Information Systems and Technology
Organizational Structure
Information Systems and Technology uses a matrix organizational structure
to provide its services to the UW community. Staff are organized into six
functional units called groups, each with well-defined areas of technical
responsibility. On the other matrix dimension, strategic consultants assist
academic-support departments in articulating and achieving UW information
systems and technology goals, identifying and providing IST support to
clients, and managing large projects to achieve major shifts in information
systems and technology at a departmental or institutional level. Faculties
interact with IST through their associate deans of computing and the University
Committee on Information Systems and Technology. Individuals contact IST
through Client Services and the various interfaces it has for answering
questions, processing requests, and providing information.
IST Groups and Directors
Administrative Support: Bill Futher
The Group Director, Administrative Support, has primary responsibility
within IST for budget administration, departmental finances including billing
for telephone or professional services, and human resource management.
The group director is responsible for timely preparation of reports and
provision of advice to the Associate Provost on financial matters.
Administrative Support is also responsible for key control and space
allocation within IST, security of IST physical resources, and the administration
and operation of Telephone Services.
Other responsibilities:
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Financial administration: recommendations for establishment and evolution
of the IST budget, salary administration, provision of billing services
for telephone services, installation and repair work-orders, and others.
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Human resource management: coordination of employment policy and procedures,
ensuring that annual performance reviews are performed by IST management,
monitoring and encouraging regular promotion and reclassification of staff,
vacation administration.
Applications Technology: Bob Blackburn
Applications Technology is responsible for the application software supporting
the University's information systems. This responsibility encompasses all
aspects of the System Design Life Cycle including business process and
system analysis, design, acquisition, development, installation, documentation,
and maintenance. In particular, this includes responsibility for designing
and evolving the corporate database. As systems move into production, this
group cooperates with Client Services and Electronic Workplace to train
users and provide them with access to systems, and with Production Support
to commission systems and provide second-level support to ongoing production.
Other responsibilities:
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Technical management of the long-term evolution and reliability of the
University's information systems and corporate database. Various units
outside IST have intellectual responsibility for the business processes
that are supported by the information systems and corporate database; the
Group Director, Applications Technology has responsibility for ensuring
the technical quality, consistency, robustness, and evolution of them in
the aggregate.
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Contribute to the development and implementation of university standards
for information systems and technology, as they relate in particular to
application development technology. Ensure that Applications Technology
staff are acquainted with the standards and provided with the resources
required to follow them.
Client Services: Paul Snyder
Client Services is responsible for providing services, support and training
related to the use of information systems and technology, and for communications
and marketing of IST services.
Services
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Operation of the IST Computer Help and Information Place (CHIP) as the
primary point-of-contact for IST services.
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Interface to the Hardware and Network Services group for the installations
and repairs.
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Support for specialty services such as laser printing, OMR, Mark Exam Scoring,
scanning.
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Distribution of University-licensed software, reference materials for University-licensed
software.
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Processing of all applications for IST services (e.g. dial-up server userids,
printing).
Support
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IST Help Desk supporting all faculties and academic-support units.
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Problem recording, assignment, tracking and resolution and follow-up for
all client-initiated problem reports.
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Cooperation and support for other units in the operation of remote help
desks.
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Identification, training and support of local user-support coordinators
outside IST; development and support of user-support groups (e.g. MACTUG)
and computer user support in general.
Training
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Development and maintenance of an overall information systems and technology
training plan offered to UW staff and faculty, including the operation
of a central training facility and coordination of special request computing
courses.
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Training of front-line support people in the departments, design of training
programs to develop local system-support expertise, and development and
maintenance of an overall training plan for IST staff.
Communications
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IST home page, Client Services Web pages (CHIP, IST Courses ...) and the
coordination of other IST Web pages.
Electronic Workplace: Carol Vogt
The Electronic Workplace group is responsible for the software packages,
tools and techniques required to provide a coherent electronic working
environment for all members of the UW community. Overall responsibilities
include the tracking of and planning for emerging technologies and products,
researching the abilities and uses of new products and coordinating the
installation and support of all end-user computing tools. This also includes
responsibility for IST support of teaching and learning technology.
Some of the general categories of support are office automation products
(such as word processing, scheduling), internet user and developer tools
(e.g., browsers, authoring), data manipulation and research (e.g., statistical),
student computing, application development tools and methods (e.g., CASE,
data warehouse) and other tools required by IST (e.g., request handling).
Production Support: Martin Timmerman
The focus of the Production Support unit is on the stable and efficient
operation of those computing systems on which the University depends, including
the campus network. Thus, a key concern is "process": the installation
and repair of equipment and the operational use of the mechanisms for workflow
production, system administration, performance monitoring, and the initial
responses to problems encountered.
The Production Support unit is staffed by computing-systems technical
personnel, by hardware technicians, by transmission-systems technicians,
and by network-operations and workflow-management personnel. It is responsible
for the assignment and registration of computing-system userids and network-device
names and addresses, for managing the corporate "batch" workflow, for the
installation and repair of computing-system, transmission-system, and network-device
hardware, for performance monitoring of computing-system servers and campus-network
devices, for backup/restore procedures, and for production problem recording/tracking/reporting
and its liaison with Systems and with user-constituency facility administrators
and users. It maintains a capability for 24-hour, 7-day response to failures
of critical hardware, software, and networks.
Systems: Roger Watt
The focus of the Systems group is on "mechanism": establishing
and evolving the building blocks of the enterprise-wide and user-constituency
computing and communications environment. The Systems group is staffed
by computing-systems and network-systems technical professionals. It is
responsible for technology tracking and assessment, pre-acquisition evaluation
and hardware/software specification, post-acquisition software installation
and configuration and testing for campus distribution and use, campus transmission
facilities and systems (voice, image, data), campus network facilities
and systems, client and server computing systems, central mechanisms for
systems management and the implementation and distribution of software,
and the specification of security mechanisms and operational procedures
for all aspects of this information-technology infrastructure.
Strategic Consultants
Strategic Consultants are accountable to the Associate Provost, Information
Systems and Technology, for the successful completion of one or more strategic
projects, and for ongoing consulting of a long-term and strategic nature
with one or more client departments outside IST. Strategic Consultants
may also undertake projects internal to IST when those projects require
significant commitments from and co-ordination of several groups within
IST.
Strategic Consulting is managed directly by the Associate Provost, IST,
and has two closely-related responsibilities: long-term strategic IST planning
for the University and (internal) clients, and managing the process of
implementing the strategic goals. These goals are typically attained in
stages, and each stage is formulated as a project with a rationale, timelines,
and deliverables. When the resources required to complete a project are
large, involve several Groups within IST, or require managing a cross-functional
team including client users, the APIST will assign project management responsibilities
to a member of Strategic Consulting. More self-contained projects will
be assigned to individual Groups.
A Strategic Consultant has general managerial responsibilities for one
or more projects, including negotiation of project human and technical
resources, acquisition of relevant technology, special project budgets
when they exist, and project completion within time and budget constraints.
The strategic consultant co-operates with the rest of IST management on
general issues of IST staffing, including some performance evaluations,
hiring, career paths, and staff development. In general, staff reporting
to the consultant are assigned on a temporary basis to the projects; staff
may also have other ongoing responsibilities in some IST Group or external
department. Where individuals are expected to spend most of their time
on such projects, the strategic consultant will provide information to
their managers for annual performance reviews.
Academic and External Affairs: Dave Kibble
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Roughly speaking, this consultant is responsible for clients reporting
to the Associate Provost, Academic and Student Affairs, and the Vice-President,
University Relations. It excludes activity within the scope of the SISP.
The clients include Development and Alumni Affairs, Audio-Visual, the Library,
Cooperative Education and Career Services, Distance and Continuing Education,
Institutional Analysis and Planning, Internal Audit, and the Library.
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The primary immediate responsibility is overall project management for
the Tri-Library Automation Project involving UW, the University of Guelph,
and Wilfrid Laurier University: 1-2 IST man-years over 18 months, 50 man-years
in total over 18 months from Library staff at the three institutions. Overall
project management responsibility, plus significant negotiation and diplomatic
skills required to ensure the success of this highly-visible inter-university
project. This project will require significant commitments of UW, WLU,
and UoGuelph for the purchase of major server systems, library network
infrastructure, and many hundred workstations for library patrons and staff.
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A secondary responsibility that is assuming some urgency is strategic consultancy
to Distance and Continuing Education as that department attempts to revitalize
its course offerings and redefine its mandate. This may involve significant
business process analysis and creative applications of technology in order
for UW to regain a leadership position in serving this clientele.
Finance and Business Operations: Roy Wagler
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This consultant is responsible for all client areas reporting to the Associate
Provost, General Services and Finance, and to the Director, Business Operations.
This includes Finance, Purchasing, Central Stores, Office of Research,
Graphic Services, Plant Operations, University Club, Retail Services, Plant
Operations, Food Services, the WATCARD, and Housing.
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A primary immediate responsibility is for the ongoing Financial Systems
Project, which involves approximately 40 man-years, will last 4 to 5 years,
and is critical to the ongoing operation of the University as a business.
The scope and complexity of the project, given the current state of UW's
legacy financial systems, currently make it difficult to split this project
into several smaller ones either in time or in size. The project currently
includes approximately 6 IST staff and 5 functional staff from other departments.
Examples of significant commitments made by the University on the recommendation
of the Strategic Consultant (formerly "Project Manager") include the purchase
of a large parallel database server to run Oracle Government Financials,
the acquisition and installation of Oracle Government Financials itself,
and the acquisition of Cognos' Impromptu and PowerPlay for decision support
and on-line analytical processing. This will imply further purchase of
a large server for these two functions. The Strategic Consultant is accountable
to the FSP Management Committee for successful completion of the project.
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The main secondary responsibilities currently include strategic consulting
and planning for Business Operations in anticipation of significant future
investments on their part in new information systems.
Student Information Systems: Dave Mason
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Project management and strategic consulting within the scope of the Student
Information Systems Project: approximately 30 man-years of IST staffing,
plus 15-25 man-years from other departments, 4-5 years in duration, critical
to the ongoing operation of the University's core teaching and degree-granting
responsibilities. The scope and complexity of the project, given the current
state of UW's legacy student systems, make it difficult to split this project
into several smaller ones either in time or in size. The project currently
includes approximately 6 IST staff and 5 functional staff from other departments.
Examples of significant commitments made by the University on the recommendation
of the Strategic Consultant (formerly "Project Manager") include the purchase
and implementation of PeopleSoft Student Administration System, and future
large servers to run the applications as they are put into production.
The Strategic Consultant is accountable to the SISP Management Committee
for successful completion of the project.
Senior Technologists
Computer-Telephony Integration (Systems):Bruce Uttley
Since day-to-day management of telephone services is a responsibility of
the Group Director, Administrative Support, and of the Supervisor, Telephone
Services, the Senior Technologist will co-operate closely with them in
managing the technical aspects of telephony on campus. He or she is expected
to identify where better applications of technology can assist in the management
of telephone services, as well as to provide technical leadership as telephone
services becomes less and less separate from data communications. The Senior
Technologist identifies how and where computer-telephony integration can
assist UW in fulfilling its responsibilities better or more cost-effectively,
and assists client areas in evaluating and implementing new applications
of CTI. He or she will also provide project leadership for implementation
of changes to the telephone system, as well as the identification of opportunities
for cost reductions and the successful execution of projects to realize
the savings.
Teaching and Learning Technology (Electronic Workplace): Andrea Chappell
While computers have long been expected to revolutionize teaching and learning,
there are some indications of this hope becoming a reality. The Senior
Technologist, Teaching and Learning, is expected to facilitate this evolution
through a broad range of technical consulting, advocacy, assistance in
curriculum development and evolution, and participation in the Teaching
and Learning Technology Roundtable. The technologist helps the Group Director
ensure that teaching and learning issues are adequately addressed in the
overall support provided by the group to the Electronic Workplace. From
a technical perspective, he or she is expected to identify and evaluate
new tools as they appear, so that IST can provide early assistance to adopters,
and help identify key technologies. This will allow the technologist to
teach others how to best apply the tools, help develop pedagogical resources
for IST courses, and demonstrate and promote appropriate tools in a number
of forums around campus. As a member of the Teaching and Learning Technology
Roundtable, the incumbent provides technical expertise to assist that committee
in fulfilling its mandate.
Information Systems and Technology
Homepage
Jay Black, 1997.08.05