WISP: Lessons Learned

Thomas A. Warger

Interim Executive Director

CIS

Vassar College

WISPY Stuff

• Develop network/ server environment

• Build database-to-web applications

• Get started on Digital Assets Management

Lessons

• People, practices, and skills

• Tools and tech environment

• Time and distance problems

• Consortium pros and cons

• Process and change

• Questions (philosophical and practical)

People

• “Our people”

• “So-and-so, who used to work here…”

• Consultants/contractors

• “Those idiots at [random office]…”

• Java Guru 3,000 miles away

Practices

• “The IT way or…”• “On your own…” • Outsource• Student source• Central construction• Central maintenance• Distributed

maintenance.

• Hit or miss maintenance

• Cyclical initiatives• Board decree

Skills

• Coding

• Design

• Project management

• Persuasion

• Consorting

Tools and Tech Environment

• The “enterprise” set

• The lite set (Filemaker, MySQL/PHP)

• Selection process, criteria, choice, learning

• Storage strategy

Time and Distance

• Talk for hours, face to face

• Keeping up, keeping track

• Travel and meetings take time

• Time for the “real” work

• Time to learn and re-tool

Struggling as a Consortium

• Priorities

• Resources

• Styles

• Hold-backs

• Complexity

Working as as consortium• Define an appropriate problem

• Organize

• Distinguish the beneficial actions

• Share the research

• Implement sequentially

• Re-assess; start the loop again

Change begins at home

• How we do things here

• Why change?

• Make them change

• Why we like medieval architecture

Questions

• Is there an ecology of information?

• And what are the economics of it?

• Is IT a special problem for sustainability?

• What is the IT mission in education?