RFI: May 14, 2007 ITS All-Staff meeting
I need some help to get properly prepared for the ITS All-staff meeting, and I'll need help from almost everyone in ITS.
If you are reading this, you work at Penn State and you're not in ITS, I also ask that you not be shy about helping out either.
On January 8th at our last all-staff meeting, we talked about 4 Themes. No one could be sure what the reaction would be and in the days after that meeting, I was anxious to see evidence of how the themes would be received.
A huge majority of the conversations, e-mails, and scuttlebutt I've been a part of or made aware of has been positive. There has been the occasional expression of "same old, same old" but it is clearly in the minority of what I've come across (Note to the cynical: It's not that I think this is a representative ratio but there is enough data to reasonably think that the positive reaction is outstripping the ho-hum one). I've received enough feedback from so many people in fact, that I'd like to try and capture it more completely for our next meeting.
I'd like to ask that you tell me what you have done personally, seen personally; done in your group, unit, or organization or seen in your group, unit, or organization; that has been in support of one of the themes, some of the themes or all of the themes. How have you changed your approach to what you do in light of a theme or themes? How has your group changed its approach?
Don't feel a need to organize or coordinate your comments, and for heavens sakes don't check with anybody first. If you know or believe something, share it.
Please share your stories, sentences, nuggets by commenting to this entry. No one will be graded for doing it or not doing it. No one should worry about the specter of brown-nosing by doing it - this isn't about telling me what you or your group has done but rather it's about people telling each other what they've done.
Your comments will be a big help with a part of the next all-staff meeting. Thanks in advance for your help.
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Well, I cannot count the number of times, lately, I have said to someone, “Remember, IT at Penn State is larger than ITS,” but it nudged me to action recently. I am on an Internet2 working group and we are currently looking at network access for visitors. When I saw a similar discussion come up recently on the wireless LAN administrators list, it caught my interest. I was a little bothered when the discussion trailed off, particularly because it seemed they had not fully explored the issue and may have stopped because some misinformation discouraged them. I wanted to set them straight, but doing so would assume that I — a member of ITS — knew all the answers (that is, “IT at Penn State is ITS”). I thought that was the wrong message to send. I wanted them explore the issue and come to their own conclusions. In the process, they might show me something I had not thought of. I tried to ask questions that would instigate more discussion and used logic to dispel the misinformation. I am still not happy with where the discussion ended, but I think there is better understanding of the issue now. I learned two things from this. First, visitor access is a hard issue, which deals with the intersection between policy and service. Second, this theme — IT at Penn State is larger than ITS — like any cultural change, will take time, and until we take that time and adopt the concept ourselves and show others we are serious we will continue to get responses ranging from “Why don’t you do this for us?” to “Why don’t you let us do this ourselves?” Ultimately I would like to hear, “We have an idea, why don’t we do this together?”
When thinking about the 4 themes, the current work involved with assisting the Hershey Medical Center (HMC) establish a new disaster recovery/back-up site comes to mind.
ITS is intimately involved with facilitating the discussions between HMC and a State College telecommunications service provider which should result in a new, much more affordable, DR site for Hershey which leverages the University’s infrastructure between University Park and HMC. ITS doesn’t have a vested interest in this initiative other than to help HMC improve their DR capabilities at a lower cost. This initiative demonstrates how ITS's strength can be leveraged by utilizing vendor relationships and offer them to the University at large. This initiative also strengthens our relationship and collaboration with the HMC. This initiative is a good example of collaboration and teamwork as ITS works closely with HMC to resolve a number of technical and policy questions.
I know that as I have been working with and meeting my clients, that I have been trying to develop a more collaborative approach with them. I have tried to find ways that ITS can assist them in what they do and to find ways that they can assists ITS. A team approach, we are all in this together and perhaps each group doesn't need to reinvent the wheel every time.
In DLT, we have brainstormed ideas of how we can better collaborate with other units of ITS and the University Libraries. We met with a few people from ASET to discuss ways for collaboration and have another meeting scheduled with people from AIS. We have also had several meetings with people from the Library on this topic. Things are moving forward and people are getting excited!
A group of fourteen different colleges, departments, and campus locations are working on the development of Microsoft Office 2007 training materials that can be used by the University Community. I am the facilitator for this group.
At TLT/ETS, we have become proactive rather than reactive in creating opportunities for collaborations. Rather than waiting for Colleges / Departments / Individuals to come to us and suggest possible projects, we are going into the larger University, offering opportunities and finding ourselves welcomed and encouraged in interactions with our colleages.
As Mark Linton said, we are finding projects and investigations to do "together."
The ITS Roadshows are a very powerful relationship building tool.
In a single day you spend quality windshield time with other ITS members, then meet IT staff from a handful of campuses and get a better understanding of the world outside of UP. We also set up a Computer Store table at each event to meet and help as many students and fac/staff as we can.
After the last Roadshow (Shenango), Rhonda scheduled a visit to Behrend the following day. If you want to get a general overview of a campus' IT picture spend a day with an ITS consultant. It was a great learning opportunity.
So, there are two thoughts that occur to me as I read this entry. The first thought that came to my mind is that using these themes as a guiding principle is much like going through the IT Leadership Program. The biggest difference is not a single TaDa moment for me. It is the change in how I listen and respond to my peers when I am sitting in a meeting with them. There have been several occasions over the last few months when I have either responded with "IT", not "ITS", or even thought "us" instead of "them". I believe that it is all of these very small moments that will bring about a cultural change. It is making decisions, listening, and thinking in a slightly different and more open way that will create the open, collaborative environment that most of us crave.
The second thought that came to my mind is the recently created Identity and Access Management Group. ITS has created a group that is purposely IT and ITS light. The group is tasked with creating a high level roadmap to provide strategic direction for IAM at Penn State. ITS is taking the right step to ensure a solution that will be what our customers need and want. The outcome of this group is extremely important as it sets the direction and tone for future collaborative efforts and I believe it is one more sign of walking the talk.
On a personal note, I will be getting back to the Network of People Meetings on a more regular basis. Relying solely on email as a method of communication may get information out there more quickly, but it doesn't cut it when it comes to building personal or 'good' business relationships. (probably has the opposite result)
As an organization, AIS has a core group of individuals who are dedicated (doing a great job!) to supporting the 'Fish Philosophy.' This helps to build good working relationships within the organization that can then be carried outward to our customers. As we bring on new University wide services, we're doing our best to 'go test the proposed architecture before purchasing the solution.' This helps to make for a more reliable environment and promotes a positive user experience.
We have spent a good deal of time discussing services across units of ITS. The idea is that in order to promote what we do to a broader audience we must first find ways to use those same services ourselves. Sometimes the issues are technical and sometimes they are territorial but often there are budget issues. We are all one unit but there are independent budgetary considerations to many decisions.
I suspect we are dealing with the same issues that make inefficient utilization of university resources the best departmental decision in many areas around the university system.
We have spent a good deal of time discussing services across units of ITS. The idea is that in order to promote what we do to a broader audience we must first find ways to use those same services ourselves. Sometimes the issues are technical and sometimes they are territorial but often there are budget issues. We are all one unit but there are independent budgetary considerations to many decisions.
I suspect we are dealing with the same issues that make inefficient utilization of university resources the best departmental decision in many areas around the university system.
Within the realm of the Penn State Workflow Project we have endless opportunities to engage and collaborate with the University community and to be honest, this project cannot succeed without collaboration and participation of our stakeholders, business partners and users. That said, AIS is very intentional about recruiting leaders of the University community to serve in leadership roles in both committee work and advisory capacities. This has resulted not only in buy-in but more importantly, in ownership. We cannot spread enough kudos to the staff who have and continue to serve in these ways.
And within ITS, AIS is collaborating with ASET in new development initiatives for the role-management tool, WebRAT. For example, AIS is building skill sets in the discipline of business process analysts. This team will be instrumental in the EASY Re-engineering Project. But a starter project for this team will be gathering and documenting user requirements for the WebRole Request and WebRole Inquiry functionality that ASET will build into the WebRAT suite. End result: AIS gathers requirements, ASET builds application and users use the tool.
At this time, the four themes are known in ITS, but seem too general for individual employees to apply to their daily work in a measurable form.
For the average employee, just doing your job well and being nice to customers helps towards meeting the goals the four themes prescribe.
Those who work in my area were ask to apply the four themes to the development plan of the SRDP. I am meeting with them as a group and individualually to determine how they can apply each theme to their personal performance. We hope to have specifics to focus on while always keeping the general themes in mind as opportunities arise.
Leveraging the strength of ITS to me means leveraging the comparative advantage of areas in ITS. We have lots of pools of very specific knowledge in ITS... that is an understatement. One person can't possibly come close to knowing everything about IT. Often, it is easier to go to someone who has had experience in a certain area, rather than diving into it yourself. How do you find people with some specific skill?
Jim L. and I have had several discussions about how it would be beneficial and interesting to setup a professional style facebook sort of site just for ITS. But, rather than populating it with your favorite movies or music, you'd put in your favorite programming languages, software applications, operating systems, video codecs, routers, whatever, etc., etc., etc.
Put in what your hobbies are, too. I've developed good relations with people inside ITS that turned into teamwork on real projects just for the simple fact that we both had motorcycles and that started a conversation. If we did put something like this up, would people even populate it?
I put a blog post up about this event called "hack day" at Yahoo. Yahoo is trying to establish a culture of collaboration and teamwork, too. I liked their idea:
http://thundercougarfalconbird.et-test.psu.edu/blog/
.
That's all for now.... I gotta pay attention to this I2 session as it's started to get techincal and I can no longer divide my clock cycles. :)
-c
The WINAD project is interesting and possibly unusual perhaps because most, if not all, of the Four Themes are actually goals built within our charge. The primary reason for this service is to leverage the strength that is ITS to provide the infrastructure for Active Directory services for the greater PSU community (Theme 1). We have tried to make it clear that our job is to provide a solid infrastructure for the departments and colleges to leverage so that they can better focus their own limited resources towards providing the services they are responsible for out to their own faculty, students and staff (Theme 3). We tell people in person and in our documentation online that we don't want to push down any mandates, policies, or require procedures other than what is needed for compliance to Penn State Security regulations and what our implementation of Active Directory requires in terms of meeting the needs for security and stability. However, we have taken efforts to encourage a collaborative community among the administrators, technical support staff and managers working with us in WINAD (Theme 4). We do have 'Town Meetings' to share what is going on with the project, to encourage the administrators to share what they've been working on and we also have a listserv for our community as well. So far, we have seen very generous sharing of specific solutions to Windows administration such as freely sharing scripts among units, GPOs, discussion about best practices for approaching common problems and some of our more active members have even given presentations at the Town Meetings to help share their work. Right now it is a commonly accepted practice for administrators in our domain to point other units to the Policies and Scripts they've created in WINAD to encourage greater sharing and collaboration of ideas to technical problems.
So as this project has grown over the years, we are now providing services to over 26 Penn State Colleges, schools and campuses as well as over 40 different individual IT units across the fabric of the university from large departments in services to small departments in colleges. This is a broad group of IT units that are working together with us and leveraging our strength to provide their services to their own areas of responsibility. And this is also a great opportunity for collaborative efforts and working smarter as we learn and share from each other so there is a lot more we can do in each of these four themes in the future. Right now we endeavor to be responsive to our community and work more collaboratively with them. The most recent examples of this is the active involvement of the IT units in our testing of services to be brought into the production realm for the entire community as well as the recent decision to extend our current Windows Update services to the Residence Halls for student use as well. It is very exciting to be involved in a project that has such a clear and direct focus on both providing a service to and working collaboratively with the other IT units across Penn State. ITS having a focus now on these Four Themes only makes it easier for us to continue to strive for greater success in all of the areas.
In AIS, we are collaborating much more across functional units today in order to create a project management (PM) methodology that fits our organization. We are in the early stages of this effort but I expect us to have better methods over time for identifying projects, prioritizing them, planning the work, assigning resources and tracking the progress. These PM practices will help us in a variety of ways:
1. We'll be able to focus resources on projects that provide the most value to PSU's core business.
2. Our customers will get more of what they want and need since we'll get better at requirements gathering through the use of standard processes.
3. We'll do more collaboration and planning as teams rather than as individuals.
4. We'll gain some history in tracking the time required for technical tasks that can be used to plan and estimate future work. This should help us refrain from under estimating work efforts.
5. We'll be able to share our templates and outcomes with other ITS units and PSU departments so that they can consider their value.
I am actually making a pitch for a 5th theme, although it still needs some work. It goes something like this: "Don't get caught-up in the past". It comes from a real-life story I heard years ago in a business class, so I don't remember the players, and I probably embellished it over the years.
The story is about a drill-bit company that was top in its field in the 70's. Had some of the newest meteorological patents and the best practitioners in the world. They had products that could drill anything. Company invested plenty in R&D and was well run. They went out of business in the 80's. The reason: The company did not realize they were in the "hole" business, not the drill bit business. They never saw the laser drill or water based products being developed that worked faster and cheaper.
Kinda reminds me of the folks that invented the laser diode and never saw the CD coming....
I recently witnessed another ITS Employee, Mark Linton, take the initiative to go out and try to get information from other IT professionals at PSU on the Wireless Listserv. Mark, ask for input on how other IT professionals were doing supporting guest access to see if we, ITS, could model our service after this. While this may sound simple, there have been many critics of ITS on the Wireless List and I believe this was a good way to try and bridge IT professionals and ITS at PSU.
I think of these four themes as goals, because themes may lead one to assume that we are at our full potential. As goals, there is always room for improvement and I think this is especially true for ITS.
If I may reiterate these themes or goals for a moment in my own words...
o Leverage the strength of being ITS (In The Scene). Information technology defines how one conducts business on a regular basis. You can't avoid it. Collaborating inter-unit and with other IT and non-IT related groups will strengthen ITS as a whole and allow us to achieve our mission: "[to] ensure that faculty, students, and staff have the information technology tools and infrastructure necessary to carry out the University's mission." Information technology is the scene for education and business alike and we are ITS.
o Recognize and affirm that IT at Penn State is larger than ITS, and strengthen our relationships with campuses and colleges (and all other departments). Faculty, staff, students, vendors, etc. rely on ITS to be able to conduct their day-to-day affairs and ITS exists to serve that demand, so we should strive to communicate effectively with our target audiences in providing them with the services and the information they need.
o Putting the core business of Penn State in the center of service design and delivery, which I think I addressed in the above goals. The ITS Event/Computer Store Expo was a good example of ways ITS reaches out. Road shows is another good way to reach other campuses. These grassroots efforts can help us figure out what the University community wants and needs.
o Develop a culture of collaboration and teamwork. The Event was a great example of how well ITS works together. Other inter-unit projects and initiatives show how hard we work to provide useful services to the University. And the Event is a great way to continue reaching out. Kudos to everyone. Let's just keeping thinking of more great ideas so that we can reach our own four "goals."
The Network of People (NWOP) is one example that touches on these themes. The NWOP goal has been to foster information sharing and collaboration within IT at Penn State. Through its meetings and listserv the NWOP networks IT idea’s, solutions and knowledge among hundreds of IT resources from around UP, the campuses and colleges The meetings have been taped since 2003 and at the last NWOP meeting, Adobe Connect was introduced, thus making the “live” meeting even more accessible to the campuses and colleges. Attendance at NWOP meetings is on an upward spiral . The recently formed NWOP Steering committee, with representation from all of IT, will help to ensure that the NWOP maintains its focus on building collaboration and teamwork within IT at Penn State .
I have been meaning to get a comment up here sooner, but I have been somewhat busy. Anyways, I would like to comment on your second theme. Always in the back of my mind, I knew there was this thing out there called distributed IT. Being part of central IT, I did have some interactions with members of department and campus IT groups. But those interactions typically were just emails back and forth. Nothing really earth shattering. Because of the IT Leadership program, I was given an opportunity to interact with a number of people from IT organziations in departments and campuses. After the first couple of classes, my whole outlook changed, on how to interact with IT in general. No more do I just send an email because its just that easy, in most cases I will pick up the phone and call the person. If they are local at UP, I will arrange a meeting with them. Things like this really help in the belief that IT is larger than ITS. It really helps to build and mend relationships that in some cases were in not too good of a shape. I am looking forward to continuing all of the relationships with people I met at ITLP and new folks who come along the way. I know this is such an important theme that to me, it represents a personal crusade. I could say more, but I am getting married in 2 hours.
The annual Bulk Computer Purchase (that is put together through collaboration between ITS and Purchasing Services) leverages the strength of ITS and uses our size to lower IT costs for the entire University.
2006/2007 marks the 3rd year for total University involvement. We hold an annual meeting for University IT staff discussion and this year we had representation from about 25 colleges/campuses/departments involved.
We can typically achieve 25-30% savings for the University by pooling our computer purchasing needs.
As an instructional designer with ETS, I have had the opportunity to work on the Adobe Connect (Breeze) project which spans all of ITS as well as the entire Penn State community.
We are trying a new approach for supporting users of this resource -- an online distributed support community (http://meeting.psu.edu). The design, implementation, and success of this prototype requires participation from all units of the Penn State community and is just another example where ITS is more than just ITS. Enterprise resourceses require community participation in order to best meet the needs of everyone in the community.
Claudia Caracci and I serve as the ASET Communications Team - as part of our role within ASET, we have discussed the four themes at great length. I'll echo her words - I see the themes as goals rather than just themes - when I think of the word "theme" I often associate it with something more abstract or metaphorical in nature; with the word "goal" I think of tangiable items set forth to produce action items so that some workproduct(s) can come out of it. So, I'll refer to them as goals in this post.
I believe the four goals set the framework for ways in which all of us in ITS, no matter what our respective roles/positions are, can set the pace and change the course for what ITS is and could be. I like that you've asked us to contribute our thoughts to not only shape the staff meeting agenda, but to also help shape the nature of our organization. Everyone has an equal field on which to play, and rather than compete with one another, we'll work as a collective and learn from what we do, and hopefully seed some ideas to grow - a general thought that comes to mind - we are all part of any given solution - complaints will never bear much meaning and/or credibility if you haven't done your part to become part of the solution. Remaining silent doesn't solve anything, either.
1. Leverage the strength of being ITS: Leveraging the strength of being ITS means, to me, that we look at ourselves as vehicles and voices of the University's mission, vision, and goals. Beyond IT as a function or infrastructure for conducting vital and necessary business and academic transactions, we need to remember that we serve as representatives for the University. Leveraging the strength of being ITS involves, in part, a conscientious effort to forego some of the unit jargon and names for the services we provide as a whole to the University community - with external communications (external to ITS in this context), this is crucial to communicating cohesive and effective information to those who depend on what we do to carry out their daily work. Likewise, internal communication is equally if not more important (at times) - if we foster unity and information in our own organization, then I believe we'll be able to better reflect what we do for the Penn State community, to the Penn State community.
When we've been "challenged" about our services - either within the work context or outside of it in a social setting - I think it's important to help "set the record straight" - we've had many challenges in ITS - we can help to support ITS' and Penn State's mission by dispelling any myths, no matter where we are, rather than contribute to them by not saying anything. Sometimes, this may mean getting up out of your chair to visit someone down the hallway - or picking up the phone. It means not being defensive, but using such a situation as a way to teach. Allow someone who wants to complain and bad-mouth a service the chance to present his/herself, and use it as an opportunity to give a summary full picture of the situation, service, project, etc. Mutual respect and self-esteem tend to go a long way when you're looking at the big picture.
2. Recognize and affirm that IT at Penn State is larger than ITS, and strengthen our relationships with campuses and colleges: if colleagues in other academic units don't know about a particular service, I think it's important to take the initiative to clarify or share some information, whatever the context may be. It takes extra time, but the long-term outcome is more positive than pressing the delete key or not speaking up in a meeting. In some cases, this may assist our colleagues in all areas of the University who do similar work - with different technology solutions or team actions - so that we're collectively contributing to efforts and not duplicating them. We've collaborated on many levels to help others leverage our infrastructure (OHR, OVPEE, HFS, CWC,etc.), and we've built some good relationships doing so - but I think it has become a necessity that we think more globally. Technology and life are far more integrated than they ever were before - IT at Penn State *is* larger than ITS - and goes beyond the Commonwealth's borders. I think it's going to be crucial for us as an organization, as an institution, to communicate what we do to those who may be considering Penn State as an option for a degree - not to mention their parents, too.
3. Put the core business of Penn State in the center of service design and delivery: As an example, in ASET, we've spent a great deal of time and energy interfacing with our CSS and Help Desk peers. From the infrastructure/distributed computing perspective, what we do is vital to the business operations of the University, but it is not easily understood. Partnering with CSS and other front-line support people has helped us make this complex information a bit more palatable. We've recently jumped on board with the KnowledgeBase, and we're examinging ways in which we can better and more effectively use collaborative technologies such as wikis and blogs to communicate internally, so that we can then pass on this knowledge to our consumers in a digestable format. We're also examining was in which we can more effectively approach project development, management, organization, and process improvement. Likewise, we're employing tools such as wikis and a cms to get a better grasp of the scope of our projects and how we might better handle/prioritize projects and associated tasks.
In addition, thinking about *how* we create and deliver services to our constituents is very important, and it means that we may need - perhaps should - change the way in which we start the design process, so to speak. Recently, I've discussed this topic with Phil Devan, and I agree with him that the design, development, and delivery of our services hinges on what those who need and use it really want. User-focused development and input from our constituents will hopefully help create a model that first emphasizes what Penn State needs to carry out its business - so that an appropriate technology can be applied to fit that need. Humans interfacing with computers - we're beginning to come full-circle. ;-) It reminds me of the "human element" commercials by The Dow Chemical Company, http://www.dow.com/ - aired in recent months - how the "Hu" - the human element - is the most important. No matter how many times I've seen the commercial, it always makes me stop and think about what I do for a living and what my responsibility is, and what the real purpose of what we do is really all about.
4. Develop a culture of collaboration and teamwork: Beyond simply "jumping on the bandwagon" with wikis, blogs, twitter, etc., I think it's important to take a step back, examine the challenge, figure out a way to go about meeting the challenge, and then leverage a technology - whether it's a wiki (as an example) or otherwise - to help get the ball rolling - but don't use the technology as a band-aid to quickly solve a problem. This is not to say that using such technologies can't spark or ignite ideas and collaborations - because this certainly happens - and the spontaneous nature of it is cool and inspiring - but in thinking about solving problems/challenges, we need some balance.
Band-aiding is an easy thing to do, but I like to think that we're beyond that way of thinking - what's the long-term goal, and what can we do in the short-term window to work really hard to get there - to achieve the over-arching goal? Getting started takes some creativity. As an example, ASET Comm started to coordinate ASET "Birds-of-a-Feather" sessions as a way to improve internal communications. This was a direct outcome of the ASET retreat held in December, 2006. Step 1! We've held two thus far, and plan to do more throughout the summer. We hope to foster some brainstorming and perhaps working groups, with the intention of setting the stage/platform for extending some of those BoF outcomes to our ITS colleagues - and perhaps even our Penn State ones.
On a somewhat related note, I think it's important for us to "get out of our boxes" and explore what Penn State has to offer - within ITS and beyond. Developing a culture of collaboration and teamwork goes beyond ITS in my mind - examinging ways in which we can contribute to Univesity service and other initiatives helps us build relationships - some of which can be long-lasting. Understanding the way in which the University functions means that we can help contribute our learning experience(s) back to the organization and its diversity. This also means that we hold a responsibility to get outside of Penn State, too, whether it's in the community or beyond at national conferences, etc.
I'd like to think that the migration of PASS from DCE/DFS to a new underlying technology we expect to begin in the next few months is one clear example of how these themes, or goals as Karen & Claudia put it, are key to our success.
Certainly, a file storage service complete with multiple delivery methods and an increasing number of direct uses available (e.g. web services) to everyone at Penn State, individuals and groups alike, is a display of the strength that comes from being ITS, one which can be easily leveraged by others in IT at Penn State in various ways.
As we look forward to the rather daunting task of moving 10 terabytes if living data to a significantly different technology, I see that simple terms to describe the project fail to capture the greater communities of practice that are enabled by the success of this service, including those that escape our immediate imagination. To succeed, we must ask less, "how can we possibly continue to do what we have been doing," and ask more, "what is it that we will need to do and in what ways can we achieve that?" This is not a question for just a small group of technical staff in ASET, but a question I challenge my peers in IT, both in and out of ITS. I want to ask also those who use our services "what is it we will need to do?" What precisely is the "core business of Penn State" and who can we ask that so that we can take full advantage of this opportunity to properly redesign and deliver yet another quality service of value? I ask not simply, "how do we run a filesystem," but "what technology services will we run in the next few years and how do we help achieve that through a filesystem makeover? What have we been meaning to do that we could not do before? What challenges befall IT at Penn State when we proceed with such changes that we do not already understand?"
Clearly, a culture of collaboration and teamwork is necessary to fine tune our efforts in this endeavor. I suspect some sort of blog or forum may be useful in this regard. We also may have opportunities to start some in-person discussions during the hallway track of the All ITS Staff and Network of People meetings. I hope to hear your thoughts.
I don't think there is any doubt that you are asking the right questions. It isn't about the technologies, but about how we'll help students learn and live, faculty teach and discover, and peer staff do their work to help students and faculty. IT isn't the thing, but it but it is everywhere.
(shameless plug) For those interested, I started a blog on the top-down aspects of the PASS migration to help answer these questions: http://www.personal.psu.edu/jcd/blogs/NextPass/
Feel free to comment!
Here are some comments on some of the "sub-themes:"
Along the same lines as the Office Collaboration team that Mary Funk talked about, a collaborative group has been formed to look at converting end users from Eudora to other solutions due to the announced end of technical support for the product in October 2007 by Qualcomm. Based on an informal polling of customer contacts by the ITS Consultants, approximately 7220 faculty and staff have been identified as using Eudora as their primary e-mail client. Of the 7220 total, 3734 are located at University Park and 3486 are located at Non-UP campus locations. Based on these findings, a collaborative team has been formed comprised of individuals from ITS, the Campuses, the Colleges, and Administrative areas throughout the University.
The major goals of the collaborative team will be to identify alternate email clients and create documentation of the pros and cons of each client. This will provide information to Campuses, Colleges and Departments to assist them in making informed decisions based on their needs and environments. Once alternatives have been identified, the team will identify training needs, procedures, and tools to assist with the migrations. New documentation will be created and existing documentation will be reviewed and updated to support the migrations. Finally, a communication plan will be developed to remind the PSU IT community regarding Qualcomm’s end of support for Eudora and share with them the committee’s findings.
ITS (Robin Becker, Cristol Gregory and I) has begun collaboration with ResComm folks (Joel Weidner, Cliff Rodack and Sean Curling) on how we can work together during Arrival Weekend. Students think "generic technology", not which silo does what piece. The result of this collaborative effort will be a coordinated presentation for students: helping them to get connected, buy any last minute items from the Store, and become aware of the ITS brand.
Debbie Ingram (MAC)
Derick Burns and I have begun to collaborate on faculty and student marketing efforts. As it stands right now, ETS does a really good job marketing to both these groups on a large number of TLT-specific services, tools, and events. The MAC group also markets to these same groups, so it just makes sense to work together when possible. It's cost efficient and I think when we, ITS, operate as a single unit it's easier for our customers to find and use our services. And on a personal level, I welcome the opportunity to work with others in ITS.
I'm also a member of the ITS Climate & Diversity Committee and one of my primary job responsibilities is to write the Inside ITS Newsletter. I believe both of these efforts contribute to a more cohesive organization, although I believe ITS' approach to climate and diversity issues is not as effective as it could or should be.
Hi, Kevin. As Debbie Ingram stated, she and I have begun to collaborate more frequently on faculty and student marketing efforts. The point of all of this is to figure out how to use what is being done by the TLT Communications Group and make it beneficial to what is being done in the ITS Marketing Group and vice versa. This includes more than just the work that we are doing, but how we organize it, distribute it, and track it.
We came up with 4 ways on how to begin collaborating:
1. Sharing of organization and marketing plan formatting
2. Provide content feedback regarding the ITS faculty web site. Debbie asked that my group take a look at the ITS faculty site and assess it for content. Is all of our info there and is it accessible?
3. Communication: I provide overviews of what promotional/marketing projects we are are working on to the ITS Marketing Group. Also, the TLT Communications Group is currently looking at the development of a marketing calendar that would reside on the TLT staff site and contain marketing timelines that would let anyone know where a particular project is at any time.
4. Working on a particular project together. I attended an ITS Marketing Group brainstorming session regarding plans for Arrival Weekend in August. We also discussed possibilities for FTCAP.
ASET is setting up a semi-open source environment that we're calling "IntraSource." It will be open to Penn State only (to avoid PSU Intellectual Property concerns). Our hope is that others at PSU will be able to adapt code that we've developed for their needs that might be more narrowly targeted. Variations on TrackITS have apparently been of considerable interest outside ITS. It'd also be great if others make contributions to code development in general. Wouldn't it be outstanding if some students began making contributions to WebMail? This environment might even help to foster a Summer of Code program of our own. I'm hopeful that the IntraSource effort will help to create a feeling of broader ownership and cooperation throughout IT at PSU.
In an endeavor to help facilitate students working on collaborative projects, which includes critiquing and/or annotating each other's work, TLT/CLC partnered with Architecture to deploy a Macintosh TeamSpot facility in 208 Stuckeman. TideBreak's TeamSpot, a collaborative software application, is installed on a host server and client computers…in this facility, students use personal laptops as client computers. TeamSpot allows a student team to simultaneously view the same file on a large monitor. At any time, a team member may "take control" to modify the file. Team members can then save the mutually edited file to their laptop or any network file space where they have write access. In an effort to be more in tune with student work styles, a casual seating environment was utilized in this facility, as seen below:
We are also working on projecting the Host Server image to three existing large screens to provide a spatial experience when students practice their presentations.
In the future, Architecture would like to integrate TeamSpot in their Carleton Immersive Studio Project, where both a PSU and a Canadian faculty member, who are teaching the identical class, would make assignments where one student from each campus would collaborate on a project. It is proposed that a high definition camera be used for external video conferencing along with TeamSpot's capability of multiple users having control of TeamSpot's Host Server screen.
As seen from the above, we are beginning to update our learning space environments. In a second project, we are trying to break away from the traditional institutional cream-colored walls in our computer labs and to provide a more inviting environment to our student learning spaces. Thus, we have put out a request for proposals from the School of Visual Arts students to paint a mural on the 30 foot long wall in 109 Willard, which is a new lab that will be replacing the computer lab in 2 Willard for fall semester. Suggested mural themes included the life of Mr. Joseph Woody Willard, a scenic, an abstract as well as the ubiquitous other. It will be interesting to see how many students submit a proposal as well as their proposed theme.
Below is the link to the picture referenced in my previous comments:
SALA Team Spot Furniture