Provost Advisory Council Notes

June 12, 2001

 

Attending:  John Simpson, Tom Vani, David Kliger, Lan Dyson, Steve Kang, Marty Chemers, Larry Merkley, Ron Suduiko, Roger Anderson, Ed Houghton, Bob Meister, John Hay, Francisco Hernandez, Susan Gillman, George Brown, Wlad Godzich, Meredith Michaels, Frank Talamantes, Lynda Goff, Barbara Brogan, Leslie Sunell

 

Guests: Sheila Gottehrer, Mary-Beth Harhen, Don Potts, Line Mikkelsen, Elaine Werdego

 

Absent:   Cathy Sandeen

 

Staff:  Linda Kittle, Beau Willis, Galen Jarvinen

 

 

Principles of Community

 

Leslie Sunell and Sheila Gottehrer introduced to PAC the recently-completed draft “Principles of Community” (POC) developed by a subcommittee of the CWC.  The purpose of the presentation was to outline the development/consultation process and proposed dissemination plans, and to seek PAC endorsement for adoption of the statement as well as its leadership in living the principles articulated in the statement.

 

In the discussion that followed, a number of points were raised.

  • Campuswide dissemination expected this fall.  It was suggested that a presentation of POC be provided to the Academic Senate to increase its visibility.
  • It was noted that APM-015 (referenced at the bottom of the statement) is undergoing revision and should be checked for consistency with the POC statement.

   

PAC endorsed the value of having the “Principles of Community” statement, thanked the subcommittee for its efforts, and recommended that it be brought forward to the campus for adoption. With this endorsement, CWC will be forwarding POC for signature and adoption to EVC Simpson, Chancellor Greenwood, Senate Chair Anderson, SUA Chair Williams, GSA President Ritscher, and Staff Advisory Board Chair Marines. CWC will also create an implementation plan for the statement.

 

 

AIS Transition Team Report

 

The Academic Information System (AIS) project is multi-year, multi-million dollar campuswide project that is vitally important to the campus.  For this reason, significant effort has been invested in the issues of governance, budget, timeline, and communication.  The presentation to PAC was designed to seek endorsement of the recommendations prepared by the AIS Transition Team, chaired by Professor Carl Walsh.

  • System steward/project sponsor, Vice Chancellor Francisco Hernandez, noted that after two years of analysis and planning, software developed by Exeter (Sallie Mae Solutions) has been selected as the product on which to base the AIS project; vendor negotiations are currently underway.  A website, http://ais.ucsc.edu, documents the planning and project status.
  • Because the AIS project represents one of the largest information technology projects implemented on the campus, care was taken to articulate a number of principles for information systems projects that would guide the development of the AIS implementation.  Next fall, the ITC will consider the applicability of these principles to other campuswide information technology projects.
  • Professor Walsh outlined the principles developed by the AIS Transition Team that emphasize clarity in objectives, responsibilities, budget, and communications and noted that
    • The Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, the project steward is managing the project from a campus (not a divisional) perspective.  PAC will be asked to provide a campuswide, senior management perspective on project issues—particularly once the system is operational.
    • Implementation and operation will be facilitated if the roles and responsibilities of all participants are clearly set out; the transition team report delineates such roles in a matrix (see Appendix 3A).
    • New to this project is the concept of an “executive level agreement” between the Campus Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor and the System Steward that establishes overall objectives, milestones for measuring progress, and the budgetary commitments necessary to achieve these milestones.
    • A key issue that the project team will address is the choice between system modifications (i.e., programming changes to the basic vendor software in order to change the functionality of the product) and system customization (i.e., changes to the program default parameters or tables that customize the product to the UC Santa Cruz environment).  System modification (“mods”) not only involve significant up-front programming costs, but such modifications must be re-applied to the product each time an upgrade/update to the software is provided by the vendor.  The transition team recommendation is that the campus avoid system “mods” whenever possible and that such “mods” require a formal approval process.  Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education Goff and Provost Ladusaw will, over the summer, review the campus’ academic policies to understand what changes in policy might be needed in order to avoid system “mods”.

 

In the discussion that followed, a number of points were raised.

  • Questions about the AIS budget (estimated between $10 and $15 million) were raised:
    • What is the process for narrowing the budget range? (The scope of the project will in large part determine the budget; an analysis of requirements, tradeoffs, and costs is underway.  In addition, an external committee is reviewing the budget for accuracy and completeness.)
    • How will existing resources/expenditures be reallocated in support of the AIS project and what will the campus stop doing in order to reallocate such resources?
    • Will the “executive level agreement” commit resources to this project at a level of certainty that is not enjoyed by other academic and academic support units? 
    • Will the AIS system save the campus any money?  (The budget does not assume that savings that accrue as a result of the project will be harvested in support of the project.  It is assumed that such savings will be redeployed by departments in support of other priority services.)
    • Is the budget inclusive of all supporting information technology infrastructure?  (No, the budget assumes independent funding for IT infrastructure costs such as the wiring project, authentication/public key infrastructure and directory services, and a number of other key infrastructure components on which many campuswide projects will depend.)
  • Concern was raised about the transparency associated with setting the project scope.  I.e., how will changes in scope (and their associated budgetary implications) be scrutinized?  To what extent will affected department heads be required to understand/buy off on the service implications of such changes?  How will the campus manage expectations?
  • The role of PAC in this project is to join as a partner with the project steward … e.g., when the campus is in the midst of implementation and difficult tradeoffs are required, part of the “buy in” process for key decisions will include consultation with PAC. 
  • The work of the AIS project will need to be coordinated with the campus’ implementation of the New Business Architecture recommended by BAS in their executive summary.
  • It was also pointed out that the AIS implementation (i.e., the decision-making processes, the project management and accountability processes, and information technology components) could be an excellent topic of academic study (e.g., a student thesis).  For this reason, much of the materials and notes of deliberations are posted on the AIS web site.

 

Next steps.

 

  • Follow-up:  As more information becomes available, it will be posted on the AIS web site and PAC members will be kept up-to-date.

 

 

Member Items/Announcements

 

  • Action:  Thursday, June 14, 2001, is the campus’ annual leadership convocation; PAC members and their staff are encouraged to attend.  Registration is via the web.
  • Information:  PAC will meet during July and August 2001.
  • Information:  The Campus Provost/EVC responses to the executive summaries as well as budget allocations for 2001-02 will be distributed in near future.
  • Information:  Meredith Michaels provided a brief update on the State budget:  The State has a serious budget structural problem in that while the revenue forecasts for 2000-01 exceed the Governor’s budget by $1.1 billion, the forecasts for 2001-02 fall short by $4.6 billion (due primarily to decreases in revenues from capital gains and stock options, but includes projected reductions in a number of other revenue sources).  This is detailed in the Governor’s May budget revision (on page 9).  Thus, while the University budget will likely not be cut, the increase expected under the compact with the Governor may not be realized (for example, the 5% increase under the compact was reduced in the May revision to 2%).