University of California, Berkeley
MINUTES OF THE E -BERKELEY STEERING COMMITTEE
Meeting of February 14, 2001
Stone Room - Bancroft Library
Members present: Professor Alice Agogino, AVC Greg Brown, VC Beth Burnside, AVC Ron Coley, Student Representative David DeGusta, Director Tom Devlin for VC Genaro Padilla, Professor Michael Frenklach, EVC & Provost Paul Gray, AVC Sandra Haire, Dean Ralph Hexter, Director Phyllis Hoffman, VC Jim Hyatt, Executive Director Helen Kelly, Executive Director Rosemary Kim for VC Don McQuade, University Librarian Thomas Leonard, VP Christina Maslach, Dean Mary Ann Mason, AVC Jack McCredie, VC Horace Mitchell, Director Ralph Moon, Director Barbara Morgan, Dean Richard Newton, VP William Webster.
1. Welcome and Objectives: EVC Gray described the new e-Berkeley Steering Committee as a combination of the former Campus Computing and Communications Policy Board (CCCPB) and the planning group that has been working with Cisco Systems. He introduced Carol Stillman and Michele Grisham from Cisco, and asked Ms. Grisham to facilitate discussion of the Net Readiness Plan.
2. Net Readiness Plan Status and Updates: The plan as
it currently stands was included in the packet handed out at the meeting. Ms.
Grisham outlined the history of Berkeley's "net readiness" as it was
originally developed in October, 2000 during meetings held with Cisco. The intent
of the plan is to assess resources and culture, develop a strategy, and define
initiatives to enable our organization to move forward. Recommendations and
specific actions focused on areas of greatest benefit were identified by campus
groups in October and November.
Governance
AVC McCredie explained that the e-Berkeley Governance Structure organization
chart and draft Charter for the e-Berkeley Steering Committee (both included
in handouts) set the course for the initiative, and that it is crucial to bring
all the "e-Berkeley" committees (such as the Computing and Communications
committee of the Academic Senate) into the mainstream activity.
On the organization chart, VC Mitchell said that the "e-Commerce"
Working Group would be changing to a more general "e-Business" group.AVC
Haire asked how the e-Learning Policy Task Force related to staff. Professor
Agogino explained that this group is mostly looking at the academic side, but
the Policy Working Group was looking at all policy issues. Jacqueline Craig
from that group will brief AVC Haire.
With regard to the draft Charter, there should be an ongoing effort by the
Steering Committee to discuss, revise, and develop ideas within its framework.
This version of the Charter, for example, has a two-part vision statement: ideal
and practical, and e-Berkeley activities are aligned with the systemwide UC
2010 efforts, as well as the campus mission.
Some comments from the group regarding the draft Charter were:
Alice Agogino's name shall be added as Co-Chair (with VC Hyatt) of the EBITF.
EVC Gray wanted to establish a date for the goal of "Making all transactions
for students, faculty, staff, alumni, business partners, and the general public
available over the Internet." He would like to set objectives that are
achievable in a two-or three-year time frame.
VC Burnside thought this language was too sweeping. After some discussion, the
Committee agreed to strike the word "all" from the statement in question.
EVC Gray asked whether committees shown on the e-Berkeley Governance Structure
chart, and their membership lists, are on a web site. VC Hyatt answered that
a new e-Berkeley web site is being developed by Helen Kelly; it will be presented
at the next meeting.
Dean Hexter was concerned about faculty input to projects that might transform
the cumbersome nature of academic personnel processes. VC Haire said the new
HRMS system has tools for faculty, and her development group has been working
with Patti Owen in Academic Personnel. EVC Gray agreed to ask Vice Provost Jan
de Vries to be the faculty champion for HRMS.
University Librarian Leonard urged that the Charter include language about protecting
privacy and individual choice about how information is to be shared.
Ms. Grisham noted that the charters of the subcommittees needed to be formalized,
and clarification is still needed about advisory and decision-making roles.
The draft Charter was generally approved, and will be discussed further.
Leadership
VC Hyatt spoke about the e-Berkeley Communications Plan (included in handout
package) developed by Jack McCredie, Matt Lyon, Helen Kelly and himself. It
is a plan for bringing the e-Berkeley initiatives to the attention of campus
staff, students and faculty, and for maintaining momentum and visibility by
communicating positive results as "deliverables" occur. Dean Mason
asked whether "e-Berkeley" was the right logo, and there was some
discussion of the need for consistent style. The Communications subgroup (Hyatt,
McCredie, Agogino, Lyon, Kelly, Newton, and Haire) will work on this and prepare
a fuller Communications Plan.
VP Gray asked for a timeline for plan development. VC Hyatt answered that the first draft should be ready by the next meeting in March, the second draft in April, and the publication of the plan will be set for May (the web site will be ready in March).
Ms. Grisham said that education and training tasks need to be included in the
Communication Plan. AVC Haire stated that the report of the Compensation Advisory
Committee (due at the end of this semester) would include competencies needed
on campus, knowledge gaps, and recommendations regarding training, and these
recommendations should be discussed and included in the Communications Plan.
EVC Gray said he would like an interim report on this topic at the March or
April meeting of the e-Berkeley Steering Committee.
VC Hyatt led a discussion of the "Quick Wins" compiled by the E-Berkeley
Implementation Team (included in handout package); he noted that there were
several completed items listed and several projects that are near completion,
such as Cal Mail and Departmental Deposit. Several of the projects, such as
e-Grades, require that faculty be registered on CalNet (the campus directory
and authentication system). The new interactive BAIRS II reports for the Berkeley
Financial System were discussed; these will replace the canned BAIRS I queries
which have not been popular in many departments. BAIRS II pilot departments,
and people who have seen the demonstrations, have been positive. Dean Newton
commented that his staff were very optimistic about BFS directions.
Both Professor Frenklach and Dean Hexter stressed the need for publicity to bring the advantages of the new on-line offerings to the attention of faculty. If necessary, training must be provided so that faculty can make use of the new services. It is not clear who is responsible for faculty training. Ms. Grisham suggested that departmental Super Users might help with training (but the focus is supposed to be on easy-to-use web-based applications).
Competency
AVC Haire addressed the group with her thoughts on the issue of training staff.
An analysis needs to be made of staff positions that now require skill in web
technologies to identify different levels of training needed. We need a gap
analysis of the current programming staff, and we need to determine the skills
we need for the future (and how to recruit).
One possible training model is the IT Academy at UT Austin. AVC Haire would
like to bring people to Berkeley to demo/discuss their program of internal and
external recruiting, testing, and training. New hires participate in a 6-month
training program and they commit (by contract) to stay at least 18 months once
they are trained. EVC Gray thought there might be some interesting opportunities
here; he and VC Haire will discuss next steps.
Dean Newton noted that the delivery of IT support through staff to faculty and
students also needed attention, as does web management (development isn't the
only option, for example - what should be outsourced?).
Ms. Grisham mentioned the need to train non-IT people as well. AVC McCredie
said that the joint IST-H.R. CAL PACT training program has given a good foundation
to 4,000 staff. McCredie also noted that we usually have 90 IT vacant positions
campuswide.
3. Technical Architecture Update
AVC McCredie presented a description of the technology architecture proposed for e-Berkeley (slides from his talk included in handout package). He emphasized principles, plus a conceptual model of a 3-tiered architecture, which emphasizes the connections between applications. He gave examples of standards, components, applications, and services for the different layers of the architectural framework. He talked about the campus groups working on these problems (particularly the Information Technology Architecture Task Force) and stated that a white paper would be produced by the end of February. McCredie expects to "take the show on the road," with many presentations to campus groups.
AVC McCredie mentioned extraordinary problems in getting a signed contract with the proposed provider of the new credit-card processing service, because of differences between UCOP and the vendor over contractual language.
EVC Gray asked about development of a "My Berkeley" type of student portal, similar to what exists at UCLA. McCredie answered that this is a very large project, (one of 30 he presented in December - and BAS may have another 60). We can build a student portal if it's one of the top projects for UCB, but he noted that it would cost a great deal (UCSD's BLink portal, for example, costs $250K per year - plus the initial investment cost). Prioritizing this and other projects is a key piece of the budget process.
4. E-Berkeley Program Office
VC Hyatt briefly described the charge of the proposed e-Berkeley Program Management Office; he will request funding from the Vice Chancellor's Administrative Council on February 15. The office will coordinate project planning for e-Berkeley initiatives as described on the handout included in today's meeting packet. It will also be responsible for implementing the e-Berkeley Communications Plan and coordinating campus functions including training and informational seminars.
5. Budget Process for e-Berkeley Initiatives
VC Hyatt presented an outline of the new budget process for e-Berkeley projects (included in the handout package). After Control Unit review, the new process will bring projects related to e-Berkeley to the EBITF and ASSCS for review, with recommendations forwarded to the Steering Committee for final prioritization. This will unify the many requests and bring them under the auspices of this committee for consideration as a whole. The budget call included a form to be used for all e-Berkeley project descriptions.
7. Outstanding Issues
There was little time to address this item, and a brief statement was made regarding the need to bring e-Berkeley together as a unified effort.
8. Action Items
The following changes need to be made to Committee documents:
The next meeting will be scheduled in March, with subsequent meetings once per month.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Next meeting: Wednesday, March 28, 2001
Future
meetings:
Monday, April 23, 2001
Monday, May 21, 2001
