Planning Goals
Information Services has begun a planning process to help determine choices and future directions for core IT services (such as email, calendar, file storage and printing). This process will look at our services holistically and lay a foundation for an environment that better meets the needs of the community.
Why now?
Right now the community uses a set of IT tools, many of which will need to be replaced over the next few years. Those replacements are happening at an opportune time given the new generation of technologies that are available. We recognize that technology will continue to change and we need to develop a responsive technical infrastructure and better ways to manage the changes. A summer 2008 rollout will focus on the upgrade to Microsoft Vista and a replacement for Novell for file storage and printing services.
What are the goals?
The most challenging goal is balancing flexibility to take advantage of exciting new tools and sustainability to make sure things continue to work well with limited resources. We intend to take advantage of commercial and/or open source packages that already meet the needs of our community thereby allowing the IS staff to focus on integration, testing and support of services being developed by recognized specialists.
The key components framing our process:
- Better integration between services with more community collaboration options
- Improved services using fewer, but better, products
- More flexibility to integrate new features and services
- Well-defined, well-tested and well-supported core set of services
What is the timeline?
The project will have two initial phases, a research phase to be completed in the fall 2007 and an initial implementation phase currently aiming for June 2008. We are talking with peers at other institutions, and reflecting on what we are hearing from the community to develop the overall goals for this review. We want to talk with representative students, staff and faculty this summer for additional input on the goals for this IT redesign process.
How can I get involved?
Visit the blog at www.brynmawr.edu/is/planning and add your reaction to a current set of problem statements, to suggest additional questions or concerns or to sign up for a focus group.
We invite you to revisit this site to see monthly progress reports and ongoing blog posts.
Filed under: Community Update, IS News