Administrative Computing Committee

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Minutes of Meetings:

February 10, 2000
3:45 pm, Steinmetz 106

Present: Peck (for Adey), Brace, Cossey, Gleason, Klein, Manchester, McCann, Dave R., Tobiessen, Wolf.

Agenda / Minutes:
1. Introductions and charge to the committee.
Doug Klein welcomed the group, thanked them for agreeing to serve, and expressed his confidence that this committee will be effective in planning and coordinating administrative IT policy.  He urged committee members to follow the discussions of the parallel academic committee (link at left), and suggested that the two committees will meet jointly from time to time.

As an aside, Doug Klein suggested that he thought that technical literacy should be a consideration in ANY hiring decision on campus.

2. Overview of Administrative Computing - Dave R. outlined the growth of demands on administrative computing resources over the last decade.  He then reviewed the Datatel 16 conversion timeline over the next year, and the broader strategic plan for academic computing over the next two years.

3. Choosing our battles.  Doug Klein asked each member of the Committee to propose two or three goals for the Committee to achieve over the next year or two.  Committee members will submit their ideas via e-mail.

Here are the goals proposed by committee members:

Plan and Prioritize:  Develop a long-term Strategic Plan for Administrative Computing.  Include the entire "wish list" or ideal  world for Union technology.  Judge projects by their value (who benefits and by how much) and their resource costs (what do we already have, what more do we need in staffing and funding).  [Economists call this a benefit-cost analysis.]  Develop realistic timelines; establish intermediate goals.  Assure continuing support (both financial and staffing) for the strategic plan.

Budgeting:  Assist in the development and application of the new capital budgeting system as it applies to information technology.

Representation: Make sure that the needs and concerns of every administrative unit are represented.

Efficiency gains:  Create an IT environment in which data can be more easily shared with less redundancy; reduce the need to re-key information.  Implement improved scheduling software.  Explore the best records storage and management system for the College.

Applications: One obvious area requiring all of these considerations is an overall assessment of and plan for campus-wide database needs. A second area is developing a campus-wide records management and retrieval plan. A third is the development of an integrated advising and registration system.

For the next meeting, bring list of desktop computing needs for your responsibility center.  The agenda will also include an overview of the Integrated Advising System proposal (See Academic committee minutes from February 2.)

Next meeting:
Thursday, February 17, 2000, 11:00 am, same room (Stmz. 106)
REMINDER: No meeting Feb. 24; then meet again March 2.

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Page maintained by J. Douglass Klein, Associate Dean for Information Technology.
Last updated 08/15/2001