IT Review

On Monday, October 22nd, Alex Alexander (VP of International Affairs), Rachel Hicks (VP of Student Services) and I met with a consultant, Don Oppenheimer, who has been hired to do a strategic evaluation of IT services at the Kennedy School. It was a productive conversation, but mostly long range. John Haigh, the Executive Dean, is somewhat new to the KSG and has launched this initiative.

We let him know we thought the IT services should be world class, given both the stature of Harvard and the price we pay to attend. We also communicated very clearly our thoughts on:

- the lotus notes web mail system
- the complexity of two logins and the security concerns around non-complex passwords
- the lack of electrical plugs in classrooms and common areas
- the uneven quality of support in the computer lab
- the somewhat unstructured training the mid-careers received in August
- how there are resources available to us, but we often can't find things on the many websites, from student services to a central calender of events
- the lack of a single place to go for faculty or student contact information

Of course, IT is highly decentralized at the Kennedy School, as it tends to be all over Harvard. He had some useful feedback on our concerns.

There is an understanding that Lotus isn't ideal, but it's been intertwined with many of the administration's other applications so it's not going to be an easy thing to move to another system quickly.

There has not historically been a capital budget or a central IT policy, so each of the 19 centers does it's own technology budgeting and handles its own procurement, web site and other technical details. This adds real complexity to managing the systems.

There are about 2,000 users, including the 900+ students, so it's a complex, diverse set of needs and skill levels. Even so there is no call or service ticket tracking system for issue coming into IT.

This process will result in a set of recommendations, one of which will likely be to hire a Chief Information Officer. If that goes is accepted then they will consider how to incorporate students in the hiring process. In the short term, Mr. Oppenheimer pass along our concerns and see what might be addressed. As a follow up, through Marc Pelka (KSSG Exec. VP) we've already passed along some concerns to IT and will follow up with a meeting of our own before the end of the term.