UCSF Develops New Funding Models to Support IT Infrastructure
UCSF is making plans to provide adequate resources for the maintenance and growth of quality information technology (IT) network infrastructure, campus leaders say.
The UCSF Strategic Plan emphasizes the critical role of high-quality IT systems in conducting UCSF’s fourfold mission and supporting its administrative activities. In fact, the strategic plan calls on the University to:
* Optimally deploy information technology for administrative, academic and clinical purposes and
* Develop new mechanisms to fund needed investments in infrastructure, including technology.
To that end, UCSF is developing new funding models for both voice and data services, according Jonathan Showstack, PhD, MPH, assistant vice chancellor and chief information officer at the Office of Academic and Administrative Information Systems (OAAIS).
As a first step, new UCSF voice services rates will become effective on July 1. The major change is a reduction in rates for long distance calls. The OAAIS [website](http://oaais.ucsf.edu/OAAIS/2751-DSY.html) provides a link to a document title "New Long Distance Rates" that lists the new rates.
UCSF also is a developing a new funding model that would include a UCSF-wide per capita recharge for data services. That new model for data services has been reviewed and endorsed by the Chancellor’s Executive Committee, the Executive Budget Committee and the Academic Planning and Budget Committee of the Academic Senate.
A recharge committee consisting of school and departmental administrators and faculty is being formed to oversee the implementation of the data services funding model. It is expected that the data services recharge will begin July 1, 2009.
415/476-4757.
Supporting IT Services
In September 2007, the Data and Voice Services Advisory Committee (DVSAC) was charged by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Eugene Washington, MD, and Senior Vice Chancellor Barclay to “recommend … a strategic approach and methodology to fund UCSF’s escalating demand for voice and data services over the next decade.” DVSAC’s members are senior faculty and administrators from a wide variety of departments and campus locations. Working with the UCSF Budget Office, and with the assistance of the Huron Consulting Group, a firm engaged to assess UCSF’s overall funding structure, DVSAC recommended a new funding model that would include a UCSF-wide per capita recharge for data services. Both DVSAC and the Huron group concluded that for UCSF to remain competitive and at the forefront of leading research, academic and health care institutions, changes must be made in UCSF’s information systems funding models. In a report to the Chancellor’s Executive Budget Committee, Huron stated, “The funding gap was created by a sustained under-investment in technology; however, on a prospective basis, UCSF’s aggressive goals require a reliable and consistent funding stream.” The recommended strategy is to use a combination of the current support from chancellor’s discretionary funds and a new monthly per-person recharge for network services. Similar methods are used at UCLA and UC San Diego to support network infrastructure. This model is designed to achieve adequate funding for the maintenance and growth of network infrastructure, the definition of levels of network services to be supported, and transparency of decisionmaking. “With a sustainable business model in place, UCSF can begin bridging the gap between the campus’s current situation and a future with a network infrastructure that is highly reliable and has increased capacity and greater functionality for services, such as videoconferencing, voice-over-IP and enhanced email,” says Showstack. In the past, improvements in core, shared IT services, such as networks and email, have depended on the periodic availability of onetime chancellor’s discretionary funds. The limited availability of these funds over the past few years has resulted in significant “deferred maintenance” in UCSF’s IT infrastructure and no steady and sustainable means of replacing equipment or improving systems. UCSF currently invests about $9 million a year in the campus network, about half of what similar peer institutions invest to maintain and build their network infrastructures, according to campus officials. Other services, such as phones and voice mail, have been supported on a “pay-as-you-go” basis. Those with questions about specific voice services rates or billing processes should contact Shahla Raissi, director of Business and Resource Management, Office of Academic and Administrative Information Systems to- Related Link: