Proposal for an Information Technology Standards and Policies Council (ITSPC)


Purpose:  Our campus is a good example of what used to be called a "distributed 
computing" environment.  There is a central IT (information technology) shop (i.e., OIT) 
but much of the IT effort on the campus is carried out at the department of higher unit 
level.  Such a model is neither atypical nor undesirable in a research university.  
However, it holds the potential for considerable duplication of effort, unnecessary 
retrofitting of solutions, loss of economies of scale, etc.  The way to avoid these 
downsides in a distributed environment is not to centralize control and authority but to 
foster communication between all of the diverse units involved in IT.  As CIO, I have the 
responsibility to manage the central IT organization; I also have the responsibility to 
develop IT standards and policies for the campus to help maximize the return on our 
collective IT investment.  Sometimes these have to be "dictated from on high" but, for 
the most part, they can be developed in a more collaborative manner.  I am looking to 
form a group that can accomplish the latter.  In a sentence, the purpose of this group 
would be to promote, in the area of Information Technology, communication, 
coordination, and coherence through the medium of campus IT standards and policies.  


Structure:   The Council would be composed of (at least one) representative from each 
Vice Chancellery and each College, liaison with the Faculty Senate Computing & 
Electronic Communication Committee, and, hopefully, some representation from the 
student government(s).  This group would be fairly strategic in nature, receiving and 
reviewing reports and recommendations from topical working groups and then making 
recommendations to the CIO.  This group would identify issues that should be addressed 
and would assist the campus in becoming more "proactive" in addressing IT needs.  The 
group would meet relatively infrequently (perhaps twice a year on a regular basis and 
irregularly as needed), with much of its activity carried out via e-mail and other such 
mechanisms.


Working Groups:  The Council would appoint working groups to address specific topics 
and issues.  Membership need not be representative of the full council but would reflect 
those areas with needs and those with expertise in the particular issue/topic.  The working 
groups would make reports/recommendations to the Council.  The working groups would 
fade in and out of existence as the particular topic/issue is current or active.  It would be 
up to the Council to determine the issues/topics to be addressed and, therefore, the 
number of working groups at any one time.  As examples of such working groups, one 
might consider:

E-mail                       Web services           Video Networking (incl. wireless)
Statistics                   Directory Services     Instructional Technology
Security                     File Services

Some of these may already exist in some form and could be coordinated with any 
corresponding efforts by the ITSPC.