Information technology can be a catalyst for innovation throughout UC Davis, particularly if the campus increases its investment in infrastructure and addresses technology challenges as a community, according to campus leaders who discussed broad technology issues at the annual Chancellor's Fall Conference.

UC Davis has the potential to be a national leader in the use of technology for teaching and research, because of its existing cross-disciplinary strengths, culture of collaboration and its stand-out work in areas such as virtual reality, telemedicine and online teaching.

But technology deployment is uneven across both the Davis and Sacramento campuses. Not all areas have benefit of the most advanced infrastructure, and there are clusters of faculty, students and staff at all levels who need more training to assure that computing and data resources are being used most efficiently, campus leaders acknowledged.

Under the fall conference theme "Information Technology as a Vehicle for Innovation at UC Davis," 150 UC Davis student leaders, faculty leaders, staff, alumni and administrators gathered for two days in Tahoe City to brainstorm ways to use technology most effectively to advance the university's missions of teaching, research and public outreach.

"We need to examine our priorities regarding informational technology to help the campus make the right investments, and to determine how broad-based decisions are made regarding technology," said Pete Siegel, vice provost for informational and educational technology.

UC Davis manages more than 52,000 active campus computing accounts, reflecting the scope of campus information technology needs. The campus system also processes an average of 2.7 million email messages on a typical day.

"This is not just about how we get administrative business done, but how we get everything done," Siegel said. "These are information services that require infrastructure, that require involvement in academic planning, and that have an impact on our reputation as an academic institution. Some of these critical services are central, but many are provided by college or departmental offices. As these systems become more interdependent, we will see more and more partnerships across the campus."

Siegel noted that major information technology challenges for the campus include managing security, accountability, intellectual property and data integrity. A strong technology infrastructure is also critical when communicating during a crisis — requiring rethinking many aspects of campus infrastructure to ensure that it can withstand a communications surge during an emergency.

"How often have we looked for the cheapest solution, only to spend more time trying to make it work?" Siegel said. "IT is a tool for innovation and insight in every aspect of campus life. How well we manage these tools will make a difference in our ability to solve problems."

UC Davis can celebrate many information technology successes, some of which were showcased at the conference. Geology department chair Louise Kellogg discussed her "Keck cave" virtual reality environment which allows geoscientists to envision large-scale models of activity in the interior earth. Martha Macri of Native American studies discussed how she uses a database to analyze thousands of Mayan hieroglyphics and sort them by variations in geography and time.

Other successful programs include the telemedicine initiative, highlighted by School of Medicine executive associate dean Tom Nesbitt and James Marcin, associate professor of pedicatrics, which uses teleconference technology to treat patients in rural areas from the Sacramento medical center. And the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing will be using advances in teaching technology to keep its graduate students integrated with medical school instruction.

"Technology can bring transformational change to the way research universities operate in the next decade," said Brian Hawkins, president of EDUCAUSE and the keynote speaker for the conference. "I think we'll see a fundamentally different university that supports peer-to-peer communication based on broad access to a cyber infrastructure. Virtual organizations can transcend the typical research university boundaries."

Another key speaker, former UCLA assistant vice provost Ruth Sabean, challenged the conference attendees to ask: "What is holding UC Davis back?" She encouraged the campus to engage students as "co-thinkers", developers and reviewers of potential cyber models for education.

Both undergraduate and graduate student panelists echoed their desire to be involved in technology planning, and showcased their own achievements in using technology to collaborate with peers and to synthesize data for research. They cautioned, however, against over reliance on data to replace hands-on teaching.

"A poorly planned Power Point is a distraction. A good professor is a good professor, and technology shouldn't be relied upon as a replacement for a good lecture," said undergraduate Jeffrey Lee, studying English, classical literature and languages.

Conference participants, after conversations in breakout groups, made numerous recommendations regarding informational technology issues to receive further study and attention in the coming months. While formal recommendations are being finalized by the session chairs, highlights include:

• Setting cyber infrastructure priorities at UC Davis to establish an "information industry" that makes a long-term commitment to build and maintain an IT infrastructure for research and scholarship, and taking risks and be bold about implementation technology to raise the visibility of the campus.
• Establishing core competencies in the use of informational technology for students, faculty and staff, and creating training programs for employees and general education courses for students that address computer literacy to bring everyone on campus a minimum level of competence.
• Holding a summit with students about how social networking technology distracts from or adds to the campus's sense of community. And discussing how technology might both impede and contribute to the community, and come up with expectations and guidelines for social networking behavior that would be shared by all people on the campus.
• Recognizing and rewarding faculty members, students and staff who deploy innovative uses of critical thinking and problem solving using informational technology.
• Developing a strategic plan to make the appropriate investments to establish UC Davis as a leader in information technology.

At the conference's conclusion, Interim Vice Provost Barbara Horwitz said, "The purpose of this conference was to examine our priorities regarding IT, to help the campus make the right investments and to work towards stronger collaboration." She noted that faculty, dean and student groups would consider many of the recommendations put forward and that progress would be made.

For details on the 2007 breakout sessions and presentations, visit http://vpiet.ucdavis.edu/fallconference.cfm.