III. Mount Holyoke's Technology Environment

 Published December 1, 2004

• Technological Assumptions for Planning
• Principles for Decision-Making

All of our initiatives have to reflect developments in administrative information technology, trends in academic computing, and rapid changes in the nature and sources of library information. The outcome of some trends are clearer than others but all require considerable thought as we focus on what will be required to support a technologically sophisticated community with expanding access to information tools.

We have developed a working set of assumptions about what the College will require to thrive in the new technology environment and from that, and years of coping with change, a set of principles that continue to guide our decisions. Our assumptions derive from both the opportunities and constraints that technology offers and represents our best effort to identify optimal paths for the College.

Technological Assumptions for Planning

• Rapid change will continue to dominate the technological landscape. Research of new technologies will be balanced with support of existing and near-term services.
• Demand for technology services will continue to grow as the technology itself continues a rapid pace of change.
• Demand for support will always exceed our ability to satisfy it. We will prioritize our services and resource allocation to support the most critical educational and administrative needs of the campus.
• The Web is the primary access method for most users to most information on campus.
• Demand for ubiquitous, mobile computing continues to grow, as does the complexities of providing a safe, secure, robust network.
• Use of off-the-shelf commercial and effective use of open source applications will be our preferred approach to systems development.
• Multiple servers will be configured to support our environment in accordance with industry standards. They must sustain a broad array of applications, multiple databases, heavy Web use, and seamless authentication and authorization.
• Creating standard hardware platforms that support efficient operations and are compatible with our hardware environment is our goal. Decisions will use industry standards, budgetary realities and will factor predominant user environments, while they are at Mount Holyoke and after graduation.
• Our technological infrastructure must be safe, secure, and available 24x7.
• Integrated computer systems provide more long term, sustainable solutions.
• Issues of data, network and desktop security and regulatory compliance will increase in number and complexity.
• Users will become more sophisticated in their needs and dependency on technology to accomplish their educational and administrative activities.
• Cost of technology continues to decline while sophistication increases. We will seek solutions with best return on investment considering factors such as staff support, maintenance, total cost of ownership, life cycle and industry standards.

Principles for Decision-making

Rapidly changing environment, complexity of choices and limited resources require discipline in making decisions about current acquisitions and future directions. Underlying principles that will guide our decisions include:

• The College's primary activity is education, thus, educational needs will drive our decisions and priorities.
• Our choices will look to reduce technical complexity and increase ease of use for our community.
• Software should be usable across platforms and over a range of hardware ages, but campus-wide decisions will be driven by the majority of the platforms in use.
• Anticipating and satisfying user needs drive our decision-making. Users are at the center of our thinking.
• No single system does everything a campus needs, however whenever possible we will integrate functions, hardware, and technical environments to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
• We will look toward the obvious standards and minimize local variation.
• As we look at system procurement, we will look at the context of total cost of ownership.
• We seek best practices of our colleagues to inform our choices and seek to create and share our own best practices with our professional communities.
• Evaluation and outcomes are an integral part of all our processes.
• Directions and priorities fit into a LITS wide context. We actively seek input across departmental perspectives to inform decisions.
• Assumptions and processes are continually reviewed for relevance, refinement and improvement.