The UVic e-Infrastructure

The Banner/Nova project is implementing my strategic vision for a comprehensive, integrated "back-end" to support a re-invented administration with a client-focused services model for the customers (students, faculty, and staff) of UVic's administration.  That services model envisages a reexamination and redefinition of UVic's administrative¹ policies, processes and procedures to ensure that they deliver services and information to the UVic community in an efficient and effective manner; these revised processes and procedures will be enhanced as appropriate by the use of technology.  It is important to understand that while the Nova implementation project ends in 2008 it builds a set of capabilities and skills that allow all UVic units to continue to develop innovative solutions and evolve new services beyond that date.  Indeed, failure to continue with such services evolution misses one of the fundamental reasons for pursuing Nova in the first place, and could lose UVic considerable competitive advantage. The completion of the Nova project is not an end point!

To implement the client-focused services model Nova depends on several, interdependent, key characteristics as shown in the sidebar:

The services back-end described in the sidebar must in turn be wrapped in a comprehensive services "front-end": i.e., the everyday working environment for members of the UVic community.  This front-end is the environment that supports UVic's primary activities of communication, collaboration, and coordination.  This front-end is currently highly fragmented with UVic having historically scattered uncoordinated investments in multiple e-mail systems, multiple calendaring systems, multiple collaboration tools, standalone VoiceMail, etc., most of which don't - and cannot - interoperate.  My plans to tackle this front-end environment envisaged building a similar integrated environment to Banner/Nova, including (i) standard interfaces, (ii) integrated/shared data and in-common software tools, and (iii) tight ties into the Banner/Nova back-end.  Collectively I envisage these as providing support for personal and group productivity and for building and sustaining an extensive set of UVic academic and administrative e-communities.

When largely in place both the back-end and the front-end will work together to provide a services and productivity platform supporting UVic's larger learning, teaching, research and administrative rôles in BC, Canada, and the world.

In turn UVic's learning, teaching and research activities can depend upon much of the e-Infrastructure built above and add particular focus on technology enhancements for synchronous and asynchronous blended learning, smart classrooms, support for "information literacy", Web-based audio and video, very high capacity HPC/networking facilities, very large databases, and collaborative activities between CASS and the L&TC, the Libraries, Distance Education Services, etc.  Thus it is important that the UVic community engage in wide-ranging discussion about the rôles of technology in the academic mission, and the governance, planning, investment prioritization, and funding mechanisms that might be employed to fulfill these rôles.

To ensure alignment and consistency with UVic's strategic directions it's important that all of UVic's e-Infrastructure investments be made in the context of an institutional e-Infrastructure strategic plan that is explicitly part of a larger, coherent, UVic planning context.

These ideas are further developed in my various documents listed below under 'Vision and Issues'.