Master Plan

for
Administrative Information Systems
at
The Pennsylvania State University

March 2007

Prepared by the AIS Advisory Sub-Committee for Master Plan Development:

Ken Forstmeier – Research

Edie Hertzog – Budget Office
Kathy Plavko – AIS
Bob Quinn – Student Aid
Ron Rash – AIS (Chair)
Karen Schultz – Registrar
Cheryl Seybold – Outreach
 Master Plan for Administrative Information Systems
Executive Summary

In early 2006, the AIS Strategic Planning Steering Committee charged Administrative
Information Services (AIS), a unit of Information Technology Services, to develop a Master Plan
for Administrative Information Systems at Penn State. This plan continues Penn State’s long-
standing vision that administrative information systems are developed collaboratively to best
serve the needs of Penn State’s stakeholder communities, including students, faculty and staff at
colleges, central offices and administrative offices across all campuses. The Master Plan
supports the University’s strategic planning process.

Five key principles are included in this plan:

Principle 1: Improving the effectiveness of system development and maintenance
Principle 2: Encouraging collaboration and partnerships while maintaining unit autonomy
Principle 3: Prioritizing needs through an active governance process
Principle 4: Improving efficiency and technical discipline
Principle 5: Enhancing security and privacy protection

Within these key principles, six elements should be highlighted:

• Enterprise administrative information systems developers will choose from a common set of
development tools and deploy their applications in an environment based on the AIS Open
Standards Strategy. (Principle 4)
• Personnel resources from participating units and departments will be aligned collaboratively
to efficiently develop enterprise administrative information systems applications for Penn
State. (Principles 1, 2 & 3)
• An executive leadership team will prioritize enterprise administrative information systems
projects and actively encourage the efficient sharing of resources among responsible units.
(Principle 3)
• AIS project managers will be available to provide consistent, standardized, and professional
project management services to these projects. (Principle 4)
• The feasibility of consolidating University information technology infrastructures that
support central and departmental administrative information systems will periodically be
reviewed and recommendations made for achieving cost effectiveness in areas of operational
support, disaster recovery, and physical system security. (Principle 4)
• System design, development and maintenance will proactively incorporate current best
security practices as defined by the University. (Principle 5)

The foundation provided by this Master Plan will ensure that, as opportunities arise, the best
administrative systems development choices are made to serve the broad Penn State community.
The Master Plan provides the framework for how future administrative systems will be
identified, prioritized, funded, developed and managed. The principles will assist the
University’s administrative information systems community to meet the on-going goals of the
University Strategic Plan.

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Section 1 – Introduction
In early 2006, the Administrative Information Systems Strategic Planning Committee charged
AIS1, a unit of Information Technology Services, to develop a Master Plan for administrative
information systems at Penn State. The committee envisioned a framework for how future
administrative information systems will be identified, prioritized, funded, developed, and
managed to serve as the foundation to support Penn State’s administrative information systems
community needs over the coming decades.

This plan continues Penn State’s long-standing vision that administrative information systems
are developed collaboratively to best serve the needs of Penn State’s stakeholder communities,
including students, faculty and staff at colleges, central offices and administrative offices across
all campuses. As technology changes and opportunities arise to re-engineer or replace enterprise
or departmental systems, the collaboration outlined in the Master Plan will ensure that the best
development and deployment choices are made to serve the broad Penn State community.

Starting with the Master Plan, the administrative information systems community will
periodically update/develop an integrated Administrative Information Systems Strategic Plan.
That current integrated plan will coordinate administrative information systems initiatives with
the current individual unit strategic plans to provide consistent information and university
direction as part of Penn State’s on-going strategic planning process.

1 AIS is the abbreviation for Administrative Information Services, a Unit of Information Technology Services (ITS)

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Section 2 – Vision

University Vision – The University Vision, Mission and Strategic Goals represent the guiding
purpose and ideals which the University embraces. This Master Plan is designed to serve that
compelling set of expectations. Some strategies for the administrative information systems
community that support the six goals stated in Penn State’s 2006-2007 through 2007-2008
University Strategic Plan include:

• Continue to evolve our classroom support systems like Angel so that the faculty have
more time to devote to enhancing academic excellence and the students’ educational
experiences are enriched. (Goals 1 and 2)

• Become more responsive to students by aligning student information across units to

provide enhanced student services at a lower average cost. (Goals 4 and 6)

• Use modern technologies to improve efficiencies of the administrative information

systems and reduce costs while improving the delivery of services. (Goals 4 and 6)

• Continue to evolve our administrative information systems to increase flexibility and

agility to meet the information needs of the University without increasing costs. (Goal 6)

Administrative Information Systems Vision – The administrative information systems

environment envisioned for the future builds on the existing strengths of our community:2

• The governance model will permit the review and prioritization, from a University wide
perspective, of all enterprise administrative information systems development projects.

• Administrative information systems personnel resources from units and departments will
be aligned collaboratively to develop the applications, systems, and services that are
deemed to have the highest priority and value to Penn State as a whole.

• The process for sharing technical knowledge, tools and techniques among the various
administrative information systems developers will be broadened and enhanced.

• The University will make available and manage an appropriate number of hardened
locations for the administrative information systems infrastructure; i.e., servers, storage,
and networking controls. This will permit options for more economical university
investments in facilities and support personnel for both normal operation and for disaster
recovery.

• Applications will be designed so that users will easily be able to find and use services that
are grouped by function – regardless of where the department providing the application
falls within the University organizational structure.

2 The administrative information systems vision was developed and documented in the paper entitled, The Future Direction of Administrative
Information Systems at Penn State, completed in December 2005.

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Section 3 – Key Principles

Principle 1: Improving the effectiveness of system development and maintenance –

Penn State’s enterprise administrative information systems development environment is a hybrid
where responsibility for development and maintenance of central systems is distributed among
multiple offices. Improving the effectiveness of this process requires the harmonization of
governance and our development activities, better coordinating our resources, and establishing a
collaborative community of developers.

Principle 2: Encouraging collaboration and partnerships while maintaining unit

autonomy – There are several characteristics of Penn State’s enterprise-level administrative
systems environment that influence how we should approach improving our effectiveness in the
development and maintenance of administrative information systems. These characteristics
include:

The three modes of responsibility for systems – Penn State develops and maintains
enterprise-level administrative systems in three basic ways:
• Hybrid – Systems such as the eLion enterprise system are the responsibility of both
central and/or distributed staff.
• AIS – The eSteward enterprise system is an example of a system for which the AIS
staff is responsible.
• Individual unit responsibility – One example is the Employee Self-Service
Information Center (ESSIC) enterprise system which is the responsibility of
distributed staff in the Office of Human Resources.

Unit autonomy – While supporting the hybrid model of responsibility, individual units
still maintain autonomy over their resources.

Community – Continual strengthening our community of enterprise-level administrative

information systems developers is absolutely necessary for optimizing inter-unit
collaboration, sharing of information, and other resources.

Data and application interoperability – As technology continues to advance, we will be

able to expand the breadth and depth of system interaction and our ability to collaborate
across the University.

Principle 3: Prioritizing needs through an active governance process – It is critical that the
governance actively set priorities for enterprise administrative information systems and support
collaboration. To assure the highest value to the University, the governance will:

• Provide strategic planning oversight;

• Collaboratively select and prioritize major projects;
• Encourage the efficient use of resources for specific projects; and
• Promote the sharing of resources among all units responsible for major projects.

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Principle 4: Improving efficiency and technical discipline – The implementation of
common tools and techniques, project management procedures, and technology infrastructure
will support inter-unit collaboration, consistency and technical discipline as well as provide for
cost-effective solutions.

Common tools and techniques

• Enterprise administrative information systems developers will use open standards-
based development tools and deploy their applications in an environment based on the
AIS Open Standards Strategy. (Originally published September 2003)
• The tools and techniques used will evolve as appropriate in the future.
• The University will support continuous and pervasive professional development for
programming and project management professionals.
• Data and systems supported by individuals and units should be made known to other
units and departments and shared as appropriate.

Project management
• AIS will make available project managers for the major enterprise administrative
information system projects.
• AIS will provide a standard project management methodology and templates that can
be used across the administrative information systems community.
• AIS will provide a training roadmap for departments to use in developing common
leadership skills in their project management staff.

Technology infrastructure
• The University is committed to remain current in the use of modern technology as
appropriate for enterprise-wide administrative information systems.
• The University will pursue consolidation of infrastructure where appropriate and
when agreed to.

Principle 5: Enhancing security and privacy protection – In the face of growing and
emerging threats, the need to be proactive in providing system security and privacy of personal
information is dramatically increasing. To support these requirements, all enterprise systems
will conform to the current best practices as defined by the University.

• The University will pursue uniform security standards for both facilities and
applications. Administrative information systems will conform to these standards.
• The use of common security procedures will make it easier and more routine to
interface various enterprise-level administrative information systems.

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Section 4 – Governance
The governance structure for administrative information systems at Penn State was initially
established in 1999 and modified in December, 20053. This structure will continue to evolve and
serve the community well into the future.

• The Executive Sponsors for administrative information systems are Penn State’s Provost
and Executive Vice President; and the Senior Vice President for Finance and Business -
Treasurer.

• The Administrative Information Systems Strategic Planning Committee sets strategic

goals and provides oversight of related strategic plans and funding requests.

• The Administrative Information Systems Steering Committee provides direction and

priority to initiatives and activities related to the development and deployment of
enterprise information systems.

• The Administrative Information Systems Advisory Committee identifies and promotes

strategic initiatives within the administrative information systems community. This
committee plays a pivotal role in the identification, review and development of
administrative information systems initiatives and projects of strategic importance to the
University.

• The Administrative Information Systems Operations Committee is an information

technology (IT) management and/senior technologist committee consisting of managers
and senior IT staff members who control the IT resources of their respective
unit/department or heavily influence related areas.

Section 5 – Conclusion
This Master Plan will ensure that as opportunities arise to re-engineer or replace enterprise or
departmental systems that the best development and deployment choices are made to serve the
broad Penn State community. It will also improve the University administrative information
systems community’s ability to meet the goals of the University Strategic Plan through
collaboration. Achieving improved efficiencies in the delivery of services while controlling
administrative costs can only be achieved through focused planning and management of
information technology efforts using standards, processes, collaboration and an established and
active governance structure.

3 The administrative information systems vision was developed and documented in the paper entitled, The Future Direction of Administrative
Information Systems at Penn State, completed in December 2005.

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Appendix A – Master Plan Definitions
AIS (Administrative Information Services) – The ITS unit that is responsible for providing a
comprehensive, integrated set of administrative computing solutions that will enable the
University to transform and improve the way we conduct commerce, provide customer service,
and support research, teaching, and outreach.

Administrative information systems – Those software applications that assist in the

management of business and student related activities. The scope of these applications may vary
from exclusively departmental to enterprise wide.

Departmental system – Those software applications that are used within a department to
address data or transaction requirements within the department. This includes those systems
stemming from law, regulation or University policy or procedure for which no other department
uses the software (for example, tracking of scientific misconduct by the Office of Research
Protections). These applications are generally hosted by the benefiting department. Multiple
departments may use a given system and it could still be considered departmental if, either:

1. The department(s) hosts a separate instance of the software irrespective of whether the
need is departmentally or externally driven.
2. The departments share the software (for instance, web-enabled software) and database
but the use of the software is based exclusively on departmental needs (in contrast to
external requirements of law, regulation or University policy or process).

Disaster recovery – The system architecture, procedures and plans that are used to restore full
operation of both essential and non-essential administrative systems in the aftermath of a
catastrophe.

Enterprise system – Those software applications that may be used throughout the University to
address data or transaction requirements stemming from law, regulation or University policy or
procedure. These applications may be hosted by central information technology units (AIS),
central non-information technology units (for instance, the registrar’s or bursar’s offices), or
individual departments. In general these applications will be used by two or more departments
and share a database infrastructure (that is, each unit using the software does not run a separate
instance).

Open standards – Publicly available definitions for software languages, formats and interfaces
that are royalty free. An open standard may or may not be approved by a governing body.
Commercially developed software may adopt and conform to open standards. However, the use
of open standards does not imply that such software is free. The use of open standards generally
lessens the dependence on proprietary software and those vendors providing proprietary software
solutions.

Proprietary – Restrictions placed on property. In the case of software, these restrictions

generally focus on allowable use and copying.