Assessment of faculty IT needs urged

By MARA McGINNIS
Reporter Assistant Editor

An assessment that would evaluate the degree to which the university's computing-and-information-technology structures, expenditures, priorities and support are meeting faculty needs was proposed in a resolution presented Tuesday to the Faculty Senate.

The resolution, presented by Robert Straubinger, associate professor of pharmaceutics and a member of the Faculty Senate Computer Services Committee, addresses faculty concerns about what it calls the university's lack of assessment on implementing information technology, particularly its effects on faculty responsibilities, including teaching, research, administration and service.

It calls for the administration and the Faculty Senate to jointly perform the assessment by forming a task force that would determine "the degree to which the computing-and-information-technology expenditures, priorities and delivery of support meet the needs of its end users, particularly faculty" and specifically, the degree to which the "decentralized administrative structure for computing and information technology" supports the needs of faculty. It also calls for the administration to institute a plan to make regular assessments in the future.

"We need to get some sense of the degree to which faculty needs are being met. The resolution really attempts to address that," said Straubinger. "It describes (briefly) the many points in which information technology touches on the teaching and learning process, and basically it requests a review of the information-technology delivery as it meets faculty needs."

Straubinger noted that earlier drafts of the resolution called for the possibility of having the evaluation done by an outside consulting firm, but after that issue was debated at a recent meeting of the senate's executive committee, the computing committee decided to eliminate it from the final version.

The highest priority during the assessment, Straubinger explained, would be to look at the function of the nodes because "they are a primary source of delivery of information-technology resources to the faculty" and then to move on to other issues of particular importance to the faculty.

"The reason for concentrating on the nodes is because this is a new administrative structure with a track record of a couple years," said Straubinger. "There seems to be a wide range of services provided by different nodes. There seems to be very different philosophies of how nodes see their mission and a wide range of faculty involvement. It may be a considerable difficulty for faculty if their needs do not match the priorities or delivery of the nodes," he added.

As for how the assessment would be conducted, Straubinger explained that the evaluation instrument itself is something that would require considerable discussion.

"Probably one of the simplest things to do initially is to poll node directors and poll a selection of faculty," he said. "We were purposely vague on the instrument to be used. A survey probably would be the place to start and I think node directors should be surveyed for their ideas and on how they run their nodes."

In response to a faculty concern about the amount of spending on IT, Straubinger said that was not a consideration of the committee when drafting the resolution. "The biggest problem the committee had is really trying to be involved in the decision-making process at all. Decisions are being made all of the time that affect us and it was felt that we needed to evaluate the results of the decision-making process, i.e., the delivery of information technology, and whether it's meeting needs, rather than focusing upstream on the sources."