PSU-IT: June 2007 Archives

The Identity and Access Management Group is off to an excellent start. Their web site is self explanatory for the most part, but I wanted to reiterate a few things here.

At Penn State, we've had a long and successful history of being on a variety of edges in the IAM world. For example, staying close to the large and dynamic group of middleware experts in the Internet2 world have helped to keep us in an interesting place and a very helpful place for Penn State.

Over the last year, it became clear that we need to take some time to level set and recalibrate what our IAM roadmap should be at Penn State - and that's a big piece of what this group is doing. For me, however, the undisputed most important part of this group's activities is creating a sustainable, vibrant community of people who understand each others' needs and can better anticipate each other's needs in the future. The early indications are that this is indeed happening and - while difficult to explain how important this is at a backyard picnic with neighbors - is very, very exciting.

Renee Shuey (ITS) and Joel Weidner (HFS) are co-chairing the group and I'm sure would be happy to entertain any questions that might come up about the project. If you take a moment to check out their web site and have any thoughts to share, please do.

Last week, the Smeal College of Business hosted the Technology In Business Schools Roundtable Annual Meeting. Cole Camplese and I both delivered presentations late on Thursday morning, following a kickoff of sorts by the Dean of the college, Jim Thomas. In his presentation, he asked that the audience (comprised almost exclusively by Director's of IT from about 50 college's of business across the country) imagine for a moment that they were dean's of their colleges and were having a conversation with their CIOs/Director's of IT. He delivered the information in top ten style - here are his paraphrased points:

10. Define what you mean by online learning.
9. Think of IT as a key to collaboration, communication, community building etc. 8. Preach, emplore, lecture, demand - alignment.
7. Get your CIO involved in the strategy of the school, CIO should be sitting on the executive committees so he/she is part of strategy development.
6. How does this new shiny thing increase our rankings?
5. Ask your cio what the IT strategy is - if it's about technology, it's a waste of time.
4. Don't pretend that you know the difference between a bit and a byte.
3. Understand that it's ok to ask for a second opinion (trust but verify) when you need to - and that you and your CIO should do it together.
2. Make sure IT isn't just reactive to new faculty and student demands.
1. Sit down and talk with your CIO about all of the devices students are carrying around.

That's not word for word or anything, but I hope it captures the essence of each point. A few other ITS people were there - if you see something that isn't quite on the mark...holla. It's a good list to ponder.