APC P.13

2003/2004

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

ACADEMIC PROGRAMME COMMITTEE OF THE UWIDEC

Information Technology matters in the University

A. Staffing

1 We do not now have the numbers nor the right mix of skills required to advance the university’s IT business. The state of the practice calls for the ratio of IT staff to users in this category of business to be about 1:30. In addition, those that we do have are not organized for efficiency of service delivery. For example, the computer lab support staff as presently organized across the campuses is fragmented and cannot provide more support hours even as the requirement grows everywhere. The Vice Chancellor has instructed a reorganization of the IT skillsets in all Vice Chancellery departments into a cohesive support team.

2 Additional skills are needed in the areas of web development and multimedia skills for online course development. But given the budgetary situation, we have advised even greater use of student help as a strategic/tactical response.

3 We must encourage even greater collaboration across campuses and units in order to deliver effective IT service. The case of the web development team is a prime example of what is possible. We instituted an enterprise-wide web development team a year ago whose work has resulted in significant success for this kind of engagement. For the first time, the university has published websites with uniform design and navigation. We intend to develop a network planning and support team of similar construction and objective.

B. Information Technology Budgeting

4 The IT budget for the entire university system is not adequate to build out the infrastructure required to support the complement of administration, teaching and research. Neither is it adequate to maintain and support the existing infrastructure at the standards required to effectively support the business of the university once technologically-enabled. As a result, the IT upgrade program is continuing with uneven results across the system. Technology refresh cycles are severely impacted. The state of the practice is to budget for a 3-year refresh cycle for computers and printers, 5-year cycles for servers and network switchgear. Based on the information provided by the campuses, Cave Hill and St. Augustine are behind. The University Centres are in even worse shape.

5 Given the budget crunch, we believe it is opportune to consider alternate software systems to the existing licensed software regime. We believe the optimal solution is a deliberate move to deployment of Open Source technologies and platforms in the university IT infrastructure. The Virtual Learning Environment software platform provides the best such opportunity in the near term. Consequently, we have decided to move to an Open Source Learning Management System and technical investigations have progressed satisfactorily in the last four months; we have been investigating both the Bodington and Moodle systems. Based on the interim results, we are very confident that Moodle provides a stable, feature-rich enterprise-class platform and is a suitable cost-effective replacement for WebCT. It is the most widely deployed such system with over one hundred and fifty university implementations. Interestingly, it supports the social constructivist pedagogy and was built specifically to replace WebCT. The latter fact allows for a seamless integration of WebCT skills across the board. In addition, this platform will operate on so-called LAMP technologies (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), themselves Open Source software systems which further reduces our cost of ownership. An added benefit is that the Open Source characteristic of these technologies allows us to extend and customize in context, thusly providing an opportunity for the University to create a unique brand with economic value.

C. Infrastructure Matters

6 The time has come for a fundamental and comprehensive overall of the network infrastructure supporting the university’s business. The principal requirement is to architect the network so as to provide interconnectivity of each of us to all of us with bandwidth of affordable cost and quantity to each location good and sufficient to support pervasive communications by the several means. We are convinced this is the first step towards the realization of the fruits that association with this institution promised. We believe the strategic direction for such a regional network rests with our acceptance of the high speed Internet2 backbone as our own. This would involve all sites exchanging network traffic at the Network Access Point (NAP) of the Americas in Florida, USA. This would be best accomplished by the installation of a satellite-based network.

7 As a corollary to the above, we must move with deliberate speed to integrate the voice networks at all university locations for even greater cost-efficiency and utility. We are already engaging the regional carrier and their partners in this effort.

8 There is an urgent requirement for the creation and implementation of a comprehensive security practice for the university. The hi-level plan is being drafted and an enterprise team will be instituted to implement it.

D. Standard for Online Course Development

The contemporary higher and further education markets provide promising opportunities for selling education services in an online mode. The university must exercise leadership in facilitating the quality, quantity, scope and scale of these offerings so that effective and innovative teaching, learning, assessment, research and administration are demonstrated. An eLearning Standard will provide a framework to build quality into our educational programs - in fact all of our educational programs in due course - by embracing modern pedagogical and research models and techniques that are based on up-to-date learning science, and encouraging the use of appropriate technologies to support scholarship. We have begun to develop such a framework, drawing on the expertise of a wide cross-section of university interests.

The eLearning Standard facilitates the design, development, delivery and marketing of learning objects, including packaged courseware in the international marketplace. It also attaches great importance to establishing scientific, empirical, data-centric bases for our pedagogical and technological practices. Equally important, the eLearning Standard embraces the quality assurance and enhancement initiatives of the Board for Undergraduate Studies and the lessons crystallized from the experiences of UWIDEC, the UWI Institutes of Education and Departments of Educational studies.

University Director of IT, UWI at Mona

30^th March, 2004