The
University Senate, at its meeting on May 24, 2005, endorsed
the Information Services Strategic Plan 2005-2010 prepared
by the Committee on Information Services and Technology. The
focus of the plan is to use information technology to improve
communications and access to information to support student
learning, research and administrative operations. Four key
areas are identified:
1.
A Unified e-Learning Platform
The main
business of the University is student learning. Thus, the
first priority in the strategic plan is the full-scale deployment
of information technology to support student learning.
The scope
for using IT to support student learning has expanded greatly
in recent years, so much so that a new term, e-learning, has
been created to describe the new learning environment. E-learning
is a platform for delivery of a wide range of learning resources
that can be shared across courses, encouraging more active
participation in learning by students, enabling a wider range
of assessment activities and providing more timely feedback
to students, and realizing a more evidence driven approach
to student progress through their programmes.
The University
has been using two vendor-supplied e-learning platforms, WebCT
and Blackboard, for a number of years. In addition, there
are also a number of home-grown systems being used. The Committee
on Information Services and Technology agreed that a single
e-learning platform should be adopted, and has subsequently
selected the Blackboard Academic Suite as the software of
choice.
Unifying
the University's e-learning platform is important to our students;
they do not have to learn and adjust to different sets of
user interfaces and functionalities as they move from course
to course. A common e-learning platform is also beneficial
to the instructors; they can expect to receive better overall
support for their work when the University can focus its efforts
and consolidate its resources devoted to this area.
2.
Knowledge Management
Nowadays,
vast amounts of information are retrievable from the internet
using powerful search tools. Reduction in the cost of data
storage and communications bandwidth makes it possible for
individuals to add their personal contributions to this effort.
Thus, in this age of "information explosion", the
University must review its strategy on the provision of and
access to scholarly information to its members.
The library
has always played a leading role in this area. The library's
collections have been extended from traditional printed text
to multimedia material and to online electronic resources.
Through innovative knowledge management, reliable and user-friendly
access to high quality scholarly information should be facilitated,
regardless of the location of the information or of the user.
Besides
content that is available from external sources, we should
not forget about the content that is generated within the
institution. These are the work by the academic staff members,
in the form of scholarly reports, research output and course
material; by students, in the form of dissertations and thesis,
project reports and student course work; and by the institution
itself, in the form of institutional documents, news reports,
video clips of institutional events, conference proceedings,
etc. These materials are of immense value to the institution,
and we should make sure that they are properly collected,
catalogued, and made accessible to the members of the institution.
In addition
to the institutional content, every student and staff member
of the University also holds a large amount of personal content
related to their academic pursuits. Much of this information
is now in digital form. The University should give consideration
to supporting its members in the management of such content.
This is particularly important for creating a student centred
learning environment. One key module of this form of personal
content management is the e-portfolio, a collection of a student's
own learning outcomes selected and managed by the student
himself and shared with other persons inside and outside of
the institution.
3.
Institutional Data Management
The University
has successfully implemented the Banner system for the University's
main administrative applications. Student management was first
implemented in 1997, followed by Human Resources in 2000 and
Alumni Development in 2002. As a result, a high level of data
and applications integration has been achieved for the three
main constituents of the University: student, staff and alumni.
Further
development of the institutional database and administrative
applications will be continued along the established line.
Emphasis will be given to end-user self-service via the web,
i.e., to allow students, staff and alumni to access institutional
information and perform the necessary work functions directly
through the web.
So far,
our institutional database has supported only data in English.
As Hong Kong is a bilingual city, and with the development
of multi-lingual capabilities in database software, we need
to start expanding our database to cover data in Chinese.
We also have to develop applications that can handle Chinese.
A comprehensive
database on the University's constituents is a necessary pre-requisite
for the further development of IT applications in the University.
Detail personal profiles of the constituents will be needed
to support any kind of CRM (customer relationship management)
functions that we would like to develop. Indeed, we need to
know our constituents well before we can properly manage the
two strategic developments mentioned earlier, e-learning and
knowledge management.
4.
Web and Portal Strategy
The Web
provides one of the main communications channels both inside
and outside the University. To the outside world, this can
be a powerful tool to enhance the University's image and operational
effectiveness. Indeed, more prospective students and members
of the public will develop their first impression of CityU
from our web presence than from any other source. Similarly,
more students and staff members will turn to the University's
web pages daily for information and services than to any other
source.
The University
must have in place a clear strategy on our web pages. To be
effective, we should separate the external communications
from the internal ones. The University's home page, the "cityu.edu.hk"
site, should be promoted as the gateway for external communications.
Internal communications should be organized through the University
portal.
Efforts
must be made to co-ordinate the "cityu.edu.hk" site,
both in terms of style and content. Careful analysis should
be conducted on who are likely to visit the site, and then
to design and organize the contents of this site according
to the needs of the likely users. Departments and offices
should be invited to contribute to the site according to specified
guidelines, so that, together, the site will tell a consistent
and clear story about the University. An appropriate web content
management system will be implemented to reduce the effort
in maintaining and updating the information published.
All internal
communications should be channelled through the University
portal. With a single log-on to the portal, users should be
able to access all the services and information that are relevant
to them. Again, the information should be organized from the
point of view of the users. Selection and presentation of
the information and services in the portal can be customized
according to the user profiles available from the University's
administrative database.