AgendaJOG/CPG Meeting January 16-17, 2002 - San Diego
Minutes
JOINT OPERATIONS GROUP
January 16-17, 2002
UC San Diego
MEETING NOTES
Day 1
UCSD Welcome (Relyea)
UCSD Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs Steve Relyea welcomed JOG members
to UCSD. He summarized the COVCA's current position on the NBA: The Vice
Chancellors have identified technology infrastructure, HRIS, and e-procurement
as priorities.
Infrastructure. The COVCA seeks JOG advice on how to proceed in improving infrastructure, including a common UC directory, a review of password policies, single authentication/authorization, and XML. The Regents are particularly interested in UC financial data from disparate systems being readily available for UC-wide reporting. Rather than installing common financial systems, XML is intended to serve as a technology for achieving Regental objectives.
E-procurement. The Vice Chancellors believe the University should proceed with exploring an e-procurement solution to produce savings in costs of goods and services. Nevertheless, the e-procurement business model requires further development; project funding may be obtained through the implementation of transaction fees, institutional support, and debt financing.
HRIS. The Vice Chancellors support the building-block option for HRIS, which involves major enhancements to PPS, beginning with creation of a new Web-based front end in combination with other initiatives.
NBA Funding. The Vice Chancellors are aware that funding the NBA is a serious concern and that resources are required for software and people. In addition, there are costs involved with achieving integration with legacy systems and having IT personnel devoting time to establishing NBA systems instead of their regular functions.
NBA Update (Campbell and Dolgonas):
(The NBA Update presentation is posted on the Web at http://www.ucop.edu/irc/jog.)
Campbell highlighted the COVCA's Nov. 29 NBA discussion. The consensus was that the NBA project as whole is too large to implement at present. Instead, the Vice Chancellors decided to proceed with establishment of the enabling technology infrastructure (leveraging current work such as the UCSD portal) and implementation of e-procurement at one or more campuses. Enabling technology is necessary to achieve the cost benefits of e-procurement. The cost to proceed with e-procurement is $35 million. It was suggested that an external loan may be obtained: UCOP would provide the campuses with funding for e-procurement, and the loan would be recovered through transaction fees, which would constitute a percentage of the savings achieved through e-procurement. Dolgonas said that once the one-time costs are paid, transaction fees could be reduced. Don Worth said that the on-going costs remain high.
JOG discussion covered whether estimated budgets make clear the need for continual funding beyond the initial one-time commitment. Campbell said that such "life cycle" funding will be a key feature of the IT Planning and Budgeting model that JOG members will develop with budget and planning officers. Jack McCredie asked whether it would be more beneficial, during this lean budgetary period, to put the limited resources available toward educational tools rather than e-procurement.
Enabling Technology. To launch the enabling technology project, Senior Vice President Mullinix said that he will try to obtain central funding for software (the campuses will fund the FTEs and hardware). JOG will determine what common software technology UCOP should fund centrally; not all nine campuses will have to use it. Campuses were asked to provide information about the campus-specific resources needed to implement centrally funded software for common authorization, XML, directories, and portals.
Enabling technology products have not yet been specified. There are several leading portal/content management products; two currently are in use at UCSD and the UCSF Medical Center but products will have to be obtained through a competitive bid. The authorization project is not as advanced; again, JOG members will be asked provide input on the needs for authorization software and to suggest potential products so that an RFP may be issued.
E-procurement. E-procurement has been discussed twice at the COVCA meetings. The Vice Chancellors agreed that it is necessary to be able to provide a better analysis of the financial assumptions underlying the e-procurement model so that campuses may decide whether they wish to implement it. Vice President Broome will obtain more information from budget and purchasing offices. The KPMG consultants recommended a two-tier solution for E-procurement, divided up by central or common elements (tier 1), and by campus-specific elements (tier 2), which include business rules, workflow, security, settlement, and campus-specific catalog content. Dolgonas said the project is expected to break even in terms of financing in seven years after implementation, with a positive cash flow in three years, assuming the price reductions in the KPMG report. JOG members were asked to determine whether the analysis of tier 2 costs is accurate for their campuses.
Management of catalog content is a major component of e-procurement. Because the University is committed to supporting small vendors, the model allows for campuses to select local vendors that could supply that campus but couldn't support all campuses. In general, under the proposed model the supplier will provide the catalog content, although UC staff will review it to make sure it is useable.
Cost avoidance will be achieved through a consolidation of purchase volumes and reduction of off-contract buying, a more automated process for low-value orders and a reduction in P-card purchases from different vendors. Questions were raised about how to convince faculty offices and labs to use the new purchase process, thus reducing maverick buying. Mike Allred said the experience at UCD has been that people choose to use a new system because it's good. Further, at UCLA reports are sent to Deans indicating the savings that could have been realized if the new process had been used. Dolgonas said that e-procurement works well for UCLA and the Livermore Lab.
The Vice Chancellors asked that each campus's cost for enabling technology be determined, and that a number of campuses agree to participate in e-procurement.
HRIS. The HRIS component of the NBA was not presented at the Nov. 29 COVCA meeting because of lack of time. However, the Vice Chancellors reviewed the proposal in July, and posed five questions at that time, which were answered in today's presentation. The Vice Chancellors are reaching agreement that the best HRIS option is a hybrid, scaled-back solution that keeps PPS in place for payroll purposes and uses a building-block strategy to develop an HR component. The building-block strategy involves a UCOP HR data warehouse, an HRIS that is phased-in at one or more pilot campuses, common interfaces to PPS and the warehouse, modification of the PPS to meet urgent needs, and common bolt-on products. The KPMG-recommended HRIS architecture would leverage the existing technology infrastructure, including IBM mainframes and the CalREN2 backbone network.
One of the COVCA questions was whether it would be practical to implement E-procurement and HRIS solutions concurrently given the potential impact on campus users. The general response was negative, unless central resources could be enhanced. However, in light of the decision to implement a hybrid HRIS solution and e-procurement, the question will be rephrased and posed again to the campuses.
Funding for the NBA enabling technology is $25M: $5M for the data warehouse, $2.5M for reengineering PPS and a Web interface, and $17.5 M for development of an ERP for one pilot campus. Another approach involves $7.5 M for a data warehouse and PPS, and using UCB's PeopleSoft model, which will be launched July 2002, as the pilot. A meeting is set for February 5 for personnel from UCOP HR and IR&C to learn more about the UCB solution.
NBA Action Summary: Questions for Campuses from the NBA Presentation
- E-procurement
- Which campuses will proceed with e-procurement?
- Are the Tier 2 campus costs for e-procurement reasonable? Do the campuses accept these estimates for planning purposes? Is the cost analysis sound?
- Provide additional recommendations about e-procurement for the "go forward" plan to present to the COVCA on Jan. 31.
- IR&C will send JOG members the detail for on-going costs for e-procurement, showing estimated costs for "people" instead of "consultants."
Enabling Technology
- What common software technology (or products), including central licenses, should UCOP fund centrally?
- Provide information about campus-specific resource needs to implement portal, directory, authentication, and XML-define the amount that each campus already has spent on each project and the amount that remains to be spent.
HRIS
- IR&C will send JOG members the costs for each component of the HRIS building block option.
NBA
- Provide feedback on whether it's feasible to concurrently implement e-procurement and a hybrid HRIS from the standpoint of the potential impact on campus users.
Universitywide Highlights
PKI (Jim Dolgonas and David Wasley). The PKI process is working in pilot at UCOP and will begin to be implemented at several campuses over the next few months. UCOP is working with UCD, UCLA, and UCI to provide them the necessary certification authority equipment and infrastructure.
- ACTION: Other campuses that wish to participate should contact Dolgonas.
David Wasley said that Educause has taken on the role of operating the higher education bridge certification authority linking the PKIs of different institutions. There will be cross certification with the federal bridge, meaning that faculty members will be able to sign grant proposals on-line.
Business Process Continuity (Jim Dolgonas). The planning group has been formed, and includes controllers as well as IT personnel. The scope encompasses business process continuity across UC, with disaster recovery as a subset of continuity. The group will meet February 13 at UCOP.
Audit Feedback (Jim Dolgonas). The UC wide audit comments this year did not cover IT (unlike last year's comments). Dolgonas and Campbell will meet with the auditors to prepare for the next audit cycle. ACTION: There will be a new PriceWaterhouseCoopers auditor, and JOG members should let Dolgonas or Campbell know if there are issues the auditor should be aware of.
Library Update (David Walker). The schedule for the Melvyl successor, which currently is undergoing testing, will be announced mid January. The hardware acquisition has not been announced yet. Melvyl currently has the union catalog and nine abstracting and indexing databases; these will not be reimplemented at the CDL. All databases will use native Web interfaces.
An offer has been made to a candidate for the University Librarian position.
BSA Audit (Patrick Collins). Assemblymember Oropeza requested that the Bureau of State Audits (BSA) conduct an audit of the Partnership Agreement between UC and the State. The audit will require approximately 3,000 hours of work. There are six audit objectives, although the auditors are focusing are objective 4 and 6. Objective 4 involves the growth of administrative expenses over time. The auditors visited UC Davis and want to use payroll expenditures data to look at change in expenses over five years and have requested data from the Corporate Personnel System.
Objective 6 involves the annual instructional technology report. They want to replicate it and see if they come to the same conclusions. This is in the early stages now, but they will be requesting data from the campuses. JOG members should review the letter from University Auditor Reed to the Chancellors (distributed at the meeting) and ensure that they are kept informed about the audit on their campuses.
Campus Reports
The campus JOG reports are posted online at http://www.ucop.edu/irc/jog
January 17, 2002 (Day 2)
UCSD gave demonstrations of the Pilot Workload Reduction Project, the Query Facility, their use of XML, and Blink.
UCSB Faculty and Student Surveys (Elise Meyer)
The results of the UCSB 1999 surveys of faculty and student use of computing
resources and facilities. The Information Technology Planning Group developed
the student survey. The results are posted at http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~itpg/1999_student_survey.doc.
The student surveyed indicated that they use the library computers, even
though they have their own. They indicate that access is adequate. The
Information Technology Board developed the faculty survey, which was concerned
primarily with instructional technology. The results are posted at http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~itpg/1999_faculty_survey.doc.
The survey indicated that the campus offers the most desired services
but that leadership is needed to provide significant change. A new effort
is being led by faculty to assess the degree to which faculty would use
a commercial IT delivery solution, the kinds of services that would need
to be part of the solution, and what would be required for implementation.
Larry Sautter Award (Yvonne Tevis)
Draft copies of the publicity flyer and program announcement for the 2002 Larry Sautter Award were distributed. JOG members will be sent final copies, and are asked to publicize the award opportunity on their campuses.
Licensing Issues (Jim Dolgonas)
Course Management. Dolgonas proposed that a group of representatives from each campus be formed to discuss course management licensing issues. Data needs to be compiled on the extent to which course management software, such as Blackboard or WebCT, is used on the campuses. Such data provides a leverage in negotiations with vendors. The group may review the value of negotiated purchase prices versus licensing. The group will report to JOG in May.
- ACTION: IR&C will convene a licensing committee.
Microsoft. Through the Microsoft Campus Program, the campus pays for the software and a pre-defined population is then able to use the products. Dolgonas explained that there is no data on what licenses are being replaced at the campuses currently, and thus it is difficult to assess when it becomes more cost effective to utilize the Campus Program rather than to continue with the status quo. Jim Davis at UCLA is interested in the Campus Program to lower costs and to further make sure that software on campus is properly licensed. He is gathering data on what Microsoft licenses are being used at UCLA. The results will provide data for determining at what cost the Campus Program is financially attractive.
Other institutions have negotiated favorable pricing for the Campus Program. Dolgonas said UC has the potential to negotiate with Microsoft as well, and the best course of action probably is to pursue adjustments to the Campus Program that would be beneficial to UC. One problem is in defining the population that the Campus Program license covers. Microsoft counts the population using IPEDS data, which cannot be disaggregated by department. It will be necessary to negotiate with Microsoft to replace IPEDS with other data. (Subsequent to the JOG meeting a solution for obtaining departmental FTE was established in place of IPEDs data). The longer the issues remains unresolved, the more people will be signing up for the standard Campus Program or pursuing other solutions.
JOG-CPG JOINT MEETING
Security Issues (Bill Campbell)
IR&C prepared a compilation of the campus responses outlining their IT security. The report was used as background for President Atkinson's October presentation to the Regents. IR&C is hiring an IT security coordinator.
Report from Security Officers (Kent Wada). At the last systemwide IT security officers meeting, it was decided to form a subgroup to work on improving collaboration between campus police and IT personnel. Encryption also was discussed: the current policy is to encrypt data in transmission but not in storage. HIPPA may require changes to this policy. The group considered ways to provide training on IT security issues across the campuses. One proposal is establishment of a UC IT security training program, similar to the Business Officers Institute. As a first step, the group is compiling and sharing information about the training currently offered at some campuses, so that trainers from one campus may be invited to offer the class at another. Some companies offer security training courses, but these do not necessarily match UC needs. The IT security officers' next meeting will be April 30.
Firewall Strategy (Jack McCredie and Cliff Frost)
Berkeley formed a campuswide task force to address firewall support issues, and Jack McCredie conducted a survey to find out what departments at other campuses are doing about firewalls. The task force has distributed its initial report. It recommends host-based firewalls. Firewalls at the departmental level are not plausible yet since departments are often only one subnet. Because they are expensive, firewalls below the host level are less likely to be funded. The final draft of the task force report will propose some solution. The task force also found that more people are thinking now about what types of data should be considered sensitive and about moving servers to secure areas.
IT Policy (Martha Winnacker)
The USA Patriot Act was passed in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The act allow wiretaps of voice mail or e-mail, tracking of pin registers, and search warrants and subpoenas for stored data, including voice mail. Subpoenas do not necessarily give the name of the service provider. In this case, the ISP may request a certification from the attorney general that verifies the subpoena applies to that ISP. Network managers who see evidence of terrorism or danger may report it to the police without being held liable.
Password Guidelines (Jim Dolgonas)
After having received input from a wide variety of groups, including Internal Audit and JOG members themselves, Dolgonas proposed changing the language in UC policy BFB IS-3 to delete reference to any requirement of changing passwords on a regular basis. JOG members agreed to the proposal.
IT Planning and Budgeting Model (Bill Campbell and Committee Members)
Cliff Frost presented UCB's detailed model of IT life cycle operating costs projected to 2012, highlighting various alternatives for making changes in the technology used. The model involves existing budget, capital, incremental staff, voice and data hardware refreshment, and maintenance financing. Campus benchmark expenses are $300M. With changes in technology, the costs reach $500M. The question then becomes whether it is appropriate to make changes to technology. Frost said there's no current technology that provides a compelling reason of its own, and the model shows there is no financial reason to institute changes now.
Don Worth presented a draft of the UCLA IT cost expenditure survey. It covers four areas: networking, e-mail and calendaring, Microsoft products in use, and cost of IT consulting services and will be submitted to all units. Currently the survey is being tested in the administration area.
Media Directors Update (Willi Bokenkamp)
The December meeting of the UC Media Directors included discussion of UCTV and the Teaching, Learning and Technology Center (TLtC). UCTV now can be viewed online at uctv.tv. There are currently seven million subscribers. Originally, UCTV aired only UCSD programs; now over half the programs are from other campuses. UC is approaching cable TV companies to see if they will carry UCTV on education or public access channels. There also is the possibility that the California Channel, which mostly airs live legislative meetings, will host UCTV after it goes off the air. Another option is to obtain external funding for production, currently the responsibility of individual campuses, through grants to develop programs to be aired on UCTV.
TLtC launched its Webzine in December and is offering a collaborative grants program to advance innovative use of instructional technology.
CalREN2, ONI, ISP (Bill Campbell, David Wasley)
Bill Campbell said that the Vice Chancellors for research will meet on Feb. 21. Prior to the meeting JOG members should inform their research Provosts about ONI and the high-speed connectivity that it will provide researchers.
David Wasley reported that the new ISP is fully in operation, although the data collection component is not in place. CENIC may bill UC only for the estimated annual traffic.
- ACTION: Wasley will send the campuses ISP billing information.
The ONI will offer three levels of service: The lowest service (tier 3), the Digital California Network, will be at 2.5 gigabit/second and is intended for all K-12 California research and education users. The middle service (tier 2), the High Performance Research Network for large applications users, will start at 2.5 gigabits/second and upgrade to 10 gigabits/second as soon as appropriate technology is available. The highest service (level 1), the Experimental/Developmental Network, will adapt to what network researchers want, including dark fiber and multiple 2.5 or 10 gigabit/second wavelengths; this network is reserved for research purposes. The extent of tier 1 coverage, if any, has not yet been determined.
Researchers will have to locate funding sources to implement tier 1. Funding for the "last mile" still must be obtained to complete the connection for tiers 2 and 3 to UC; Dolgonas said that the responsibility for this funding must fall on the University as a whole and not the campus individually. Bill Campbell explained that an attempt will be made to recover last mile costs in the bills for tiers 2 and 3 services; additional resources may be needed, however. Chuck Rowley said it is essential that all campuses receive the same quality of connection.
- ACTION: Wasley will visit each campus to assess the "last mile" planning process and assist campuses in determining their "last mile" costs.
President Atkinson and Vice President Hershman have said that $6 million will continue to be provided from three sources: the Digital California Project and two other OP sources. They understand that UC's continued competitiveness in obtaining federal research grants will rely on having the ONI connection.
DCP (Bill Campbell)
The connectivity through the Digital California Project to the County Education Offices is 85 percent complete. However, even when the DCP is complete, one quarter of K-12 students still will not have connections to their schools. Budget reductions by 15 percent ($4.8 million) in the current fiscal year and another $4.8 million in the next year mean that streaming video and other features will need to be reduced. There are three aspects of DCP implementation: The backbone is being completed now; the user end involves the schools and the state; the campuses are responsible the content, including developing the infrastructure necessary to host it. The logistics about how to provide the content have not been specified.
Cisco Master Lease Purchase Agreement-Technology Migration Option (Jim Dolgonas)
JOG members agreed that Cisco's proposed lease option sounds worthwhile. The option guarantees trade-in value at various points in time of any Cisco products that UC buys. UC retains the option to keep the products. The language would be changed in the standard UC agreement, making it an option any other company could choose to offer as well.
Campus Reports
The campus CPG reports are posted at http://www.ucop.edu/irc/jog.
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