Recommendations and Advice from the AVC - IT
AVC Barone was the first person to hold the role of the AVC - IT. What was done over the last 6 years was to establish some infrastructure on the campus. Now, with some infrastructure in place, we need to think about how we relate to leading edge activities, e.g. NSF, NPACI.
With respect to teaching and learning and use of information technology, we need to determine how the various players are going to collaborate. We need to do a better job of coordinating distributed activities. Some questions to be answered: What is our priority for distributed learning on this campus?
What is the role of information technology in research? Technology infrastructure is very important; research support on this campus does not play as heavy a central IT role on this campus. Issue of current state of visualization facilities; the resources available are embarrassing. The campus needs to decide what will work for this campus. Students are done a disservice by not exposing them to the ways that technologies are used in their disciplines.
Question for the AVC: What about the role of AVC IT and its close coupling (or not) with the Division of IT?
AVC: Good question. The campus needs to decide what it needs or wants in an AVC at this time. Does this campus want a CIO? Or does the campus want a manager of a utility? An engineering manager-type will be very different from a CIO type.
Comment: Need to spend some time understanding what issues are unique to Davis, versus what issues are global.
Question: How is our state compared to the other UC campuses?
AVC: Nine different structures, nine different approaches. We were at the bottom of the list as far as infrastructure up until the last year or so, now we are in the leading group.
Question: What is unique at Davis?
AVC: We do not have a long history of using information technology throughout the campus. Two big areas:
- Most campuses have a history of budgeting for academic computing. We have not had a history of funding academic computing in an ongoing basis. Where it would be a case of incremental funding adjustments at other campuses, this is not the case here.
- Administration - we are very late to working with online systems. This is a major and painful transition. This affects support structures throughout the campus.
How the council will operate -- John Vohs
Large size of Council indicates needs for subcommittees.
The large size of this committee really indicates that it needs structure. In order to operate in between meetings, need for a steering committee that is a subset of the group for Harry to turn to for more timely advice.
Action: Use subcommittees for preparatory work. Form Council steering committee.
Action: Council will meet monthly.
Action: Move forward during summer before fall quarter begins.
Logistical items include: preparation of agendas, time management, timely delivery of reading materials.
Action: Send reading material 10 days in advance.
AC4 Home | Meetings | 6/15/98