ITANA Meeting Minutes - 10-December-2009

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Attending

Keith Hazelton, University of Wisconsin-Madison (guest chair)
Tom Barton, University of Chicago
Michael Daley, University of Michigan
Mike Halm, Penn State University
Christian Johansen, Penn State University
R.L. "Bob" Morgan, University of Washington
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Rich Stevenson, University of Maryland University College
Ron Thielen, University of Chicago
Ann West, Internet2/EDUCAUSE
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)

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Action Items

(AI) For the next call, Jim and Keith will touch base on the enterprise workflow items on the agenda.

(AI) Keith will send an email to start the discussion about the survey revision and to frame a few new questions.

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Enterprise Workflow/Burton Group Recap

The last ITANA call included a Screen2Screen by the Burton Group on enterprise workflow. Group members commented that this was good for perspective, providing another context for workflow and a feel for what Burton's customers have been doing or not doing. It was also interesting to hear about the treatment of business processes as managed objects in a workflow system.

Keith mentioned that Wisconsin is undergoing a multi-year administrative process redesign project, including documenting current business processes. Once such process are on the white board, people start seeing that not everything should be done in a linear fashion, but could be accomplished simultaneously. An example of a changed process is the course guide. Prior to the change, a student faced a complicated mix of online, printed, and other formats as they choose and register for courses. The university is trying to move all of that online in a logical way.

Tom reported that, at Chicago, workflow is in patches and silos. There is a service the university developed called CIcon, based on an image-management software system, but it will likely not become a broadly based platform. With the growing need to refresh some of its administrative systems, and looking at Kuali modules, Kuali workflow has also been discussed.

At Penn State, the administrative information systems unit has embarked on a workflow project that developers envision as an all-encompassing solution to the workflow problem. One of the problems encountered is the huge proliferation of associated roles, many of which are duplicates. There is a need to refine and agree on the concept of what a role is.

(AI) For the next call, Jim and Keith will touch base on some of the outstanding enterprise workflow items on the agenda.

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Enterprise Architecture Survey

The group discussed updating a survey conducted in 2008, with the plan to send it to CIOs in January 2010. Jim Phelps provided the survey in a December 8 email and would like input on changes, updates or additions. Some thoughts:

1) Include a question about the concept of whether you look at "best-of-breed" for purchases or at integrated solutions, where possible.

2) Include a question about consideration of open source solutions, trying to ascertain how organizations compare the presumed competence and accountability of a commercial vendor with the concept of working within an open source community. Also, what are the issues when considering open source (licensing, for example, or support?).

3) Perhaps as a subset of the existing outsourcing question, include questions concerning software-as-a-service and cloud computing, to ascertain the areas organizations are considering for these methods of "outsourcing," the reasons (costs? staffing?), and to see any trends. This might be a 4a, for example: "to what extent is your organization using SaS or cloud computing," and give some choices.

(AI) Keith will send an email to start the discussion about the survey revision and to frame a few new questions.

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Frameworks, EA Tools

There was a discussion about whether institutions are adopting frameworks. UMUC and the University of Michigan reported using TOGAF, but it is not universal on those campuses. The University of Washington has an initiative called ROA (research-oriented architecture) as an explicit alternative to SOA. ROA is intended to be integrated with policy, with the idea that services should be exposed to entities around campus (and not be driven only by central IT).

The University of Montreal reported having a new architecture group following the Gartner methodologies. One of the main objectives is to provide common definitions and a common language to use across campus. They are also trying to document a more integrated enterprise viewpoint.

Keith suggested that Washington and Montreal provide any relevant links about their work and these concepts.

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Travel Budgets and Face2Face

There was a discussion about whether there are travel restrictions that might affect an ITANA Face2Face and also whether there are suggestions for piggybacking an ITANA meeting onto an existing meeting.

No one reported any travel restrictions in place. Some of the meetings suggested as possible piggybacks: Forrester and Open Group (although both are in February), Kantara (March), or perhaps a CAMP and Advanced CAMP being planned by InCommon in June.

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Next Meeting - Thursday, January 7 - 2 p.m. EST / 1 p.m. CST / 11 a.m. PST

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