October 2002 Update

Board of Deans Recommendations

In June, the Board of Deans made the following recommendations to C&C:

Create a platform for discussion between academic units, campuses and C&C.
Assign a C&C representative to each school, college, and campus.
Continue C&C's coordination of monthly and quarterly meetings with computing staff from all units, with pre-meeting agendas sent to the deans.
Involve academic units early when planning changes or new initiatives.

Status of Recommendations

C&C is working with the President, Provost, Executive Vice President, and Board of Deans on a proposal to form three new computing advisory committees.
C&C has assigned a C&C director to serve as a liaison to each dean and chancellor. C&C directors have begun to meet regularly with each dean and chancellor (or designee). As of October 2, all of the deans have been contacted by their C&C liaison, 17 meetings have been scheduled, and eight of those have taken place.
Major issues raised so far include:
- Desire for better communication with C&C
- Information on wireless and calendaring options
- Information and help on security issues and policies
- Desire for central site licensing
- Information on MyUW, including how to use and leverage it
- Interest in developing distance learning programs
C&C is continuing to coordinate monthly computing directors meetings and quarterly computing support staff meetings with unit staff, and is sending pre-meeting agendas and meeting materials to the deans.
Once established, the proposed computing advisory committees will help to ensure early involvement of academic units in new initiatives and major changes. In addition, C&C is taking extra care to involve academic units in new planning task forces (details below).

Other C&C Communications Initiatives

In response to input from deans, chancellors, and others in the university community, C&C has made the following efforts since the beginning of the year to increase communications about information technology issues and projects:

Created the new position of Manager of Organizational Communications to develop and manage ongoing, proactive, two-way communications and outreach to UW campuses, schools, colleges, and the UW community. Cindy Brown has been hired to perform this role.
Initiated regular email updates to deans, computing directors, and administrators on technology issues and services that might be of interest to academic units.
Launched a new organizational Web site to help the UW community quickly find information about C&C.
Initiated a new university-wide Computing Directors Group to enhance communications about strategic information technology issues.
Drafted an Information Services Strategy report to document C&C's current approach to delivering information services and to explain how major projects in this area are connected to each other and how they build toward the overall strategy. This document is meant to serve as a basis for a university-wide conversation about strategic information technology issues and directions.
Met with each chancellor and dean (or designee) to gather input about the Information Services Strategy report and discuss overall information technology issues and concerns.

In addition, C&C also is:

Making an extra effort to involve members of the UW community on committees created to formulate new policy or explore new technologies and services. Examples include task forces and committees working on calendaring, outage reporting, and security policy.
Revising its email service Web page to clarify email program options including Microsoft Outlook Express, Pine, and WebPine.
Focusing on increasing user involvement in the creation of new applications with a C&C team on user-centered planning, design, and testing, as well as by working with USER staff to strengthen the USER development paradigm.
Presenting an overview of C&C and major projects at a UW administrators' lunch in November.