To:         Executive Vice Chancellor Rory Hume

From:     AITB Chair, Archie Kleingartner

Re:         AITB Review of the Center for Digital Innovation (CDI)

Cc:        Chancellor Albert Carnesale
              Senate Chair Vickie Mays
              Associate Vice Chancellor Paula Lutomirski
              Members of the Academic Information Technology Board

Dear Rory,

On behalf of the AITB I am pleased to submit this response to your request of October 10, 1998 to provide an "energetic and timely review of the Center for Digital Innovation (CDI) – its achievements to date, its budget and future plans". This response is based on several elements, including:

• Review of the report submitted to you by Vice Chancellor Patel, which is summarized in Attachment 1.
• A presentation to the AITB by CDI Co-directors Jeffrey Cole and Maha Ashour-Abdalla.
• Several hours of thoughtful discussion by the AITB at three different meetings.

We do not believe that this report represents a sufficient analysis on which to base decisions about the long-term future of "CDI" at UCLA. We do believe that it provides a foundation on which to base short and near-term decisions about the present CDI(s).

With respect to the longer term issues, our view is that a more in-depth analysis, including examination of how funds allocated to date have been spent, should be an early and high priority of the new Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology. There is a strong rationale for this within the responsibilities assigned to that officer. For example, one responsibility outlined in the job description is to "support the development and integration of various functions of the Office of Instructional Development (OID) and the Center for Digital Innovation (CDI) as these organizations evolve."

In the remainder of this report we will provide you with some summary observations and conclusions, a short-term recommendation and several longer-term suggestions on how you might proceed.

• The current CDI(s) is not aligned with its original intent or charter. It is somewhat confusing about how the CDI came to this point; but it is clear to us that the appointment of two Directors has resulted in two CDI's, with two very different missions and approaches. Co-directors Jeffrey Cole and Maha Ashour-Abdalla should be thought of as directing separate, unconnected organizations. They work with separate budgets in geographically separate physical facilities, and have separate professional staff and administrative support. There are no joint programmatic activities.
• The bifurcated CDI has created confusion about what the CDI represents, who is served by it and what tangible products and services it produces. As we indicate below, this is not in any way to suggest that the work done in either CDI is without value.
• A nutshell statement of what each CDI does would run along the following lines (naturally, opinions vary about the importance of each Center’s activities and the amount of financial commitment that is warranted):

In our view, Co-director Maha Ashour-Abdalla does work of genuine scientific and practical importance in the development of multimedia and instructional technology. Provost Copenhaver has affirmed this. One challenge is to figure out how to make her CDI a true campus-wide resource, which it is not now in our view.

Co – director Jeff Cole’s vision suggests the CDI as a "communication focal point" on the cyberspace revolution. In this kind of CDI, academic units and faculty members interested in researching and teaching about the cyberspace revolution would be able to go to the CDI to discover who else on campus is doing what. In addition, this CDI, in conjunction with Cole’s Center for Communications Policy, would support efforts related to technology strategy and policy – as demonstrated by the Center’s 10-year study of the effects of the Internet on society.

1. University funding which goes into the CDI(s) is not huge but it is significant. There are various reasons why you may wish to continue funding support to one or both CDI’s. Clearly, the work being done by Professor Ashour-Abdalla and her colleagues is more consistent with the research focus of the original proposal of the CDI. If you do continue funding it should be allocated on a short-term basis and not given under the guise that their work is the result of a finely tuned and operational Center for Digital Innovation – rather it should turn on more particular reasons tied to each center’s projects.
2. We also recommend that you sequester as much of the available funding for the CDI as you can, pending completion of a comprehensive analysis of how to proceed with the CDI. This analysis would be done under the direction of the Associate Vice Chancellor of Information Technology, in conjunction with the AITB.

1. Any fundamental restructuring of the CDI(s) should be deferred until the IT Officer’s study is completed, but our limited review suggests that the following changes from the present situation should be adopted.