Computer and Information Technology Planning and Goals
(CITPG) Committee Activities 2005-2006
Membership: Karl Altenburg (chair), J.W. Schroeder, Roger Egeberg, Richard Rathge, Paul Juell, Ganapathy Mahalingam, Holly Bastow-Shoop,
Jonathan Sheng, Jeffrey Terpstra,
Rajesh Kavasseri, Brian Miller (staff), Jordan
Anderson (student), W.L. Gardner (Library), John Miller (senate liaison)
The Computer and Information Technology Planning and Goals (CITPG) Committee met every-other week throughout the academic year. The thrust of the committees work has been the formulation of long-range goals for academic computing and information technologies at NDSU. The process involved potential goal idea generation by the committee with reference to existing NDUS and NDSU goals, a campus-wide survey of the faculty for ideas and prioritization, selection of priority goals, and the development of plans. Minutes from the committee are posted to: www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/cpg
The guiding documents for goals and plans included:
NDSU Strategies/Actions: Goals of 1997 (www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/forms/goals_strategic_plan_d5.pdf)
ND Statewide IT Plan 2005-2007 (www.state.nd.us/ep/state/doc/2005/itd-tech-plan05.pdf)
NDSU Information Technology Visions: Approved by NDSU
President's Cabinet on
From the guiding documents the committee developed and
extensive set of potential priorities.
From the set of potential priorities, a campus-wide faculty survey was
developed, distributed and analyzed.
Highlights of the Long-range Academic Planning Survey is available on
the CITPG web site at: (www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/cpg/survey_2005/ITS_Highlights_011206.pdf)
The results of the survey served as input into several discussions on goal selection and planning. What follows are the priority goals and preliminary plans:
The goals chosen include:
Goal 1: The Educational Technology Exchange Initiative A campus-wide support system for academic computing.
Goal 2: The Ubiquitous Computing Initiative To enable students, faculty, and staff access to online resources from any place on campus.
Goal 3: A Mobile Computing Access Initiative To provide broad access to computing systems.
Goal 4: The Online Course Capacity Initiative To have the capacity for the online delivery of 50% of all general education courses including live video and audio.
Goal 5: The Research Knowledge Management System Initiative To develop a research knowledge management system to aid in grant writing.
For every goal, two critical success factors are:
· Stakeholder buy-in, and
· Strong support from campus leadership.
Plans for Goal 1 The Educational Technology Exchange Initiative:
· Establish an on-campus organization to serve as the coordinating body for academic computing support.
· Propose and implement a mechanism to inventory technology and practices in academic computing.
· Implement mechanisms to encourage the sharing of ideas and to ensure greater campus-wide exposure to practices across campus.
· Implement innovative academic computing systems and conduct assessment of these implementations and their effects on student outcomes.
· Implement mechanisms for on-going quality improvement.
· This goal is viewed as an overarching umbrella for the other initiatives.
Plans for Goal 2 The Ubiquitous Computing Initiative:
· Conduct and assessment of current wireless implementation on campus.
· Project future wireless access point needs.
· Recommend additional, value-added features as well as priority locations for wireless access points.
· Implement a library of mobile computing devices available for check-out possibly at the departmental level.
· Implement a faculty reward system. For example,
o An award for the most innovative use of technology in the classroom,
o An Excellence in Technology Enhanced Learning lectureship, or
o New investigator awards for technology in the classroom.
· This goal and Goal 3 would be closely related.
Plans for Goal 3 A
· Implement a library of mobile computing devices available for check-out possibly at the departmental level.
Plans for Goal 4 The Online Course Capacity Initiative:
· Conduct a technology assessment of the current delivery modes and capacity.
· Assess the capacity and need for video and audio delivery.
· Determine the requirements for the proposed online capacity.
· Determine difference between current capacity and goal.
· Create a media production studio for professional-quality content.
Plans for Goal 5 The Research Knowledge Management System Initiative:
· Examine current knowledge management processes on campus.
· Determines ways to leverage existing course management tools such as Blackboard.
· Cultivate a culture of idea and knowledge sharing on campus.
The greatest IT concern brought before the CITPG in the execution of its fourth charge was the over-scheduling of computing clusters and multimedia carts. Discussion with ITS provided methods for the relief of this problem. Effectively, ITS should serve as the sole scheduling agent for computer clusters and multimedia carts.
In April, 2006, the University Senate voted to dissolve the CITPG Committee to make room for a new Campus IT Governance Structure. It is the hope and expectation of the CITPG Committee that our work on Goals and Plans will be taken-up by a replacement committee.
Humbly submitted,
Karl R. Altenburg, Ph.D.
Chair, CITPG Committee, 2005-2006