Draft proposal. This document contains the following sections:

Transcription

1 Draft proposal This document contains the following sections: 1. Paragraphs for announcements a. Introduction b. Challenges of a GoogleApps solution c. Benefits to MCCCD d. Conclusion 2. High level project plan for migration a. Potential activities and timelines b. Constraints and Challenges c. Mitigation strategies 3. Important planning details for implementation 1

2 Next Generation , Calendar and Communication Applications for Faculty and Staff Introduction In higher education, major IT decisions are often made to take advantage of technological breakthroughs in software, hardware or services that support teaching, learning and working. At times decisions are made to sunset or retire technologies that no longer support the needs of an institution, drive costs down or address the availability of trained and experienced resources. MCCCD is making a decision to move to the next generation of , Calendar and Communications applications for faculty and staff after careful consideration of all these factors. MCCCD IT is also seeking alignment with strategic planning directions to reduce costs, move to cloud based services and increase collaboration and cooperation. Responding to requests from our faculty and staff and following recommendations from the 21 st Century efforts, we will start this summer with a migration from MEMO and Corporate Time Calendar services to new system, GoogleApps for and calendaring. This system meets and exceeds the list of features necessary in a district wide E mail and Calendar system identified by the 21 st Century E mail work team. Our existing E mail and Calendar system is over 20 years old. It has served us well during this time with very high availability that supported supporting mission critical business communications for over 2 decades. It is now time to move forward to a new and state of the art system that can better serve our faculty, staff and students. The adoption of GoogleApps provides us with an opportunity to take advantage of some exciting improvements in how technology can be applied to learning, teaching and working. We understand the effects of the short term disruption associated with this change; however, we are confident that the additional capability, functionality and availability of the new system will significantly enhance productivity and collaboration. We are committed to providing faculty and staff the support necessary to make this transition as painless as possible. As with any system that has been in use for over 2 decades, replacement mean that some of our customizations may no longer be available. In an attempt to prepare our user community for this transition and set correct expectations, we have identified some risks associated with this effort and outlined benefits. 2

3 Challenges of a GoogleApps solution The benefits of this implementation clearly outweigh any of the challenges listed below. Most of our challenge revolves around limited administrative support functionality of GoogleApps, the loss of some calendar functions and other small pieces of functionality that our system provides today. Here is a high level list of short tem challenges with the migration: Administrative interfaces to GoogleApps are not as mature and robust as those offered by other systems such as Microsoft Exchange. This will require additional programming customizations, shortcomings in the short term or the need to look at low cost/high risk solutions in the GoogleApps Marketplace Maricopa has successfully moved over 1 million student E mail accounts to GoogleApps over the last 2 years, however, we know that moving faculty and staff will present a greater challenge and it has to be done carefully to avoid disruptions to the teaching and learning environment. Existing controls over distribution lists, such as who can respond to a DL, may not be available upon initial rollout Some calendar functions available today in Corporate time may not be initially available at go live Your official address will change, however, you will be able to select an alias in the new system Legal and security consideration As our legacy e mail system, MEMO, is faced out, an opt out option will not be available for faculty and staff Google Gmail accounts cannot be renamed; however, this is a current shortcoming that Google will address in the future. Transitioning tools will be available to migrate existing e mail and calendar entries; however, we may not be able to transfer some items completely. Benefits to MCCCD In general, the benefits of this implementation can be categorized as follow: reduction in IT costs, reduction in IT complexities, improved learning opportunities and outcomes, better functionality with more features. Here is a more detailed list of benefits to this migration: One Maricopa identity with all faculty, staff and students sharing a common suite of state of the art communication and collaboration tools that will enhance their ability to work together Faculty and staff will be able to create quick, easy collaborative website 3

4 E discovery and archiving solution will save MCCCD over $100K a years in operational costs. MCCCD will get off the upgrade treadmill by outsourcing this solution. This provides MCCCD with savings in the range of $50 60K a year in operational costs. It also help us avoid recurrent 3 5 year investments in infrastructure and related services. Eliminate support and infrastructure costs for Anti spam and antivirus e mail scanning products now in place to support MEMO. This provides additional operation savings in the range of $20 30K a year. An in house system for faculty and staff to support all the functionality and capacity that is being provided by GoogleApps (E mail and Calendar only) could exceed over 1 million dollars in implementation costs alone at MCCCD. These are significant savings at times when we are being asked to do more with less. We will need fewer experts on e mail and calendar systems therefore being able to redeploy staff and avoid complexities No capital investment in hardware to run e mail system, backups or disaster recovery generating more predictable costs. Google Apps will allow MCCCD to save costs in the long run by reducing the need to buy and support software, hardware, and storage to maintain our own independent service. This translates to meaningful savings. MCCCD will save equipment (application and data storage servers), license fees, annual software maintenance costs, and support costs. No more disruption and helpdesk tickets as faculty and staff move from college to college Fully integrated with existing identity management system (CIMS), further leveraging current investment on this system. Graphical user interface used by millions of users today. This reduces training and support costs while increasing usage and productivity. Better interoperability across platforms and integration with the new generation of handheld devices FERPA, HIPPA, U.S. Safe Harbor and SAS 70 Type II compliance. Full integration with the College Identity Management System (CIMS) for consistent username and password credentials used by many MCCCD systems. Excellent integration with existing smart phones and new portable technology. A viable platform to not only perform e mail and calendar functions but deliver content in support of teaching and learning. One common system for faculty, staff and students means one common set of tools for day to day communication. 4

5 Full access to Google Apps such as Gmail, calendar, docs, Google Talk and sites in the same domain as students will increase collaboration opportunities and interaction with students. Dramatic improvement in the functionality of both and calendar functions over our existing MEMO system. Improving online communication is something our faculty and staff have been very passionate about, this implementation will meet their requests and expectation Faculty and staff will now have access to 7GB of storage in their inbox, as compared to 250KB that is provided today by MEMO as a default. This will greatly increase storage space and give them the ability to send and receive larger s. Upgrade on the message size limit to 25MB allowing much larger attachments that are supported by MEMO today. Google s global network of data centers gives users a very high availability of services. Other benefits of Google Apps for Education include instant mail search, instant messaging visible when reading e mail, organizational tools (labels, incoming mail filters, message starring), mobile device access, Google docs and spreadsheets, keyboard shortcuts and quick contacts to get through e mail faster, address completion when sending mail. For a complete set of tools available visit Conclusion Almost 2 years ago, MCCCD transitioned student e mail to GoogleApps. Today, we have a very successful implementation with over 1 million student accounts in GoogleApps. Today, 50,000 students use this system on a weekly basis. Last year alone, over 15 million logons were registered against our Student E mail system (Gmail/GoogleApps). Every month, important college information for student success is shared with students. Personalized e mails are sent daily in support of registration, recruitment and retention efforts. Faculty interact with student using this system around the clock. Large user communities are being created with 1000s of documents being shared and collaborated upon by faculty and students. Students are interacting with their instructors today via Student E mail (Gmail), building personalized websites, completing homework assignments, using GoogleApps productivity tools and sharing content not only with each other but with large communities both inside and outside MCCCD. Students are using state of the art communication solutions provided by MCCCD to support their education at literally no cost to MCCCD. Up and until this point, faculty and staff have not been able to leverage this new platform to conduct official business. MCCCD now has over 2 years experience working with over 1 million student accounts that are using GoogleApps today. ITS has been working diligently over the last 2 years to remove barriers to migrate 5

6 official faculty and staff communications into this new and exciting technology. It is now time for us to start a migration towards a true One Maricopa technology solution where faculty, staff and students interact with a state of the art, rich and powerful set of tools to promote student success. The transition for faculty and staff from the MEMO server to the GoogleApps systems will begin in mid The system will be implemented in phases. The first phase will be a pilot program with approximately 100 faculty and staff in the fall of Upon successful completion of this pilot, MCCCD will officially transition E mail and Calendar services to GoogleApps. We anticipate a go live date of January 2012 with early adopters being able to start with limited support services in the fall of Please look for additional details in the upcoming ITS Newsletter. Today, 80% of campuses around the country use outsourced solutions for students and of those, 60% have chosen GoogleApps for education. MCCCD was an early adopter of this technology and it is leading the way with one of the largest installations. MCCCD will now join thousands of universities globally in implementing the Google Apps for Education suite to support faculty and staff. Resources: EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. 7 things you should know about Google apps. March 19, EDUCAUSE. Google Apps FAQ Google. Apps for higher Educations: Less IT, More IQ

7 High level Project Plan Here is a high level list of activities that could ultimately lead to a replacement of MEMO with a new system by the start of spring 2012 semester. This assumes a decision by the CIO based on 21 st Century recommendations, limited input from faculty/staff except for a small pilot program and a decision to move to GoogleApps. Historically, I would create a focus group, seek faculty feedback and then make a decision w/ their support. At this juncture, it may be safe to skip this step given the recommendation of the 21 st Century team, the work done there and the fact that we had faculty representation in that group. Potential activities and timeline Inform ITS leadership and others as needed of upcoming project March 11 o Spread the word with leadership team around the colleges Complete fit gap for MEMO and Google March/April 11 Develop a communications and training plan May June 11 Develop initial project i plan March/April 11 Develop ITC proposal and preliminary budget request April 11 Obtain ITC approval May 11 Inform CEC and obtain approval if necessary May 11 Obtain Board Approval if necessary for assessment plus implementation June 11 Build project site June 11 Project begins July 11 o Kick off project and communications campaign July 11 o Identify early adopters and champions in the faculty and staff ranks June 11 o Finalize stakeholders July 11 o Create project charter July 11 o Setup discovery sessions and inventory current usage July/Aug 11 o Fine tune original project plan after discovery sessions July/Aug 11 o Development, integration, migration testing and data archiving setup Sept Nov 11 o Develop training materials and migration documentation Oct/Nov 11 o Start small pilot Nov 11 o District wide Implementation and rollout Winter Break 2011 o Live system Jan 2012 Close project 7

8 Constraints/Challenges Aggressive timeline Limited access to training resources outside our department to ease migration Short reaction time for District Office training services to support effort Legal support Deployment window to minimize teaching, learning and working environment Limited internal staffing to support this effort will need to also support the following: o Any IT Leadership and other 21 st Century recommendations o All upcoming ITS Upgrades over the next months o CIMS college rollouts This proposal assumes that a CIMS Manager will be in place to help coordinate the implementation and post implementation efforts. This proposal also assumes that we are not going to re architect our identity management system (CIMS). CIMS is a multi million dollar project and the foundation for not only this effort but many mission critical applications. If we embark on any kind of CIMS redesign and given the fact that the both our ERPs systems, LMS System and current Google Student implementations are 100% dependent on CIMS, the above timeline will not be viable. Other mitigation strategies involve: Consulting with District Office Training Services and related VC to support a faculty/staff training plan in the Fall Consulting with legal department for project support Create an extensive training and communications plan to minimize disruption Contract with an external Project Manager short term to coordinate efforts Contract with a programming resources familiar with the Gmail API Communicate and set proper expectations that our current system includes everything but the kitchen sink, however, the new system provides different and better ways to collaborate and use a state of the art communications system 8

9 Important details to be considered in the implementation Here are some important elements of this effort that we need to consider in our detailed planning. Each one of these high level tasks will have several other subtasks and they need to all be incorporated into a project plan. Some budget will need to be identified for training, Postini integration services, programming support to use the Google API and modify our CIMS MEMO tools and small customizations to CIMS. CIMS tools and CIMS middleware will need to be revised in conjunction with this implementation to support SIS/HR integration. Faculty and staff will need to use some of the existing tools functionality with the new system. Calendar replacement and migration needs to be considered Anti SPAM and anti virus will be provided by Google therefore relieving MCCCD of this expense Retiree s considerations Account provisioning and deprovisioning in relationship to CIMS needs to be reviewed and the issue of all faculty/staff and students in the same domain resolved. Postini archiving should be transitioned to the GoogleApps models for faculty and staff. Co existance of Postini w/ MEMO and Gmail for a short term to support interim early adopter migration program CIMS programming for Postini will be required if students/faculty and staff share the same domain. Google APIs for the new system need to be looked at for integration with our existing identity management system and other systems Review attribute data flow for MEMO in relationship to ERP systems Google APIs for automated Distribution list creation/management needs to be reviewed Existing Interfaces to MEMO will need to be considered with this implementation Tools for data migration of existing should be considered MCCCD customizations for MEMO online and batch processes should be reviewed/mapped Training materials/faqs will need to be developed for both calendar and Implementation website and development Google domains needs to be identified Existing Employee e mail directory lookup tools will need to be revisited 9

10 Research needs to be completed on how Maricopa will retain the existing addresses for faculty and staff Changes to existing workflow processes in HR, CFS and other systems should be reviewed Development and production domain environment should be setup Legal issues should be addressed if this becomes an option 10