ADC Response to the Barnard Report

Memorandum

We have read with considerable interest the Report on the Review of Information Technology for Learning, Research, and Administration at the University of Waterloo and wanted to take this opportunity to comment directly to you on what we perceive to be the most salient issues raised in the report and the directions UW might take as a consequence.

We were pleased to see that the reviewers have recognised the distinct advantages of the decentralised nature of IT support on campus. As they point out, "the University has matured into a unique and productive internal culture that has contributed to its academic success and reputation. This culture includes a strong tradition of decentralization of power and resources into the faculties" (p. 3). Indeed, we would argue that such decentralised support has been a principal condition leading to innovation in teaching and research, as well as in the effective and knowledgeable response to local, unique needs.

However, it bears mentioning that decentralised support has not, as the Report implies, contributed to a lack of vision for IT at UW nor has it lead to an uncoordinated computing environment. Rather, it has strengthened our resolve to ensure ongoing, active communication and collaboration in the development and deployment of IT among the Faculties and other units on campus — most notably, IST and the Library — to meet the needs of all faculty, staff, and students. Further, our commitment to a common vision for IT at UW is well reflected in the 2002 UCIST Directions Statement and the 2002 UCIST Strategic Directions (attached), both of which were developed over several months of wide consultation with senior administrators, faculty, and staff members on campus, and written and endorsed by all members of UCIST.

Our most serious concern, therefore, is that the reviewers either overlooked these documents or their importance was not communicated to them adequately, especially in light of an apparent theme throughout the Report that suggests there is a lack of commitment to campus-wide priorities. This is certainly not our view. In fact, for obvious reasons, we strive to reach campus-wide solutions and look for means to ensure that the various constituencies on campus are accommodated and their diverse needs and unique requirements respected within that solution. Ironically, the healthy and creative tension that frequently characterises our discussions concerning campus-wide priorities and initiatives typically results in solutions that clarify roles and responsibilities, and respect and celebrate local needs.

To this end, we are in general agreement with the Report's recommendation to separate the roles of the Associate Provost for Information Systems and Technology (i.e., Recommendation 8) and to reaffirm the primary mandate of UCIST as chaired by the Associate Provost. Consequently, we do not see the need to reconstitute UCIST in the form suggested in Recommendation 9, but rather, simply to recognise UCISTs primary mandate and allow the newly defined Associate Provost to act upon it. Indeed, this would free the Associate Provost from the day-to-day concerns of managing the IT Department and allow him or her to focus on strategic planning and policy in collaboration with the Associate Deans of Computing and other members of UCIST. This separation in roles, too, would serve to increase the ability of the Associate Provost to act upon and raise the visibility of the Directions Statement and Strategic Directions laid out by UCIST to the University at large and to the central administration in particular.

In light of these comments, we would like to encourage you to reflect on the Report on the Review of Information Technology for Learning, Research, and Administration at the University of Waterloo and put many of its observations and recommendations into the context we have provided. We appreciate having had this opportunity to discuss the Report with you and we look forward to further discussions.

We have attached a summary of our more specific observations concerning the details of the Report — as well as what we believe to be factual errors, which are no doubt the consequence of the reviewers' brief stay and limited familiarity with the UW experience.

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Detailed Response to
Report on the Review of Information Technology for Learning, Research, and Administration at the University of Waterloo

Overview

Our general interpretation of the report is that it contains three interrelated and overlapping groups of recommendations for restructuring computing delivery and organisation at UW. The first group of recommendations (5, 6, 8, 10) concerns splitting the two tasks that the current Associate Provost for Information Systems and Technology carries — namely, management of IST and setting as well as implementing a strategic vision for IT at UW — into two separate positions each with its own mandate, responsibilities, and reporting structure. Contained within this first group of recommendations is an explicit repositioning of IST, including renaming the organisation to better reflect its perceived role. The second group of recommendations (7, 9) concerns redefining the role and nature of faculty-based computing support and reconstituting the form and content of the current University Committee on Information Systems and Technology (UCIST). The third group of recommendations (1, 2, 3, 4) contains suggestions that refer primarily to how the changes proposed in the other two groups of recommendations might best be funded and how the process of change, also addressed in the other recommendations, might be handled. While we certainly do not wish to diminish the importance of a strong funding base for computing and IT (Recommendations 3 and 4), we generally consider the first two groups of recommendations to be the most pertinent relative to the status quo. Hence, most of our specific comments address the first two groups of recommendations noted above, although we also make reference to the third group, especially Recommendation 1.

We are in general agreement with the reviewers concerning the need to clarify the function of IST, as well as the need to split off the task of running IST relative to the need for an individual to set and guarantee (collaboratively) that strategic IT objectives are met. However, there are a number of issues of detail and procedure, as well as some more general issues in the report, with which we strongly disagree, especially in terms of faculty-based computing vis-à-vis IST at the University.

As we emphasised in our memorandum, the Report suggests implicitly that there is ambiguity, uncertainty, or perhaps even a complete absence of any vision for IT at UW for the next decade. This view is implied or explicitly stated in several places throughout the Report, suggesting namely that there is no shared or collective vision or direction for IT growth and development at the University.

In fact, however, there is — the 2002 UCIST Directions Statement and the 2002 UCIST Strategic Directions (referenced in Appendix 4 of the Report). These documents express a clear vision and direction for computing growth and development on campus, and were each very carefully prepared by UCIST with broad consultation and input from the University community.

Specific Comments

As a general comment, the reviewers refer in their introduction to the tradition of decentralisation of power and resources to the faculties at UW while also noting that this approach has brought with it difficulties in generating commitment to and assembling resources for common priorities. While we tend to agree that problems can occur with the assembly of resources at the Faculty level, we do not agree with the reviewers opinion that there is not a strong commitment to common priorities in computing at UW. For example, the fully integrated student computing environment, Nexus, across all faculties is evidence of this common commitment, as is the willingness of Associate Deans of Computing (ADCs) to provide staff and resources to various working committees (e.g., CNAG, CSAG, WNAG) and projects that have sought and continue to seek to enhance the common good. Other examples of innovation based largely in the Faculties that have served campus-wide priorities include MyWaterloo and the advent of and commitment to the deployment of wireless computing. Such a tradition of innovation has been present for at least the past decade on a variety of computing projects. Indeed, during the tough times of the past few years, we have continued to advance both the quality and quantity of student delivered computing at the Faculty level, consistent with our UW mission and consistent with our various Directions Statements, which set the strategic guidelines for us.

On page 8 in the second paragraph, the reviewers present their case for modifying, but not necessarily replacing, the model of Faculty-based setting of priorities and the delivery of computing that is currently in place at UW. They note that strengthening the Faculties in this regard would be in keeping with the tradition at UW and easier to achieve, but "less dramatic and less radically transformative". While they have no alternative to offer, they still propose in their first recommendation that a committee be struck to investigate the development of "a common understanding..." We feel that this common understanding is in part already contained in the University Directions Statement. We would perhaps concur that some consultative process needs to be established to evaluate the role of IST relative to the Faculties Computing Offices and to assess the relationship between institutional administrative computing and faculty-based teaching and learning and research. Yet, we do not feel that the faculty-based management of student and research computing at UW should be weakened. If anything, we would argue that this is one of the great strengths of computing at UW and if anything it should be substantially strengthened even further.

The section titled Investment Level (pages 8 through 10) contains two recommendations, both of which we would provide qualified endorsement. However, there are some comments we wish to make in regard to the willingness of the University administration to put financial and human resources behind computing directions, especially in relation to those stated in the Directions Statements. In this context, with reference to the first paragraph on page 9, the reviewers state that, "the relatively small amount of money allocated to UCIST was so small as to leave the committee essentially without any influence". In fact, UCIST as an entity has zero budget. The influence of the committee is limited to setting strategic directions, and reviewing and advising on other matters related to computing in conjunction the Associate Provost. If, as the Recommendation 2 suggests, a commitment were made to provide the resources necessary to act on the directions laid out in the Statement, then UCIST would indeed have greater influence. Further, we believe that this influence would serve to enhance the decentralised, Faculty-based model of computing deployment at UW where much innovation in computing is occurring at UW.

Perhaps the most controversial sections in the review document are Centralization and Decentralization and Central Structure on pages 12 through 16. There are a number of statements that we find rather ambiguous and that provide a not entirely accurate picture of computing on campus. Moreover, our reading of these sections suggests a different form of computing administration within the faculties than currently exists. We believe this suggested form to be both unfeasible and undesirable. We would agree, however, that there currently exists a certain amount of ambiguity surrounding the responsibilities and roles of IST and the Faculties on campus. This ambiguity is largely a function of the decline in a collective working knowledge of activities in IST relative to the Faculties — and vice versa — which is partially historic and partially a function of ever increasing diversity of functions that IST performs.

A brief historical review would be useful at this point to explain where some of the ambiguity in functions is rooted. Prior to 1996, the Departments of Computing Services and of Data Processing at UW were coalesced under the umbrella of Information Systems and Technology (IST), and the two directors of these Departments (both staff members), were replaced by the current Associate Provost, who also assumed the mantle of responsibility for setting and achieving strategic directions in computing. This dual role was never envisioned when the position of Associate Provost was recommended in the 1996 Computing Directions Statement; however, subsequent to the appointment of the incumbent to this post, both roles (i.e., Director of IST and Associate Provost) were adopted. Over time, the role of Director of IST has seemed to supersede other functions of the Associate Provost, perhaps not surprisingly as IST grew rapidly and its activities became more diverse and complex. Concomitantly, the tasks of setting strategic directions fell to UCIST in collaboration with the Associate Provost. However, also during this time, there was a greying of the relationship between functions of central administrative computing and the Faculty-based computing offices. As a consequence, to many faculty and staff on campus, the activities of IST are not clearly understood. Furthermore, LT3 has recently appeared on the scene and we think it fair to say that very few people on campus fully understand the role of the Centre and its reporting lines. Certainly, LT3 has implications both for central computing functions through University-level initiatives relative to technology in teaching and learning and for faculty computing, but these functional lines have never been clearly defined nor built into any coherent plan for production.

Generally, we feel that the bullets on page 12 reasonably describe the "lay of the land" with one very important exception. Specifically, the last bullet beginning on page 12 and continued on page 13 is incorrect. "Directory support" (by this we assume the reviewers mean Active Directory — our network management environment) is described as "fragmented" as is authorization [sic] and system access. In fact, Active Directory support, authentication, and system access is far from being fragmented. The creation of the two existing Active Directories — one managed by IST and the other by the Faculties — was a considered decision to recognise, in the case of IST, the critical needs and security concerns central to administrative activities such as Human Resources, Finance, and student records, and in the case of the Faculties, the need for distributed management of the student computing environment with quite different user needs and privileges. Indeed, UW is highly integrated and is more or less unique among institutions of similar size that operate in decentralised faculty-based computing environments. Later near the bottom of page 13, the reviewers state that, The "fragmented and specialized nature of computing access for students, especially undergraduates, seems counterproductive." These statements are quite simply inaccurate. The beauty of the existing student computing environment, Nexus, is that software tools relevant to courses and programs in different Faculties can be loaded wherever they are relevant rather than on all Nexus workstations (currently, more than 1,000 machines on campus). Thus, Faculties can customise certain machines relative to their courses, yet any UW student with a Nexus account can log on and authenticate against Nexus at any public workstation anywhere on campus. This flexibility is, of course, constrained by the cost of licensing software, which for financial reasons sometimes limits the number of workstations on which a given piece of software can be loaded.

We reiterate, our student computing environment is already highly integrated and becoming more so all the time. Facilities are available to all students, and importantly, we already have a vast "information commons" on this campus — Nexus — and it spans every Faculty and populates every public computing lab regardless of whether a student from Arts is taking a course in ES or in Engineering. It is transparent and accessible by all students independent of their home department or Faculty (although Nexus accounts are provided on Math machines only to those students taking Math courses, who can then access their files on any Nexus file server from anywhere on campus). While it is true that the Library does not presently provide Nexus workstations, we are in the process of providing wireless access from within the Library to the campus backbone for use by students with notebook computers — again, a direction spelled out in the 2002 UCIST Directions Statement.

Recommendations 6 and 7 appear to envisage a shift of responsibility to IST for computing support of faculty and staff. We believe that such support is best decentralized to those units closest to the people being supported because it provides more informed, rapid, and personalised service, and our users strongly concur. Indeed, we believe this explains a general tendency for more centralized computing support to become distributed over time, as is happening now within the Faculty of Mathematics. There are, of course some functions, such as the negotiation and distribution of site-licensed software, that clearly are best handled centrally.

With reference to the section titled Central Structure, we concur with the first paragraph at the top of page 15. The University indeed needs a senior position devoted to ensuring that the current UCIST Directions Statement is implemented and that future directions statements be developed in conjunction with the ADCs and with the (new) Director of IS. The proposed senior position is essentially the current Associate Provost, freed of the responsibility for managing IST. Consequently, we do not believe that a new committee needs to be struck to serve in the role that UCIST currently does.

We would agree with the reviewers that the role on campus of LT3 should be clarified, as there are unclear linkages between LT3 and Distance Education, between LT3 and Trace, and between LT3 and IST. It is not clear to us that the Professoriate is as committed to the concept of technology-based teaching as is often suggested, and we have argued in our last two UCIST Directions Statements that the adoption of technology in learning must be pedagogically-driven rather than adopted for its own sake and that there must be some form of incentive for faculty members to become involved. Indeed, this latter point is elaborated upon in the second last paragraph of page 15. The fact that such incentive schemes have not been put in to place is one key reason why the role of LT3 and the adoption of technology-based teaching has been much slower than many might have hoped for. Having LT3 report to the (new) APIT is in many respects the situation currently in place. More problematic in our view is the murky relationship between these two senior positions, and this is possibly counterproductive to making progress in the area of information technology, learning, and instruction.

Overall, as noted in the earlier in this document, we concur with Recommendation 8 concerning the separation of roles of the current Associate Provost. However, we would argue that Recommendation 9 refers to a committee already in existence (i.e., UCIST). However, its mandate has to be modified to give it some real authority in terms of coordinating computing between the Faculties and the central University functions.

In terms of Recommendation 10, we do not feel that such a recommendation can be adopted until the nature and role of LT3 is clarified on campus. The Centre has emerged and grown without any clear mandate or budget, and this is not a productive manner in which to operate.

The conclusion to the report notes that, "the University of Waterloo has benefited from strong faculties that have the responsibility for matters sometimes handled centrally at other Universities. The flexibility and nimbleness that this allows within faculties has allowed the academic community to build the reality and the reputation that has come about so quickly." We concur with this statement and reiterate one of our basic points in this response to the review document; that is, the Faculties are the great strength of student computing (and in many cases also research and administrative computing) at UW. Rather than retreating to a centralised model of computing management, which, in our view, has far more inefficiencies, costs, and is far less responsive in terms of time and accommodation to faculty, staff, and student needs than the current decentralised model, the University should develop a cooperative and collaborative model where there are clear lines of responsibility and cooperation between IST and the Faculties.

To enable the University of Waterloo to achieve its computing goals and maintain its preeminence among Canadian Universities and enhance its reputation world-wide, it is essential that adequate resources be allocated to Faculty-based computing so that the strong degree of collaboration between the Faculties can be fostered, while allowing the rich tapestry of diversity between Faculty units to be maintained.