1 Tech Plan IV: A Strategic Direction for Information Technology at Portland State University 2007/2008 Advisory Committee on Academic Information Technologies Guiding Principle of this Report This plan deals with big picture technology strategy and academic trends, but also with detail on acquiring and implementing specific technologies that will meet clearly identified needs and objectives. This range in level of detail is necessary to make thoughtful investments in technology and use the university's resources most effectively. Although the plan is about technology growth, it also addresses how technology serves institutional values, personal values and the synergy or interference between these. The technology that we currently have should support all levels of values and the technology path that we choose should continue to support these values. In the midst of a wide range of options for investing in and using information technologies, we begin with a principle that guides our discussion: Information technology is a means to an end. An organization must choose to use information technology in ways that are consistent with the organization’s values and that will move the organization closer to its goals. It is a challenge to stay true to this principle in this consumer driven age where “google” and “IM” have become verbs and “mash-up” is now a noun. In many institutions, social networking and Web 2.0 technologies have become as central to the core infrastructure as the student information system. This document presents a four- to five-year Information Technology plan for Portland State University (PSU). The purpose of the report is to provide the Provost and Vice President for Administration and Finance, the Chief Information Officer (CIO), other campus decision-makers, and other interested parties with a guide for making decisions about information technology policies, practices, and resource allocations essential to the realization of PSU’s fundamental mission and objectives. Process Overview and Scope of this Document During the 2007/2008 Academic Year, the Advisory Committee on Academic Information Technologies (ACAIT) underwent a significant process dedicated to identifying key information technology issues and relating them to PSU’s mission and objectives. The goal of the process was to produce this document, which frames a set of plans to guide PSU’s use of information technology for the next four to five years. The recommended initiatives detailed here should shape detailed annual work plans for OIT and other technology service units on campus.
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Tech Plan IV: A Strategic Direction for Information
Technology at Portland State University
2007/2008 Advisory Committee on Academic Information Technologies
Guiding Principle of this Report
This plan deals with big picture technology strategy and academic trends, but also with detail on acquiring and implementing specific technologies that will meet clearly identified needs and objectives. This range in level of detail is necessary to make thoughtful investments in technology and use the university's resources most effectively. Although the plan is about technology growth, it also addresses how technology serves institutional values, personal values and the synergy or interference between these.
The technology that we currently have should support all levels of values and the technology path that we choose should continue to support these values.
In the midst of a wide range of options for investing in and using information technologies, we begin with a principle that guides our discussion:
Information technology is a means to an end. An organization must choose to use information technology in ways that are consistent with the organization’s values and that will move the organization closer to its goals.
It is a challenge to stay true to this principle in this consumer driven age where “google” and “IM” have become verbs and “mash-up” is now a noun. In many institutions, social networking and Web 2.0 technologies have become as central to the core infrastructure as the student information system.
This document presents a four- to five-year Information Technology plan for Portland State University (PSU). The purpose of the report is to provide the Provost and Vice President for Administration and Finance, the Chief Information Officer (CIO), other campus decision-makers, and other interested parties with a guide for making decisions about information technology policies, practices, and resource allocations essential to the realization of PSU’s fundamental mission and objectives.
Process Overview and Scope of this Document
During the 2007/2008 Academic Year, the Advisory Committee on Academic Information Technologies (ACAIT) underwent a significant process dedicated to identifying key information technology issues and relating them to PSU’s mission and objectives. The goal of the process was to produce this document, which frames a set of plans to guide PSU’s use of information technology for the next four to five years. The recommended initiatives detailed here should shape detailed annual work plans for OIT and other technology service units on campus.
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The planning process followed by ACAIT included the creation of subgroups to conduct research, consult with people outside the committee, and solicit information from others on campus. The groups then wrote their section of the plan. These sections were compiled by a facilitator and presented to the full ACAIT committee for final editing.
PSU’s Institutional Values
A careful review of a number of key planning documents available on campus, i.e. the Strategic Resource Management Principles and A Vision for 21st Century Portland State University, combined with the committee members' knowledge of PSU and its history, led to the identification of several key values that guide decision-making at PSU. The planning process has been characterized by its flexible and customizable approach to defining PSU as an institution. We caution that this list is not official university policy and is probably not complete. However, it is very useful in guiding our thoughts about the use of technology.
PSU values student learning and development.
Throughout its history, PSU has strived to provide all of its students the opportunity to learn and grow in a dynamic way and to engage students from diverse backgrounds and with diverse educational goals. The faculty, administration, and staff have developed and applied methods to help students become better learners and use pedagogies appropriate to desired outcomes and student learning styles.
PSU values engaging with and serving its communities.
As a university, PSU is actively involved with a broad range of communities. The institution differs from many in its willingness to actively involve those communities in its work. PSU’s graduates are known for making immediate, positive differences in their workplaces, and the university’s research results are quickly applied to problems of interest. PSU’s community partners actively engage in making the university a better place. At PSU, knowledge does serve the city as broadly defined, a service that enables it to become the great university every great city needs.
PSU values creative scholarship.
PSU is a community of active scholars who make vital contributions to knowledge across a broad range of areas. Because of its active community partnerships and the value it places on student learning, PSU values both “traditional” and “non-traditional” research, actively involving its students (at all levels) and communities in its scholarship.
PSU values the development of diverse and growing revenue.
From the beginning, PSU has gathered diverse resources and partnerships to accomplish goals. This ability is as important now as it was then, and PSU values those faculty and units that find new ways to generate financial resources for the pursuit and fulfillment of its mission.
PSU values its local and global reputation.
PSU very much cares for how it is viewed by its communities. It prizes its reputation for innovation and quality on the national and international stages and perpetually strives to
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improve the public’s perception of its work in Portland and throughout Oregon. PSU carefully ensures that it will not present itself in ways that tarnish its reputation.
PSU values innovation and decentralized risk.
PSU wants its students, faculty, and units to try new things and take creative chances. The institution approves of new and effective curricular approaches, optimized administrative organization, and diverse research efforts. Such initiatives tend to take place at the organization’s grassroots such as departments, where risk of failure rarely jeopardizes the institution’s overall health.
PSU values partnerships as a means to an end.
PSU has a long history of engaging in partnerships with other educational institutions, businesses, and governmental organizations. These partnerships consistently have been created in order to help move PSU toward its objectives.
The institutional values presented above ideally apply to all institutions of higher education, but certain crucial differences distinguish PSU. PSU’s close involvement with its communities richly informs all the university’s efforts and accomplishments. PSU’s focus on educating a richly diverse student population differentiates it from traditional liberal arts colleges. The breadth of PSU’s definition of creative scholarship creates a path much broader than that of a “traditional” research university. These approaches to service enable PSU to be a unique place in which to employ technology for the purposes of teaching and learning.
The Changing PSU Environment
The environment in which PSU operates provides opportunities and threats that require technology as a way for the university to handle them. Several key trends are summarized below. More detail on these trends and others may be found in the appendices.
The expectations and preparation for the use of technology are diverse.
Students, faculty, and staff come to PSU with widely differing levels of exposure to and comfort with technology. This disparity in backgrounds will likely grow broader in the years ahead. Engaging students, faculty, and staff across this range, meeting the needs of both experts and beginners, and providing support and education to develop appropriately educated students and productive staff and faculty remains a major challenge for the future. (See Appendix C for faculty and student web survey results.)
The population is growing and changing.
The population of Oregon is growing larger, becoming better educated, and becoming more diverse on all social levels. These changes present opportunities for PSU to grow and change as it reaches out to new types of students. However, these opportunities also signal an environment that threatens to overwhelm this institution with students who have broadly diverse and demanding educational needs.
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Competition is becoming more intense. Collaboration and
cooperation are becoming more desirable.
The rise of for-profit institutions of higher education, the growing mission of community colleges, the development of more effective distance and distributed education tools, declining state funding, and the continued demand for higher education in the Portland metropolitan area make the future a competitive marketplace for PSU. At the same time, a single institution such as PSU is limited in its capability to meet all needs in this environment; collaboration enables higher education institutions to do more together than they can accomplish separately.
Technology continues to change rapidly.
Forecasting the development and role of computing technology is difficult. Technological products, especially hardware and software, continue to grow in functionality and decline in price. Having enough people to effectively support this technology has become increasingly difficult and expensive. As technology becomes ever more pervasive, the cost of the technology will shift from buying the machines to supporting the machines and the people who use them. (See Appendix A for information technology forecast.)
Technology Forecast 2008
There are a number of emerging and existing technology trends that could enhance and impact the environment at Portland State.
1. The advent of very inexpensive computers.
Computer manufacturers have used the continuing improvement in performance of computer chips and components to add functionality to computers while keeping the price point about the same (especially for laptops). Estimates are that about 1 billion people worldwide currently have computers. The OLPC project has demonstrated that an excellent, rugged, and functional laptop, complete with software, can be produced to sell for under $200. With economies of scale, it is likely the price could be pushed under $100. This would put computers in reach of an additional 2-3 billion people, and is very likely to happen on a commercial basis within the next several years. The implications for Portland State are profound as this means that a laptop would cost about the same as a textbook and would be within the means of all students. This would enable increasing use of computers in classes, but at the same time create a support problem and a problem of providing enough bandwidth to enable a much larger group of users to function in the wireless environment. It also implies that the need for computer labs may change (not disappear!) as students increasingly rely on their own machines for at least the most basic office productivity functions, like writing papers.
A concomitant trend is the tendency for people to accumulate several electronic devices, often represented by handheld mobile devices such as smart phones and Blackberries that may be web-
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enabled. While “convergence” is no longer the buzzword it used to be, the fact that one can phone over the Internet or access the Internet over phone networks suggests that some form of convergence may emerge in the next few years.
As a more work-like environment, with all the necessary information and productivity tools, becomes available over the Internet, we may see a rapidly increasing demand for working at home by both faculty and students. While this can mean a great increase in productivity and in access, it can also result in a loss of community unless steps are taken to ensure that doesn’t happen.
2. An increasing move to net-centric provision of software, computing power, and storage.
The mantra in the 90’s was “the network is the computer.” Now it seems that the next move may be to the Internet as the computer, with users typically accessing programs like productivity software over the Internet rather than on their local computers, and possibly storing their files at remote sites as well. Google, for one, is working to develop such services. In a related development, facilities such as computer clusters are being built at a few sites with the idea that users from many locations will take advantage of them as needed. To promote sustainable computing, such clusters can be built near sources of renewable energy, bringing the data to the computers rather than moving energy to dispersed computing centers, a much more cost-effective choice. NSF is partnering with Google and IBM to develop clusters for scientific research. For Portland State, we will need to consider whether to adopt externally-provided services (such as Gmail or Google calendar) instead of using in-house email or licensing calendar software. And, we will need to carefully consider what computing facilities to build as opposed to seeking time on centralized facilities.
3. Continued development of open-source and “free” software.
This is already an established trend. The University will need to continue to look at the tradeoffs of using conventional commercial software as opposed to putting resources into collaborations that produce similar software through a group effort. With Asian countries beginning to contribute to the open-source effort, it is likely that this trend will only grow in importance.
4. Increasing use of wireless computing.
This is also an established trend. Even if the inexpensive computers in (1) fail to materialize, computers will become more common and the need for wireless access will grow. Studies are needed to anticipate the rate of this growth and provide resources to maintain a reasonable environment.
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5. Attention to privacy and ownership issues on the Web.
With the movement of medical records online, the tension between ease of use and access versus privacy and ownership will become critical in yet another domain. In an ideal world these kinds of issues will be addressed and a reasonable compromise reached, but we expect this kind of issue to continue to be a problem for many years.
6. Use of virtual computing to augment or replace existing facilities.
The deployment of virtual supercomputers at many research universities has created the opportunity to establish virtual computer labs in lieu of conventional on-campus facilities. Additionally, institutions with excess virtual capacity are offering virtual services to other institutions lacking the systems capacity to support virtual computer labs. Significant advantages of virtual computer labs include:
Reduced investment in building, maintaining, and staffing on-campus facilities.
Twenty-four/seven availability to students and faculty.
Remote access to specialized or expensive software applications.
Faculty can install and maintain course-specific applications as needed.
However, initial deployments have experienced some access delays associated with bandwidth limitations.
7. Use of social networking and free collaborative sites for educational
purposes.
A new generation of students is coming to PSU with established identities in various social networking arenas (such as Facebook and MySpace). The rapid growth of these free collaborative systems on the Internet, which also includes free wikis, Google Apps, Microsoft Live and various instant messaging services, has also lead to decentralized and ad hoc methods of communication among students. Combined with heavy use of external, free e-mail systems (such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and others), a significant percentage of new students at PSU are communicating with each other using these external services, sometimes bypassing University provided resources entirely. As these services mature, they are expected to attract an even larger portion of the student body.
The University needs to ensure that its communication with students extends to these social networking sites. Efforts will need to be made to determine how best to provide bridges to these external services, perhaps using some of the application interfaces that the services are providing to external integrators. The scope of some centrally provided (and mandated) communications systems may require refocusing in this diversely connected world.
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PSU’s Strengths and Weaknesses
The list of strengths and weaknesses provided below is not comprehensive, but it represents the key points that guided the committee’s thinking about these issues (See Appendix D for complete SWOT analysis).
Strengths
Internal
Mix of traditional and non-traditional students Brick & mortar classes History of good capital funding mechanisms for IT Leading-edge initiatives Diverse pool of students who can be trained in IT (and remain employed with the University for several years) Our staff and faculty New president Open culture for development & creative problem-solving Strong technical infrastructure PSU getting better recognition at state level Growth Entrepreneurial approach Size Student and alumni expertise User-centered approach
External
Richly decentralized IT structures among some departments (TAGs) Demonstrated ability to build partnerships with external institutions (NWAX/PREN/NERO/Orbis Cascade Alliance) Local transportation infrastructure Involvement in regional and national organizations Urban Community/Portland/Location
Internal & External
Diversity Open-source community
Weaknesses
Internal
Staff turnover, especially skilled IT staff Distributed tech support (also in strengths) Not enough time to make changes (planning for change)
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Our pdx.edu site Staff morale as budgets become restricted (travel, training, potential layoffs) Need for more and better adoption of technology standards and policies across campus Physical foot-print Not enough planning (lead time) on major campus projects Lack of university-level strategic plan Attempting to support multiple tools to solve same problem Developing and marketing distance learning classes (organization, faculty training, awareness) Information security staffing Space limitations Lack of competitive edge for hiring and retaining staff (compelling work/salary below market) Staff count has not grown as student enrollment has Small endowment
External
Competition for state & private dollars Many departments lack localized (customized) IT support (no TAGs person available or funded) Bureaucracy and state regulations
Initiatives for the Next Five Years
Considering the essential values of this university, the ACAIT invites PSU’s leadership to formalize objectives, work plans, and policies based on key initiatives recommended by the committee.
These initiatives reflect the committee's understanding of the PSU values; the changing environment; the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis; and the research conducted during 2008.
To be successful, these initiatives must be given appropriate leadership and funding. Leaders must work to gather broad campus input around these initiatives, as well as resulting objectives and work plans. The committee notes that much work has already been done in some of these areas and that this work will serve as a strong foundation for future progress.
1. Provide adequate technology infrastructure.
Periodically, PSU must develop rational, funded plans for keeping our technological infrastructure (hardware, software, and personnel) current, in order to enable effective and efficient use of our human and financial resources. Both central and departmental technology staff should be involved in these planning efforts. It is tempting to support technology in an ad hoc fashion, but this approach
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inevitably reduces the quality of PSU’s education and scholarship, adversely affects PSU’s reputation, and creates deferred technology problems that become more costly to fix as time goes by.
For many years, PSU has engaged community partners in building and improving regional data and telecommunications networks. Examples include the Network for Education and Research in Oregon (NERO), The Portland Research and Education Network (PREN) and the Northwest Access Exchange (NWAX). Future plans should include partnerships that reach beyond higher education into K-12, city, regional and state governments as well as regional private sector entities.
Due to continuing campus growth combined with the ongoing financial challenges PSU faces in meeting growing infrastructure needs, the university should explore alternative funding models for technology. PSU needs to study successful models in place at comparable institutions.
The rapid changes in technology require that the university plan a balance between developing new technologies and supporting stable adopted technologies. Technology plans should continually examine which services may be redundant with other services or outliving their usefulness to the broader campus. At the same time, plans must balance the support needs of advanced technology users with those of novice users.
Technology plans should continually examine support models, determining which services might be improved through either centralization or decentralization. (See Appendix E for overview of current PSU IT structure.)
This technology planning approach advances the intent of PSU’s Strategic Planning Principles to enhance the university’s long-term financial viability via diverse funding streams that balance teaching, research, and public services as PSU fosters innovation, creativity, and technological leadership for the university and for the community it serves. The approach also corresponds to the need to maintain facilities that are paradigms for an urban institution. Specific objectives include:
Provide better power redundancy for parts of the campus network by placing Smart UPS systems in strategic locations.
Continue to replace legacy network switching equipment to provide current technology feature sets including increased network speeds and security (802.1x).
Continue to prepare infrastructure for future roll out of VoIP/SIP desktop technology for voice communications.
Enhance and improve the campus wireless network.
Continue to upgrade/enhance campus telecommunications system — implement new user feature/functionality sets.
Expand Data Center fiber infrastructure to better deliver SAN storage to all occupants.
Analyze expected Data Center growth and develop a plan for future power and rack space needs.
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2. Provide an environment that supports technology use in scholarship and
student learning.
We need to recognize and support the diversity of needs of our faculty and students. One answer may lie in what one information technology expert has termed the “low threshold” approach. This is an incremental peer mentoring approach that focuses on having individual faculty or students recognize their own involvement in using a technology and then encouraging them to introduce another faculty member or student to the new use of that technology.
Addressing various technological needs serves the PSU Strategic Planning Principles to support a diverse faculty of distinction, foster innovation, creativity and technological leadership, and enrich and lead through community based learning, scholarship and service that is market responsive and built on partnerships.
PSU should support faculty members who develop broader faculty expertise on the effective use of technology in instruction and research the value and impact of technology-mediated instruction methods. Much work remains to be done through scholarly examination of the effects of technology on learning. At the same time, employers are demanding increasing technology literacy and fluency in PSU’s graduates. According to the survey, less than half of the faculty are satisfied with the AV technology provided in classrooms and 68% of the students are dissatisfied with the classroom technology. PSU should find new ways for evaluating and improving technology-enhanced learning, develop better support for faculty scholarship, and ensure that our graduates have the understanding of technology they need to be good employees and good citizens. The university can do this by leveraging existing strengths, such as its integration with the community, undergraduate student involvement in research, innovative capstone courses, and the breadth of technology experience in our student body.
Develop a system to assist PSU administrative and academic departments in the designing, planning, and selection of classroom technology presentation equipment for departmental classrooms, conference rooms, and multi-purpose instructional facilities.
Establish a new standard for recording-streaming technology in General Access classrooms.
Investigate and implement a Webinar solution for Portland State University.
Launch intranet portal for PSU, using Luminis. Integrate Banner self-service functionality, along with a series of customizable channels that are available for PSU departments and groups.
Upgrade 100% of the general access classrooms to “hi-tech” facilities.
Provide long-term support infrastructure for web consulting and design services.
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3. Develop a system for providing distance and distributed education.
Distance and distributed education (D&DE) has evolved beyond a set of “initiatives” at PSU. D&DE modalities are now fundamental and growing elements of the university and its overall teaching strategy. For the last five years, the number of web-supported courses offered at PSU has increased nearly four-fold, from 200 per term in 2003 to nearly 700 today. Students generally expect that critical course resources such as syllabi, grades, course notes, email, and electronic discussions will be available to them in managed online course environments. Concurrently, a large and growing faculty population is becoming more conversant in the use of course management systems and virtual learning environments such as Blackboard and web-based social networking tools and systems. Use of virtual learning environments is becoming routine in the same way that email and word processing became routine a decade ago.
The university must be prepared to respond to changes in distributed learning technologies and provide comprehensive support to bring about success on many levels, including student learning, instruction, research, and scholarship. Establishment of an office or center responsible for championing, developing, and supporting will be crucial to the success of these efforts. Information Technology leadership needs to work closely with campus Academic leadership to examine and select new models for distributed learning delivery that meet campus goals.
This plan offers an opportunity to build on these past accomplishments and to map a strategic approach to distance and distributed education that meets PSU needs and goals. Two initiatives related to D&DE are included in this plan:
Hybrid Courses
Hybrid courses are comprised of combined on-site and online components. A hybrid course initiative can deepen community and regional engagement. By offering hybrid courses, PSU can leverage its location in a large and rich urban community to provide learning experiences that cannot be replicated through the web alone. The hybrid course initiative can build, benefit from, and extend PSU’s national leadership in Community Based Learning.
Research demonstrates that student learning and satisfaction increase through a hybrid, or blended, course format.
Hybrid courses offer the flexibility needed by a diverse student population while allowing instructors to forgive classroom seat-time in return for increased online and out-of-class learning.
Hybrid courses can help free up critically needed classroom space.
A bold hybrid course initiative can be expected to provide spin-off benefits from a faculty more experienced with and willing to participate in online learning. More fully online course offerings should result, and an even broader use of online and multi-media technologies in traditional classrooms can be expected.
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4. Support E-portfolio use and Establish E-portfolio Solutions.
For the past fifteen years, PSU’s general education program and various departments have adopted the e-portfolio. The following PSU units have implemented e-portfolios for learning and assessment, self-study and accreditation:
University Studies
Graduate School of Social Work
Graduate School of Education
School of Fine and Performing Arts
PSU Portfolio; Office of Institutional Research and Planning http://www.portfolio.pdx.edu
We recommend a two tier approach to meeting Portland State University’s e-portfolio needs:
1) Immediate support for all PSU students and faculty in designing and building standalone e-portfolios using existing tools (Google Sites, Adobe Creative Suite etc.) and resources. The Center for Academic Excellence should support the development of standalone e-portfolios via faculty incentives, collaboration with academic units already using e-portfolios, pilots and research projects and a dedicated symposium on e-portfolio use supported by OAA.
2) Establish a campus task force to recommend an e-portfolio platform. At the minimum this task force should consider the following:
Student success
Assessment of student learning
Program evaluation
Relationship with course management system
Level of administrative support
Level of support from Office of Information Technology
Need for a staffed e-portfolio lab
Training resources
Feedback mechanisms and support for reflective practice
Support from Center for Academic Excellence
Accreditation
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A policy clarifying e-portfolio use must be developed where needed with an understanding that it will vary across the university. Issues to be addressed include longevity (the duration the institution should administer student portfolios), privacy, and intellectual property.
5. Provide an infrastructure to support research computing.
Technology is changing the way “traditional” university research is being performed. Faculty members are sometimes unprepared to support the technology they must now use in their research and may need new types of support to ensure the best use of their expertise. The support of faculty research is essential to fostering creative scholarship and enhancing the reputation of the university.
Difficulty finding qualified staff and students to provide research-related computer support may impede PSU’s efforts to attract and retain active researchers. PSU recruits new faculty from universities where funding of research supports appropriate investments in technical training and support staff. Without this support, recruits must maintain extraordinary diligence in keeping track of evolving research technologies and computing tools. Desktop computers are now powerful and inexpensive, so the hardware necessary to do most kinds of research computation is broadly accessible. Our focus must now turn to the importance of principal investments in support staff and training required for research computation and programming tasks.
Primary support of research currently resides and will continue to reside within schools, departments, and research groups. At the same time, PSU needs to provide some level of centralized research technology expertise to provide aid in programming, software, and hardware support to the technical support staff, programmers, and researchers within the departments. OIT provides a high level of centralized research technology support services: support for research by Academic & Research Computing (ARC) and Computing Infrastructure Customer/Enterprise (CIC/CIE) aligns with the PSU strategic planning principles to create and support centers of research computing excellence. ARC provides high-performance computing, programming, web development, database, and scientific application support. CIC/CIE support the hardware, operating systems and infrastructure for centralized research services, including but not limited to large scale network available storage, data backups, high performance computing and database serving. There are additional resources which would be useful to the PSU research community:
Create a research technology communications group, similar to the TAGS, for communicating and sharing information about research technology resources on campus and for assessing future needs and investment directions. Also use this group to assess evolving faculty research needs as it applies to IT support.
Provide additional staff resources for support of general research computing needs. ARC currently offers a broad range of services, but is primarily staffed by graduate
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and undergraduate students. It is in the interest of PSU to balance them with additional staff resources to strengthen our base of institutional knowledge. Three areas where additional need has been identified are
1) Additional web and database development staff resources. 2) Statistical computing expertise. 3) High performance computing expertise.
6. Improve customer service and administrative efficiency for faculty, staff, and students.
The student and faculty survey revealed the need to improve technology related services. Faculty (83.6%) are more satisfied with the OIT helpdesk than Students (50.4%). Technology related services are meeting the needs of many but weak spots exist. Perhaps a large number of students are not aware of the services provided by the helpdesk or the services are not meeting student needs.
Faculty are largely satisfied (65.9%) with the services provided by local departmental support technicians. Students do not appear to get as much satisfaction (37.6%) from this resource. Roughly half of the students indicated that the local support and departmental lab hours were "not applicable". When asked which area was used primarily for their network or computer support, 8.9% of the faculty did not know where their support came from. 49.3% said they use OIT and 41.7% use local support. Almost 60% of the students reported satisfaction with the General Access Lab hours, but slightly less than half reported satisfaction with the support technicians. OIT should work on training the student lab technicians so they can provide a higher, more professional, level of service.
Almost 30% of the faculty are dissatisfied with the support they receive for web site development and maintenance. Some of the written survey responses indicate decreased satisfaction with OIT helpdesk and lab services. Faculty and students would like to see software upgrades more frequently. Several faculty mentioned the need for better templates, tools, and reduced steps to accomplish tasks. Faculty and students alike requested better communication of information, especially via the OIT website.
As reported in the study by CIO Magazine, Customer Service is “On the Radar”, “being “Actively Researched”, being “Currently Implemented, or being “Upgraded/Refined” by the majority of CIOs across the nation.
PSU must be cognizant of these issues and develop a plan to make improvements. Initial objectives should include:
Review and revise all Service Level Agreements, then place them in a common online repository.
Provide detailed online information regarding the latest software and hardware installations in classrooms and labs.
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Provide enhanced communication for notification of ongoing technical outages and updates.
Provide consolidated OIT website that emphasizes services provided across the organization (instead of sub-departmental hierarchy).
Extend data center storage capabilities to serve a diverse pool of server users with tiered storage structure to meet different needs and budgets.
Increase web technology development capability in research technology support units for working on larger, more complex programming projects.
Provide more “self-service” options for students.
Increase efficiency of customer service order and repair processes.
Increase use of “customer education programs” to include training that will help customers employ appropriate technology in their work environments, cost containment possibilities, and service improvement options.
Conduct ongoing detailed studies of lab usage and demand patterns.
Utilize improved software distribution methods that will provide a greater variety of software in the labs.
Automate the ability to generate multiple class-related sponsored accounts.
Further reduce paper processes for work requests, service order, and repair orders.
Consolidate services with MCECS (via the Computer Action Team) where appropriate, leading to broader support capability and economies of scale.
Launch account management system featuring self-service access, single login ID, and other count information features using OAM (Odin Account Manager).
Develop comprehensive documentation of change control process (history/implementation/completion).
Further formalize project requirements gathering, system analysis, management, and communication.
7. Support PSU sustainability goals. Nationally, a significant topic in Information Technology is Green Computing, as evidenced in CIO Magazine and Gartner reports. With PSU’s long history emphasizing sustainability and environmental protection, the university is positioned to take a leadership role in Green Computing. PSU already purchases 100% recycled paper for all general access computer labs.
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Additionally all desktop computing and printing equipment is Energy Star compliant. There is still much IT related work to be done to support the university sustainability program (http://www.pdx.edu/sustainability/). The most significant impact on energy savings will likely come from server virtualization in the data center. A recent study found that electricity consumption by servers doubled between 2000 and 2005 (http://enterprise.amd.com/Downloads/svrpwrusecompletefinal.pdf). Many institutions are taking applications that are currently spread among many servers throughout the campus and consolidating them on virtual server instances on one big server, in one data center. This results in significant reduction of space and electricity needs. The following objectives are directly related to PSU sustainability initiatives:
Continue to reduce or eliminate paper processes for student sign-ups, work orders, and repair requests.
Implement energy-saving group policies through active directory on all OIT-managed desktop computers.
Evaluate thin client computing and desktop virtualization.
Replace CRT monitors with LCD monitors to reduce use of electricity by 50%.
Educate our users through an OIT energy-saving campaign. Demonstrate techniques that use technology rather than paper to disseminate and share ideas, data, and reports.
Implement server virtualization to decrease power and cooling consumption and use blade servers when possible.
Implement handheld devices for field tech and service work where possible or practical, in order to reduce or eliminate current paperwork process.
8. Strengthen security of data and systems.
The Gartner and CIO Magazine reports place emphasis on data security. The recent passage of the Oregon Data Theft Law (http://www.cbs.state.or.us/dfcs/id_theft.html ) also puts this topic directly on the PSU agenda. As a public institution we must safeguard our faculty, staff, and student data. Yet, as an institution of higher education, we are dedicated to providing an open learning environment. Achieving this delicate balance requires a thoughtful, detailed approach to information security. Completion of the following objectives is recommended:
Develop a plan to participate actively in the information security community locally and nationally.
Reduce the use of unencrypted wireless network access on campus by providing flexible encrypted connection methodologies in addition to requiring encryption for sensitive services.
Improve campus protection of personally identifiable information and other sensitive information.
Perform regular vulnerability audits of the IT infrastructure while enhancing capabilities for on-going analysis of intrusion detection.
Finalize and implement the PSU-wide information security policy in accordance with OUS policy and Oregon State Law.
Improve campus security awareness, monthly awareness brown bag sessions, and information security classes; develop other venues.
Locate and implement a security incident tracking system. OIT will document the information security casework flow to create call tracking and efficient notification.
Offer more information security technology classes to faculty/staff and students.
Organizations that manage, operate, or develop information assets will improve accountability. The types of accountability to be improved include:
o User IDs to active individuals
o Information assets to people
o Connections to identifiable individuals
o Access privileges to identifiable individuals
o Websites to owners
o Applications to owners
Move towards log consolidation for better analysis of operations and security-driven events.
Develop structured mechanism for dealing with vulnerability alerts for software.
Conclusion
The dedicated efforts of the ACAIT in creating this report provide a foundation for PSU to continue as a technology leader that plans and proceeds in a thoughtful and strategic manner. (See Appendix F for Progress Report on earlier ACAIT recommendations.)
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Appendices
Appendix A: Information Technology Forecast
Appendix B: E-portfolio Overview
Appendix C: Faculty and Student Web Survey Results
Appendix D: SWOT Matrix
Appendix E: Information Technology at PSU in 2008
Appendix F: Progress Report on Earlier ACAIT
Appendix G: Hybrid Courses
Appendix H: ACAIT Members
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Appendix A: Information Technology Forecast
Information Technology evolution is rapid, and often unpredictable. Forecasting IT trends, as it applies to PSU, is often a result of understanding the larger context of change that is affecting the IT world at large and studying its relevance to the University. This appendix lists some of relevant information and resources used by the committee in reaching its forecast.
The 2008 Horizon Report
Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years. “Campus leaders and practitioners alike use the report as a springboard for discussion around emerging technology,” noted Larry Johnson, chief executive officer of the NMC. “As this is the fifth edition of the report, it also offers an opportunity to look back at the overarching trends over time. What we see is that there are several long-term, conceptual themes that have affected, and continue to affect, the practice of teaching and learning in profound ways.” More than 40,000 copies of the 2007 Horizon Report were distributed in print and electronically last year.
According to EDUCAUSE President Diana Oblinger, “The Horizon Report helps all of us put emerging technologies in perspective—what might be useful, what might be further in the future—and links it to learning. The examples illustrate that all this is very real. The report also raises important issues about the implications of technology—and perhaps some of our assumptions about learning.”
In defining the six selected areas for 2008 — grassroots video, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, data “mashups,” collective intelligence, and social operating systems — the project draws on an ongoing discussion among knowledgeable individuals in business, industry, and education through published resources, current research and practice, and the expertise of the NMC and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) communities. The Horizon Project’s Advisory Board probes current trends and challenges in higher education, explores possible topics for the report, and ultimately selects the technologies to be profiled.
To create the 2008 Horizon Report, the 36 members of the 2008 Advisory Board engaged in a comprehensive review and analysis of research, articles, papers, and interviews; discussed existing applications and brainstormed new ones; and ultimately ranked the items on the list of more than 80 technologies that emerged for their potential relevance to teaching, learning, and creative expression. The 2008 Advisory Board included representatives from seven countries — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Japan, and China. Most of their work took place online over the fall of 2007. The board used a variety of collaboration tools, including a special wiki site dedicated to the project.
The 32-page 2008 Horizon Report is free and has been released with a Creative Commons license to facilitate its widespread use, easy duplication, and broad distribution.
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The Horizon Report can be accessed at http://www.nmc.org/news/nmc/2008-horizon-report.
2008 Technology Priorities Identified by CIO Magazine
(All slides show all spending, whether for new implementations or upgrades.)
The CIO Magazine Technology Priorities Survey was conducted in January 2008 to see what IT executives were planning for their technology priorities in the year ahead. We wanted to get a sense of which things they were starting to explore (in red), which they were actively researching (orange), which they currently implementing or upgrading (green and blue), and which they weren’t interested in. Web 2.0 topped the list, with collaboration and KM tools not far behind. While Green IT is on many people’s radars, others have no interest at all.
These are the results when you sort by a combination of Actively Researching and Currently Implementing Huge numbers, combining the three virtualization categories (server, storage, desktop).
What are the most important IT challenges for the next 25 years? At the recent Gartner Emerging Trends Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner analysts identified seven IT grand challenges that, if met, will have profound economic, scientific, and societal impacts. They are:
Eliminate the need to manually recharge wireless devices
Parallel programming applications that fully exploit multicore processors
Non-tactile, natural computing interfaces
Automated computer-to-human speech translation
Reliable, long-term digital storage
Increase programmer productivity by 100 percent
Identify the financial consequences of IT investments
Communications of the ACM July 2008 Vol. 51 No. 7, page 10.
The VALUES (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) Project sponsored by the American Association of Universities and Colleges (AACU) is also likely to have an impact upon how PSU implements e-portfolios. The VALUES initiative is designed to make essential learning outcomes central to educational experience. Regarding e-portfolios, the AACU has committed itself to promote "best practices in achieving and assessing these outcomes in the context of the required college curriculum, including models for e-portfolios and rubrics for ascending levels of accomplishment." Although such best practices would optimize e-portfolio implementation and adoption at PSU, the initiative may meet resistance from faculty adverse to new assessment and evaluation models.
Broad-based university support will be necessary for all students, faculty, and staff using e-portfolios. Support should be available for the design and development of e-portfolios via targeted workshops, web-based tutorials, and mentor programs. E-portfolios can, and should be integral to the curriculum. To bring this integration about, the PSU campus needs to offer adequate and evolving computing resources, including multimedia hardware and software, facilities, support staff, web servers, and data storage.
One of the biggest challenges to e-portfolio development at PSU is the selection, deployment, integration, and maintenance of a single e-portfolio system. The university is so diverse that accommodating all needs within a single process is no small matter. Multiple systems may work best for our campus, but e-portfolios can reach into so many facets of the university's work and be represented in so many dimensions that a strong connection is optimal. Whether the university buys, builds, or customizes a system, the selection process should focus on costs, technical requirements, system administration, a campus culture for adoption, and overall purpose.
Acquiring an e-portfolio system can occur through three routes, each with its benefits and limitations.
The University could buy a commercial product, of which there are many in today's market. These commercial systems allow for external system administration, which can help reduce overhead for the Office of Information Technologies, but the lack of an e-portfolio standard specification can make migration and export interoperability problematic.
The University could deploy an open source solution, which can offer the institution considerable flexibility on several levels, including interoperability, flexibility in design, and integration. Open source portfolios would need adequate IT staff to maintain and possibly develop them, but open source systems also can be hosted and administered externally.
Common tools, such as web 2.0 mashups, also need to be considered in light of their inherent flexibility for presenting content and their lower financial burden on the institution. The common tools method also hands over ownership to the
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end user, but documentation of program requirements would prove difficult at this time.
Guidelines for design of a digital portfolio system
Prepared by: Daniel Pirofsky, Art, 7.20.2006
Fine & Performing Arts (FPA) applications for media-based digital
portfolio development
1) Instructional portfolios
— Media for presentation in class lecture, discussion, assignment. Example: showing students images of graphic design solutions related to a specific project.
— Class project critiques. Example: students upload images of their projects to be presented with projector by the instructor for critique and discussion.
2) Student portfolios
— Formative student portfolio reviews. Example: A digital version of each student’s portfolio submitted for the Graphic Design Sophomore Portfolio Review. Students should be able to develop and refine their portfolios over the course of their program.
— Links to custom web-based or sequential portfolios developed by students in portfolio-based courses, such as:
Art 472 Communication Design Portfolio
Art 365 Digital Portfolios for Visual Artists
Art 360 Photographic Exploration I
Art 461 Photographic Exploration II
— Senior student portfolios completed on graduation that can become basis for initial professional portfolios.
— Students may publish portfolios for peers, instructors, advisors, or prospective employers to review.
— Database should be searchable by:
Program
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Course number
Course reference number
Year, term
Student name, ID#
3) Program assessment portfolios
— Each course section compiles a comprehensive portfolio of projects from all students for assessment purposes:
Departmental review committees and chairs access all relevant portfolios for faculty review and program assessment purposes.
Individual faculty members access all of their prior course portfolios.
Community partners access specified portfolios demonstrating student achievement for potential internships or other collaborations.
Accreditation bodies access and assess departmental portfolios.
— Database listing of courses should be searchable by:
Program
Course number
Course reference number
Year, term
Instructor
4) Faculty portfolios
— Faculty develop their own selected portfolios of personal and student work as evidence of pedagogical as well as professional development, to prepare for reviews, applications for new positions, grants, etc.
Technical Requirements
1) Database will be searchable by relevant criteria (see above).
2) Developers provide additional data to be used as tags or keywords for searching database.
3) Front-end “wizard” builder interface should provide both sequential and hierarchical presentation formats.
4) Generic formats will be provided as templates to fill with content, but may have some customizable elements using CSS.
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5) Batch import and tagging of media files into database.
6) Batch assembly of portfolios from selected media files and templates.
7) Media Database should support at least the following media:
o Text (.txt, .rtf, .doc)
o Image (.jpg, .gif, .png, .pdf)
o Audio (.wav, .aiff, .mp3, .m4a)
o Video (.mov, .avi, .mp4, .m4v, .wmf)
8) PSU Portal provides login security and portfolio channel for all developers and reviewers.
9) Portfolio channel links to departmental web sites and course web sites for convenient access.
10) A “Portfolio Center” provides convenient access to all published student and faculty portfolios.
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Appendix C: Faculty and Student Web Survey Results
Faculty - Survey was sent to 2052 faculty and administrators, but 11 declined to participate. Of these, 814 responded, so the adjusted response rate is: 814 / (2052 - 11) = 39.9%.
Students - Survey was sent to 7000 students, but 9 declined to participate. Of these, 571 responded, so the adjusted response rate is: 571 / (7000 - 9) = 8.2%.
What did we learn from the surveys? How is this relevant?
1. Although 82% of the students own laptops, less than 25% carry them to school daily.
This may indicate a need for more labs. We need to look at the other survey data.
2. Half of the students have iPODs. Posting podcasts could be helpful to students.
3. 85% of the students have a cell phone but only 24% have web enabled phones.
This indicates that we probably don’t have to worry about providing instructional services to web phones and PDA's right now but if our students follow the national predictions, this number could increase very quickly.
4. Almost half of the faculty indicated they prefer a laptop computer over a desktop computer.
The COPs computer replacement program has traditionally only provided desktop computers. We should revisit this.
5. The word "Peripheral" is not as common as we thought.
Just an interesting computer literacy note.
6. Faculty generally find their hardware (87.7%) and software (86.6%) to be adequate.
7. Three to one, Windows is favored over Mac by faculty and students.
We should take a look at the ratio of computers provided in lab and classroom spaces.
8. About 65% of faculty believes that their computer hardware and software is provided by department funds.
Perhaps computers provided by OIT should be labeled in some manner. This is a major service provided by OIT yet most seem to be unaware of it.
9. Roughly half of the faculty and students remotely access the PSU network daily. Another 25 to 30% accesses it weekly.
This reinforces the need to have reliable service.
10. Access to email, Banner, WebCT/Blackboard, and Library resources are the main uses for remote access to PSU.
These are core systems that must have the highest rate of availability.
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11. Roughly a third of faculty and students indicate that they access the PSU network from public wireless locations.
While the university must be safeguarded against malicious networks, we must also devise a method for our clients to connect to us in a secure manner.
12. More than half of the students are already using GoogleApps.
This could point to a very easy transition to Gmail services.
13. Less than 10% of the faculty are using e-portfolios for any purpose.
E-portfolio usage is centralized in UNST program and should be expanded campus-wide.
14. Almost 30% of the faculty are dissatisfied with the support they receive for web site development and maintenance. In addition, many comments were received regarding the need to improve website speed, usability, and production methods.
This data validates what we already know. Clearly, attention needs to be given to this area. The Drupal project should go far in alleviating the speed and development issues.
15. Slightly less than half of the faculty have some familiarity with using computers for analyzing quantitative data. Even less have familiarity with using computers for analyzing qualitative data.
Perhaps workshops are needed.
16. For statistical analysis, students rely heavily (65.9%) on the statistics lab.
We should determine if this lab has the necessary resources to meet the student needs.
17. For statistical analysis, faculty use a personal computer with SPSS (25.8%) or Excel (46.8%).
There appears to be little need for main frame/cluster use for statistical analysis.
18. Faculty report a strong (over 80%) use of presentation software like PowerPoint.
This could indicate a significant need for properly outfitted classrooms that can support this technology.
19. About thirty percent of the students currently use PowerPoint often but almost 60% say that they plan to use it.
Students may need training and access to equipment.
20. About 43% of the faculty currently use WebCT or BlackBoard occasionally or often. Just over half of the students are currently using these tools but 38% indicate a plan to use them.
This could signify an expectation that is growing among the student body. Perhaps students believe that more courses will use these tools or perhaps students want to see an increased use in the tools. We really can't tell anything definitive from this data.
21. Only 28% of the faculty and 7% of the students have attended training provided my CAE or OIT. Several students indicated that they were not
Focus groups might help in getting better data regarding faculty needs. However, faculty have also indicated that they prefer one-on-one training. Perhaps CAE and OIT
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aware of training being available. Some faculty indicated that the training topics were not meeting their needs.
should re-examine their delivery models. Better outreach should be provided to students to make them aware of training opportunities.
22. In ranked order, faculty prefer to receive training via one-to-one coaching, hands-on workshops, short courses, and helpdesk. Students prefer one-to-one coaching, helpdesk, and short courses just about equally. Online workshops were rated as having some value or great value by 60% of the faculty and 63% of the students.
Perhaps the OIT plan to increase online training options should be re-evaluated. There may need to be a broad discussion regarding how training services are provided. The student comments seem to indicate a more viral method of knowledge gathering. They rely on friends, family, co-workers, online resources, and they are comfortable with experimentation.
23. There is very little interest in learning more about wireless connectivity throughout the campus.
Perhaps wireless has reached the tipping point where it simply is something that people already know about.
24. Less than 14% of the faculty are dissatisfied with the wireless access availability in offices. Faculty and students are equally (17.7%) dissatisfied with wireless access in public areas and classrooms (12% - 15%).
Although these numbers are low, the text comments indicate that those who are dissatisfied feel strongly about the need to improve wireless coverage and speed.
25. Just under half of the faculty are satisfied with the AV technology provided in classrooms whereas 68% of the students are dissatisfied with the classroom technology.
The difficult thing with this question is that we really don't know which classrooms are being rated. The rooms could be general access or department owned. They could be mid-tech, hi-tech or anything in between. The text comments indicate a desire for more hi-tech classrooms.
26. The electronic resources available through the library are viewed as satisfactory by about 80% of the students and 65% of the faculty. About 25% of the faculty marked this item as not applicable.
This could mean that a quarter of the faculty do not use the electronic resources available through the library. Perhaps this indicates a need for outreach to these faculty or perhaps the electronic resources currently available are not applicable to their needs.
27. About 35% of the faculty responded "not applicable" to the question regarding satisfaction of course syllabus or materials on the web and about 12% indicated that they were interested in learning more about this.
This could indicate a need for additional outreach and training.
28. 60% of the faculty indicated that electronic gradebook satisfaction was not applicable and 15% indicated an
This could change significantly as we deploy the campus wide license for Respondus.
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interest in learning more about this capability.
29. Just over 30% of the students are satisfied with web-based instruction they are receiving through tools other than WebCT or Blackboard.
Perhaps we do not need to be so concerned about having one enterprise wide solution for web-based instruction.
30. 66% of the students indicated satisfaction with the software provided in the labs but the text comments provided a long wish list.
Students are particularly interested in increased access to the Adobe Creative Suite. Additionally they want to receive free or significantly reduced cost MS Office software. Students would also like to see a greater variety of software on all computers. They do not want to have to go to a specific lab to use a specific piece of software. They also want to see PSU do a better job of keeping software versions current. Not surprisingly, there were a few comments about the desire for increased use of Open Source solutions like Open Office.
31. Faculty (83.6%) are more satisfied with the OIT helpdesk than Students (50.4) are yet almost half of the students responded with "not applicable".
Perhaps a large number of students are not aware of the services provided by the helpdesk or the services are not meeting student needs.
32. Faculty are largely satisfied (65.9%) with the services provided by local departmental support technicians. Students do not appear to get as much satisfaction (37.6%) from this resource. Roughly half of the students indicated that the local support and departmental lab hours were "not applicable". When asked which area was used primarily for their network or computer support, 8.9% of the faculty did not know where their support came from. 49.3% said they use OIT and 41.7% use local support.
This is difficult to sort through in such a decentralized environment. It is hard to determine what action, if any, needs to occur. Perhaps more information should be obtained via focus groups.
33. 59.6% of the students reported satisfaction with the General Access Lab hours, but slightly less than half reported satisfaction with the support technicians. 61% of the students indicated satisfaction with the printing services.
OIT should work on training the student lab technicians so they can provide a higher, more professional, level of service.
34. When asked to rank several possible technology enhancements, the faculty rated equipping more classrooms as a
OIT should continue to increase the number of hi-tech equipped general access classrooms. As previously mentioned, better
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high priority and expanding student computer labs and workshops as a medium priority. Students rated lab expansion as a high priority and equipping classrooms and providing workshops as a strong medium priority.
out reach needs to be provided to students so they can take advantage of training opportunities.
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Appendix D: SWOT Matrix
Strengths
Internal
Non-traditional students Brick & mortar classes Certificate of Participation funding for capital IT Leading-edge initiatives Diverse pool of students who can be trained in IT (and remain employed with the University for several years) Our staff and faculty Caring people New president Open culture for development & creative problem-solving Well-balanced staff that work well together Strong technical infrastructure PSU getting better recognition at state level Growth Willingness to change Entrepreneurial approach Size Student and alumni expertise Customer satisfaction with PSU User-centered approach
External
Community gains from our tech research Richly decentralized IT structures among some departments (TAGs) Demonstrated ability to build partnerships with external institutions (NWAX/PREN/NERO) Local transportation infrastructure Involvement in regional and national organizations Urban Community/Portland/Location
Too many projects, not enough staff Not enough time to make changes (planning for change) Our pdx.edu site Protection of turf Staff morale as budgets become restricted (travel, training), potential layoffs Lack of cross-department planning process for projects Lack of OIT involvement in technology related contracts & purchases Lack of IT procurement expertise in other departments Lack of “return on investment” thinking for major technology expenditures Lack of standards and policies across campus Belief that we can get by with student workers instead of IT professionals Physical foot-print Staff that cocoon themselves from change Unwilling to compromise for a better good Not enough planning (lead time) on major campus projects Large student population Lack of university-level strategic plan Project management team to manage projects both large & small Trying to support multiple tools to solve same problem Attempting to serve every individual request (everyone becomes an exception) Process organization; not always best organized for good practice Some unmotivated staff Developing and marketing DLC/BB classes (faculty training awareness) Information security staffing Some faculty unwilling to learn about tech Space Lack of competitive edge for hiring staff (compelling work/salary) Support staff levels have not grown as student enrollment has Lack of standards Lack of well defined decision making model Limited tech governance Small endowment
External
Competition for state & private dollars Many departments lack localized (customized) IT support (no TAGs) Bureaucracy and state regulations
Internal & External
Lack of effective communication on IT matters Funding/Resources
Opportunities
Internal
Leverage outsourced server virtualization (save data center space, DR) New leadership in OIT
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Can improve on web features for student success Hosting seminars Proper planning Going green Virtualization Maximize use of Internet, online, wifi, video conference Showcase PSU’s tech goals & plans Tech Research opportunities Implement policy & standards, best practices build up across campus Improve morale (salary) Make use of Memberships in many helpful organizations (Educause) Roll out better campus-wise recording/streaming OIT teaching opportunities with Extended Studies People willing to make change New president (new leadership, tech-aware) Distance Education Partnerships Meet student technology expectations
External
Traveling Seminars; sharing our expertise Focus user communication as a self service, multi-delivery system process Local hi-tech industry Community involvement Better relations w/ vendor or PSU partners Build outposts on social networking sites (for PSU) Partner with local, national higher ed institutions Baby boomers – active healthy, want to be involved as volunteers Establish Second Life presence Growing area
Internal & External
Build open source capabilities to expand service offerings, leverage existing software Grants Develop partnerships Sharing resources to develop/program solutions or manage purchase solutions
Threats
Internal
Unmanaged & obsolete websites Power & infrastructure redundancy Knee-jerk reactions to budget issues Lack of mandatory OIT consultation on tech planning and procurement “Gloom & Doom” cutbacks/layoffs in forecast Plans not being shared (or shared too late) Out dated regulations: HR, purchasing
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Weak purchasing decisions due to lack of IT input Skilled IT staff shortage Greater expenditures required to attract & maintain or contract out Unplanned intro of tech to university Centralized vs. decentralized Demand exceeds supply OAM Cannot effectively compete for tech resources (human) Limited communication between OIT and FAP People holding onto status quo Student preparation at entry
External
Fragmentation of student access for communication (bring own email) Magnitude 9 earthquake or other disaster possible Spam Economy Constant change in tech, hard to keep up Other Schools (distance learning, for-profit) Other universities moving into our backyard
Internal & External
Politics Deteriorating compensation for IT due to public sector limitations Loss of control over IT job description standards Lack of funds, people to do significant Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity planning Data security issues Funding/Budget
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Appendix E: Information Technology at PSU in 2008
IT support across campus
Office of Information Technology (OIT)
OIT provides the bulk of IT services consumed by the campus. With a staff of 80 and a large number of student workers, OIT provides a helpdesk, computer labs, desktop configurations, classroom technology, course management system implementation, distance learning technology, research computing, campus networking, a phone system, a data center, server operations and ERP systems (Enterprise Resource Planning - represented by the Banner system).
Other large IT organizations
Computer Action Team (CAT) - Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science
A seven member team, aided by student workers and volunteers, this team provides IT services for MCECS, including desktop support, computer labs, specialized applications (cad tools, simulators, etc), various servers and networking. The CAT grows a substantial student involvement through an extensive training program and collaborates with OIT in various areas including networking.
Library Technologies Team
A four member team, aided by student workers, Library Technologies provides IT support for the library, including the management of public and staff desktop computing and various library systems and servers (including the engineering of the new library web presence); and the coordination of IT-related research efforts, software licensing and network services.
Departmental support
Many departments on campus have local IT staff, often leveraging services provided by OIT. The support they provide often extends to specialized applications and custom support. There are close to 25 IT staff members employed by PSU departments outside of OIT.
Computer Labs and the state of the desktop
Desktop costs have come down
Fifteen years ago, commodity desktops used to range in cost from $2000-$3000. Today, a desktop that meets the needs of most moderate computing activity can be purchased for close to $800. This
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has resulted in a substantial growth in desktops at PSU. We estimate that there are between 5000-6000 systems on campus. These computers can be found in faculty and staff offices, labs, classrooms, and special purpose labs.
Computer labs
PSU students on campus have access to a number of general access labs. There are four computer labs dedicated to general access. The Broadway lab is open 24x7 (with card access), Millar Library Lab is open until midnight while others are typically open 10 to 16 hours per day. Student and professional staff provide support and answer technology questions.
Computers and printers in the general access labs are kept within a 36 months aging cycle, with the newest equipment always deployed in the high traffic labs first. Use of PSU labs now requires a PSU Odin account – this allows for improved services and security. All costs for labs, lab support staff, and printing supplies of are covered by student technology fees.
There are also fourteen lab classrooms which are used for teaching. When not scheduled for class work, these labs can be used for general access. Based on localized computing needs, many departments also provide computer labs for students taking departmental courses that may require specialized software.
The total number of computers in these labs is around 800.
In addition, there is the Assistive Technology lab (fully equipped lab with systems that caters to orthopedic, visual, hearing and learning impairments), the Instructional Development Support lab (a fully-equipped multimedia computing and media production facility, available to all graduate students), and a research computer lab at Millar library.
Growth in the use of standardized OS loads
Originally intended as an in-house desktop configuration management effort to manage the complexity of general access computer labs, OIT uses Altiris to provide a consistent build for Windows desktops. This tool helps the staff in managing the vast number of systems around campus. Some of the features that Altiris provides are the ability to remotely manage computers, software packaging, and deploying images. As the effort to standardize desktops has gained hold, departmental IT support staff have begun using the OIT Altiris builds to provide standardized Windows desktops for departmental labs, faculty and staff.
OIT has developed different build images to accommodate some of the diversity of computers on campus. This enables any system that is connected to the management tool on campus to have the same base image which includes all security tools and patches, anti virus software, and Microsoft Office.
Departments using the Altiris builds benefit from a lower administrative burden on desktop configuration, patch management, a consistent security model and malware prevention tools. As the campus responds to new system and network security threats, the remote management facility enables updates to the configuration to be pushed out to controlled systems.
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Desktop replacement plan
For the past 6 years, OIT has been using COP funding to replace old computers on campus. 400 desktops are expected to be targeted this year.
Desktop Applications - Core
OIT has negotiated site license arrangements with Microsoft for the Windows Operating systems and the Office productivity suite. These licenses are available for computers on campus and faculty/staff use. There are also negotiated licenses for the McAfee Anti-Virus product which is available to students as well. There are a handful of general use computational applications that also have centrally purchased licenses (available by license server).
Desktop applications - Departmental
Departments purchase desktop applications using departmental funds. OIT provides access to discounted rates for a large collection of commonly used applications.
Course Management Systems
As of Winter Term 2008, PSU offered 83 fully on-line, for-credit distance learning courses and 95 hybrids (on-campus mixed with online).
In addition, a larger number of traditional courses have some online content and interaction. All of these courses are served by the PSU course management system (CMS). Our CMS for several years has been a product named WebCT. A pilot of the Sakai CMS was tested for a few years but eventually discarded.
During spring of 2008, PSU begins migrating all online courses to a successor CMS - Blackboard CE6. During a typical term, roughly 11,000 students have been enrolled in 600 WebCT-supported courses. Spring term, 2008, finds more that 12,000 students enrolled in nearly 1,000 Blackboard courses taught by more than 500 faculty members. In addition, a significant number of students will continue in WebCT during spring term.
This growth in the use of online resources and a CMS can be expected to continue to increase, with associated increases in costs expected.
Six instructional designers work with faculty in designing and developing instructional materials and course modules. Demand has increased significantly with the increased use of internet-based instruction and the need to meet student instructional demands for asynchronous learning. We anticipate demand will outstrip available staff as this demand continues.
Blackboard CE6 is intended to be an interim solution in CMS migration while PSU contemplates
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diverse needs affecting online course management strategy and develops a plan for the next few years.
General Purpose Central IT Services
OIT provides a series of central IT services that are consumed by a majority of users on campus. This includes:
Directory Services - OIT provides centralized authentication services (via the Odin Account) for systems that use LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) and Active Directory. Systems that use these directory services are able to enable users to access them using a unified username (the Odin ID) and password.
E-mail - All PSU users with an Odin Account are able to receive e-mail at [email protected]. Mailboxes supporting POP and IMAP are provided to all users. Standards compliant mail clients are able to use these services. Webmail, a web-based mail client is also available.
Printing - Accounted print services for general access lab users.
Web hosting - Departments and users are able to implement web sites that range from simple static pages to complex web applications. A content management system is available for centralized website implementation. An effort is under way to migrate this system to a new architecture.
Network File Storage - Centrally served and backed up storage is available for all users. Departments and researchers also have the ability to request dedicated storage for projects.
Calendaring - PSU has been using Meeting Maker as the universal calendaring solution. The system is accessible via a Windows and Mac client in addition to a web interface. Various methods for synchronization with PDAs are available.
There are a multitude of other services available, including VPN, server backups, media servers, localized OS-level patch updates, software license servers, anti-virus update servers.
Centralized Data Center
PSU's data center hosts almost 400 servers with a mix of operating systems that include Linux, Solaris, and Windows. The data center is a secure, monitored facility for OIT maintained core servers, an area for the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science and a collocation facility for hosting servers from customers from all over PSU. Redundant power feeds and UPS systems provide high uptime for servers hosted in here.
The data center is only a few years old but it is already approaching initial capacity. Plans are under way to upgrade the co-location portion of the data center to allow for more power. This is necessary to meet the demands of departments on campus that need a secure location with reliable power and air conditioning to host their servers.
OIT is continuing investment in its Storage Area Network (SAN). OIT's SAN currently hosts approximately 45 terabytes of data which includes information such as Banner databases, email,
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Blackboard/WebCT, network file shares, research, and much more. The SAN is being expanded to include the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science (MCECS) and co-location portions of the PSU data center. This will allow other departments to access enterprise class data storage from within the data center.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
OIT runs daily backups on all core systems. Collocation customers can also negotiate access to the enterprise backup system. A set of tapes are rotated offsite for disaster recovery restores. OIT is currently engaged in re-engineering its disaster recovery plan designed to update its offsite response capability.
Research computing
OIT provides a small research computing unit that receives some seed funding from OSRP and OIT but relies on negotiating funding contracts with researchers for supporting computing related projects. Researchers can get access to high-speed, high-volume file storage, access to dedicated DBMS and web serving access, high performance computing resources for various modes of operation including those applications that need a non-threaded, fast- processor/high memory environment, multi-threaded applications and those that can make use of distributed and parallel computing environments. PSU researchers can get access to MySQL, Postgres and PostGIS database servers. This unit also finds itself providing high-end helpdesk services for complex problem solving.
Larger, well funded researchers on campus may sometimes grow their own computing units in-house by hiring their own IT staff, or use a blended approach that uses their own staff while leveraging of services provided by OIT or the CAT.
Classroom Technology
Classroom technology is becoming standardized around a configuration which used to be referred to as a High-Tech set up in years past. This includes the installation of a high-powered data projector, podium and media center, dvd/tape players, document camera, sound system and attached PC. Inputs are available for instructor laptops. Plans are under way to replace all the older Mid-Tech configurations to this new arrangement. Over the past 14 months, OIT has retrofitted 28 classrooms in this way and many more are planning into the rest of this year.
R&D is under way to pilot various podcasting and alternate classroom capture technologies.
Distance Learning Center and Support Services
The interest in classroom capture has increased significantly. The following classrooms currently have record/capture/streaming capabilities:
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CH 53-162 seats
CH 71-207 seats
NH 454-49 seats
URBN 204-48 seats
URBN 205-48 seats
URBN 303-48 seats
URBN 304-48 seats
For Fall 2008, OIT-Instructional Technology Services-DLC will have the following fully functional as new record/capture/streaming classrooms:
SBA 190 – 136 seats
EB 102 – 112 seats
Additionally, OIT-Instructional Technology Services-DLC is investigating the possibility of doing more record/capture/streaming on a campus-wide basis. This would be both in a designated classroom and as a portable capture device. New equipment has given us the capability of true production-quality video and has brought dramatic improvements in the capture, process and distribution of PSU video content.
Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (SungardHE Banner and related systems)
Like all OUS universities PSU uses the SungardHE Banner application for managing student records, financial systems, HR functions and Financial Aid processing among other services. The Banner application allows for students to apply for admissions, register for classes, check grades and perform most other functions via the web. Faculty utilize these applications for managing courses, scheduling, grading, advising, fiscal grant management and in support of employment activities such as on-line time sheet approvals and personal payroll.
In 2008, Faculty began using the PSU e-SGR solution to supplement the existing online course grading functionality. This process is added to the list of many existing process improvements and the list of projects supporting the University goal concerning sustainability such as: online admissions, transcripts, credit card processing, W2s, 1098s, payroll statements, and the ability to duplex print Banner reports or email the report bypassing printing altogether.
With Banner serving as the record of authority concerning student, courses and faculty data, application integration has been a major effort of the OIT-IS department to ensure accuracy of data while increasing offerings and improving processes that ultimately enhance services to the campus community. Integration efforts completed include on-line student housing applications and centralized billing; international services to advise students and meet federal reporting requirements; advising tools for program planning and degree audit; course management system for the automatic loading of course and student records; classroom and event space management; telecom services and billing; parking service requests and billing; emergency notification participation; and recreation facilities access and billing. Additionally, efforts to introduce payment methods such as e-check, a personalized portal, electronic submission of grant proposals, document imaging, and workflow have begun.
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The number of enterprise-wide applications has increased recently requiring robust database tools and functionality. OIT has invested in Oracle licensing to support the ERP Banner application, Blackboard Course Management application, the main PSU website content database, Data Warehouse, and the student portal solution. IT is also working to create a second, redundant live instance in the case of disruption in service to the PSU data center. A disaster site is also being established out of state.
Networking
The PSU campus network
The PSU campus network now includes about 12,500 network drops across all campus buildings and serves more than 6,500 active devices used by approximately 40,000 individuals in credit and noncredit classes each year. The network wiring to the desktop is all CAT5e grade and all network connections are at least switched 100MB. Gigabit speed trunks feed most buildings over the campus fiber plant which has been continuously maintained and supported. Physical redundancy and diverse path routing have been built into the campus fiber backbone network to minimize single points of failure on the network and provide alternate network routes should the inter-building fiber plant be damaged anywhere along its path. The network has two core devices (for fail over) based on Cisco 6500 hardware, and a redundant DMZ design for external connectivity. To provide backup Internet access for campus users, there is commodity Internet connectivity to 3 diverse Internet providers and 2 diverse providers for Internet2/NLR network traffic. Network design and implementation has been done collaboratively with PSU College of Engineering and Computer Science network specialists.
Over the next several months, the campus network will continue to be upgraded with the replacement of legacy edge switches and the implementation of a centralized network access control and management (NAC) solution. The network will be expanded and extended to deliver full campus network services to the buildings recently acquired, constructed or leased by PSU to accommodate growth of the campus community. To address power outages and disruptions, many of the network/telecom terminal closets throughout the campus buildings have dual power sources. Separate firewalls for individual buildings and various network subgroups are installed to enhance network security around the campus. Packet shapers are used to restrict unwanted network traffic. To minimize intracampus network problems and better isolate student network traffic from the rest of the campus traffic, there is a separate network in place for student Internet access from the residence halls.
Wireless Access
Students, faculty, visitors and guests can also use the PSU wireless network. The wireless network allows for medium speed access with nearly 100% coverage in 10 campus buildings, such as Millar Library, SMSU, Neuberger & Cramer Halls, and the Urban Center while another 12 buildings have substantial wireless coverage in another 12 buildings. In general, users can access the wireless network in all public areas, meeting/study areas, computer labs, classrooms, and the Park blocks. In summary, wireless coverage across campus has increased more than fourfold in the past 3 years with more than 1,100 users now accessing the network during peak traffic periods. Over the next several months, WIFI coverage will continue to expand with the focus on all student activity related areas such as classrooms, study rooms, labs, meeting areas, etc. Additionally, the wireless network
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will be moving to a more redundant, highly available model that is separated from the campus wired network for security and centralized management purposes. Acquisition and installation of a NAC solution will greatly enhance the ability to effectively permit, manage, administer and control PSU guest and visitor access to the campus wireless network.
Internet Access
Internet usage for campus is at a daily bandwidth average of 65Mb/s for commodity Internet transit while High Performance Research (I2 for example) tends to average around 14Mb/s. Internet is connected via the statewide higher education NERO network and Internet2 through a partnership called PREN with OHSU. Numerous other local partnerships provide PSU with high speed private network connectivity to local major networks, such as the NWAX exchange and the Internet.
Dial-up & remote access to services PSU has 142 dial-up lines with use limited to 5 hours/day for students and 9 hours/day for faculty. The number of PSU dial-up users averages 20 lines in use at any given time. Because of the low cost and ease of availability for higher speed means to connect to the Internet this service is on the decline and may eventually be eliminated. In addition thousands more users connect to PSU via their own Internet Service Providers.
Telecommunications Services Like the other large universities in Oregon, PSU runs an internal auxiliary unit for Telecommunications services. Additionally, network services have been merged with telecommunications to form a combined Network & Telecommunications Services (NTS) auxiliary services unit. NTS serves approximately 7,000 voice customers to include faculty, staff and residence hall students. NTS also provides network services for the student residence halls and serves all users of the campus data network, both wired and wireless.
Long distance is provided at minimal costs via state contracts with ATT and Qwest. Within OUS, a low cost telecommunications partnership called InTelCom provides shared engineering resources, billing services and leveraged, consolidated purchasing opportunities for NTS.
NTS has a pilot deployment of IP based telephony (VoIP) underway with plans to expand that deployment over the next 2-3 years. NTS has begun the work necessary to upgrade and prepare the underlying campus network infrastructure to support VoIP/SIP based voice technologies for desktop users at the high quality level of service to which traditional telephone service users are accustomed. A project to replace the existing campus voice mail system is also underway and scheduled to be completed by late summer of 2008. The new voice mail system is intended to allow users to manage and administer their voice messages in much the same way as they do their email messages. Additionally, it will provide much improved web access to voice mail and some speech activated capabilities.
Security
Host level security
Host level security has improved markedly, driven in large part by the standard desktop loads being utilized by various departments on campus. A strong push for making anti-virus software accessible to everyone (including students at home at in the residence halls) has reduced the volume of compromised hosts on the campus network.
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Network level security
Aggressive filtering at the campus network border and the implementation of a firewall at the entry to each building has also contributed to a reduction in compromised hosts from attacking systems on the Internet and even on other parts of the campus. A sophisticated threat analysis system developed at PSU (Ourmon) has been effective at identifying potentially compromised systems. Rapid quarantining of identified systems removes them from circulation, preventing them from compromising more systems.
Awareness programs / AUP
The Oregon University System has instituted an umbrella Security Policy for all OUS institutions. PSU is currently working on implementing a localized security policy that reflects the intentions of the OUS document but is customized for the university. The local document is expected to be unveiled in Summer 2008 amid a security awareness campaign. As targeted social engineering attacks (spear phishing) have emerged as a persistent threat alongside the better known security issues, OIT will be embarking on an awareness campaign. This campaign will target the handling of sensitive data, keeping desktops secure and being wary of social engineering.
IT Staffing
Finding qualified personnel to fill vacancies in IT continues to be a challenge. Although PSU offers a good benefits package, there are comparable institutions in Portland which are able to offer higher salaries for similar jobs. OIT is embarking on both external and internal training programs to provide better employee development offerings and to also build a pool of qualified talent within the organization.
Current major OIT initiatives
PSU Alert
The 3N emergency notification project launched at the start of Spring 2008. The goal of the system is to provide all students and faculty/staff with the ability to register the means by which they would like to receive emergency notifications from PSU (via text message, or e-mail or voice mail, and in which order) or to opt out, if they so choose. The Banweb interface will provide the subscription front-end to this system.
In the event of an emergency, the 3N alerts will be one of the emergency communications channels used for getting quick notifications out to everyone.
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MyPSU
The Luminis Portal project is currently under development. Provided by Sungard, the company that also provides the Banner ERP system, Luminis is intended to be an intranet portal that will provide users access to Banweb functionality in addition to customized distribution channels managed by various entities on campus. The eventual goal is to integrate email, Learning Management Systems, Banweb and other IT services through Luminis.
OAM
The Odin Account Manager project, built as an account provisioning vehicle for Luminis, is designed to initially link together the Banweb, LDAP and Active Directory authentication spaces. Presenting a radical redesign in the account creation workflows on campus, the OAM project strives to deliver a self-service account activation process for students and faculty/staff, self-service password resets, directory update capability for faculty/staff and password synchronization. OAM is in an early production state and volunteers are being sought to do live testing. Before achieving a full roll out, the account creation workflow changes introduced by OAM will need to be integrated into processes within various entities on campus.
Blackboard CE6
The new Course Management System is going online with a large complement of classes in Spring 2008. This system is a newer version of the old CMS (WebCT 4). The old CMS is slated for decommissioning by the start of Fall 2008.
Growth in Classroom Technology
The Instructional Technology Services Staff is engaged in a wide variety of classroom technology projects to include:
Shattuck Hall Renovations- (12) fully equipped general access technology classrooms. (Fall 2008)
Neuberger Hall Room Consolidation Project-Phase 3-(3) fully equipped general access technology classrooms. (Fall 2008)
FAB 40 Classroom Project-(3) fully equipped general access technology classrooms. (Fall 2008)
Classroom Improvement Project- Working with PSU Facilities to improve the following learning spaces: Cinema 90, Cinema 92, Hoffman Hall, Neuberger Hall 364, Science Bldg 1, 107. (Fall 2008)
Assist in the creation of departmental classrooms in Market Center Bldg & Extended Studies Bldg for the School of Fine and Performing Arts (Fall 2008)
Academic Student Recreation Center (4) fully equipped general access technology classrooms, Relocation of classrooms for SSW, Planning/creation of meeting space for State Board of Higher Education. (Winter 2010)
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Ongoing replacement of data projector in classrooms that have been in service 3yrs or longer.
Ongoing replacement of resident computers in classrooms that have been in service 3yrs or longer.
Ongoing replacement of “Mid-Tech” systems in general classrooms to a fully equipped podium.
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Appendix F: Progress Report on Earlier ACAIT For more detail see the reports and background information on the previous ACAIT Technology Plan at the OIT web page (www.oit.pdx.edu)
An ACAIT subcommittee was charged to:
Review existing processes for discovering academic technology needs and assessing current technology support systems.
Design and implement improvements to these processes as needed and take steps to ensure regular, ongoing identification of new needs and continuous improvement of existing support systems.
After establishing a framework for discussion and gathering additional information, the subcommittee put forward four recommendations to the entire committee:
Initiative 1: Adequate technology infrastructure PSU must regularly develop rational, funded plans for keeping our technological infrastructure (hardware, software, and personnel) up-to-date in order to enable effective and efficient use of our human and financial resources. Both central and departmental technology staff should be involved in these planning efforts. It is tempting to support technology in an ad hoc fashion, but this only results in a reduction in the quality of PSU’s education and scholarship, a decline in PSU’s reputation, and deferred technology problems that are costly to fix.
Action:
OIT has acknowledged the importance in infrastructure by building a Technology Services branch to its organization structure comprising of Computing Infrastructure – Enterprise, Computing Infrastructure – Customer, Networking and Telecom and Research Computing.
Over the past few years, significant technology infrastructure updates have been put in place to increase capacity and reliability. The old Shattuck Hall data center, often plagued with power and air conditioning problems in the past, has been decommissioned. The new Fourth Avenue Building Data Center provides PSU with space for expansion, redundant power feeds, adequate cooling and secured access control. A separate zone in the data center is provided for co-location, enabling environmentally controlled space for any PSU department that wishes to purchase and manage their own servers. Use of this facility has been overwhelming and power/cooling upgrades are underway to increase capacity.
The campus networking infrastructure has been expanded. Wireless penetration, with a focus on student driven areas, continues to expand, using newer, more manageable technology. Core networking between buildings is being re-engineered to provide better
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isolation between buildings, the data center and external connectivity. PSU has multiple, redundant connections to the commodity Internet, access to high speed research networks as well as dedicated (and separate) connectivity to student housing. Core service infrastructure for delivering e-mail, file services, banner, web services and research computing are being continually upgraded to deal with usage growth.
See Appendix E for further details on the current IT structure at PSU.
Initiative 2: Distance and distributed education PSU should support the use of technology-mediated instruction in strategic areas. The use of technology to provide distance and distributed education allows PSU to reach new groups of students, to help current students learn in new ways, and to increase its competitive advantage. At the same time, not all faculty and students are fully prepared to use the technology. The use of distance and distributed education can thus be very expensive and careful choices must be made, perhaps at the individual unit level, regarding what offerings are appropriate. A reasonable level of central support must also be provided. It may be productive to examine partnerships to expand our distance and distributed offerings at reasonable cost.
Action:
Distance and Distributed Education has undergoing significant change at PSU. The older model of television delivery to remote send/receive sites is being phased out while a renewed focus on Learning Management Systems and Web 2.0 as a distance delivery mechanism has taken place. In addition, OIT provides streaming video/audio delivery of pre-recorded courses. Considerable investment as been made in out fitting classrooms with digital audio and video capture systems.
The Instructional Design Team, the group responsible for training faculty and evangelizing the benefits of LMS technology, has been moved out of OIT and into the Center for Academic Excellence. Placing this group under the Provost’s Office is designed to emphasize its academic mission and help foster closer working ties with the academic departments.
Initiative 3: Technology in scholarship and student learning PSU should support faculty members who develop broader faculty expertise on the effective use of technology in instruction, and who research the value and impact of technology-mediated instruction methods. Much work remains to be done through scholarly examination of the effects of technology on learning. At the same time, employers are demanding increasing technology literacy and fluency in PSU’s graduates. PSU should find new ways for evaluating and improving technology-enhanced learning, develop better support faculty scholarship, and ensure that our graduates have the understanding of technology they need to be good employees and good citizens. The university can do this by leveraging existing strengths, e.g., its integration with the community, undergraduate student involvement in research, innovative capstone courses, and the breadth of technology experience in our student body.
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Action:
Increased support for all PSU students and faculty in designing, building, and integrating e-portfolios as both a learning and an evaluation tool across the institution. The Center for Academic Excellence should support the development and use of e-portfolios with faculty incentives and a dedicated symposium on e-portfolio use supported by OAA. Workshops and roundtables at various levels of e-portfolio usage and development to advise PSU faculty on integrating technology with student learning could be very beneficial to faculty and enhance student learning.
Institutional Repository Needs Assessment In early 2008, a task force was convened to determine the need for and feasibility of implementing a centralized system to access and preserve the campus’s digitized intellectual output. A needs assessment survey indicated that up to 85% of PSU faculty and staff were interested in contributing to a campus repository. Based on this outcome, the Library and OIT purchased a three-year subscription to the Equella digital repository system, which will be implemented as the “Scholars Archive” during Fall 2008. Targeted collections, such as electronic theses and dissertations, digital images, and digitized urban planning documents, will be added to the repository first, while a campus service model for the repository, and processes and policies for content submission by individuals and other campus units, are developed during Winter 2009. Since the last ACAIT report, the following improvements in classroom technology and event presentation technology have occurred:
- All general access classrooms with a seating capacity of 46 or greater have some form of fixed classroom technology in them.
- OIT-ITS increased the number of fully equipped general access technology classrooms from 14 to 59.
- OIT-ITS created the “Mid-Tech” general access technology classrooms concept and has created 27 of these spaces.
- Most departmental classrooms have some form of fixed classroom technology in them, either “Mid-Tech” or fully equipped podiums in them
- OIT-ITS is actively involved and recognized on a campus-wide basis in the planning, budgeting and creation of technology-based learning spaces or presentation spaces at PSU.
Initiative 4: Research Computing Technology is changing the way “traditional” university research is being performed. Faculty members are sometimes unprepared to support the technology they must now use in their research and may need new types of support to ensure the best use of their expertise. The
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support of faculty research is essential to fostering creative scholarship and enhancing the reputation of the university.
Action:
Centralized funding for research computing has not seen significant growth. OITs Academic and Research Computing group continues to operate as it has in recent years, offering programming and development services to researchers in a contract-based model. Mostly self-funded, this group provides assistance to numerous researchers on campus.
Larger grant funded projects on campus continue to fund their own IT expertise, leveraging off centrally supplied resources as appropriate. The technology infrastructure improvements have enabled access to external networks for specific research projects, e.g., NASA shuttle links and ODOT telemetry data streaming. Departmental IT support staff are often called on to support research computing as part of their duties.
OIT has provided seed funding for a small research computing cluster that is available to any researcher on campus.
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Appendix G: Hybrid Courses
PSU should dramatically expand the number of 50/50 hybrid course offerings.
Hybrid or blended courses meet a reduced number of hours in the classroom, with the balance of instruction taking place online. They are the fastest-growing mode of instructional delivery in higher education. The popularity of hybrid courses flows from their advantages to students, faculty, and school administrations.
Hybrid course advantages
1. Advantages for students
Hybrid classes can offer greater schedule flexibility for students like those who work full time and struggle with childcare constraints. Such students need only find one short block of time per week when they will need to physically appear in class. The rest of their work can be done at a distance between work and picking up the kids, after putting kids to bed, or even in the middle of the night. By taking advantage of hybrid classes, students might need to commute to campus only once or twice a week, which would help them save on gas money and other valuable resources, and have a chance to take advantage of an otherwise unusable hole in their schedule.
Most important, perhaps, hybrid offerings provide a compelling solution for students who want to learn online but who have a continuing need for in-person interaction with their instructors and classmates. Fulfilling both needs is the moral necessity of a flourishing academic environment in today’s world.
2. Advantages for faculty
Many faculty members have been increasing the integration of multi-media and online interaction into their traditional courses. This can often lead to what has been described as “the Course and a Half Syndrome,” which means that students are being asked to do substantially more work than they would in a traditional format. Hybrids allow instructors to forgive some face-to-face lecture time in compensation for more online interaction.
Hybrid courses can also provide an opportunity for instructors to “stick their toe in the water” of online instruction before diving in fully. Many instructors report that developing a hybrid course takes less time than developing a fully online course, and they are also able to enjoy the schedule flexibility benefits that hybrid courses offer students.
3. Advantages for administration
Hybrid courses can help school administrations grapple more effectively with growing enrollments and tighter budgets. The savings in classroom space afforded by hybrid
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courses would greatly benefit PSU. At present, PSU must rent classroom space at a cost of $16.88 per square foot. A 50/50 hybrid format allows two courses to share a single classroom time slot over two class days during the week. Through appropriate use of hybrid offerings, PSU can anticipate a saving of $1,300 with each 50/50 hybrid held per school term.i
Hybrids will only yield successful results if they are initiated as part of a broad, concerted effort.
An uncoordinated, piecemeal adoption of hybrid instruction can result in little or no benefit for any of the constituencies described above. For example, without careful coordination of room scheduling, hybrids can lead to classrooms not being shared and merely standing empty. Also, without aggressive marketing to students, enrollments in hybrids turn out to be low, and poor published descriptions may cause them to fill up with students who thought they were enrolling in a traditional or fully online course.
Hybrids may not meet the needs of many students or match their learning styles or abilities. The key to student success with hybrid instruction is to make sure students consciously self-select into these courses. That way, students who enroll likely will be capable of succeeding in this environment, and their attitudes will reflect a belief that this mode is a benefit rather than an unexpected and unwanted imposition.
An uncoordinated initiative may also fail to win sufficient buy-in from faculty. Conversion of a traditional course to a hybrid format requires a good deal of faculty time and effort. Since faculty members must learn to teach in the new mode and redesign their courses accordingly, it is necessary that faculty understand the benefits offered by this new instructional mode.
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Appendix H: ACAIT Members
Chairperson:
Shawn Smallman, OAA, (2006-)
Members:
Adriene Lim, LIB (2005-) David Bullock, GSE (1999-) David Hansen, SBA (2006-) Mark Jenkins, SES (2006-) Dana Bostrom GSR (2007 -) Daniel Pirofsky, SFPA/ART (1999-) Randy Zelick, BIO (2002-) Robert Fullmer, CLAS (2005-) Cynthia Brown, CMPS (2007 -) Michael Chamberlain, CAE (2007-) Albert Pham, Student (2007-)
