Minutes, ITANA Conference Call
October 5, 2007
 
 **Attendees**

Jim Phelps, University of Wisconsin-Madison (chair)
Gary Chapman, New YorkUniversity
Chris Phelps University of Maryland-Baltimore
Michael Enstrom, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Sue Sharpton, University of Alaska
Herbert Dias-Flores, University of California-Berkeley
Paul Hill, MIT
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)

**Agenda**

0) Roll Call. Agenda Bash.

  1. Accept minutes of last call
  2. EDUCAUSE Constituent Group meeting - Seattle, October 25
    1. Who will be there?
  3. (Postponed) Report out of Architecture Tool presentation (Dave P)
  4. Surveys in general (Jim P)
  5. CIO Survey on Enterprise Architecture (Jim P)
    1. I would like to word smith a description of Enterprise Architecture and look at the benefits / effects section
  6. Enterprise Information Management Survey (Hebert)
    1. Okay to send out as is.
  7. Kuali Student System Report Out (Hebert)
  8. Items on the shelf review

Items on the shelf:

  1. SLU's Pillars and Value Chain Documents - see Value Chain and Pillars (Jim H)
  2. Mellon ESB Assessment - goal? is there date on this? (Mark P)
  3. Mellon New Initiative: Framework for scholarly studies tools (Keith H)
  4. Web CMS RFPs (Jim P)

(99) Next steps, next call

**Updates**

Several ITANA working group members will attend the EDUCAUSE meeting in Seattle. Jim Phelps is on the meeting agenda October 25 to present on ITANA and Enterprise Architecture.

David Packham cannot attend today's call. The architectural tools presentation is scheduled for the next call.

**Roadmaps and Documenting EA**

Jim Phelps had a discussion with a representative from Sun Microsystems concerning standards for documenting architectures. Specifically, they talked about whether there are standard ways to document some portion of your infrastructure. Hebert Dias-Flores mentioned that he is familiar with some tools that attempt to do so, but so far there is nothing that is recommended. Given that EA is a relatively young field, it will likely take some time for any tools or standardization to settle out. In fact, Hebert mentioned, such tools may be something for this group to consider developing.

Hebert said that, atBerkeley, he would like to focus on standards and architectural roadmaps. There are no clear cookbooks in higher education on how to do that. There is a need to document both enterprise applications and information management.

In general, it is relatively easy to document the current environment, but trying to determine milestones and roadmaps that are forward looking is more difficult. One concept is to adapt from what already exists, such as Internet2's middleware roadmap or an authentication roadmap.

In the wiki, under the working documents category, Jim has created a Roadmaps page for working group members to post any relevant documents that provide examples of how to map the existing technology with a plan for the future. This could provide a way for both technical people and business people to see what needs to happen and provide benchmarks for measuring progress.

Sue Sharpton mentioned that Gartner has provided the University of Alaska with a high-level roadmap, but at this point there is no governance structure in place to outline a decision-making process and to ensure IT involvement early in discussions.

Jim Phelps mentioned that his IT department gained traction with some campus stakeholders in the area of identity management. Early on, IT worked with campus constituencies in developing priorities for implementing the IdM system. HR and the registrar, in particular, needed to be involved in defining which populations would be served in what order. It was not really a technical decision, but an enterprise decision to develop these priorities.

**Surveys**

Jim continues to carry on a discussion with ECAR about having EA questions in a future ECAR survey. At this point, the discussion is deferred until after the EDUCAUSE meeting. He is also talking with the Common Solutions Group (25 large research universities) about incorporating EA survey questions into existing instruments, rather than creating a new survey.

CIO Survey - Jim would like to send this the week of October 8, in the hopes of having responses back before EDUCAUSE. Jim asked working group members to review the survey, with an eye toward time and clarity of the questions (particularly in light of the target audience).

Enterprise Information Management Survey - Hebert hasn't received any additional comments and is ready to distribute the survey internally to a few groups at Berkeley.

**Kuali**

The Mellon Foundation ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) has been completed and should be ready for release soon. The foundation is also funding the open source Kuali student system.

Hebert introduced J.R. Schulden, director of application services and technical manager of Berkeley's Kuali effort. She reported that the project has two teams - technical and functional - and has spent the first few months determining the architectural needs - portal, ESB, ORM tools and a web services framework. The current focus is on defining the services that will be needed.

The technical team will face challenges similar to implementing a commercial ERP, with the development of a lot of rules and tables. This is the first of the Kuali products taking a service oriented architecture approach.

The plan is to bring services on-line as they are ready, rather than waiting to bring up the whole project at once.

**Next call: October 19, 2:00 pm (EDT)**

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