Minutes
ITANA Conference Call
November 30, 2007
 
 **Attendees**

Jim Phelps, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Michael Enstrom, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Keith Hazelton, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Chris Thorn, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Renee Frost, Internet2
Ann West, Internet2/EDUCAUSE
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)

**Agenda**

(0) Roll Call. Agenda Bash.

  1. Accept minutes of last call
  2. On-going Items (All)## Architecture Principles - see the Architecture Principles page
    1. Case Studies - see the Case Studies page
    2. Enterprise Information Management Survey - see the Enterprise Information Management Survey page
    3. Gathering example roadmap documents - see the Roadmaps page
    4. Survey and White Paper
  3. New Call time
  4. Items on the shelf review

**Action Items**

Michael Enstrom will post architectural principles from UW-Milwaukee, when available.

Keith Hazelton and Michael Enstrom will develop a template on the wiki for collecting architectural principles from other institutions. They will also fill out the existing case studies template for their respective institutions.

ALL - Jim Phelps is looking for someone with statistics experience to help weight demographic items in the EA survey of campus CIOs.

Jim Phelps will work out a way to involve web presentations during future calls.

Jim Phelps will provide a link to Wisconsin's web content management RFP.

ALL - submit roadmap documents to the wiki

ALL - submit Case Studies to the wiki

ALL - submit Architecture Principle documents to the wiki

**Updates**

There is a tentative date for the next ITANA face-to-face meeting, June 18, 2008, with the location TBA. This will likely be tied to an advanced Camp.

**Ongoing Activities and Architectural Principles**

The working group heard about ongoing activities related to the development of architectural principles. Keith Hazelton started a page on the ITANA wiki about architectural principles (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Architecture+Principles). All institutions are invited to contribute any relevant material concerning the development of architectural principles.

Michael Enstrom reported that the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee is developing a set of architectural principles. He will post these to the wiki as soon as they have been approved. This institution started with the TOGAF principles, but did a lot of revision and adaptation since a portion of this material did not fit higher education. They also looked at materials developed at MIT and how that institution built its architectural framework. At UW-Milwaukee, a number of people from the IT organization were involved in developing the draft principles, including the deputy CIO, the chief architect, a data architect, security staff, an applications architect and a process architect. One key decision was to document process from this point forward, and not go back and develop a history or document what has been done in the past.

Wisconsin - Madison is in a similar place in their process and Keith will post a draft set of principles on the wiki when available. The University of Washington may also have some material; Jim Phelps will follow-up with R.L. Bob Morgan. Others with drafts or other information about a process for developing architectural principles are invited to contribute their material on the wiki. Examples include the principles themselves, how they are implemented, the effect they have on projects or on the institution, and whether the process is worthwhile.

Both Wisconsin schools are focusing on the principles and how IT and business units work together, rather than focusing on the technology itself.

Keith Hazelton suggested using the Wisconsin - Madison and Wisconsin - Milwaukee draft principles to develop a template, to be placed on the wiki and used to collect information from other institutions.

**Case Studies**

Jim has placed a template on the wiki for the development of case studies (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Case+Studies) and put out a call for working group members to work on these. The idea is to provide examples of how architecture groups are formed on campuses and how they work. The idea is to have a variety of cases from institutions that are at various stages of development - brand new EA groups, for example, or those just starting down that road. UW - Madison and UW - Milwaukee committed to posting case studies from their institutions.  

**Road maps**

The wiki has some examples of roadmap development (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Roadmaps) and working group members are invited to post additional information about roadmaps they may have in place. The page currently has information from Madison and Berkeley.

**Survey Follow-up**

Jim Phelps is compiling results from the EA survey of higher education CIOs, done in association with EDUCAUSE. He is particularly interested in some of the demographics, such as the differences based on size of schools. He is looking for a statistician who can help eight various factors - if you are interested, please volunteer. He is also working on the white paper that was promised as part of the survey.

Herbert Dias-Flores (University of California-Berkeley) has circulated his enterprise information management survey internally at Berkeley; two other institutions have also done so. Feedback from the internal results will be used to fine-tune the survey for distribution to higher education institutions at large.

Hebert will also attend the ECAR symposium in Florida on Web 2.0 and social networking and will provide a report during a future call.

**New Call Time**

Two-thirds of those responding to the call time survey preferred Thursdays. So, starting on Dec. 13, the ITANA calls will move to 2 p.m. EST on Thursdays and continue every other week.

**On the Shelf**

"On the Shelf" items from the agenda include architectural tools. Slides of UC Irvine's open source tool (using Protégé) are on the wiki, as are slides from the University of Chicago's IT Ecosystem tool. (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Tools+-+reviews+and+comments).

Jim Phelps will work out a way to involve web presentations during future calls to hear a report on these tools.

Paul Hill has written a background paper on SOA that is on the wiki: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/SOA. He will discuss this during a future call.
The University of Wisconsin - Madison's web content management RFP just went public; Jim Phelps will provide a link to the document.

**Administrative Design at Wisconsin**

Part of Wisconsin's administrative redesign effort involved a redesign of processes; the university is starting by looking at business processes, rather than starting with the IT concerns. Typically, a university will purchase, say, a new ERP and then determine how the processes will fit. Wisconsin is starting by reviewing processes and determining which are working and which are not. Then they will look at process improvement, including technology. The architecture group has involved two professors, including one from the executive education program in the business school. They have been teaching about these kinds of issues and are interested in being involved in an actual implementation. Jim hopes to have one of these professors, Scott Converse, on a future call to share his research and insights.

**German Examples of Process Development**

Chris Thorn discussed issues he raised in recent emails to the working group. There are strong rules in Germany for the deployment of technology in public organizations. One example is that it is against the law for them to use bleached paper. The policy/principle involved is to minimize the impact public institutions have on the environment.

Chris also discussed some German standards for e-government. For example, the state of Bavaria had a concern about long-term access to records. As a result, they have switched to Open Office desktop tools across the entire state. The process (long-term records access) is driving the technology (open source). They are also developing and making available open source tools for process modeling, based on the principle that all organizations should have access to such tools.
An expanded version of these comments will be on the agenda for a future call.

**Next Call - Note Change of Day - Thursday, Dec. 13 - 2:00 p.m. EST

  • No labels