provost, CITO, faculty, and student body of the status of academic computing and information technology issues at NAU” (Charter, 2006, p. 1). An issue that was introduced by the committee’s chair in the October2008 PACAC meeting was that of sustaining learning space and electronic resources dedicated to campus instruction. As the budget year unfolded, the theme of sustainable budgets and preserving instructional resources became increasingly important, especially as the committee learned that a number of software licenses, most notably the Elluminate collaboration software license, did not, at the time, have secure funding into the future.

This document is an attempt to review current sustainable budget successes and near future academic computing strategic options we hope can preserve instructional resources at the best possible cost. Sustainable budget guidelines for instructional resource needs aligned with the institutional mission are presented along with an examination of current best practice budgeting examples. Some of these suggestions may spill over to other information technology realms, but the focus of this document is on the core instructional mission of the university.

Instructional Value of Information Technology

The NAU mission statement is very short and to the point: “Provide an outstanding undergraduate residential education strengthened by research, graduate and professional programs, and sophisticated methods of distance delivery”(Northern Arizona University, 2008).

Not only is information technology an obvious component of “sophisticated methods for distance delivery,”but information technology isalso a critical part of the undergraduate residential experience. NAU’s course management system, for example, is used by faculty teaching undergraduate courses to deliver digital content to our residential students. Trust in this tool has grown to the extent that all library reserved readings are now delivered through the Blackboard Vista course management system.

The NAU strategic plan sets goals based onour values of providing high-quality, learner-centered education for all qualified students while respecting diversity and operating ethically. The seven strategic planning goals are 1) to be learning centered; 2) to provide students access “wherever they live and work;” 3) to promote sustainability and stewardship of place; 4) to engage globally; 5) to foster a culture of inclusion, civility, and respect; 6) to commit to Native Americans; and 7) to create an innovative, effective and accountable learning community (Northern Arizona University, 2007). Meeting these goals in today’s world requires selecting and sustaining key information technologies. Increasingly scholarship is e-scholarship—a melding of e-learning, e-research, and e-communication used to foster and support our learning communities(Davis, O’Brien, & McLean, 2008, p. 71). Thus, information technology, especially those aspects that can be identified as academic computing, is elemental to our mission, to our values, and to our strategic plan.

Sustainable Information Technology Budgeting

When budgets are tight, selecting and sustaining key information technologies requires a coordinated and thoughtful approach. With scarce resources, selection strategies must consider the need for the technology, the number of students served by the technology, the ability for faculty to make effective use of the technology, the funding source for the technology, the available staff to support the technology, the accessibility of the technology,the total lifecycle cost of the technology, and even how the technology fits in with other campus technologies. Selection, in fact, is becoming such a critical factor that ITS now recommends following a procurement checklist (the most current version is reproduced here in Appendix A).

Sustaining an information technology investment requires thinking beyond the early adopter or initial procurement phase and recognizing the need for multi-year funding and staffing. As state dollars shrink, the President has called for an “all funds” approach to budgeting (Haeger, 2009). This means, for example, that in FY10 the $173,000 Blackboard Vista maintenance bill shifted from using state funds to being paid out of the IT fee. Using the IT fee for sustaining core technologies is a double-edged sword: On the one hand, it stabilizes critical services; on the other hand, it limits our ability to move the campus forward with new innovations (such as the recently completed project to provide wireless access to all residence halls and academic buildings).

The IT fee, class fees, and program fees are “all funds” strategic options that can replace state dollars and TRIF funding. Sadly, many services that were, at one time, subsidized by state budgets are now paid 100% by students. This is, however, simply a continuation of a trend already started. At one time, most departments and open computer labs did not charge students for printing—today we uniformly charge students 10 cents a page and, through a central billing tool, use the Bursar’s office to collect payments for printing. The TaskStream e-portfolio service is another example: Students pay a subscription fee directly to the TaskStream company of between $30-$50 per year depending on the number of years they request, their educational status, or any discounts available through their institution.

Another cost cutting strategy is to look for services that are free, or nearly free,which meet a need and can be supported with existing staff resources. Examples in this category include shifting to open source Linux and signing a contract with Google to host student email in return expanding their future advertising base. Appendix B lists more than 20 open source products already in use at NAU that have begun to save significant amounts of money for the university. Adopting Google as an outsourced provider for a high-impact service is a completely new strategy for NAU, but one that resulted in considerable cost avoidance.

Outsourcing technology, in fact, is another trend that NAU is seeing more often. It is probably unavoidable and takes a couple of forms. In some cases, instructors simply use a web commodity like YouTube or Delicious to enhance their teaching. In other cases, departments hire an outside agency to develop, maintain, or even host web sites started by internal staff that have been lost through budget cuts. Done carefully, outsourcing can add a new and otherwise unattainable dimension to the student experience. Done poorly,the service might end up requiring a second password, place confidential data at risk, conflict with other existing technologies, or be difficult for students to use whileremaining unsupported by our help desks.

In all these decisions, scale matters. What happens in one or two classes is completely different than attempting to roll out a favored technology to large numbers of students. Large adoption requires centralization of resources and takes considerably more effort and time to integrate into the existing array of services. The payoff, however, is that centralized services tend to be more stable and sustainable over a longer period than individual or departmental efforts.

Current Examples of Sustainable Budgeting

With this background in mind, the following table shows examples of academic computing budget items currently considered sustainable. From this list it is possible to see different approaches taken to sustain technology-based instructional resources. The committee noted a number of dimensions to consider in describing a resource, including the type (centralized/decentralized), the funding source, the group or college most impacted, the units providing support for the resource, and how well the resource fits into existing standards or support models.

Technical Resource / Comments
Refworks / Sustained by IT Fee. IT Fee funds are more secure than state funds as long as enrollments stay intact. Refworks is an example of researching a service, writing a formal proposal, and securing sustainable funding with realistic cost escalation and review process approved before adoption. (See
Contact Beth Schuck, Cline Library. [centralized top-down planning example]
Elluminate / Currently sustained by IT Fee in conjunction with hoping an in-house lower-cost alternative will eventually become viable. Example of adopting a successful innovation that arose from TRIF funding and proved itself successful before seeking sustainable funding. This is the most likely model for capturing instructional innovation into enterprise practices. (See Contact Don Carter, e-Learning Center. [bottom-up innovation trajectory example leading to centralized adoption]
Fair Classroom-related Resource Allocation / CEFNS best practice for fairly distributing class fees to cover inter-departmental shared resources needed to manage classroom resources. Includes an inventory of classroom spaces. (See Documents on CEFNS Academic Computing Infrastructure at
Contact Eck Doerry, Computer Science Department. [decentralization example]
Blackboard Vista / Now sustained using IT Fee. An example of economies of scale and successful use of an enterprise-wide resource along with value of standardizing on e-instruction tools. Strong centralization must, however, also recognize that innovation “comes from the edges, not the core” (Benkler, 2008, p. 58). (See Contact Don Carter, e-Learning Center.
Print Billing / Example of shifting costs directly to students but, at the same time, maximizing departmental local accounts. (Note that e-reserves and electronic course packs are preferred over printed course packs. Note this is not only sustainable from a budget perspective but also cuts down on total printing and is more sustainable from an environmental perspective.) Contact John Campbell, Information Technology Services. [centralized/decentralized hybrid example]
SPSS / Over time we aggregated purchases of individual and departmental licenses of SPSS to the point where it is now cheaper to pay a site license and redistribute costs. At the same time, an increasing number of students use SPSS through our Virtual Lab in addition to on lab computers. The amount of student use is now large enough to warrant paying the site license out of the IT Fee tosubsidize departmental and research use. Contact John Campbell, Information Technology Services.
Task Stream / Another example of shifting costs directly to students. Unlike print-billing, this one involves a vendor and has little to do with central services (college contained). (See Contact Chris Geanious, College of Education. [decentralized example]
Clickers / An example of shifting costs to students. This is also a vendor product, but there was an effort to standardize and some support is provided by e-Learning. (See Contact Don Carter, e-Learning Center. [centralized/decentralized hybrid example]
iTunesU / Sustained by leveraging existing staff and faculty resources and taking advantage of shifting costs to an Internet provider that agrees in writing to provide us with long-term free use of their resources.(Gmail is another of example and there are other innovative/experimental uses elsewhere on a small scale.) (See Contact Don Carter, e-Learning Center. [outsourced example]
Learning Spaces Document / This is an example of establishing best practices ahead of funding so, when funding is secured, the money is spent efficiently to meet instructional needs. (See Northern Arizona University Guidelines for Planning and Designing Learning Spaces
Executive Summary of the Report to the Provost.) Contact Angie Golden, Chair, Provost’s Academic Computing Advisory Committee. [pre-planning/standards example]
Equipment Refresh / W.A. Franke College of Business has a situational strategic model for providing faculty with machines. It depends on strong inventory and choosing between providing a faculty with a very high end machine, a “hand-me-down,” or even a thin-client depending on an honest needs assessment. Richard Toeniskoetter, W.A. Franke College of Business. [decentralized example]
Student Workers / Augmenting staff needs with student workers is not a secret strategy. However, Robert Alban has taken it to new levels by finding “free” workers from NAU and CCC willing to work for credit. Contact Robert Alban, College of Arts and Letters. [decentralized example]
Google Email / In 2009 NAU outsourced email to Google so that students can have 7Gb of disk space along with new features like Google Docs and Google Talk that we could not afford to give students on our own. Access and provisioning of Google email is done through the central IT office. The actual servers and services are supplied by Google. (See Contact John Campbell, Information Technology Services. [centralized/outsourced hybrid]

Near-term Opportunities for Sustainable Budgeting

Technology evolves quickly and new opportunities arise if we are able to sustain the staffing resources necessary to take advantage of them. Here are three examples of changes currently underway that we believe represent sustainable efforts in information technology that directly supports the NAU mission.

Technical Resource / Comments
Thin Clients / Based on the successful deployment of thin clients in the WA Franke and CEFNS colleges, ITS put these devices in the residence halls and public labs. This first effort, replacing lab computers with thin clients, appears to be successful and leverages a centralized service (the virtual lab server) that can capitalize on cost savings in one area (thin clients instead of desktops) in order to invest in another area (back-end servers). The initiative also saves money on power and especially in decentralized budgets. Efforts are on-going to see if thin clients can expand beyond student labs. Contact John Campbell, Information Technology Services. [centralized/decentralized hybrid]
Digital Repository / This is a pilot to see if an open source product, coupled with local staff resources and using a virtualized Linux server, can very affordably bring up a new centralized service at minimal cost. Contact John Campbell, Information Technology Services. [centralized/decentralized hybrid]
Virtualization / This effort is quickly maturing as a way to leverage unused capacity on fast servers to host multiple services. Costs are saved by purchasing less hardware and, in some cases, moving to less expensive operating system software (e.g. Linux). A major milestone in this effort was merging the “Dana” and “Jan” servers onto a single Dell box running Linux. As our skills in this area increase more options will open up in the future. (See Contact John Campbell, Information Technology Services. [centralized]

PACAC Sustainable Budget Guidelines

The PACAC recognizes there are many thoughtful (and painful) actions already being taken across VP areas to reduce state budgets by more than $13M. Other schools facing these same problems are adopting many of the same solutions. Appendix C lists highlights from a survey of IT budget cuts in US higher education at the start of the downturn (Lawton, 2009). The most common strategies include leaving vacancies unfilled, curtailing travel, centralizing services, and increasing the use of virtualization to save hardware and energy costs.

Paying for information technology is cost we bear because it is necessary to fulfill our mission. The nature of technology is to change over time. In other words, technology resources are not static and neither is their cost. Historically, the total costs for technologies used in instruction have gone up over time. To sustain our budgets, a new focus related to controlling the costs of instructional resources must become part of the new budget reality at NAU. In order to assure selecting and sustaining key information technologies will be done in a coordinated and thoughtful manner, the following are suggested as budget guidelines. Note a theme of these guidelines is to be as collaborative as possible in formulating a budget request to sustain an existing academic computing technology or to introduce a new technology. Collaboration not only helps increase the number of options and solutions explored, but it also more accurately presents the amount of need and the scope of the proposed investment.