Action Item 8.01
The current backlog in information systems requests should be reduced to the point where no such request sits in queue for more than 12 months. Efforts should be made to increase the level of staffing in the UIS division of ITS—at least for a limited amount of time—to reduce this backlog.
According to projections made by ITS, the queue of requested/required information systems work is such that the current staffing level in the UIS division will take ten years to empty the queue. This is not only untenable from the standpoint of delays to meeting vital demands, but also threatens to put the institution into a situation where increased ad hoc decisions about systems acquisition and development will lead to a “patchwork” environment. Such an environment might make the institution more “ripe” for consideration of the massive enterprise resource planning (ERP) efforts that have been seen across higher education the past decade; these ERP efforts carry huge price tags and investments in them will most certainly divert funds from other needed initiatives within LSU (both IT and academic initiatives). Simply put, LSU can not afford these massive ERP efforts, and failure to ensure the function and value of the LSU information systems environment (through perpetuation of this huge 10-year backlog) makes it more likely that a crisis in information systems might lead to such an ERP decision. Creative means to fund staffing to eliminate this backlog, as detailed in action item 4.09, should be considered. As well, once the backlog is reduced, a staffing plan for UIS should be created which preserves a minimal queue and ensures prompt address of future information systems requests.
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Action Item 8.02
The Office of the CIO should establish an effective mechanism for overall prioritization, coordination, and oversight of planning for the development and life-cycle replacement of University information systems in accordance with the University’s overall strategic plans and goals. Opening the lines of communication with the user community at large will facilitate understanding of competing needs, collaborative projects, and user-driven changes and applications.
The provisioning of information systems is expensive and time consuming for any organization. This presents a particular challenge for institutions of higher education, (IHEs), in light of scarce funding and resources. As a result, it is imperative that dollars spent on information systems be spent wisely and strategically. While the user community has a wide array of desires for new applications, staffing in UIS cannot immediately respond to user demands nor can UIS personnel work within a vacuum. Proper and ongoing development of an information systems strategy is dependent upon having a mechanism through which requests for information systems and the Flagship Agenda can be reconciled, a unified position that can be presented to the campus community and vendors, and necessary direction in the allocation of scarce funds and human resources. Over the last several years, information systems development and acquisition at LSU has been approached in an ad hoc manner. In spite of this, a number of systems and services have been deployed to address University requirements. But an equal or greater number of requirements have been incompletely satisfied, or simply not addressed at all, leading to a decreased satisfaction in the customers of information systems at LSU.
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Action Item 8.03
A more formal information systems liaison function should be put in place to manage the relationship between UIS and units within the organizations of each of the Vice-Chancellors and the Colleges.
Key to ensuring that information systems projects are effectively and efficiently implemented is the need for knowledgeable functional representatives in each of the major “business units” responsible to coordinate projects with ITS. One relationship that has proven successful in the identification of requirements and in effectively advancing systems development projects in a highly efficient manner has been the one that exists between UIS and Financial Systems Services (FSS). This working relationship has proven successful time and again in developing specifications for systems, setting priorities, and smoothing implementation difficulties. FSS serves as a bridge between the business units and UIS, and ensures that requirements and technical information are translated and understood by all parties involved. Perhaps, this structure should be replicated in other areas to improve the system development or purchase and implementation processes. Key areas for consideration are enrollment/student services, and research administration.
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Action Item 8.04
ITS, through the UIS Division, should develop information systems that (1) encourage research and scholarly productivity and (2) foster quality and competitiveness in graduate and undergraduate students. Further, UIS should continue to develop and/or implement systems that foster the efficient and effective day-to-day operation of the University.
Well-designed information systems facilitate achievement of institutional goals (Flagship Agenda) and transform business processes. The new Sponsored Programs System (SPS), for example, is an initiative that represents a mutual commitment among UIS, the Office of Sponsored Programs, and Finance and Administrative Services to fulfill critical needs within the research community. This new application will allow for the appropriate apportioning of credit to specific investigators participating in projects on behalf of specific departments. It will also streamline research project proposal submission and approval.
Anticipated enhancements to the online registration system represent an extension of administrative transactional data into meaningful course management tools for both students and faculty. New processes to expand schedule planning, track academic progress, and project future course needs are examples of application efforts focused toward increased student retention and reduced time to graduation. A continued commitment by academic administrative units to partner with UIS to evaluate and/or transform student processing is essential to the ultimate success of this development.
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Action Item 8.05
UIS should develop a consolidated information delivery environment, leveraging technologies and data environments already in use and expanding these with deployment of newer reporting tools and infrastructure. Further, UIS should implement an enterprise-wide data warehouse environment to support academic analytics. Planning and implementation should be inclusive of interested parties and should consider new and evolving approaches.
The University must significantly enhance the accessibility and delivery of information for decision making. Concerns about security, privacy, and disaster recovery should be balanced with the institution’s need to function effectively. The environment should enable users to access information without needing to understand complex technologies, perhaps by defining data formatting (tag) schemes that are readily understood and/or implementing standard interface technologies such as ODBC. When appropriate, users should be able to extract information into documents and spreadsheets.
Data Warehousing
The architecture of data used in operational systems that focus on processes and “how to” is very different than that used in information systems that focus on decision making and “what if.” The University has invested significantly in its operational systems and only scarcely in informational systems. A data warehouse architecture enables data to be cleaned, extricated, and merged in order to provide information that impacts decision making and strategic planning. Using the data warehouse approach, reports and queries are executed outside of the transactional system in order to maintain the security and integrity of vital business processes. Users are able to analyze trends, manipulate data in various ways, and make better-informed decisions affecting teaching, learning, and research. It is imperative that the report and query functions be user-driven and not dependent upon ITS in their development.
Information Collection
LSU must continue to successfully gather initial points of data that can later be extrapolated into information. The applications and storage systems in place must be maintained and upgraded for continuity.
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Action Item 8.06
UIS should incorporate user-centered design techniques in major systems development projects. A common interface environment will support the efficient and effective accomplishment of the day-to-day administrative tasks of the University.
User-Centered Design
A goal for all of the University’s information systems is selection and development of technologies that are appropriate to the needs of their various users, suitable to the business need that is being addressed, and intuitive. To achieve this, there should be a commitment made to user-centered design, employing the latest research in human–computer interfaces and bringing an explicit focus on usability of University information systems.
Common Interface
University information systems are used to varying degrees by different constituencies. It is important, therefore, to use a consistent and integrated interface in applications, data, and systems to make them more user-friendly. Routing and approval, for example, is common to many information systems and should be approached consistently across the board.
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Action Item 8.07
New, more capable application and systems development and delivery environments should be evolved with a focus on accounting for and managing the technology life cycle process.
An information technology exploratory function should be developed within UIS to identify new technologies that could improve basic technology services to the campus community and enterprise information systems within the University, and to make cost-effective investments in core technologies such as storage.
For the past 30 years, application development and delivery has been accomplished at LSU through the use of a very stable set of tools and techniques which have enabled UIS to continue to produce new information systems despite dwindling human resources. The technology in use consists of third- and fourth-generation languages, (COBOL and SAS), hierarchical and relational database management systems (IBM IMS and DB2), data communication tools (IBM MQSeries and DB2 Connect), and an Internet application environment (Lotus Domino). UIS has extracted more utility and service from this product suite than anyone in the industry would have thought possible. But technology has progressed, and in order to be positioned to support information systems in the future, deliver systems at a faster pace, deliver the type of functionality today’s customers demand, and eliminate over-interdependency of its myriad applications, UIS must begin to evolve the technology base supporting information systems for the University, while at the same time, leveraging existing systems to make that evolution as seamless as possible.
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Action Item 8.08
ITS must carefully balance the value of self-developed systems (a build approach) with a model that leverages the market of available, off-the-shelf systems (a buy approach). Neither approach should be exclusive in ITS strategy for delivery of information systems needed by the University.
“Build versus Buy” is a defining question of a modern information systems development organization. There is no single approach that is effective; each system required must be independently evaluated. However, this is not the same as an ad hoc approach! Decisions about which approach to take are interdependent upon previous decisions made in concentric systems, and impact subsequent decisions that will present themselves. However, a general principle that calls for a complete and open analysis of market options, and a predisposition toward cost effective and timely implementations should be put into place.
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Action Item 8.09
UIS should implement a tiered storage architecture for storage of the University’s institutional data and integrate this technology with database management systems to support image, sound, and video data types.
This architecture should provide for the purchase and implementation of storage, such that the requirements of an application drive the tier to which its data is stored. At the same time, massive storage for University information systems should not be in conflict with technology that will be implemented as part of LSU’s research computing and computational grid elements as discussed in Recommendation VI.
The University generates a tremendous amount of data and information everyday. To house that data and information, large amounts of disk storage are maintained within the data center. That storage technology, however, ranges across a number of vendors and generations with the result that there is no single, integrated storage solution available across systems, and a significant amount of that storage is aging. Much of it is also relatively expensive, preventing departmental users from leveraging it for their own needs. In some cases it is desirable for systems and storage to be independent; for the majority of computer systems; however, a single storage paradigm would be superior to a varied and distributed one. In addition, the events of 2005 and the experiences of our colleagues in institutions located in New Orleans have demonstrated the need for newer storage technology that can provide the redundant capabilities necessary to address disaster recovery requirements.
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Action Item 8.10
ITS should explore and then deploy a service architecture that increases fault tolerance in the access of information systems and utilities, without destroying the service levels achieved via the PAWS portal.
LSU has achieved recognition for the highly integrated and user-friendly common interface presented by PAWS (a Web-based portal). However, this common interface has also been reflected in an information systems architecture that is so tightly coupled that failure in one component can bring complete access to all systems and utilities (like e-mail) to a complete halt (or significantly degraded level of performance). In other words, the current environment’s tight coupling of all information systems actually can reduce the flexibility of access to key component systems in the event of a single point of failure, or more broadly impacting disaster. Without losing the benefits of a highly integrated common interface, ITS must explore and deploy new architectures that provide at the very least alternate access to key systems in a more fault tolerant manner. This might include direct access via the Web (and outside of PAWS) for such key services as e-mail. But at the very least, in the physical architecture behind the common interface, separation exists that promotes greater fault tolerance, increased redundancy in processing paths, and faster and more effective recovery of key services in the event of a component outage or disaster.
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