Somewhat recently a new organization in higher education has been formed called ITANA, IT Architects in Academia. You can get an idea of what they are all about by reviewing their web site.
In ITS at Penn State, we don't have people with the title of "architect" in our organization but we do have people who have "architect" all over parts of their job description. We've launched a new group and initiative in ITS to bring together some of these types of people in our own organization on a regular basis. The launch memo for ITS-ITANA should help paint the picture of what we're going to ask this group to do in its first year.
We have more people in ITS that think and "do" architecture than would make sense to try and pull together to be productive, so I trimmed the list of possible participants to what I thought was a good number to get started. One of the meta-issues we'll have to tackle in this first year is how to handle membership to keep the group fresh and vibrant. Also, if we have a good first year and learn how to make this work, we'll want to consider doing the same thing or something similar for IT at Penn State. But we're going to take a year to see how to make this idea work before trying to grow it.
Comments (3)
This is a great idea and I'm anxious to see it succeed. We know there is a lot we can learn from each other. The thoughts that I have are more just questions that probably won't really be answered until the group gets going. There is some definite overlap in the mission/goals of ITS ITANA and ITS ET. I could see investigative projects coming to ET from ITANA and wonder if that is part of the vision? Should ET take this into consideration while we are in the middle of project planning and budget allocation for this fiscal year?
How will the ITS ITANA group communicate its work and solicit feedback. Communication has always been one of the greatest challenges for our group with cross organizational responsibilities. Also, how closely will the national ITANA and ITS ITANA efforts map.
As you can see, I have questions that mostly can't be answered but didn't want you or others to think this was not of interest or on my mind.
Posted by Renee | August 15, 2007 8:15 AM
Posted on August 15, 2007 08:15
These are all great questions and ones that I expect the group will answer for itself to a large extent. You've hit some major areas though - how will the group work internally, across ITS, and with the national scene.
Posted by kevin | August 17, 2007 5:56 AM
Posted on August 17, 2007 05:56
Also, now when really difficult issues come up in DLT, we say "Oh, don't worry, ITS-ITANA will solve that" ;)
Posted by Mairead Martin | August 17, 2007 12:42 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 12:42