IT Commons encourages cooperation

Updated 10:00 AM October 20, 2003

IT Commons encourages cooperation

By Nancy Ross-Flanigan
News Service

In a classic essay published in 1968, ecologist Garrett Hardin described "the tragedy of the commons"—the ruination of a pasture shared by all the herdsmen in a community. Each herdsman was free to decide how many cattle to graze on the pasture and, acting in self interest, each kept adding animals until the pasture was depleted and the cattle all died. If the herdsmen had acted in a spirit of cooperation, however, they could have decided together how best to use the commons to everyone's advantage.

In that spirit of cooperation for the common good, U-M information technology leaders have been working together during the past year on an initiative called the IT Commons, with the aim of changing the way the University plans for and manages its information technology resources.

"The new process is designed to more closely mirror the way we work together at the University of Michigan," says James Hilton, associate provost for academic, information and instructional technology affairs. "It's rooted in the core values and mission of the University, it reflects the diverse priorities of our many units and programs, and it emphasizes the advantages of creative collaboration. Moving in this direction will allow students, faculty and staff to use our IT assets more effectively in research, teaching and learning."

“The new process is designed to more closely mirror the way we work together at the University of Michigan.”–Associate Provost James Hilton

The new approach—which encourages the sharing of information technology resources and expertise among units with similar needs—was necessary for several reasons, says Kitty Bridges, executive director of Information Technology Central Services (ITCS). As access to information technology tools and expertise has increased over the past decade, academic units have developed systems and software to suit their own needs, and information technologists scattered throughout campus have become isolated.

"Technology has made it possible for everybody to do everything," Bridges says. "So schools and colleges—from the very small to the very largest—are providing all services, across the board, resulting in much duplication of effort." With their IT budgets and staffs committed to providing such basic services as e-mail, calendars and file servers, schools and colleges often lack the resources needed to focus on IT support for research and teaching—areas that could help distinguish them from their counterparts at other institutions.

The IT Commons concept grew out of brainstorming sessions during the past two years involving Hilton, IT leaders from across campus and two advisors from a Boston-based consulting group. In the process, the group identified and began addressing several campus-wide infrastructure problems, such as authentication and authorization. "When you log in to the U-M network with your user name and Kerberos password, a central service authenticates who you are and authorizes you to use certain computer resources," says Mike McPherson, director of information technology for LSA. "But every unit on campus also has services that authenticate and authorize users for specialized local applications." IT Commons working groups, made up of technologists from all academic units and major service units, also are coming up with new ways to handle issues related to networking, file storage, security and other infrastructure challenges.

Another dimension to the IT Commons effort is the collaborative development of new projects such as the Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) being coordinated by U-M's Living Laboratory, located in the Media Union. The project will provide the campus community with more efficient ways of accessing, manipulating and analyzing large collections of video, audio and other digital multimedia materials, such as videotaped interviews that Business School students conduct with business leaders and videos of dental procedures that School of Dentistry students use as learning tools. Although the units initially involved in the project—LSA and the schools of Business, Dentistry, Education, Pharmacy and Information—all plan to use the system in different ways, they're working together to evaluate options and agree on specifications.

"This is an example of how IT Commons can work," says John Williams, associate director of the Media Union. "A critical mass of schools can develop a project and plan for its production, keeping the rest of the campus informed and perhaps attracting more schools to participate. It's a very different approach from having somebody build something off in a corner and either keep it to themselves or force other people to use it."

The word "force," in fact, is antithetical to the whole idea of IT Commons, Bridges says. "There's nothing in this whole model that forces centralization or forces decentralization or forces anything. Units can opt in or opt out. What this really is about is doing IT the way we do the other things that have made this University so successful on the academic side: getting processes to work across the board and collaborating across units."

Paul Killey, executive director of information technology for the College of Engineering, sees some payoffs in the near future. "Much of the groundwork for IT Commons is now in the final stages of completion and we've had input from technology managers and users all across campus," Killey says. "Based on this collaboration, in the next few months the campus will begin to see improvements such as a more rigorous plan for IT security and the resources to make it work, faster deployment of wireless infrastructure, and more. Collaboration on this scale is hard work—but I think we will all soon see its rewards."

Information on the ongoing activities of the IT Commons, including documents posted for public comment, can be found at: http://www.umich.edu/itcommons/.

IT Commons encourages cooperation

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