DRAFT
Context:
Norwich University is building at this time a significant strategic plan laying the groundwork and defining the actions of the University into the foreseeable future and beyond. The document “Norwich University 2019: Building on our past… strengthening our future” looks out 15 years to the beginning of our third century. This companion document is one of the “out” plans describing the underlying technology issues to be considered and included in the planning process. As we sit at the opening of the twenty-first century, technology has become a driving force in our society. Technology is altering our personal and professional lives. As we progress through the final throes of a manufacturing based economy embracing the knowledge driven economic models will also change Higher Education.
The rate of change for technology will be exponential as Moore’s Law continues to be true with the doubling of processing power every eighteen months continuing at least through the life of this plan. The other phenomena, the growth of knowledge is staggering. The continual spiral of processing power, storage, and sophistication of software will not relent in the near future pushing on budgets to stay current. This will impact the tech staff to stay current and build and maintain the infrastructure, faculty who need to stay current in rapidly evolving fields as well as teaching, and finally administrators to provide the community with technological enhancements expected in society at large.
The current higher education model is a manufacturing model; students progress through a series of processes (classes) in a prescribed manner where economies of scale can be derived by increasing the number of students in a specific major. Many distant learning initiatives were constructed to increase the number of students in the classes but did not look at the outcomes of the process. Higher education will need to change to survive. This will be felt more by larger institutions who built large classrooms and attempt to delegate teaching to a purely didactic exercise. New and innovative models will need to be created that build upon the technology and the interactive nature of the next generation of students. Faculty will need to explore the uses of technology to develop new models for teaching and learning. Such exploration, at the level needed to move the university forward requires an articulated vision, a plan for achieving it, a funding model, and a system of rewards for innovators.
The curriculum and student outcomes must add value that previously were not prima facie academic subjects: information assurance, technology of weapons of mass destruction, privacy in the ever connected world, as well as technical literacy.
Norwich University Board of Trustees invested in Connected Learning Communities or CliC where the I is individual. With this investment, Norwich made significant progress on infrastructure, support, and content. The goals of CliC are to create a connected community with ample resources to guarantee continued investment in technology. Looking at technology as an operating cost not capital investment. Built into the CliC model are increases in student fees to match the growing cost of technology in higher education.
This vision is attention to individual needs, meeting and exceeding those needs in our business – education. Interactions are customized to the individual. A component of this is content – relevant content. Relevant content drives the customers to continue to use our services. But also services and community – relationship over a lifetime with our community is our vision.
CliC provided the structure to meet expectations in infrastructure (hardware, network, classrooms), support (personnel), and content (servers and systems, faculty liaisons, software). Replacement plans exist as all equipment and software is installed. Personnel are available to assist in the use of technology for faculty, staff, and students. Internet connectivity and information servers are in place and grow on an annual basis to meet the community needs.
Definition- End State
The NU2019 document is constructed as three triangles: Academic Quality, National Reputation, and Robust Budget. Technology is represented in either the foundation or a key element of each major goal. Academic Quality is defined in terms of the raw material: students, the process: curriculum, and the people: faculty. As we increase the quality of our incoming student, they will have greater expectations for resources and experiences. The curriculum will need to include more experiential components and greater relevance to workplace. Faculty will need current technology and resources to engage students both on campus and off. National Reputation will be driven by the accomplishments of our faculty and students and the growth of several key centers of excellence. The students will get the opportunity for hands-on activity, faculty will be able to stay current and grow the knowledge of the field, and the curriculum benefits from resources that add value. The underpinning of the robust budget will be greater cost efficiency from employing technology, scholarships from programs like the NSA IASP, and revenue enhancement and cost sharing with University centers.
The technology environment at Norwich in 2019 is described in the following paragraphs. The University’s technology landscape is current to the time, with cutting edge development in a few areas associated with the University Centers of Excellence. Norwich excels at employing technology to support the teaching and learning environment. In much the same way, the graduate programs were constructed in a new model which pulled the best from Vermont College’s progressive education and built on academic strengths of the Undergraduate Northfield Campus; Norwich continues to be a leader in distributed education. The Undergraduate programs and faculty are using and depend on the ubiquitous access to computing resources.
Computing systems and networks are truly ubiquitous. If the University network is unavailable for any reason the University is closed. Most transactions are mediated by computers. Students use the systems for submitting and retrieving assignments, researching issues and examine theory with interactive simulations. Faculty collect and analyze data from various distant resources, build interactive elements for students, and execute and present scholarly research all depending on University computing resources. The systems are organized and configured around the three R’s redundant, reliable, and robust. In the event of hardware failure redundant equipment is in place for immediate fail over without the user community recognizing any degradation in service. The systems are reliable, much like telephone systems, the dial tone is always available. The systems are constructed with sufficient excess capacity to embrace the next application. Digital media and video over the network will be commonplace. The need for bandwidth will continue to grow exponentially. In short, robust for the purpose constructed, adequate operational elements processing power, storage, software, in keeping accepted standards.
Business continuity planning with appropriate contingencies must be developed to ensure ongoing operation of the University even in the event of a catastrophe that destroys the computing center. Alternate locations for continuous operation, both on campus and off, must be identified. Like any other risk mitigation, strategy costs be balanced with the level of risk the University is willing to accept. At a minimum an aggressive backup strategy and a duplicate on campus location should be derived. Some elements of the plan will include an alternate power source, alternate access to the internet, and ample redundancy in all layers of the information system.
Technology and computing equipment is viewed as an ongoing expense with a replacement plan for equipment as it is purchased. Technology is budgeted to guarantee we can continue to maintain our defined status. Common computing platforms are employed with various software images to meet the unique needs of the users. The University will, as much as possible in keeping with its academic missions, provide access to various systems and software in the educational process. However, standardization has a positive impact on cost and will be employed whenever possible. Technology or academic budgets include funds to innovate and try new technologies.
Particular elements of the environment are built upon a common computing architecture using an open systems design. Computing in the next several years will move more to network centric with the end user devices growing smaller and more convenient. User interface will be through a common element like today’s web browser. The University will build from common software components already integrated with our administrative system a unique information portal for access to information, the learning management system, virtual classrooms, and administrative support functions. The entry into this networked environment will be wireless technologies, over time wireless will evolve into mesh computing and other models like Microsoft’s SPOT technology. To support this model will require more centralized services including central data storage for students, faculty, and staff. The key elements of the network structure are non-repudiation, integrity, confidentiality, and definitively linking an action to a user.
The support for technology will grow as demand and level of service agreements rise. Growth areas will be in the “critical care” or first responders and the curriculum developers who help faculty build rich multimedia and interactive experiences. The helpdesk or first responders will evolve into the on hand personnel as the complexity of the teaching and learning environment grows. Professional development for Information Technology staff is critical as they lead the University in this dynamic technological environment. Students are an essential strategy in supporting the University community as an extension of the Computer Information Systems curriculum.
A key element of the 2019 strategic plan is cost efficiencies to fund the higher priority goals. Technology will play a central role to this effort with the implementation of best practice models and fully utilize our administrative information systems. The University will need to continue to focus on the transaction cost of each step in every process pushing decision making and accountability down to the essential level. As new elements are created they are included in object libraries for reuse. The underlying structure of the administrative systems supports object oriented design and as much as possible new elements are built on common object components.
The ideal architecture has a single point of entry for all transactions, authentication will be two or three factor including a biometric test. User access to resources, locations, roles, data, and processes is governed by a single directory structure linked to various services. The single point of sign-on is constructed of current technology to guarantee it is secure. The underlying operating systems are generally available systems used in business and academia, as much as possible we limit the variety and number of different operating systems. The technology department is housed in a central location with ample working space for all its staff.
Technology in the classroom will reflect changes in pedagogy with greater access to multimedia resources and the network. How technology is employed may redefine the academic space: the classroom. Technological changes will allow teaching to be more interactive, more customized and more collaborative. Strategic planning for technology must be directed toward enabling more interactive teaching/learning environments.
The final element of the technology plan is the use of technology as a lever to grow national reputation. The creation of Centers of Excellence in complimentary areas to our undergraduate programs that meet important national need. The National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education was the first of several complimentary centers to include the MicroManufacturing Center, Geographical Spatial Intelligence, Environmental Sciences, and the National Center for Study of Counter Terrorism and Cyber Crime. These centers create opportunities for faculty research, student internships and research, student scholarships, cost sharing, and public recognition of the University.
Challenges
The University faces significant challenges to embrace the goals and desired outcomes of the 2019 vision. In higher education the amount of monies spent on technology are increasing. The average percent of a higher education institution’s budget spent on technology is 7%, while Norwich in FY04 is planning on 4.8% of its expenses in this area. Attracting qualified personnel in the past has been difficult with our salary structure. This has been partially addressed and remains a high priority for President Schneider. Expectations of our students for services and staff for functionality and equipment continues to outpace our available funds. Bandwidth is more expensive because Norwich is located in a rural area.
- Availability of funds
- Expectations of our students and staff
- Access to affordable bandwidth
- Access to qualified personnel
Phases
The plan extends for more than fifteen years and therefore will be broken into three phases to match NU2019 planning document. The first phase as defined by NU2019 is the Strategic Foundation comprised of elements of Defining the Direction, Addressing issues of Academic Quality and National Reputation, and Cost Efficiency. The second phase is Revenue Enhancement followed by Improvement and Celebration. The nature of the adoption of new technology and its evolution suggest instead smaller phases for the technology plan:
Phase 1: The Three R’s (2004-2006)
Reliable, Robust, Redundant: The initial step is to put in place the bulletproof infrastructure required.
Infrastructure:
Content:
Support:
Outreach:
Phase 2: Innovation and Integration (2007-2009)
Infrastructure:
Content:
Support:
Outreach:
Phase 3: Emerging National Leader (2010-2012)
Phase 4: (2013-2015)
Phase 5: (2016-2018)
Norwich is recognized as a leader in several critical and narrow fields that build upon its undergraduate strengths. These fields are mainly technical in nature with theUniversity leading the knowledge creation. Active partnerships exist between Industry and Government and Norwich to address national issues.
Technology “Out-Plan” a component of Vision 2019
The changing nature of society and our students will require new models.
Funding for infrastructure, support and content.
Built in Replacement cost for PC’s, Student Labs, Servers.
Technology plan matches the NU2019 strategic plan.
Technology is an essential element of each strategic component:
Academic Quality
National Reputation
Robust Budget
Norwich excels at employing proven technologies
Ubiquitous computing is a reality
Reliability is a critical success factor
Contingency planning and Business continuity plans are essential
Open systems design
Common systems interface
Preferred access becomes wireless
Service level and support increases as technology becomes more complex
Tools and data are required for decision making
Single sign-on
New teaching and learning models are required.
Technology as a lever to grow National Reputation
National average for IT spending is 7%
Norwich IT spending 4.8%