General Information

Proposed Project Name:    Engagement between campus IT organizations and Research     Date:    1/17/2007

Description of Proposed Project 

Scope and Objectives
The scope of the project is to develop a tool or template for gathering data as to how IT can assist or engage with researchers to allow us to open the dialog between IT and Research.  The tool or template will be executed at each of our Universities.  The team will analyze the data, modify the tool as appropriate and make it widely available. 

Background
At major R-1 Universities, IT departments have spent many years focusing on administrative needs and issues, developing and implementing enterprise applications.  There is now considerable interest at R-1 Universities in engagement between the IT groups and the Research arm of the University.  Given the lack of previous involvement, IT needs to take a "peek" inside the research community, see how it involves technology, and consider the impact of new initiatives like Cyberscience on the current infrastructure and on the University in general.  Given that we have limited experience in engaging with the Research community, we need a model to help us establish and maintain dialog.  Universities may use this model to identify the current limitations on research, from a technology perspective, and to develop a mutually beneficial relationship between IT and the Research community.   

Learning Opportunities:
1.    The opportunity to learn about a community new to many of us, the Research community
2.    Stakeholder management.
3.    Leadership in "inviting" participation from the campus.
4.    Transferring skills from one area (Administration) to another (Research)
5.    Strategic capacity planning.
6.    Learn about collaboration tools (E.g. a wiki) - added by SCP

Risks  

scope creep

Deliverables  

1.    Tool or Template to engage in dialog with researchers
1.5   Suggestions on the process of conducting the interviews - how to make them more productive (added by Scott)
2.    Data from interviews executed with researchers
3.    Report of findings of interviews from each university
4.    Overview & presentation

Project Goals  

Develop and test a tool that will be useful to IT leaders in engaging with research.
Workplan & Major milestones
Develop the tool
Identify researchers in each organization to meet with
Conduct interviews using the tool
Consolidate and analyze data
Produce report

Communications Strategy  

Weekly teleconference calls
Wiki for Document sharing
Meet at University of Washington session 

  Participant Roles  

Oren Sreebny    University of Washington
Mark McCahill     University of Minnesota
Jeff Reel            Penn State University
Helen Norris       UC Berkeley
John Carnicella   Penn State University
Scott Pinkerton   Argonne