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Performance Testing PeopleSoft Campus Solutions v9.0: A Case Study, EDUCAUSE Enterprise Information and Technology Conference, Chicago, May 2009
Presenters: Jody Reeme, Associate Director, Student Enterprise Systems, and Jeffrey Wilson, Business Systems Analyst, Northwestern University

Presentation slides and handout available at http://net.educause.edu/ENT08/Program/14535?PRODUCT_CODE=ENT08/SESS18

NOTES

Reeme and Wilson began with an overview of the campus and their Oracle/PeopleSoft implementations and their hardware and then defined performance testing as:

• Performance Testing - transactional speed under specific workload
• Load testing - create incremental demand and measure
• Stress testing - system performance under controlled amounts of stress

They were doing performance testing for "peace of mind" in two areas:

Community Source Software: The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning? Notes from a panel at the EDUCAUSE Enterprise Information and Technology Conference, Chicago, IL, May 2008
Panelists:
Laura McCain Patterson, Associate VP, Information Systems, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Richard Spencer, Acting CIO and AVP IT, The University of British Columbia
Brad Wheeler, VP for IT, CIO, and Professor, Indiana University
Moderator: Andrea Di Maio, VP Distinguished Analyst, Gartner, Inc.

Abstract:
Community source is designed to coordinate the work of different user IT organizations sharing the same purpose and requirements. An alternative to commercial applications and custom development, it gives users control and shares risk across peer organizations. Although several such public sector communities exist and yield great promises, many struggle with achieving critical mass and a viable business model. This panel compares and contrasts community source with more traditional software sourcing options and explores critical sustainability success factors.

Today's Clash of Cultures on College Campuses and the Role IT Needs to Play
Morris Beverage
President, Lakeland Community College
General Session, EDUCAUSE Enterprise Information and Technology Conference, May 2008

Abstract:
Campuses today face a growing number of clashing cultures. Faculty struggle with traditional methods of teaching in an environment where demands for flexibility and convenience are rising. Learners increasingly treat a college degree like a commodity. Battles rage over resources allocation. Politicians are exerting influence on campus operations and outcomes. This session will address these issues and the role IT departments need to play to help higher education not just survive, but thrive.
Podcast and PowerPoint available at http://net.educause.edu/ENT08/Program/14535?PRODUCT_CODE=ENT08/GS03

Notes

Centralized Media Management for User Created Content
Colin McFadden
College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota

presented by the EDUCAUSE Enterprise Information and Technology Conference, Chicago, IL, May 2008

Notes:

McFadden discussed the rise of user created media from 5 areas:

• Students producing videos for class and for fun - non tech and tech
• Lecture capture
• Event capture
• Research - faculty using video and other media
• University marketing and promotion

Issues

EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference, June 2008

Think Stops - 3 questions and responses (photos of these low-tech wikis to come)

Think Stop 1: What are the most challenging higher education IT issues facing you and your staff?

• Faculty opposition to integrating IT in the Classroom - Passively resistant
• Older technologies – younger staff not interested in them
• Email retention policies for staff/faculty
• PCI compliance
• Implementing a standardized project management process that leadership and staff will stay the course on…
• Keeping employee morale up
• Aligning service levels and expectations – staffing, backlogs, strategic planning
• Outsourcing IT administrative processes and services (eg, payroll, HR, Business and finances)
• “marrying” research computing with Instructional Tech.

Think Stop 2: Staff recruitment, development, and retention Issues – innovative ideas – best practices

The "Greening" of Information Technology
Speaker: Diana Oblinger, President, EDUCAUSE
EDUCAUSE 2008 Enterprise Information and Technology Conference, May 2008, Chicago, IL

Podcast available at http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastthegreeningofinfor/46820

Notes:

Oblinger began by stating that the largest enterprise of all is the world's environment.

She asked: How we can help in these issues on our campuses? We must step back and look at the big picture in order to "manage the enterprise"

She provided an overview of current environmental issues based on research by Socolow and others in 2004. CO2 emissions have grown 30% in the last 250 years with the greatest increase occurring in the last 50 years and it is expected that they will double again by 2054. 6.2 billion tons of carbon emitted in 2000.

Big Brother Dilemma
Speaker: Greg Jackson, University of Chicago
EDUCAUSE 2008 Enterprise Information and Technology Conference General Session, May 2008, Chicago, IL

Podcast available at http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastthebigbrotherdilem/46893

Notes:

Jackson has been at the University of Chicago for 12 years - in that time he has had 3 presidents, 4 provosts, and 4 CFOs.

He spoke on the many issues surrounding convenience vs privacy issues. There are many things that we want for our convenience but we don't want because they threaten us in some way at the same time.

A key example was ID cards and passports with RFID chips. RFID data can give us convenient access but at the same time that access can be logged.

He noted that Chicago Transit Authority smart cards make traveling the system easy for users but because it traces your activity it has also been used to crack down on truancy.

Keys make no record as smart cards do which raises the issue of data collection and privacy issues. Who gets to see the data? How is it used?

Serving the Research Mission: An Approach to Central IT's Role

Speaker: Matthew Stock, University of Buffalo, a flagship of SUNY

This presentation at the EDUCAUSE 2008 Enterprise Information and Technology Conference was about serving the research mission at UB from the perspective of central IT's role.

University of Buffalo IT (UBIT) serves - medical, professional and tradition types of research.

CIO has 6 areas of responsibility: Enterprise, Operations, Administration, Academic, Security, and the new Enterprise Research Computing Services

For the Bioinformatics center which is multidisciplinary, UBIT provides client support, opportunities to evaluate alternative IT methods, and long-term faculty interactions. They are actively basing their research computing support on what the faculty actually need. Stock noted that many central OIT units have stepped away from direct research support and given it to the distributed IT.

Goals for the program:

Ideas for Getting the Most Out of the Conference Experience

[These ideas were generated by participants in the 2008 Southeast Regional Conference pre-conference orientation session.]

Require conference attendees to write-up their conference experience. What did they gain from attending the conference? How did it help them individually and how will it help the institution?

Prepare before attending the conference. Pose questions you want answers for before you get there and then make sure you have answers before you leave.

Look for collaboration opportunities within new arenas.

Bring and exchange business cards. Write a snippet of the conversation on the card and follow-up when you return to your desk later.

Title 3 requires trip reports and demonstration of how information from the conference was shared. Ideas include scanning conference print materials, reporting at a staff meeting, poster sessions in the break/lunch room.

Go to a session on an unfamiliar topic - hear something different and broaden your learning

Supporting Faculty Adoption of Emerging Technologies: Wanderlust or Creating a Campus Roadmap?

• Julie Little, EDUCAUSE, Moderator
• Dolly Young, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Tennessee,
• Jean Ann Derco, Executive Director, Educational Technology, University of Tennessee
• W. Gardner Campell, Professor of English, University of Mary Washington
• James Groom, Instructional Technology Specialist, University of Mary Washington

Closing General Session
2008 Southeast Regional Conference
Jacksonville, FL
June 4, 2008

Information Technology Challenges at NASA
Michael Bolger, CIO
NASA Kennedy Space Center

Opening General Session

2008 Southeast Regional Conference
Jacksonville, FL
2 June 2008

This keynote presentation discussed the current IT environment at NASA and the IT challenges that the agency faces as it moves into a new era of space exploration. The CIO from the Kennedy Space Center discussed new strategic directions and supporting initiatives being implemented across the agency to enable future mission success.

NOTES

Michael Bolger began his comments by noting that he had visited the EDUCAUSE website and had seen from the 2008 Current IT Issues Survey that Higher Education and NASA have very similar issues and challenges. NASA has had a long affiliation with universities and colleges and there is a core alliance with university researchers.

EDUCAUSE 2008 Midwest Regional Conference Think Stops

Leading Ahead of the Curves

Brad Wheeler, Vice President for IT and CIO, Dean, & Professor, Indiana University

[EDUCAUSE Midwest Regional Conference Closing General Session, March 19, 2008]

The slides for this keynote are available at http://www.educause.edu/upload/presentations/MWRC08/GS02/Leading-Ahead-of-the-Curves-Wheeler20080319_inked.ppt

A podcast of the session is available at http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastleadingaheadofthec/46500

NOTES

Brad Wheeler began his talk on technology leadership with reminisces beginning in 1993 when he was an associate professor at the University of Maryland and Mosaic was the hot new tool and the Web took off.

Adapting the well-known “and then a miracle occurs” cartoon,  he changed the text on the blackboard to show a sketch of “Campus Cyberinfrastructure” -> “then a miracle occurs” -> ”Cloud Computing Nirvana” and said that we can be the miracle in leading ahead of the curves but we need more explicit information in the miraculous step 2. 

2008 EDUCAUSE Western Regional Conference Think Stops

Think Stop #1 How will Cloud Computing affect your campus?

Responses:

Challenging IT Leaders to Mashup, Twitter, Tag, and Poke:  New IT Strategies for a Digital Society.  Susan Metros, Deputy CIO, University of Southern California

2008 Midwest Regional Conference Opening General Session

Notes: 

This session has been recorded and is available for podcast at http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastchallengingitleade/46499.

Metros slides are available in pdf at http://www.educause.edu/upload/presentations/MWRC08/GS01/Metros%20EDUCAUSE%20Midwest.pdf

An outstanding and energetic speaker, Susan Metros offered a thought-provoking discussion of what it means to transform the things we do in support of new learners and general education as well as our faculty’s teaching and research.

Her initial premise was that General Education is not on people’s radar screens and she asked the following questions:

• Who are out students?
• What does it take to be literate?
• What we can do about it?

She put these is the context of: