Draft: UW-Madison IT Charter 4.2: Wisconsin Idea: Public Search Function

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1 Strategic Initiative (i.e., this statement generally will come directly from the strategic plan and will already be filled in) Background/Rationale (i.e., a brief statement about why this is important, what the impetus, who s affected and how) Strategies/Actions to Advance This Initiative (i.e., the main actions or strategies that will be taken to achieve the objective. These serve as the basis of each group s charge) UW-Madison IT Charter 4.2: Wisconsin Idea: Public Search Function Support the Wisconsin Idea through outreach and public service with appropriate technologies: Make resources more accessible to the public (shrink the distance). The UW-Madison must, in accordance with the Wisconsin Idea, extend the breadth and depth of its impact on Wisconsin s economy, public health, education, and overall quality of life, by making University resources easily available to the citizens of the state and of society. Those resources include both digital content and human expertise. The evolution of technology, including collaborative applications, social networking, middleware and access (broadband and wireless networks, etc.) present an opportunity to greatly enhance our ability to deliver on (and measure) the Wisconsin Idea. The challenge is to use technology to bring the University s resources to its constituents in such a way that: Both internal and external constituents can discover any type of university resource from a single point of entry. Access to those resources is grantable and is granted appropriately, promptly, and seamlessly (ideally with single sign-on and self-service account management). Subject-relevant results from multiple University sources can be found with a single search. Search results are of high quality and take into account the user s current relationships to the University. Constituent interactions with the University s digital resources serve also to inform the University of the evolution of its constituents needs. This charter may need to be divided into multiple charters the initial action would be to analyze the four actions below to determine whether and how to do that. Actions 1 and 2 may or may not be closely integrated with Actions 3 and 4. For example, if the resulting implementation plan describes a federated repository (1 and 2) which feeds a single search tool (3 and 4), then coordinated integration and task sequencing as a single project will be necessary. Furthermore, this charter may or may not require close collaboration with charter 4.4 Wisconsin Idea: Constituent Satisfaction 1. Identify, document, and maintain a database of resources (content, services, etc.) a. Assess the current state. What repositories already exist? What processes and supporting systems exist for maintaining the repositories? b. Develop an approach for consolidating and/or federating repositories to provide a more consolidated, consistent view of the resources available to constituents. c. Develop standard processes and supporting systems to maintain the repositories (e.g. workflow, interfaces, etc.) 8/31/09 Page 1 of 5

2 Existing: School of Business use of Digital Measures. Existing: Processes/systems used to support reaccreditation. 2. Content and resource discovery. a. Assess the current state. What are the primary ways constituents engage the University? b. Identify the barriers to discovery. Draw connections (in the form of metadata and of identity/access relationships) between resources and constituent groups. (Don t forget alumni as a unique constituency category, perhaps postgraduation phase as a special category.) c. Develop standards and supporting systems to address the barriers. Focus a consistent constituent experience across resource domains including a common interface. d. Identity and access management. Improve the granularity of identity management to streamline UW resource navigation. More easily provision credentials and resources to many types of loosely affiliated persons. Extend existing resources such as single-sign-on to as broad a population as possible. Existing: DoIT Identity and Access Management (IAM) project. Existing: WiscWeb Content Management Service. Existing: DoIT Business Intelligence explorations. 3. Improve public search function of UW website and online resources. a. Redesign search display to be more user-friendly b. Improve relevance of search results c. Automatically search within internal databases whenever possible d. Identify search results by media type and [degree of userfriendliness/level of sophistication] and allow people to filter or sort searches accordingly e. Provide friendly online training and support in use of the search function 4. Use search behavior to inform content matching and creation. a. Create mechanism to collect information about i. What people are searching for ii. Satisfaction with search results iii. Suggestions/submissions for information found elsewhere b. Analyze search feedback and refine search and search interface as appropriate c. Create mechanism to communicate relevant search feedback to content-creation units d. Support units in the development and publication of public / user-requested content As an example of existing momentum in this direction: the University remains committed to making its large collection of historical content available to the 8/31/09 Page 2 of 5

3 Out of Scope citizens of the state and the academic community at large. The university has already expanded its partnership with Google to provide broader access to the public to its digitized book collection. Addressing the areas listed will have benefits well beyond supporting the Wisconsin Idea. For example, a unified repository of resources might enhance undergraduate and graduate teaching and learning, support administrative efficiencies, etc. Nevertheless, this initiative is targeted toward the information needs of people who have no direct access to the university and/or cannot physically come to campus. Lead Entity(ies), Other Partners (If there is a clear lead partner, please note it. Also list other partners who are likely to be involved, and their roles, if known). Charter 4.4 (Constituent Satisfaction) addresses metrics for broader use to measure achievement of the WI Idea, although those metrics could draw from the repository, search, access, and feedback activity described here. And vice versa, the kind of information described by charter 4.4 should be an ongoing input into the infrastructure described here. It was difficult to identify single individuals or units to lead these projects, so the recommendation is to convene work groups of stakeholders. Initiatives should be led by a committee that includes DoIT, University Communications, User Groups, and Libraries to ensure that the implementation balances technical, marketing, and information service goals. Current state assessment, requirements definition, standards and process development: Online Access Consortium (Paula Bonner) My UW Advisory Group Identity Management Leadership Group (IMLG) University Home Page Advisory Group Stakeholders and subject-area representatives for outreach purposes: UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, Office of Continuing Education and Professional Development ( Jennifer Spencer) UW-Madison Department of Engineering Professional Development (Frank Rath, Tom Smith) UW-Madison Center for Biology Education (Kevin Niemi) UW-Madison Global Studies (Mark Lilleleht) Morgridge Center for Public Service (Randy Waller) UW-Madison International Academic Programs (Rob Howell) UW-Madison School of Business Executive Education (Scott Converse) University of Wisconsin Biotechnology Center (Tom Zinnen) UW-Madison School of Human Ecology (Wendy Way) Community Partnerships and Outreach (CPO) Staff Network Wisconsin Alumni Association (representing alumni as a user-group category) UW-Extension (Glen Siferd, Marcia Baird, Scott Hamilton, Wayne Utke) And others to be identified at an early phase, identified in the project plan (see Timeline). 8/31/09 Page 3 of 5

4 Anticipated Timeline (There may be multiple phases; put the proposed dates next to each) Indicators of Success (i.e., how will you know whether this has been successful; are there specific measurements to track Solution investigation, design and implementation (primary): DoIT Architecture DoIT Middleware DoIT Networking DoIT Internet Infrastructure Applications DoIT Data Management DoIT Academic Technology Lead authors of this charter: Regarding actions 1 and 2: Steve Devoti, devoti@wisc.edu, Peyton Smith, plsmith@facstaff.wisc.edu, Regarding actions 3 and 4: Sarah Schutt, sschutt@dcs.wisc.edu, Kathy Matthews-Risley, krisley@bascom.wisc.edu Regarding identity/access management: Bob Ash, bob.ash@doit.wisc.edu, Assemble and charge a group (immediately) to analyze the four main actions in order to create a coordinated project plan by Spring That plan would include a timeline beyond that. Success of identity access and management would be achieving maximum yet appropriate access to IT resources for people in as transparent a fashion as possible while maintaining both legal and ethical protection of privacy and protected content. 1. Align project plan with APR practices. 2. Align solution with IT Strategic Plan, particularly architecture and infrastructure standards. 3. Entries in the common repository. 4. Number and frequency of updates to the common repository. 5. Reduction in the number of shadow systems storing data that could be stored in the common repository and used for the same purpose. 6. Number of systems that integrate with (feed) the common repository. 7. Number of campus units and staff feeding the repository. 8. Number and frequency of queries of the common repository. 9. Rate of increase of use of the search tool 10. Rate of increase in the number of unique search users. 11. Report and/or other communication use 12. Identity/access management is simple, transparent, and robust for non-netid users of campus resources (decrease in number of independent access-control systems, increase in number of systems joining SSO, decrease in staff time devoted to account management) 13. Identity/access management achieves maximum yet appropriate access to IT resources, for maximum range of appropriate users, in as transparent a fashion as possible, while maintaining both legal and ethical protection of privacy and protected content. 14. Constituent and stakeholder satisfaction (e.g. survey, complaints, online feedback form). 15. University content is changed or created in response to information 8/31/09 Page 4 of 5

5 Anticipated Resources Work Team co-leads: Alan Ng, Continuing Studies Nancy Mathews, faculty, Nelson Institute gathered from the search function. More analysis is required before resource requirements can be estimated. However, much of the supporting infrastructure is now, or soon will be available (e.g. web content management, IAM, etc.). Resources would be required to implement a solution using this infrastructure. Creation of a resource repository might require a software purchase and/or significant application development. Availability of a sophisticated Business Intelligence infrastructure is not assured. 8/31/09 Page 5 of 5