Action Item 1.01
The University should provide its employees with the modern information technology needed to be productive, including a standard level of desktop computers. As a part of this, the University should provide centralized life cycle replacement for its stock of computers.
While the level of sophistication in hardware may vary depending on the user, all LSU employees that conduct work on a personal computer should have the basic technology to be productive. At minimum, this technology should be able to run the most-up-to-date software and have the latest operating system in place to ensure the machine is secure and functions well. Old operating systems hurt the security and integrity of LSU’s network.
Action Item 1.02
Classrooms and labs should have standardized, basic multimedia functions that are “the latest and greatest technologies,” upgraded regularly, and well-maintained.
While classroom technologies do not usually drive pedagogy, they are used to enhance student learning. A faculty member must be assured that any classroom to which he or she is assigned will have a basic set of functioning tools that are ready for use. Standardized basic tools will facilitate easy transitions from room to room. Instructors should not have to worry that their lesson may be delayed by technical difficulties or that what they have prepared to use is not compatible with the equipment available. Such assurances will encourage the further integration of technologies into the classroom experience.
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Action Item 1.03
To begin this process and to support subsequent actions regarding sound fiscal planning, an inventory all of the institution’s information technology assets should be commissioned and completed.
It is important to have a central database documenting all of LSU’s information technology resources. The community desires to know what the University has, and such knowledge will act as a starting point of reference for all exercises focused on building and solidifying the IT infrastructure at LSU. Knowledge of existing resources will inform the modernization process and the security of LSU’s network. ITS should be charged to coordinate this inventory, but all units on campus must also be charged to contribute to and support this activity.
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Action Item 1.04
In order for the University to continue its advances, significant resources must be directed to the overall design, development, modernization, and maintenance of a robust central computing center (Frey Computing Services Center).
The Frey Computing Services Center is a relatively new facility, featuring a great deal of usable floorspace. However, it was designed in an era when power and cooling densities for computing equipment were significantly less than they are today. Though today’s computing equipment that supports research, teaching and learning, and University information processing takes up less and less space, the technology requires greater amounts of power, and consequently, more powerful cooling systems to eliminate the larger amounts of heat generated. The Frey machine room currently runs near power and cooling capacity. As the University updates and expands the number of computing resources housed in Frey, additional cooling and power supplies must be provided.
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Action Item 1.05
The IT infrastructure needs of future buildings on the LSU campus—especially computing-intensive facilities—must be addressed prior to construction.
As buildings are renovated and new facilities are constructed, the designs must take into account not only the wiring and network needs of the facility, but the cooling, ventilation, and power demands of increasingly technical building functions. Whereas space demands are at a premium on campus, and there is a particular exigency for research space, construction plans should be forward-thinking and take into account the specialized IT needs of the facility.
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Action Item 1.06
The campus network, and its connections to external networks (both commodity Internet and advanced research networks), must be able to handle large volumes of traffic and be nearly flawless in its reliability and availability.
The network has to be robust enough to run unlimited transactions, especially during periods of unusually high volumes (class registration). No one should be hampered by a slow network or unable to run a batch feed because he or she is working during a peak usage time. In an IT abundant environment, people do not have to put their important transactions (the business of the University) on hold because of a busy network. There should be a strategic system in place for building and upgrading the network. This strategy should encompass University-provided life-cycle replacement of basic infrastructure that enables technology for the campus community, including suitable lifecycle replacement programs for its switches, wiring, networks, and telephony.
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Action Item 1.07
Electronic mail systems are the heart of communication infrastructure for LSU community members, and a key network utility fostering collaboration and communication across the institution and, more broadly, to the outside world. In today’s world of high e-mail volumes and large attachments, a service suite for e-mail that provides adequate storage and options for user interfaces must be deployed as part of the basic network services infrastructure at LSU.
E-mail is the primary communication vehicle in the twenty-first century networked world. Recently, LSU has made great strides in providing a highly usable e-mail solution for its students, but offerings for faculty and staff are woefully inadequate. ITS should immediately review e-mail service suite offerings for all members—shifting its paradigm for service offerings from a student versus faculty/staff view, to one that evaluates institutional versus individual user needs. It seems clear that e-mail is becoming a commodity, but that does not diminish the dependence the LSU community’s dependence on it; in fact, it only heightens awareness of discrepancies between readily available services (high capacities), and those currently available on campus (greatly constricted). What is needed is a set of solutions that provide a set of options for institutional users who need reliability and system integrity, and individual users whose primarily concerns are market and cost factors.
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Action Item 1.08
The IT infrastructure at LSU should be flexible enough in its architecture to respond to innovation and changing needs/priorities, and take advantage of a wide variety of opportunities presented by the marketplace. Decisions on vendors must be made with an eye toward maintaining this flexibility. It does not seem wise for LSU to “single source” itself with one IT vendor, but instead, to rely upon a garden of architectures and a strategic suite of diverse technology vendors.
The University’s progress should not be hampered by its technology. Unfortunately, in efforts to simplify the process of dealing with vendors, and in an attempt to broadly leverage IT purchases, LSU appears to have limited its options. In the future, the University should not limit itself to reliance on a single or very limited set of vendors. At present, the marketplace is too open and opportunities for competitive acquisition too great for LSU to be, by its own choice, single sourced. This limitation appears, to the community, to have constrained both the architectural decisions for providing systems and the diversity of technologies available for use by the campus community. The community certainly understands that there are intelligent and valuable reasons for leveraging purchases, but this must be carefully balanced with the provision of a diverse infrastructure, and one that may be holistically more cost effective.
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Action Item 1.09
The University-wide deployment of wireless network infrastructure should be advanced so that such access is ubiquitous and pervasive.
Wireless networking has reached maturity and its deployment at universities is now an expected infrastructure component, rather than a luxury. Most significantly, students and faculty are no longer bound by a need to connect to a fixed network connection in order to access resources. Wireless networking frees users to be truly mobile, and to access the world of Internet-based information resources and services wherever they are on campus. The presence of a pervasive and ubiquitous wireless network across our campus stimulates adoption of mobile computing technologies, which is key to twenty-first century teaching, learning, and living environments. LSU should strive to quickly—before the end of academic year 2006-07—upgrade and expand its wireless network on campus to a level that meets or exceeds coverage seen at any institution in the nation.
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Action Item 1.10
Realizing that the paradigm for personal computing is transforming to one far more dependent upon mobile technologies (such as laptops and personal digital assistant devices), the University should plan for the power needs of these devices, specifically, by finding ways to allow the mobile user to re-charge batteries or exchange common batteries.
In order to enable the use of portable devices and IT solutions, on-campus resources for recharging mobile devices must be plentiful. Power is everything, and the reliance on more mobile devices will only underscore this assertion. Potential solutions should provide for a greater availability of “walk-up” or “sit-down” power access, as well as potential solutions for hot-swapping of a standard array of battery devices via some sort of staffed or kiosk facility. The University should undertake a study of the cost of providing this power, and identify or develop suitable funding sources.
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Action Item 1.11
Innovative uses of recycled technologies should be encouraged.
While modernization of University technology is a key priority of this plan, the potential functionality of many machines may outlast the original intended use of the equipment. Older machines that no longer support the latest software for the office, lab, or classroom may find extended use as an e-mail kiosk, a print server, or as part of a commodity/recycle research cluster. The community must be careful not to create needs for burdensome maintenance or support in an effort to extend the useful life of equipment. Given reasonable guidance, older technologies can be put to useful service for LSU without adding to the financial or human support burden normally attendant to an outdated piece of equipment in a production setting.
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