Villanova University
Karin Steinbrenner
Executive Director University
Information Technologies (UNIT)

A. Introduction

Villanova University (VU) is a comprehensive, coeducational institution located in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. One major goal of the University's Information Technology office (UNIT) is to promote sharing and delivery of information to anyone at any place and any time through the use of state-of-the-art technology tools. To that end, VU rebuilt its Information Technology infrastructure which included the implementation of a new phone system, campus wide network, a comprehensive set of integrated administrative systems including a Library Information system, high technology classrooms, the deployment of networked PCs for every full-time faculty and staff, and the expansion of the network to all residence halls. The following is not a case study with a definite starting and ending point, but rather a snapshot in the middle of a probably never ending project. The snapshot is taken at a time when the University has completed the implementation of a comprehensive set of administrative packages and is faced to respond to ever increasing user demands for information. It coincides with the release of the first version of the University's WWW site which contains vast amounts of information of all types, and the implementation of scanning projects that capture application materials and photo images of all University constituents. The deployment of these various systems created vast amounts of electronic information, but no adequate tools exist for intelligent information navigation or harvesting. The synergy that turns information into knowledge did not materialize since it is derived only when isolated information is linked or put in context. Therefore this paper does not focus on past accomplishments but rather projects how the University plans to create an environment that fosters intelligent navigation and aids an evolving knowledge base.

B. Problem Statement

B.1. The Institution

Villanova University is a medium size, regional University with close to 10,000 students offering primarily undergraduate degrees. Additionally the University offers more than thirty graduate degrees and one doctoral degree in Philosophy. The University has four Colleges and a Law School and is located ten miles west of Philadelphia on the Main Line. Sixty percent of all undergraduates are living on campus. During the past few years, extensive expansions of the University's facilities were carried out. Along with facility improvements, VU made a major commitment to rebuild its IT infrastructure to position the University for the transition to a technology enabled campus.

B.2. The Situation

During the past four years, Villanova has implemented a comprehensive set of administrative systems, including a Student Record, Financial Aid, Alumni Development, Human Resources, Financial and Library system. All systems are based on an integrated institutional data base providing the institution with a rich operational information base with non-redundant, consistent data.

Administrative systems organize data for operational efficiency and effectiveness. Screens are optimized for data entry and update functions rather than for information retrieval. To provide better end user data access, the Information System department created a Data Warehouse and implemented a character based ?user friendly ? information access and retrieval tool.

The Data Warehouse is used extensively by a few 'super' users, however, the current data query tool does not facilitate the ease of access and navigation necessary to allow the occasional user to retrieve information without assistance. Also, the current Data Warehouse has no drill down capabilities nor does it interface readily with analysis tools.

As it is widely known, data maintained by operational systems constitute only a small fraction of the entire information repository that form the basis for an institution's knowledge base. Information available on the University's WWW site, reference materials stored on electronic media, institutional documents, policies and procedures, summary statistics, spatial data, and images should to be managed and linked to operational data resulting in an integrated information environment accessible through a single environment.

B.3. Strategic Significance

Villanova University's strategic plan emphasizes the use of information technology to:

• Expand opportunities for retrieving, exchanging and processing information .

• Expand operational efficiency through the effective use of state-of-the-art technology tools that allow for timely access to information . . .

• Enhance its library resources through the use of available technologies to improve information availability, access, retrieval and use . . .

• Develop a comprehensive technology infrastructure which provides students faculty and staff open and direct access to information . . .

In support of the University's strategic goals, a cross-functional team of information providers and managers was formed. The team will design a comprehensive information system that features access to a wide range of internal and external information accessible through a single, intuitive interface. This information system will expand the boundaries of the traditional Data Warehouse, even though the development of a full featured Data Warehouse will be the first step of the proposed project. In addition to operational data, the system will feature internal and external documents, reference material, and images and information that is now published on the University's WWW. The system will introduce the concepts of information paths that will link operational data to other information if they are logically associated. For example: by clicking on a photo of a building, a floor plan with rooms is displayed and by selecting a room, the events scheduled in that room are displayed or the room inventory.

C. Objectives: Desired Outcomes

The team plans for an all encompassing information environment integrating access to detail and summary data, documents and images through a single user interface.

To aid the novice user, information paths for categories or various constituents will be available; e.g., one path for a student may include his schedule, course syllabi, library reserve list, discussion site, and electronic mail addresses for classmates and the professor. The user, depending on individual preference, may modify existing paths or create new ones. Additionally, users may add their own information and optionally make it available to others, thus adding value to the existing information repository and creating institutional knowledge. Interaction with information creators will be facilitated through e-mail address links imbedded in the document or data retrieved. Optionally, users can be alerted electronically when information matching their profile is published or updated.

D. Approach

Last Spring, the Office for University Information Technology, the Office of Planning and Institutional Research, the Library and the Registrar began to plan for a comprehensive information access environment that will house any type of information. This project is the continuation of VU's past efforts that created an integrated, non-redundant, consistent operational data base. This data base positioned the institution to build a Data Warehouse with minimal resources as there are no requirements for data scrubbing or synchronization.

The Data Warehouse maintains commonly used administrative tables in a simplified structure with table and data element descriptions. A character-based data query/ report writing tool was selected for data access, however, it proved to be cumbersome and therefore it is used only by a few expert users. IS staff now evaluates state-of-the-art, intuitive information access tools utilizing a WWW browser as the user interface where traditional data is accessed in the same way as WWW pages. The ideal software package will be able to create and maintain user profiles and map information or information paths to individuals, groups or subjects. Other features should accommodate the addition of information by any user and dynamic linkage to e-mail addresses of information originators. At this time no single software package with these capabilities exists. While the team will probe vendors for future product directions, the first version will use a state-of-the-art Data Base engine, and an information access tool with a WWW interface. Different information modules will be connected via standard Hyperlinks.

The Executive Director for Institutional Research and the Registrar will identify numerical detail and summary information requested by various internal and external constituents. This information will support decision makers within the university and meet external and internal reporting requirements. During the second phase of the Data Warehouse aggregate data, statistics, survey results and reports will be added and the ability to drill down from summary to detail data. To aid navigation, extensive meta data will complement all tables and data elements. Next, external data sources will be explored as to their utility to complement campus data. These sources may include IPEDS reports from comparative institution, Census Data, or data files available through national Data Archives. The Data Warehouse featuring numeric detail and summary data will then be expanded to include non-traditional data types, e.g., photo images of students and faculty, building and room plans.

The Library as the Information Resource Center for academic information will document requests for academic information such as journals or reference materials. User surveys and existing WWW access statistics will establish a list of reference material and institutional documents that are used by many constituents.

As information is identified, it will be added to the Data Warehouse which will grow into a comprehensive information repository. However, publishing information, accomplishes only so much and still leaves the majority of users clueless as to how to find what they need. A new concept of information paths will provide intelligent linkages among information modules for individuals, groups of individuals or categories. Information paths for users are profiles that identify which information that particular user is most likely to retrieve. For individual users the profile will include the user's ID to automatically select relevant information. For example: based on their ID, students would retrieve their own schedule and grades or faculty or staff members their individual benefits. A single user may have many different information paths. Another type of information path would be by subject, e.g., academic department. By entering an academic department a user can automatically view courses offered by the department, its faculty and their homepages or the building where the department is located. Initially, certain access paths will be preprogrammed, but as the system evolves, users can create their own paths and make them universally available continually enhancing the usefulness of the system. All information paths become a superstructure that guide the information access.

Access to the information environment will be governed by the University's existing policies and procedures for information access and security. However, given the complexity and dynamic content of the information new policies will need to be formulated.

A common interface will provide access to the anticipated Information environment. The planned user interface will work with a WWW browser to facilitate on and off campus access and to ensure ease of navigation and operation. Guided by information paths, all constituents can access information relevant to their interests or tasks: Decision makers can take the pulse of the institution and track the progress of institutional goals and project future directions. Faculty can retrieve advising data, class lists with student photo images or research material maintained on or off campus. Professional staff will have access to data they need to perform their tasks, like budget data or reference material. Students can check course syllabi, schedules, assignments, reference materials, or campus events.

E. Results

E.1. Benefit and Successes

After a short adaption phase, the implementation of integrated administrative systems based on a single data base has improved administrative functions across campus enormously. Support is easier, as technical staffs deal only with a single system and do not have to interface and synchronize various application software packages. End user departments who worked in isolation and used incompatible systems, now work together on data standards and procedures for data maintenance and dissemination. Users benefit, as they have access to more accurate and timely information. The integrated administrative system simplified the creation of a Data Warehouse substantially as only a single instance of any data element exists in the data base, which eliminates data cleaning and reconciliation. The Data Warehouse, even in its current elementary phase, enables many expert users to generate their own reports and those for their immediate constituents shifting the demand and generation of reports from the technical staff to expert users in the various user departments. Last Spring, the Registrar's Office and the IT department implemented a WWW student system that accesses the operational data base directly. Its capabilities allow students to look up their grades on line and check remaining open seats during registration. This system proved to be an overwhelming success and was used by half the student population to check their grades online from home. It consistently ranks number one in the University's WWW access statistics. This success shows that users will access information on their own as long as the process is simple and the information is relevant. This project provided the proof of concept for the planned information environment.

E.2. Failures

The amount of resources it takes to rebuild the entire IT Infrastructure is never adequate, especially as the critical processes of the University need to continue to function. At VU, this was a multi ( 4 - 5 ) year project. While user departments are only involved for the implementation of their own module for a period of eight months to a year, the IT staff is working the entire time on the implementation leading to frustration and burn out. Infrequent system users complained about the new way of doing things and training sessions were at times not close enough to the actual use of the systems. In general, the operational systems proved to be too complicated for the occasional user and did not fulfill the vendor's promise of ease of access to information. While the first phase of the Data Warehouse improved the situation, it did not offer the ease of access that would allow an information literate but an occasional user to formulate his/her own queries and/or reports.

E.3. Unintended Consequences

The appetite for printed reports remained high and end users insisted on reports that they always had even if the new system would provide the information online or in a different format. With the creation of the Data Warehouse, expert users were able to generate reports, lists or mailing labels which shifted the burden of response to user request for information from the IT staff to expert users. The evolving WWW technology allowed the IT staff to move some of the information requests to the WWW creating quick wins which improved moral.

F. Lessons Learned

Celebrate milestones: While the endurance required and amount of time such a project takes to implement cannot be reduced, it would have helped if the leadership had provided more opportunity to celebrate milestones achieved.

Learn to live with non-perfection and instability: Out of necessity, technical staff learned to accept software with bugs and know that fast evolving technology never allows to put a perfect system in place. Users are reluctant to accept these facts. Additionally, the IT staff has to educate the user community that systems are inherently unstable and will change continuously.

Do not settle for mediocre access tools: To deploy the Data Warehouse, IT staff had to compromise on a character-based access tool, this limited the acceptance of the Data Warehouse to expert users and failed to achieve the recognition it deserved by a broader audience. Users demand state-of-the-art graphical access tools and are not any longer willing to remember commands or work in terminal emulation mode.

F.1. Advice to Others

Implementing an integrated Information Access environment is not a matter of if but when and how. Many institutions build it on top of diversified non integrated administrative system using so-called middle-ware. This surround approach may be valid in the short run and lead to a quick win situation. In the long run however, since this approach creates an extra layer in the IT structure it will require additional human, hardware and software resources to maintain. Unless the surround approach is followed by a systematic replacement of underlying, incompatible systems, the University and IT department will waste expensive resources and - without additional budget allocations - this may limit IT's ability to move forward with other enabling technologies.

Ensure that the University has an IT decision making council in place to prevents implementation of unplanned departmental projects that may require extensive support. Budget for some extra capacity for small projects that have to get done.

Stick with your plan and communicate your progress often to the campus community. Dismiss the notion that IT un-proportionately supports the administrative side of the house: administrative systems and access to information benefit equally academic and administrative constituents.

F.2. Advice to Self

Don't oversell the benefits of an operational system to non-operational users. Be patient and realize that it will take three to five years before results bubble to the surface. Support your staff and celebrate their accomplishments when no one else does.

G. Summary

This report discusses VU's journey from implementing an integrated administrative system to a universal information access environment. The University has deployed the first phase of a Data Warehouse and a WWW system. VU plans to marry both worlds into a single information access environment where users will be empowered to add their own information and/or create their own information paths for future reference or sharing with others. It will liberate users from different access mechanisms dictated by various systems and departments. They will be able to retrieve any information they need without having to learn application system specific conventions for different requests. Further more, users can create their own, individualized information environments that may span several underlying systems.

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