Prepared by the University Computing Committee
March, 1996
After consideration of comments and suggestions from many people on campus, the UCC is pleased to submit our final version of the 1996 Directions Statement. The UCC continues to welcomes comments and suggestions: these will be considered as part of the implementation process of the recommendations. They can be sent via e-mail to the UCC committee(ucc@dcs1) or to any member of the committee. The members of the committee who prepared the document are listed below:
Liz Bevan, (UCC Secretary) Institutional Analysis and Planning
Jay Black, Associate Dean for Computing, Faculty of Mathematics
Paul Dirksen, Director of Computing Services
Ian Gibson, Associate Dean for Computing, Faculty of Science
Brent Hall, Associate Dean for Computing, Faculty of EnvironmentalStudies
Duane Kennedy, Associate Dean for Computing, Faculty of Arts
Bruce MacNeil, Associate Librarian
Bud Walker, Director of Data Processing
Richard Wells, Associate Dean for Computing, Faculty of AppliedHealth Sciences
Bill Wilson, (Chair of UCC) Associate Dean for Computing, Facultyof Engineering
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The purpose of this computing directions statement is to present a strategic plan for the University to respond to the dramatic changes that are occurring in information technology and information systems. It is clear that most of the primary activities of the University are being significantly affected by these changes in information technology and it is critical that the University respond with appropriate changes in the management structure, the technical infrastructure and the human resources applied to this area.
A vision of how information technology has become a key element in the future development of the University, is presented. Traditional boundaries between the various academic computing activities and administrative information systems have become blurred and therefore better coordination of the support for these activities is required. The two most critical issues identified are the establishment of a strong IT/IS management structure and the reorganization of support areas along functional lines. The appointment of a senior manager to provide leadership in this area and the formation of a new integrated University Committee on Information Technology and Systems are recommended.
Various user activities are discussed, including research computing, teaching/learning computing and administrative computing. A common requirement in all these activity areas is a well supported electronic workplace which is equitably accessible by all faculty, staff and students to provide the basis for effective use of information technology in their work and studies. This not only requires the coordination of computing facilities but also requires a strong system of user training and user support to capitalize on the benefits of information technology and facilitate efficient use by the whole university community.
The need for a well coordinated technical infrastructure is discussed. In an environment where there is distributed responsibility and resources for information technology the appropriate balance between central facilities and support and distributed support must be found.
Manager IT/IS
Associate Deans Computing (6)
Data Processing Department - Director
Department of Computing Services - Director
Library - Representative
Academic Affairs - Representative
Finance - Representative
General Services - Representative
Campus Network Advisory Group (CNAG)
Unix Support Advisory Group (USAG)
Financial Systems Project Subcommittee
Student Information Systems Project Subcommittee
UWInfo Operations Committee
Teaching/Learning Advisory Group
News Server Policy Working Group
User Community Advisory Group
Scientific Computing Advisory Group
Computing Advancement Group
University Computing Directions Statement (1996)
The 1989 University Computing Directions Statement has formed the basis for policy and development of computing and information technology systems for the past 6 years. Although it was intended that the statement be reviewed and updated each year by the University Computing Committee (UCC), a review has not been done until now. Many of the goals defined in the statement have been achieved while a few others have not been acted on or are still in progress. Many of the general directions stated in the 1989 document are still relevant today, but there have been very dramatic changes in the enabling technology and in the variety and breadth of use of information technology both within the university and in the general community. The significance and impact of information technology on the fundamental university functions of teaching/learning, research and administrative operations have also dramatically increased. It is therefore time for a thorough review and revision of the computing directions statement in the context of this new environment.
It is important to note that the present document has a broader focus than the previous document, by including most aspects of information technology and information systems rather than the narrower focus on computing systems alone. "Information Technology" is technology related to the creation, communication and distribution of information in all forms. "Information Systems" refers to the systems and infrastructure that support the administrative and business operations of the university. In this document, these terms are generally referred to as IT and IS respectively.
Also, it should be noted that this document provides recommended "directions" for the University to follow and is not intended to be a detailed policy document. Policy details and implementation plans should be developed by the new management structure and support committee recommended the Section 3.1 .
As part of the process of review and updating of the directions statement, the UCC has consulted widely with students, faculty and staff through a number of different mechanisms. There were several open meetings held with different sectors of the university, and one for the university community as a whole. Also, a special meeting was held with IT/IS support staff and a number of meetings were held with some faculty councils and university administrative committees. A home page was created to keep the community informed on the progress of the review and a newsgroup was set up to encourage discussion (uw.ucc.review). The resulting directions statement also is being submitted to the Commission On Institutional Planning as part of its overall planning and development report.
The next section of this document presents a picture of UCC's vision of an integrated environment of information technology and information systems, and discusses the important effects of this environment on the future development of the University of Waterloo. This is intended to provide a general framework for the more specific "Issues and Recommendations" that follow in Section 3. The "Issues and Recommendations" are grouped into sub-topics that include; IT/IS Management and Organizational Structure, User IT/IS Activities, User Training and Support, Technical Infrastructure and Resource Issues.
The overall goals of the University of Waterloo are the acquisition, creation, and dissemination of knowledge. Increasingly, achieving these goals depends upon equitable access by the entire university community to a powerful, well-managed electronic information infrastructure, which means electronic services, information, and computational resources. The infrastructure and the technology that support this are both changing rapidly, and inaction on the part of the University is damaging to its long-term ability to meet its goals in an efficient and timely manner. In this context, the current infrastructure is too balkanized and requires some rationalization. An enhanced institutional commitment is needed at all levels to increase the integration of information technology in work and study throughout the university community.
Each member of the university community should have the opportunity to be innovative and creative in the application of information technology to individual and institutional goals. The University must encourage the adoption of new technology, through standards and guidelines, and must have enough organizational flexibility to enable this adoption, through distributed responsibility and accountability for the acquisition, development, and use of information technology. This responsibility and accountability imply that individuals and units will act to reinforce centrally supported systems and standards.
Individual, departmental and institutional requirements must be satisfied in a harmonized manner. The institution must provide adequate training and support so that innovation will be successful, and individuals must ensure they have the skills and knowledge necessary to appreciate how information technology can best serve them in their study or work. Further, the individuals must help craft, use, and work within the infrastructure in a responsible fashion that reflects well upon themselves and the University. In return, the University must recognize the individualís legitimate rights to freedom of expression and privacy in our increasingly electronic workplace.
Equitable access, efficiency, and harmonization of institutional and individual requirements are the three main information technology issues facing the University at this time. Addressing these issues will be a complex task, involving changes in attitude, reallocation of resources, and rethinking how the University does its business. However, the rapid pace of technological change will continue, independent of the University's actions. If significant action is not taken, the University will become increasingly mired in outdated technology and will lack sufficient information technology human resources to achieve institutional goals. However, timely action on a number of fronts, should enable the University to take advantage of the wealth of individual's knowledge, creativity, and energy to achieve institutional goals more effectively and efficiently than is done at present.
Information technology has become a complex topic with many interacting activities, issues and requirements. However, in the university environment, certain groupings can be defined to provide a more organized structure for discussion of the issues. Figure 1 shows two broad groupings with User Activities above the line, and Infrastructure Support functions below the line. The user activities can be further subdivided according to the major university functions, namely Teaching/Learning, Research and Administration. However, many activities such as electronic mail, word-processing, use of spreadsheets, etc., overlap these functions while others are unique to the individual functions. This intersecting set of activities forms the Electronic Workplace, representing the common workplace activities performed by most people.
The infrastructure support shown below the line in Figure 1 can be subdivided into Technical Infrastructure support and User Support and Training. The technical infrastructure support refers to all the hardware and software infrastructure plus the technical support personnel who are responsible for installation, maintenance, and development of the infrastructure systems. User support and training refers to all the personnel responsible for supporting the end-user so they can make the most effective use of IT/IS in performing their job functions. The end-users include all faculty, students and staff that need to use IT/IS in their university activities. The knowledge and skill level vary widely in this end-user group.
Underlying all the IT/IS activities and support functions is the Management of IT/IS. This is the
key element that ensures the most effective use of the Resources to provide a well coordinated
and supported environment. This is crucial, especially in a university environment, where IT/IS
responsibilities and resources are distributed across the enterprise. 
In the following subsections, the management functions are considered first, followed by detailed discussions of the main activity areas. Then the various training and support issues and the fundamental technical infrastructure are considered.
Computing technology, information systems, information delivery systems and personal communication systems have become much more intertwined, all interacting under a common infrastructure. The traditional boundaries between academic computing and administrative computing are no longer distinct. The impact of changing IT/IS on all aspects of fundamental university activities (teaching/learning, research and administration), has grown dramatically over the last five years and will continue to grow each year. This is a time when it is critical that the University respond to these changes with a strong commitment and an effective management structure to coordinate and lead the University in the area of IT/IS.
Two committees, the University Computing Committee (UCC) and the Provost's Advisory Committee on Information Systems (PACIS), provide advice to the Vice President, Academic and Provost. At present, these two committees often make independent decisions that can and do affect the others' ability to support IT/IS on campus. Also, several departments/units (Audio Visual, Computing Services, Data Processing, Graphic Services, the Library and Telephone Services) have significant overlap in their goals and objectives, and yet report to different administrators. If the university is to continue to meet the needs of its faculty, staff and students, and to remain relevant in the face of serious cuts to funding, an effective and coordinated management structure must be established for IT/IS. This management structure should be charged with:
The two most critical issues identified in this computing directions statement are the establishment of a strong IT/IS management structure and the reorganization of support areas along functional lines. These views are supported by feedback obtained from UW personnel involved in IT/IS, as well as comments received during other general meetings and individual submissions to UCC. Also, the O'Sullivan Report [1] recommends the need for, " ...establishment of a new position of a full-time manager with the required technical and managerial skills to manage both operations [DCS and DP] on a coordinated basis or as a single Information Services department." The need for a strong management structure to provide leadership and direction in academic computing is emphasized in the work of several external groups. For example, the report on academic computing at the University of Toronto [2] recommends appointment of a full time Director of Academic Computing and the establishment of an Academic Computing Management Board. The impact of information technology on the university's mission is discussed throughout the draft report on the "Virtual-Campus" at the University of Western Ontario[3]. A good summary of the importance of universities responding to the challenges and opportunities of new information technologies is highlighted in the HEIRAlliance Report[4] on, "What the Presidents Need to Know ... about Evaluating Institutional Information Resources."
Recommendations:
Manager IT/IS
Associate Deans Computing (6)
Data Processing Department - Director
Department of Computing Services - Director
Library - Representative
Academic Affairs - Representative
Finance - Representative
General Services - Representative
Campus Network Advisory Group (CNAG)
Unix Support Advisory Group (USAG)
Financial Systems Project Subcommittee
Student Information Systems Project Subcommittee
UWInfo Operations Committee
Teaching/Learning Advisory Group
News Server Policy Working Group
User Community Advisory Group
Scientific Computing Advisory Group
Computing Advancement Group
Information technology used in teaching and learning (sometimes called learning technology) spans a wide range of applications such as electronic mail, the World Wide Web, design and analysis programs and video-conferencing. Although IT is expected to become increasingly entwined in teaching and learning, the exact nature of this involvement is not completely clear. This area is changing very rapidly. For example, although the World Wide Web is relatively new service, it is currently one of the most potent forms of digital communication, combining relative ease of use and wide availability. Rapid growth of other similar technology is expected, and therefore, the necessary IT infrastructure required for support of teaching and learning must be planned without being tied to a specific methodology and delivery mechanism. Such infrastructure should be planned and coordinated at an institutional level.
The potential of IT for teaching and learning is not widely disputed, however, a number of barriers have prevented its wider acceptance and use. Chief amongst these is the technology itself, closely followed by the time required to create materials using these systems, and lack of pedagogical models to follow.
In order for teachers to make effective and appropriate use of IT, there must exist resources to support the development of facilities such as specially equipped electronic classrooms and networks, personnel resources to support current pedagogically useful software, and help in the creation of new course materials. This might be achieved through an expansion of the role of the TRACE office. IT allows many options for the delivery of educational materials if they are prepared in digital format. IT facilitates flexible delivery for private study, tutorials, laboratories, distance education, and classroom presentation. The result is a breaking down of the barriers of time and space which allows a rethinking of teaching and learning and the potential of improved learning at the same or reduced costs. Technology by itself is, however, only part of the issue. The reward structure of the institution should also be modified to acknowledge the effort involved in the development of new modes of teaching and learning.
In order for learners to make effective use of IT, it is critical that they have appropriate and convenient access. For on-campus users, this currently means access to sufficiently powerful hardware and software as well as internet access. For off-campus users, this currently means telephone access via terminal servers to the campus student networks. Student-owned computers offer an opportunity to leverage scarce on-campus resources, but to be successful, this requires the development of an enhanced infrastructure to effectively integrate these machines into the campus network, both from on-campus and off-campus. Key issues are: software licensing, access control, security, and the provision of easy-to-install connectivity kits that require minimal support.
As tuition fees rise and competition for learners becomes more fierce, all aspects of the facilities of the institution will be evaluated. Flexible and powerful integration of IT in teaching and learning may provide an important competitive edge.
Recommendations:
Research computing needs vary widely from faculty to faculty, and research group to research group across the university. Hardware systems may include special purpose computers imbedded in experiments, high performance parallel processing computers, general purpose Unix workstations, powerful visualization facilities, large database systems and multimedia computing systems. Similarly, software needs include powerful computer programming environments, highly specialized analysis and design software, powerful database software and a wide range of scientific computing software. Good internet access is also a very important tool for research computing. Research grants and contracts provide financial resources for the purchase of hardware and software in support of research activities. As a result, many purchase decisions are made by individuals or research groups quite independent of the directions being followed by the University as a whole. To a large extent, it has been the tradition that the responsibility for research computing lay with the researchers, rather than the University, and it is likely that this approach will be continued.
This situation does lead to problems in providing consistent quality technical and user support for the researcher's computing systems and software. Support is handled in different ways in different faculties. For example, in Mathematics there is central support for a good Unix computing environment through MFCF. Also, hardware and software support for researchers in ICR has been provided through infrastructure grants. There are several examples where individual research groups set up their own computing facilities and provide their own support. In other cases, researchers rely upon support from DCS personnel.
Due to the independent nature of researchers and the lack of University resources to supply the specialized needs of research computing, the present diverse and distributed nature of research computing will continue. However, the University plays a very important role in supporting a strong and well managed computing network infrastructure, a solid base of technical support for general Unix and PC/Mac computing and high quality training and user support. To be efficient, the supply of this support must be tied to some level of standards in hardware and software purchases. These issues are not unique to research computing, and therefore, discussions along with appropriate recommendations are given in other sections of this directions statement.
Administrative information systems are of a form and character that are largely mandated by the functional needs of the University. These systems cross departmental boundaries, require extensive distributed access, and need to interact with each other. As a result, there is a strong requirement for integration, compatibility and standardization amongst systems both from a functional and from a technical perspective. Since these systems pervade a range of activities in both academic and academic support areas, they are a significant factor in determining the IT infrastructure of the University, and, at the same time, are a product of this infrastructure. For example, the electronic workplace is a crucial common denominator for both academic and administrative systems. The implementation of IS is being enhanced with the growing availability of packaged software solutions for vertical markets, highly functional development environments for IS professionals, standard industry approaches, and common tools that facilitate end-user information retrieval, analysis, and development activities.
More recently, generic networked-based services such as Electronic Data Interchange, the World Wide Web, and electronic banking offer a new dimension in services geared to reducing proprietary IS approaches and costs, while at the same time increasing IS integration and access. IS development projects can often be large, complex undertakings. Project activities can draw heavily on units that provide service to the entire university thus impacting the integrity of other IT/IS operations. It is important that such projects are undertaken with the appropriate commitment, collaboration, coordination, and cooperation to maximize the productivity of the project and to minimize the impact on IT/IS support for other areas.
Recommendations:
In much of the university, faculty, staff and students use computers routinely for their daily activities. These include word processing, electronic mail communications, spreadsheet analysis, data collection, electronic reporting, information exchange through the World Wide Web and newsgroups, and social interactions with the University community and others. The level and breadth of these activities will continue to grow significantly over the next several years. This growth will accelerate as distributed systems allow endusers to access university databases for academic support activities.
The growth of the electronic workplace requires that the University ensure reasonable and equitable access by faculty, staff, and students throughout the campus, to workstations connected to the campus network (directly or remotely) with appropriate software and support. The implications for the student computing environment are discussed in section 3.4.2.
The University expects that faculty and staff who routinely require computers in their work will have a workstation on their desk. In many instances, this workstation will be used for a mix of research, teaching, and administrative functions, and thus will need to adhere to institutional standards. As a result, provision of the workstation is a shared responsibility between the University, its units, and external research funding agencies. This recognizes that it is increasingly impractical to switch back and forth between different workstations dedicated to specific functions or restricted to specific uses.
With increasing use of the electronic workplace consideration must be given to correct integration of computer workstations into the work (and leisure) environment to prevent adverse health effects. These considerations should include appropriate work organization (breaks, task variety) and physical configuration of the work environment (appropriate furniture, lighting etc.). These should be considered during planning, purchase, installation of computer hardware and software, in the training of computer users as well as in the formulation of job descriptions.
Recommendations:
In an environment where budgets are being reduced, and everyone must "work smarter", it is necessary to ensure that all faculty, staff and students have the skills, including computer skills, to work efficiently. Staff need computing skills to use their hardware and software effectively. Faculty need computing skills for course administration tasks, for research work, and to deploy technology to increase the effectiveness of their teaching. Students need computing skills to complete course requirements and conduct research using the Internet. In addition, as a larger technology component is added to the educational process, tasks such as course registration, job searches, and on-campus communication, will require students to have more IT skills.
Most IT/IS training is provided by the Department of Computing Services (DCS). Introductory and advanced courses are provided during normal working hours for systems and software supported by DCS. Some faculties and departments provide additional training and support. However, not all faculty, staff and students take advantage of these courses for a variety of reasons including, insufficient release time, the timing of the training sessions and inappropriate or inadequate training facilities.
With the rapid introduction of new systems and technology there is a need to recognize that training and support are a shared responsibility between the institution and the user. The institution has a responsibility to provide quality training programs that meet the needs of all users (faculty, staff and students) to ensure that new IT/IS tools and systems can be used effectively, efficiently and productively. The training and support should be ongoing and be provided at appropriate times so that all users have the opportunity to complete the training and maintain skills at an appropriate level for their job or course requirements. The user has a responsibility to take advantage of these opportunities to learn required skills and maintain them at appropriate levels.
Recommendations:
While modern computer systems are relatively easy to use, there exist vastly different skill levels among the UW user community. This range of skill levels coupled with the complexity of systems and software, requires on-going support from knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced support staff.
UW has already established an effective support structure which includes help desks in a number of departments and faculties (Science, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Data Processing, Library), local consulting offices (Applied Health Sciences, Arts, Math, Needles Hall), office calls for difficult problems, and a customer support centre (DCS), all attempting to provide 'one-stop' support. A mechanism is in place for supporting users and groups receiving new systems (software and hardware installation) and users upgrading existing hardware and software. Newer methods of providing support such as on-line help desks and on-line support materials also are beginning to be provided.
This structure of distributed support recognizes that different parts of the campus have different needs and that providing support close to the user is imperative. The structure also permits groups to develop local "self help" expertise to support their individual group's needs.
Recommendations:
Discussion of appropriate use of electronic media requires a balanced view between principles of intellectual freedom and individual privacy, and issues of respect for the rights of other individuals in the community. All too often, users of electronic media believe that electronic communication, as a relatively new medium, differs from other forms of communication and therefore is not subject to the same policies regulations and behaviour norms that govern other conventional forms of communication. This belief is unfounded. Electronic communication and the use of University resources (equipment and access to computing resources) are governed by University policies, practices and agreements, and by legislation.
The University of Waterloo Policy number 33 on Ethical Behaviour begins:
Executive Council of the University of Waterloo on June 12, 1991, issued a policy on the use of computing facilities that states in part:
IT/IS service and support are provided by a number of different units on campus, to different constituencies, at varying costs. This has advantages and disadvantages. New services and enhanced service levels can be provided differentially to support differing priorities and resource availability. Expertise can be developed and resources deployed according to both local and institutional priorities. Reaction to change can be rapid, since constituencies do not necessarily need to consult with central authorities or convince them that institutional priorities require modification. On the other hand, in the long term, lack of coordination and differing directions can lead to inefficiencies, duplication, and inequities which significantly inhibit the achievement of institutional goals. The number of devices in the computing environment and its complexity, have both grown to the point where it is not feasible to provide all IT/IS support centrally without a massive transfer of resources from other units. DCS/DP must concentrate on support activities that provide the greatest value to the institution as a whole.
There is a need to ìlevel the playing fieldî and redefine the service and support framework for IT/IS across campus. The key aspects of this new support framework have been identified. First, a campus-wide understanding of what IT/IS infrastructure should be provided centrally, needs to be developed. Currently, this infrastructure consists of the following services:
Based on this campus-wide understanding of infrastructure, the types of IT/IS services and levels of expertise required to provide those services should be defined. In the long term, a model should be adopted which includes ìcentralized specialists supporting distributed generalists,î very much along the lines of the USAG report, but with an expanded scope covering all aspects of IT/IS support. In this report, three levels of support services are defined.
In principle, Level 1 services should be provided centrally, Level 2 services should be provided by large units such as the faculties or the Library, and Level 3 services should be provided within workgroups such as departments and research groups.
Given this framework, research users should in principle be charged for all services beyond the base infrastructure, in a consistent fashion across campus, although the charges may be levied by different units. Level 1 services should continue to be provided centrally without a direct charge (with the exception of non-infrastructure services to researchers). However, charges may be levied by major units, such as faculties, for Level 2 services to members of their own constituencies. In general, these units should also be willing to provide Level 2 services, for an appropriate charge, to other units, groups or individuals, subject to overall resource constraints. Level 3 services will generally use resources within the individual workgroups. This will require significant training of local system administrators, and a recognition of local responsibility for support. These charging policies are a subject for future study.
The ability to react in a timely fashion to differing needs and priorities in academic and administrative units across the University, must be preserved. Local centres of expertise will continue to develop as the computing environment evolves, and this must be accommodated in the support framework. On the other hand, units must recognize the legitimate need of the University to leverage local expertise for university-wide benefit. A crucial aspect of this is the responsibility to adhere to corporate guidelines and standards.
Recommendations:
Undergraduate and graduate students routinely use computers in their learning activities. Computers are used for daily activities that comprise the electronic workplace as well as specific activities related to course and research requirements. Computing will play an increasing role in learning activities as faculty integrate information technology into the teaching environment. Student use of computing also will increase over time as information systems allow students direct access to academic support activities such as registration.
In order for students to make effective use of IT/IS, they require appropriate and convenient access to the student computing environment both on and off campus. At present, the student computing environment consists of a mixture of hardware and operating systems that vary between, and within, faculties and academic support departments. On-campus access to the student computing environment varies greatly across campus. This leads to complications for students enrolling in courses in other parts of the campus as they may be forced to have multiple computer accounts, use multiple operating systems, and travel across campus to the appropriate computer lab. Barriers that impede student access should be removed.
The growth of computing in student learning requires that the University provide sufficient access to computing resources through on-campus computer labs and dial-in access from off campus. Adequate access to on-campus computer labs with appropriate hardware and software is important for learning activities of existing students and to attract new students. Adequate dial-in access, availability of software at reasonable prices, connectivity support, and user support are necessary to allow students to use home computers to meet their computing needs. Also, facilities should be developed in the on-campus computer labs to allow access for student-owned computers.
Recommendations:
The term "security", when applied to IT, generally refers to the sum total of risks that IT brings, the assessment of those risks, and the steps taken to minimize them. The term does not usually embrace the overall integrity of computing systems which can include such items as disaster recovery plans and quality assurance practices.
As computing at the University of Waterloo has evolved to a more distributed environment, the number of potential threats to its secure operation has increased. There exist more communications with the outside world, greater numbers of increasingly knowledgeable student, staff and faculty users, increased numbers and diversity of systems, and more physical access points. Previous practices which involved simply locking away sensitive documents do not apply in this new electronic environment. Sensitive information, including financial and personal information, will become common traffic across the network. Without proper precautions, personal privacy may be lost. Any effort to address security will need to consider the following:
Although specific risks will vary in importance depending on the specific user group (faculty, staff, or student), the system, and the service being considered, certain basic themes exist for all, including:
Information access control (e.g., institutional data policy, software protection).
Recommendations:
The main issues regarding computing networks are bandwidth, topology, communication hardware/infrastructure, network functions and management. There are three main domains of computer networks at the University of Waterloo. These are the main backbone of the campus network, the second-level networks which provide the distributed building services, and the network tie to the Internet. Over the last several years, a solid 100 Mbps FDDI fibre optics backbone has been established with redundant fibre optic runs to provide good future expansion capacity. The second-level networks provide access for whole buildings or faculties, or for the second-level networks dedicated to smaller groups with heavy computing activity. There are also some third-level networks, but these are usually localized within particular groups. One exception to this is the Pronet based Watstar network, which may be considered as a third-level network.
As IT activity has increased, both on-campus and off-campus network bandwidth demands and access have grown dramatically, and will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. The data communication network has become the most critical component in our distributed IT systems, and therefore, the university must be prepared to allocate adequate resources to provide appropriate upgrades and expansion of the on-campus networks and the connection to the Internet. The main concern is to implement a continuous evaluation and planning process, that will ensure that the networks grow in a planned and coordinated manner. Presently, a UCC working group, the Computing Networks Advisory Group (CNAG), plays a key role in this on-going planning process for the campus network needs. This model should be continued in the future.
Recommendations:
Adoption of IT/IS standards across the university can lead to significant cost savings and improved quality of support as a result of improved efficiencies. In this context, "standards" refer to hardware, operating systems, networks, protocols, development tools and methodologies. There is an ever increasing need for IT/IS systems to interact and exchange information in a seamless manner which dictates adoption of some standards in communication protocols and software. However, because of the rich and diverse application of IT throughout the university, and because of the variety of individual IT needs, a variety of systems and software are required. Also, because purchase decisions are made in a distributed sense by individuals, groups and faculties, it is difficult to enforce a rigid set of standards. Therefore, a compromise is needed to realize efficiencies of support through adoption of standards while at the same time attempting to satisfy the varying needs across the University.
The adoption of University standards will significantly benefit the institution by:
Dictating narrow standards for all aspects of IT/IS within the university is not practical. However, incentives can be put in place to strongly encourage adherence to a somewhat flexible set of standards. This is definitely required for the network infrastructure where adoption of standards is essential to the management and operation of the systems. Also, for administrative functions, adherence to standards is particularly important. This is also done in the Unix systems area, where a number of hardware platforms and operating systems are defined as "officially" supported by the University. This approach needs to be expanded as broadly as possible to all areas of IT/IS systems and software, so the University can benefit from the resulting efficiencies and provide adequate support for the increasing use of IT/IS in University activities.
Failing to adopt standards in these areas will result in: the University being unable to adopt
modern IS across the campus; rapidly escalating training and support costs and/or a deterioration
in service; and increasingly frustrated and ineffective faculty, staff and student users.
Recommendation:
A large number of the recommendations in this report depend either directly or indirectly on resource issues. It is clear that the University cannot implement all recommendations immediately, especially in light of the current severe financial constraints being imposed on the University. However, it should also be very clear that most functions in the University are becoming more and more dependent on the effective application of IT/IS, and to not respond to the increasing needs in this area, will have very severe long term effects on the stature and performance of the University. There are two ways in which the University can respond to this dilemma.
First, many of the recommendations in this document pertain to changes in the management of IT/IS, in the organization of support units and in the coordination of distributed IT/IS responsibilities and resources. These changes will result in improved efficiencies in the operation and support of IT/IS activities across the University, without increasing long term resources. However, the process of making these changes will consume some additional short term resources to achieve the long term gains. This is a very good investment.
Second, the University must realize that there have been, and will continue to be, further significant increases in the level of IT/IS activity. In fact, the increased use of IT/IS in all university functions represents the most dramatic change seen in the university in recent years, apart from the budget cuts. If the University of Waterloo expects to continue to be a dynamic university, known as the "leader of tomorrow" it must respond by allocating additional resources to this critical area, even in a time of budget cuts. i
| June 29, 1995 | UCC retreat - development of initial focus and issues. |
| Early July, 1995 | Established Web page, newsgroup (uw.ucc.review) and e-mail (ucc@dcs1) for communication. Distributed the document, "University Computing Committee Review of the University Computing D irections Statement" as well as the 1989 University Computing Directions Statement. |
| July 20, 1995 | Open meeting with students. |
| July 25, 1995 | Open meeting with faculty. |
| August 2, 1995 | Open meeting with staff. |
| September 1, 1995 | Distribution of the document, "A Vision of Information Technology and the Future of the University of Waterloo." |
| September 15, 1995 | UCC meeting with computer support staff. |
| September, 1995 | Discussions at several Faculty Councils. |
| September 21, 1995 | General Open Forum. |
| September 27, 1995 | UCC meeting with Executive Council. |
| Oct.-Dec., 1995 | Preparation of the draft version of the Directions Statement. |
| January 19, 1996 | Distribution of the draft document, "University Computing Directions statement (1996)". |
| February, 1996 | Presentations at several Faculty Councils. |
| February 8, 1996 | UCC meeting with the Commission on Institutional Planning. |
| February 15, 1996 | UCC meeting with the Provost. |
| February 26, 1996 | General Open Forum. |
| March 18, 1996 | Release of the final document. |