MyUA: A Perspective on Issues

Steve Smith

10/25/2002

 

I believe there are four issues causing considerable discussion and difference of opinion for development of the MyUA electronic environment.

 

  1. Unclear understanding of what this is and what it will do

 

There is not a clear and shared vision for what exactly this is, what it will do, how it will function, how it will be managed and who will control it.  Many may perceive this as little more than a web page with links.  It is much more than that.  It is management of the electronic content of the university with common access.

 

Here is a MyUA reference framework:

 

·        Provide access to all university information and services through a consistent and clear graphical interface

·        Support a single secure log-on to obtain authentication and authorization to all information resources and applications throughout the UA system.

·        Provide a convenient and consistent set of communications services that are web based.

·        Provide a one-stop place where all members of the university community can perform all business transactions.

·        Provide the ability to present information and access to services on an individual basis in a personalized manner (think of Amazon.com).

·        Provide each member of the community with the ability to customize the appearance, layout, and information on an individual basis.

·        Provide for the university full control and self-management of appearance and content.

·        Be available to all constituents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 52 weeks a year.

·        Be flexible and able to absorb new technology advances and new applications.

 

This is much more than a web page with links.  This is information management.  MyUA is development of what is commonly called in IT circles as middleware or the software and systems that tie separate functions, applications, and services together for the user.

 

It is understandable that people have a difficult time grasping exactly what this will look like and benefits it will provide. 

 

The IT professionals have been following these developments for the past half decade.  Individual users are aware of them through places like Amazon or financial institutions.  Higher education has been working into this realm over the past half dozen years.

 

Solution: This lack of understanding is addressed through examples, education, exposure and exchange of ideas.  An example of this is a presentation to be made in Anchorage in November following the Board of Regents meeting by Campus Pipeline, the Banner web management solution.

 

  1. Competition for finite resources

 

All indications are that the next fiscal year will be tighter than we’ve experienced.  There is more emphasis on internal reallocations, which can be challenging to status quo ways of doing business.  UAF wants to finish work on its Fine Arts complex.  UAA needs to fund its share of the nursing program partnership.  UAS needs to cover rising fixed costs.  Everyone is focused on enrollment and retention. 

 

We are making some bold changes in the way the budget is designed and allocated.

 

At a moment when there is great demand for physical facilities across the system, IT is coming into its own as another key component of the infrastructure facilitating the mission of the university.

 

MyUA is a system wide infrastructure that is not inexpensive to build.  At a time when there are other changes in the budget process and the MAUs may perceive some loss of control over allocating resources, MyUA stands out as a target to pull off the table.

 

Solution: Show value for MyUA.  For example, in an article in e-Business by Greene (2000), a comparison of costs of marketing show telemarketing costs $3 to $8 per contact; direct mail costs $1 to $4 per contact; the World Wide Web costs $0.01 to $0.50 per contact.  MyUA should provide reduced recruitment costs, improved student service, and improved student satisfaction.

 

  1. Lack of a voice for the principle advocates

 

The student leadership over the past 18 months has spoken out in favor of a MyUA approach for their online interactions with the university.  Mike Sfraga and I have spoken with them on numerous occasions and every time we have received a strongly positive response.

 

While all of us working for the university have the best interests of the students always in mind, there is no strong voice for student interests at the top academic, administrative and executive groups where resource and program decisions are made.  Only with the recent creation of the Office of Enrollment and Student Services has the visibility of student issues across the system been raised. 

 

MyUA is not an IT inspired project but a joint response of Student Services and IT to needs and desires expressed by students.  Witness the immense and immediate popularity of web based student registration.

 

While the core of MyUA is to provide better service to students, in order to achieve that it will also provide better and new ways for faculty and support staff to provide the full array of university services.  Eventually MyUA will touch and provide service to: prospective students, casual students, undergraduate students, certificate seeking students, graduate students, parents of students, alumni, faculty, adjunct faculty, student support staff, business staff, administrative staff, researchers, library patrons, donors, university partners, emeritus faculty, corporate partners, the list is almost endless.  It is appropriate to start with students and keep the focus on students. 

 

Students or student representatives have not been at the table, with the exception of the student regent, when the university leadership is discussing MyUA.

 

Faculty, frontline, teaching faculty, may not also be heard clearly at these deliberations as well.  Here is what one faculty member wrote me on needs for planning: 

 

“…what I need urgently is a good program planning tool that I can load in faculty, program requirements, scheduling rules, class rooms, books, adjuncts, course location requirements.... and have a way to build a rolling 2-4 year view of the program offering... I need to be able to phase in and phase out programs and show pathways for continuing student to finish their degrees... I need it to link to work load agreements so that I have a reconciled set of data between student needs, program requirements, space constraints, and faculty work loads... I'm confronted each semester with the repeated errors of not being able to manage this information effectively...”

 

What this faculty member wants is a planning tool.  MyUA is not the tool per se, but it is the infrastructure that provides the linkages in one place for such planning tools.  This faculty member’s solution for now is to try to build something in an access database, creating a shadow system and spending considerable time building it with no prospect of sustaining that effort, of growing that effort across the system for others to use.

 

Solution: We need to provide more avenues for students and faculty to express their needs and document them. 

 

  1. Perceived loss of autonomy

 

I believe there still exists among the campuses that a system wide MyUA will result in loss of autonomy for their ability to capture the focus of students.  Part of this is the old “are we three; are we one” question.  I know that UAA has been looking at the same software for web content management and portal building for their use.

 

Each MAU, each campus, each department, each program, each faulty member will be able to control their content, their look and feel.  MyUA is a centralized tool with distributed content control.

 

At the same time it is true students will have some degree of control over their own interface with the university.  This is a fundamental paradigm shift.  The name MyUA is intentional to indicate a point of contact with the university system that meets individual needs. I believe this is at the core of this issue.  It is one that is rocking the foundations of higher education and is exacerbated here by the composition of the University of Alaska system as multiple accredited institutions reporting to one statewide administration and board of regents.

 

This is nothing new.  It continues to flow beneath the surface with sporadic eruptions when something like MyUA comes along.

 

My sense is that this Board of Regents as well as the previous Board of Regents who put the current administration in place is in favor of a unified, but diverse statewide system and MyUA fits that vision perfectly.

 

It seems to me two sides of this university community – the Board of Regents and the statewide administration on one side and the students on the other side – favor MyUA.  I think it is the administration in the middle that is not in favor of it.  Without wandering off too far a field, this is not unlike the turmoil going on in many other sectors as the technology presents new ways of doing business.  The status quo rebels and resists this transformation.

 

The longer we go without implementing a MyUA solution, the harder it will be to put in place.  For example, a system wide directory service is nearing a point of implementation.  The full use of this will be slowed to accommodate a needed transition period for UAA and UAS to move from their already installed directory service to the system wide service.    This is not an example of conflict.  The ITC agrees on the need for system wide directory and a team across the system has worked on design and architecture.  Both UAA and UAS had immediate needs that they solved with separate structures.  Now additional time and resource must be committed at both statewide and campus levels to integrate separate instances into a uniform service across the system.

 

Solution:  This is a more fundamental problem that a MyUA will not solve; however, we need to engage the campuses in the planning, design and implementation process. Bit by bit we will shift the culture.  It is an evolutionary process and from time to time hard decisions like this must be made.