Overview & Project Timeline

1. CHARGE
The charge to the Information Technology Guidance Committee is to:

• Identify strategic directions for IT investments that enable campuses to meet their distinctive needs more effectively while supporting the University’s broader mission, academic programs and strategic goals.
  
• Promote the deployment of information technology services to support innovation and the enhancement of academic quality and institutional competitiveness.
  
• Leverage IT investment and expertise to fully exploit collective and campus-specific IT capabilities.
  

2. ORGANIZATION
To accomplish this charge, the ITGC will need inputs from several sources, including:

• Broad consultation with:
  • UC stakeholders
  • Campus and systemwide governing bodies
    
• Coordination with related academic and administrative planning processes
  
• Environmental scans, competitive analysis, and advice from distinguished academic and industry leaders

In thinking about how best to bring the formidable knowledge of the UC community to bear on these questions, it is possible to imagine organizing along one of several dimensions, for example:

• By stakeholder group: e.g., faculty, students, managers and staff of UC business processes, IT managers and staff.
  
• By role: e.g., information users, information producers, information managers and stewards, service and infrastructure providers.
  
• By function: e.g., teaching, research, public service, business functions.

This kind of taxonomic organization, however, is vulnerable to several prospective deficiencies. First, it is difficult to ensure that a taxonomic grouping along one of these dimensions is both exclusive and exhaustive, i.e., that all relevant views and sources of expertise are included, and that each of these is represented in only one category; this is especially problematic in that many groups may validly look at these problems from more than one perspective (e.g., faculty are simultaneously producers, users, and stewards of information and information services). Second, such categories may be too broad to provide a clear focus or a reasonable agenda for work that must be accomplished over an 18-month period. Third, it is challenging to ensure that the resulting work both adequately represents the views of the categorized constituencies and fully addresses the crosscutting issues that apply across all of them (e.g., if organized by stakeholder group, there is no obvious means to surface and grapple with strategic issues like network infrastructure or collaborative IT services that support all stakeholders).

For these reasons, the ITGC leadership has chosen to implement a pragmatic and flexible organizational structure that can produce meaningful input for the ITGC over a limited period of time while remaining capable of adapting to issues and insights as they arise throughout the process. The primary components of this organization include:

2.1. The Information Technology Guidance Committee

The Committee itself is responsible to the Provost for organizing to acquire the input it needs to meet its charge, ensuring effective communication and dialog with stakeholder communities, providing necessary guidance to the other components of the organization, and distilling recommendations for the University. It is supported in these roles by a Planning Group of officers and staff in the Office of the President that directly supports the ITGC and ensures the effective administration of the overall process.

2.2. Expert Working Groups

Expert Working Groups are charged to gather information, identify and analyze issues, and develop recommendations in topical or functional areas where either (a) knowledge about issues and possible solutions is already well developed or (b) the importance of the topic or function is widely recognized and the community of interested stakeholders is well defined. Specifically, Expert Working Groups are:

• Convened to identify for and recommend to the ITGC the key strategic directions in their domain
  
• Comprised of subject-matter experts who are passionate about contributing to IT planning
  
• Chaired by leaders in the field who are invested in advancing the IT planning agenda
  
• Supported by “consultants" to enable the planning process
  
• Resourced appropriately by UCOP in recognition of system wide value

At its discretion, the ITGC may (a) establish additional Expert Working Groups, (b) modify the charges of established groups, or (c) disestablish groups. A more complete description of ITGC Expert Working Groups is available in the document entitled Guidance for ITGC Working Groups, Version 1d, dated 04/10/06 (to be posted).

2.3. Provisions for support of cross-cutting issues

The ITGC organizational plan provides for ways to address issues that (a) cut across the charges of the Expert Working Groups, (b) support the common needs of the groups, or (c) bring together representatives of key constituencies to advise on work in progress and generate new ideas in critical areas. This work may be accomplished by ITGC staff, outside consultants, or ad hoc expert groups drawn from the campuses (or any combination of these), as circumstances warrant. Consistent with these functions, the plan currently envisions three kinds of provisions.

2.3.1. Common research functions

Some research activities are best organized as crosscutting functions that are both informed by the work of the Expert Working Groups and in turn inform the work of those groups, as well as the Committee. Examples include environmental scans, user needs assessments, and formal systemwide survey and focus group inquiries.

2.3.2. Mutual planning activities

Some of the planning work (a) helps to coordinate and synthesize the work of other groups, (b) addresses issues common to several groups, or (c) address issues associated with the Committee’s own final analysis and recommendations, and therefore must be organized independently of topical working groups and research activities. Examples include:

• Costs and funding
• Governance and organization
• Human resources
• Legal and policy considerations
• Identification of and support for shared systemwide services
• Consultation and communication planning for ITGC’s final analyses and recommendations.

2.3.3. Special constituency consultations

In areas of critical importance where (a) a particular constituency has strong interest or expertise and/or (b) the issues cut across the charges of the working groups, it may be desirable to provide organized fora for consultation and communication on these issues. For example, the ITGC Planning Team is in the process of organizing a Faculty Advisory Group on UC Research Cyberinfrastructure. This group consists of about 40 invited and nominated faculty (including may who also serve on ITGC and/or Expert Working Groups), who will meet twice, consult intermittently by conference call, and respond to requests to review summaries of work products, in the areas of high-performance computing, advanced networking, data stewardship, and standards that facilitate collaboration.

3. TIMELINES, EVENTS, AND WORK PRODUCTS
The following charts summarize the work plan of the ITGC and the supporting groups, identify planned ITGC meetings and other relevant time-sensitive events, and indicate some of the work products that will be generated.

Click on images below to enlarge

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