University of Wisconsin System CIO Council Videoconference

September 15, 2011

 

 

Announcement

Test of High Definition Videoconferencing

Advisory Committee’s Recommendations on the Role of UWSA

Possible Restructuring of CIO Council Meetings
Strategy for Mobile Devices discussion

IAM Update
HRS Project Update

Procurement Update

BCCB Grant Update

Future CIO Council Meetings

 

Attendees

 

 

Announcement

Ed Meachen expressed his appreciation to Jose Noriega who is leaving UW-Parkside at the end of the month for a CIO position in Nevada.

 

Test of High Definition Videoconferencing

This meeting is an experiment of the use of the new high definition video conferencing equipment that was procured for system-wide meetings of the chancellors and other executive groups. Jamie Poindexter demonstrated the 16 site mode as well as the 1x7 and 1 x 4 modes which show a larger window containing the current speaker along with smaller windows of some of the other sites. Greater video bandwidth to the central bridge is allotted to the site at which someone is speaking.

 

Advisory Committee’s Recommendations on the Role of UWSA 

Ed Meachen reported that the documents related to the President Reilly’s Advisory Committee on the Roles of UW System Administration (UWSA) are available at www.wisconsin.edu/uwsa-roles-committee/.  The documents include the committee's final report and President Reilly's response. The recommendations of the report include reducing UWSA’s role in convening and leading constituent groups and the consideration of transferring or sharing leadership responsibility with institutional staff, or eliminating constituent group meetings. Another recommendation is to work toward a higher level of transparency and open discussions between UWSA and the UW System (UWS) stakeholders regarding budgets and rationales for allocations and other financial matters. These documents will be discussed at next week’s retreat for the Common Systems Review Group.

Possible Restructuring of CIO Council Meetings

Ed Meachen proposed holding CIO Council meetings at the various UWS institutions every other month. On the intervening months the meetings would be held via videoconference. He also suggested designating or electing a committee to manage the CIO Council meetings. Council members noted that other system-wide groups, such as CUWL, already function in a similar fashion with the support of the OLIT office. Mohamed Elhindi and Elena Pokot recommended that the host campus be responsible for the meeting logistics and setting the agenda. David Lois reminded the Council that the role of the Council is different than the role of the ITMC and other constituent groups. David Dumke and others recommended that the creation of the agendas continue to be handled centrally by the UWSA Office of Learning and Information Technology. Elena Pokot noted that Ed Meachen has been serving in two separate leadership roles, one with respect to the CIO Council and one with respect to system-wide processes and politics. Discussion will continue at the next CIO Council meeting at which a chair will be chosen to work with the OLIT office to come up with a set of guidelines for the Council.

Strategy for Mobile Devices Discussion

Kathy Pletcher reported that some members of UW-Green Bay’s Technology Council will participate in a working group on mobile strategy that is charged with creating a document that will go through campus governance channels. UW-Milwaukee is piloting a mobile application that was paid for with Educational Technology Funds and working with departments on campus that want to roll out mobile apps of their own. The institution is also working with the CIO of Milwaukee County on an app that will report the locations of public busses. Another institutional initiative is the formation of a student Living Learning Community with would include training sponsored by the vendor of the application development tool, Appcelerator. UW-Eau Claire procured a mobile app from boopsie.com that uses CASC authentication. UW-Parkside is looking into the feasibility of delivering electronic textbooks via mobile devices. The UW-Oshkosh mobile app was sponsored by the integrated marketing department and developed by a vendor.

 

The volume of help desk calls for the support of mobile applications has not been significant at any of the above institutions. In the first week of the semester, UW-Milwaukee experienced tens of thousands of queued requests for tracking the locations of shuttle busses around campus which required re-architecting of the underlying infrastructure.

 

It was recommended that campus policy and planning documents for mobile applications be shared with the CIO Council.

 

HRS Project Update

Lorie Docken provided updates on the rollout of eBenefits functions and the integration of the PeopleSoft Talent Acquisition Module (TAM) with Wisc.Jobs.

 

Since the last CIO Council meeting, it has been decided that an eBenefits pilot of open benefits enrollment would be limited to UW-Oshkosh, UW-Green Bay and UW-La Crosse. The pilot of eBenefits for new hires will continue with the currently participating institutions. Other campuses can join the latter pilot when they have met the IRCC criteria collected in the campus scorecard and have been trained by the eBenefits team.

 

The 2011-13 Wisconsin state budget included statutory directives that the UWS and UW-Madison develop personnel systems that will be separate and distinct from the Wisconsin Civil Service. This has caused a re-evaluation of the value of integrating TAM with WiscJobs. Three potential courses of action were considered:

 

1.    Continuing with the delivery of Wisc.Jobs interface for classified employee recruiting and using it for about a year

2.    Discontinuing delivery of the Wisc.Jobs interface for TAM which would require continued duplicate data entries for classified recruitments.

3.    Developing a partial interface between TAM and Wisc.Jobs

 

The HRS Steering Committee recommended the second option which was subsequently approved by the Service Center Executive Committee. This decision is being communicated to JOCER and other stakeholders. This decision does not delay the delivery of the TAM functionality for unclassified recruitments in the first quarter of 2012 as originally planned.

 

President Reilly has notified the UWS chancellors of the creation of a task force to address the development of new personnel systems as required by the state budget.

Procurement Update

Ruth Ginzberg conveyed to Adobe the sentiments of the CIO Council that were expressed at the last meeting. It is expected that Adobe will continue to scan the UWS websites for Adobe extended, fill-in forms that save the field entries.

 

Microsoft contract renewals have been proceeding slowly due to difficulties with the reselling process. A committee may be formed to look at alternatives, such as the UWS creating its own reseller.

 

The Midwest Higher Education Commission (MHEC) has contracts for certain types of hardware and software. Discussions are underway to determine what types of procurements can be made through them.

 

The Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA) is in the process of re-delegating purchasing authority to the UWS, which is a multi-step process. Meanwhile, discussions are underway regarding the possibilities of new procurement flexibilities vis-à-vis the mandatory contracts issued by DOA.

 

BCCB Grant Update

Michael Schlicht reported that a number of staff visited Iron Mountain, Michigan to talk with the fiber contractor and lay out a schedule for the conduit builds. Meanwhile, two BCN circuits have been delayed for over a month. Ed Meachen will be meeting soon with the new CIO for the State of Wisconsin to discuss the progress on a new BCN contract. The UWS is also pursuing cheaper service providers for the UW Colleges.

 

Future CIO Council Meetings

 

The next scheduled CIO Council meeting will be on October 13,2011 at UW-Whitewater from 10:00 – 3:00.

 

Due to a scheduling conflict, the November CIO Council meeting, if needed, will be a video conference on Wednesday, November 16th from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

 

The December CIO Council meeting will be held on the 15th at UW-La Crosse beginning at 10:00 am.

 

 

Meeting dates, Directory of UW CIOs, Meeting Summaries: 

http://www.uwsa.edu/olit/cio/