Departmental Self Review - UCLA Academic Senate

Recommendations:At this time the only system immediately available for deployment will be an internalreplacement (Option 1). Currently the school has rights through a Novell agreement to use theGroupWise software suite, which contains the features most desired by school faculty and staff.It has the added benefit of easily integrating into the school’s Novell Netware environment.The new campus email system (Option 2) is still in its infancy, and concrete numbers are notavailable with regards to per-user cost, available storage space, or feature set. It is unlikely thissystem will be available before late 2006. If this information becomes available, and anacceptable Service Level Agreement can be reached, this option can be reconsidered at a laterdate.The MCCS system is operational, and some dual-appointment staff are using it from withinNursing. Some significant issues exist with regards to how email integration would beaccomplished given that Nursing currently connects to the campus backbone rather than theMedNet. This complexity makes this option less desirable at present.Given that an internal system could rapidly be deployed, could be easily customized to deal withroom and AV resource scheduling, this option is recommended. A pilot system should bedeployed as soon as possible, beta-tested, and then compared with campus options (if available)to determine if migration should be initiated.Organizational Benefits:The School of Nursing has utilized its current email system for more than a decade. A newgroupware system will expand available features to permit the scheduling of meetings androom/AV resources, allow enhanced contact management, and provide a wide range of webbasedemail services. Taken collectively, these features promise a significant productivity boostfor the school, although some corporate culture issues will need to be addressed to fully realize asystems potential.Resource Requirements:Staff time requirements to set up a pilot system are relatively low, and no additional softwarecosts will be incurred. Migration costs, particularly in staff time will be extensive to actuallybring a new system into production. Some additional long-term overhead will be incurred tomanage a new system, if a campus outsourcing option is selected it will have similarmanagement costs. User email client support will increase significantly in all models due to theadditional complexity of groupware software.Evaluation Methodology:Evaluation of any new system should be completed on a strict cost/benefit basis. Therecommended internal system has concrete answers with regard to features and costs. Any283