Information technology at the University of Hawaii can be characterized as lacking adequate infrastructure: organization, space, personnel, ongoing maintenance, and support.

Organization, Policy, and Planning

The lack of operational integration is a barrier toward making the best use of scarce existing resources. This has particularly been the case in the areas of telecommunications, administrative computing, and user support services, in which multiple units have fragmented and overlapping responsibilities. For example, three separate offices are actively involved in planning use of and paying for the new Manoa telecommunications system. One additional office assists with data wiring as necessary; thus there are three separate technical/wiring staffs in addition to the contracted service provider. Different systemwide networking technologies and protocols have evolved for administrative and academic computing, and only now are being brought together. Each systemwide administrative application relies on three completely different organizations for effective operation. An application area executive provides leadership and determines the required functionality of each application. The Management Systems Office performs software maintenance, programming, and technical support of the application. And the Computing Center is responsible for providing the underlying central hardware and for operating the application. Two systemwide organizations, in addition to various college and campus support groups, assist units in the development of departmental computing and networking and do not always give the same advice. And many other critical services such as hot-line support, product evaluation, user training, and information dissemination are duplicated, yet in each unit they are understaffed. End-users pay the real price of this fragmentation, since it is difficult for them to know who to rely on for what kind of services; in areas of overlapping responsibility they may get different answers to the same questions or requests depending on whom they call, and they may need to make multiple contacts to assure the success of a particular project. Users are also subject to independent procedures established by each unit in their specific areas of responsibility.

With the key technology support units reporting to different executives, each of whom has major responsibilities besides information technology, there has been no executive-level advocacy for the whole area. This lack has inhibited effective resource acquisition, particularly for basic infrastructure needs. There is no executive other than the President with responsibility or authority to advocate for or prioritize the institution's overall information technology requirements.

The University's overall executive organization has continued to evolve and change regularly to improve its ability to fulfill its mission. But even in the face of technological evolution and convergence, the organizational structures for information technology have remained largely unchanged for the last 20 years, and they are no longer serving the University well.

The University of Hawaii has almost no body of policy that addresses important issues in technology today such as network usage, privacy of information, ethical use of data and computing, free expression and censorship, copyright issues, software piracy. Nor is there coherent policy regarding general computing and information resource management.

Some campuses have computing plans and some have telecommunications plans. In 1990 the Management Systems Office prepared VIM, a master plan for administrative computing, however a lack of funding and space has prevented them from moving forward with the plan. There is no current systemwide academic computing plan. Only recently has there been major activity in integrated telecommunications planning systemwide with a new executive policy on telecommunications management, an external needs assessment contracted by the Vice President for Finance and Operations, and an internal plan for utilization of the State's microwave backbone. There have been several ad-hoc reports done in the middle and late 1980s. However, the University's key action-oriented planning document, the 1985-95 "A Strategy for Academic Quality," has not been updated with respect to information technology since it was written in 1984. This Strategic Plan for Information Technology provides that needed update.

Telecommunications

• Intercampus Data Network This year the University expects to make the most dramatic expansion of its intercampus data network since the original voice-grade circuits brought connectivity between campuses in the 1970s. Leveraging a number of State initiatives, the University will have high-speed data connectivity among the Community Colleges for the first time. However, the funding for this initiative is largely through a special one-time legislative appropriation for public access and there will be greater need for network support at both the campus and system levels.

• Data Network Services Electronic mail is the most widely utilized network service. At the University of Hawaii, as at many other institutions, it has transformed the way many people work, study, and do research. The electronic mail systems currently in use, however, are not all well connected with all the important external networks. Further, while nearly all faculty and staff have access to electronic mail, student access is often limited. The situation with computer conferencing (electronic bulletin boards) is even less developed than electronic mail. There is relatively limited systemwide coherence and connectivity, and less access for students than faculty/staff. There are few systemwide networked administrative services generally available, and no specific plans for advanced applications such as forms processing or electronic data interchange (EDI).

• Library Networks Library networks in support of teaching and research are rapidly developing at the local, national, and international levels. With the implementation of the UHCARL library information system in January 1991, the University of Hawaii community has access to the bibliographic and limited text databases of libraries in some 80 institutions. With the expansion of access through the Internet, the holdings and services of the University of Hawaii are accessible from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, and North America. And with the reemergence of PEACESAT, Pacific island territories and nations will also have access. Increasingly, the capabilities of these networks will be utilized for the exchange of digitized and/or facsimile images and database services in support of distance education, local instruction, research, and service to the community.

• External Data Network The PACCOM project, based in the Information and Computer Science Department at Manoa, has made Hawaii the hub of high-speed academic data networking in the Pacific Basin and has linked the State's huge scientific resources and research community with the world. The federal funds for this project have helped provide the data link to the U.S. mainland which is widely used by faculty in all disciplines for communications with their colleagues worldwide and is increasingly used to link students with their peers in other places. However, the University's share of this mainland link (currently about 50%) is partially collected through an ad-hoc plea to users for contributions. The high-speed data link to the mainland can no longer be considered a research project; the management and support of this link must be provided for, organizationally and fiscally, as part of the cost of being a major university in the 1990s.

• Voice Systems UH-Manoa is just completing a major telecommunications upgrade that provides new and advanced voice services as well as data and video capability throughout the Manoa campus. While the physical infrastructure provided is superb, the campus capability to manage, fund, and support the use of the facilities is marginal at best. With three different organizations managing the voice, data, and video networks; with as yet undetermined levels of user fees to subsidize the cost of the system; and with no new staff added to install new connections, maintain the system, or support users, the University will be unable to make the best use of the investment already made in the system itself.

  Honolulu, Kapiolani, and Leeward Community Colleges already have the same type of telephone system as UH-Manoa, and both Maui and Kauai Community Colleges are desperately in need of and are now procuring new telephone systems. The University has the real opportunity to build a systemwide voice network that allows such features as toll-free calling between campuses, toll-free calls to student and public services offices on any island by members of the community on any other island, voice- mail, 5-digit extension dialing among campuses, and integrated voice/data applications and services. Furthermore, it is most cost- effective to provide for data and video telecommunications requirements during the construction and installation of new voice systems. Continuing systemwide leadership, support, and additional funding are required to help bring the telecommunications infrastructure of every campus up to the level of the more advanced campuses. And additional support personnel are needed both at the campus and system levels to encourage and facilitate the use of these systems.

• Video Networks Maui Community College pioneered the use of interactive video within the University by building the Skybridge system to bring higher education to the isolated populations of Molokai, Lanai, and Hana. As a 2-way, full- motion video system, Skybridge set a high standard for interactive distance education. However, Skybridge is limited by its single channel capacity, and funding is required to upgrade the system to bring more educational offerings to the remote residents it serves.

  The Hawaii Interactive Television System (HITS) is an interisland television system managed by the Hawaii Public Broadcast Authority (HPBA, which operates Hawaii Public Television). After less than a full year of operation to all islands, HITS is already bringing high-demand instructional programs to the neighbor islands. Programs and courses are being offered in Nursing, Educational Administration, Counseling and Guidance, Public Health, Library and Information Science, and Allied Health. HITS also brings instruction from UH-Hilo to West Hawaii and helps provide a wide range of teleconferences, seminars, workshops and non-credit programs to campuses and communities throughout the state.

  HITS is currently limited to 4 channels and has limited capability for 2- way video interaction. Furthermore, HITS was built to serve needs of the Department of Education and other state agencies as well as the University, and HPBA actively markets the system to those agencies. Yet the biggest problem with the systematic use of HITS for distance education in the University is not these technical and capacity limitations, but the lack of an adequate support infrastructure. Only limited support has been available for development of distance education classrooms on most campuses. No new permanent staff positions were allocated to operate the new distance education classrooms, for advising and counseling, for remote registration, for extended campus and library hours, or for access to library materials required to support the new programs and courses. Whatever success has been enjoyed has been at the expense of other critical instructional support activities on each campus. Continued successful expansion to meet state needs in the face of these problems is questionable.

  The Language Telecommunications, Resource and Learning Center at Manoa is developing a Ku-band satellite uplink facility, but there is currently no C-band satellite uplink within the University or State Government that can provide the capability to deliver instruction or training to the Pacific Basin or U.S. mainland.

• PEACESAT For more than 20 years the University's PEACESAT program has provided medical and environmental emergency support as well as distance education throughout the Pacific Rim and Basin. Over the last three years the Federal Government has invested $2.7 million through the University of Hawaii for the expansion and reemergence of the program using newer technology. This will allow improved voice and data capability for the provision of distance education, connection to the University of Hawaii network for access to library systems and the Internet, and other services for developing countries in the Pacific. Although the network headquarters have always been at the University of Hawaii, the University of Hawaii has not actively provided credit courses to the Pacific over PEACESAT. A lack of programmatic leadership from the University and the lack of adequate funding for ongoing operation of the University's PEACESAT office, if not remedied, may result in the relocation of the project headquarters to another Pacific institution.

Space and Facilities

The situation on most other campuses and in most colleges and institutes at Manoa is not much better. On some campuses critical telecommunications and computer systems are literally housed in converted closets. These facilities is not always air-conditioned, and backup power provisions for critical administrative systems is practically nonexistent.

Human Resources

1. Not enough staff, at any level, to provide adequate training and support. While technology use in the university has exploded, the personnel infrastructure to support that use has increased, at best, only slightly. The effect of this has been to divert the energies of many faculty and program staff into technology support and away from their principal responsibilities.

2. Lack of inter-organizational agreements on a family of basic hardware, software, and communications standards. This means that each technology support organization may recommend and support different products that do the same thing -- preventing the most efficient use of scarce existing support resources and confusing many end-users who deal with multiple support organizations.

3. In spite of ongoing efforts by the Personnel Management Office and others, position descriptions, personnel practices, and salary scales still make it difficult to recruit and even more difficult to retain top-notch individuals to support technology use in the University. Many of the jobs in technology and network management and support are not adequately described by the few personnel classes available. There is no advanced technical track for information technology professionals so they must either move into management or leave the University to get salary increases above the collective bargaining norm.

Access to Computer and Information Resources

An aggressive resale program through the University Bookstores has helped make several types of personal computers far more affordable to students and faculty, and thousands of individuals have taken advantage of this opportunity. The provision of faculty/researcher desktop devices has primarily been left up to the colleges. Several colleges within the University have already implemented "computer on every desktop" programs, but others have moved more slowly. In research institutes individual researchers are usually left to find funding for their own desktop devices. Even so, procurement procedures are widely considered to be obstructions to effective acquisition of technology. Problems cited include lack of knowledgeable advice on equipment and process, lack of ability to see technology before buying, delays and paperwork imposed by various approval processes, and delays and paperwork associated with the bid process required by state law.

Although some campuses have made substantial progress in providing public labs and/or networking, at this point only a fraction of all the desktop and public lab computers in the University are effectively connected to networks to allow access to other information resources and computing services. Numerous departments have developed valuable public and quasi-public databases that are not currently available to members of the university or public outside the department of origin. Several campuses have on-line information services that provide directories, schedules, policies, and other kinds of useful information. With the exception of the library systems, however, these services are not widespread and no such systemwide information is available on-line. There is no clearinghouse for information about these services, consistency among them, or "friendly" user interface to all of what is available.

Instruction

Even if there were adequate facilities and resources, given the focus on research of the Manoa tenure and promotion system there is little incentive for most junior faculty to become actively involved in the use of instructional technology unless they consider it as their area of research. In fact, it is usually considered unwise for untenured faculty to even get involved in this area.

Research

The University of Hawaii was the first institution to formally join the San Diego Supercomputer Consortium when it was created. However, the amount of supercomputer time used by the University has not grown substantially. The San Diego facility is so heavily used that competition for that resource is severe. Also, network bandwidth between Hawaii and the mainland limits researchers' ability to use that Center to take advantage of supercomputing and visualization technologies in a modern fashion. Other than that first step, the University has made little progress in moving seriously into the computing areas attracting most attention in research today: high performance parallel processing and visualization of data.

Administrative Computing

Studies indicate that the overall budget, hardware capacity, floor space, and staffing levels for administrative computing at the University of Hawaii are far below those of comparable institutions. The result of all this is that there is limited, generally inconvenient access to data -- data that is required to support both the academic and administrative work of the institution. Activities such as student advising, program planning and evaluation, routine reporting, budgeting, institutional research, and assessment are made much more difficult and time-consuming than if reasonable on-line access to data was available.

In spite of these problems, there has been progress. The Management Systems Office has moved aggressively to assist systemwide and administrative offices in the move from typewriters and centralized word- processing to microcomputers and local area networks. They implemented the first systemwide electronic mail network for administrators and have now brought that network into the mainstream of academic electronic mail.

Public Service

Many units also provide media and technology-related services to the public, but there is little uniformity among the units regarding the types of services that are appropriately provided to the community and what kinds of chargeback mechanisms or fees are applied.

The University has established an Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development (OTTED), which has service to the State as a principal aspect of its mission. OTTED works with units throughout the University to make their specialized skills and resources available to the general public and business community. A new external services program based in the Library will provide many specialized services such as customized research and database access.

With the exception of the Computing Center's modem bank that serves Oahu, there is no general provision or funding for public access to the University's electronic information resources. Even with that modem bank, many key information resources such as databases and bulletin boards at Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources are not internally networked so as to be widely available through the university network to the entire general public that could benefit from them.