0708 Advancement of Technology one-time funding - Academic ITCH Priorities
Please add your project proposals to the comments section of this page. Final prioritization will happen in November.
Selection of our priorities should be based on the following guidelines:
- needs to be enterprise-wide (the broader the better);
- projects that support the IT Strategic Plan;
- benefit from one time money; low, ongoing cost; a project that can be completed in about a year.
See also:
- draft-07-09-academic-it-budget-priorities for a list of previous projects
Benefit: A metasearch service would provide a single search interface that would allow simultaneous searching of multiple research databases. A full text linking service would allow users who find a citation to an article in a database that does not provide full text online (this would include Google Scholar, which is important) to link to that article in full text in another database to which we subscribe. Both services would significantly increase use of our subscription research databases, and, if they work well, should significantly facilitate student and faculty research.
Estimated Cost: 8 – 18k, depending on the vendor we choose.
Urgency: This year. We currently have an old metasearch service that has never worked very well. We have been trialing newer, better services for the past few months. This is the right time for the library to try them out.
Delivery on existing backlog: The vast majority of academic libraries provide a service of this sort, and most have upgraded to a current generation service. Full text linking services are also quite standard in academic libraries. Evergreen should move quickly to see if we should be following this well-developed trend.
Supporting the Mission of the Institution: Both services, if they work well, would significantly facilitate research in all areas of the college.
Risk/impact of not doing: We could be missing an opportunity to facilitate research in an area that is widely understood to be the most difficult for novice library users. We would remain in a relatively small group of academic libraries that do not provide these services.
Benefit: A coordinated effort to develop an institutional repository for archives, images, labs, digital objects of all kinds would be a excellent database driven searchable tool for faculty to use in the curriculum, submit work to, and share information. Many schools have implemented similar systems and Evergreen is currently engaged in multiple separate projects which ultimately defeat the goal of a singular repository and leveraging all the functionality of an enterprise-wide system.
Estimated Cost:78k with incidental costs (hiring impacts), added supervisory, training and coordination rolls for someone
Urgency:next year?
Delivery on existing backlog: Separate systems are being developed and more requested by different areas all the time. There is a need but no central coordination or time/money to implement a larger solution
Supporting the Mission of the Institution: It would greatly enhance delivery of the curriculum by making digitial object storage easy to do and accessible to all faculty and students in academic programs. The focus would be faculty driven and so it directly supports the mission.
Risk/impact of not doing: Hnders the institutions ability to share institutional digital objects reasonably. Many systems are being put into place currently and we run the risk of duplication of effort and resources many times over without the benefit if we aren't proactive.
Benefit: By spending our dollars directly at training our faculty, we are providing them the technical skills and expertise to more effectively do their jobs.
Estimated Cost:35k with no incidental costs (hiring, maintenance, etc..) and a pre-existing delivery mechanism.
Urgency: This summer
Delivery on existing backlog: Training is hard to quantify this way, but one might say there is considerable backlog of technical and skill training in our faculty pool..
Supporting the Mission of the Institution: It's all about teaching and learning. I think this directly supports the mission of the college as well as numerous connections to the strategic plan (see below)
Risk/impact of not doing: We are always patching systems and this is no different. We can (and will if need be) get along without it. The positive results from past faculty summer technical institutes in promoting faculty's ability to use the tools we support is without question. This is a proven successful model and worth expanding on.
- 2.1.2 Integrate faculty into technology support and,
- 2.1.3 Promote and Expand Faculty Opportunities and,
- 2.1.4 Coordinate new technology initiatives and,
- 2.4.1 Technology and Information Literacy Implementation
FYI We've been exploring a Print manager/billing system for some time. We've been working with Print Manager Plus. The next version (out any time they say) will support CAS authentication, which we really need. It has had a hell of a time computing actual billing costs for Epson printers, so I'll refrain from giving a thumbs up just yet. I'll keep you appraised.
Project Summary:
Proposal to do an assessment of and investigation into methods to manage our internet bandwidth. The purpose of the project is to assess our current bandwidth needs so that the college can forecast future needs and to discover techniques for managing our bandwidth to better serve the mission of the institution. The project will involve increasing our bandwidth for a period
Benefit:
Currently our internet bandwidth is severely constrained during the fall, winter, spring academic quarters. This constraint limits the ability of the institution to leverage new technologies and approaches to global sharing of information. The demand for more internet based services has grown to the point that use on campus has also begun to limit our ability to provide core services such as reliable connections with partner sites such as the state library. This investigation would provide for training on the current industry standards in internet bandwidth management so we will be able to provide for critical services and dedicate internet bandwidth to where it is needed most.
Estimated Cost:
Urgency:
The institution has reached a critical plateau with regard to our ability to use internet based technology to deliver on our mission. Ultimately some increased funding for bandwidth will occur. Without the opportunity for learning and exploration provided by this project, we will be constrained to simply following the same moderately effective strategies we have pursued in the past.
Delivery on Existing Backlog:
Certain mission critical services are being severely constrained to the point of being dysfunctional. Without the benefits of this proposal we will need to at least increase permanent funding to provide more bandwidth but without the information and management techniques that this project will provide, the cost/benefit of just spending more will be limited.
Supporting the Mission of the Institution:
Many if not most facets of the mission of the institution rely on our ability to electronically engage our constituents and partners beyond the local campus network. Funding this proposal will position us to better serve all of these diverse needs in the future.
Risk/Impact of not doing:
If this project is not funded, we will need to increase bandwidth to ensure that our connections beyond the campus border are not crippled to the point of being dysfunctional. Unfortunately without the assessment of needs, training and investigation that this project will provide, we will be continuing to just fill in the gaps and provide adequate service instead of directly and precisely meeting the needs of the institution.