Project Name:
Support
for an Office of Software Licensing
Project Sponsors:
Software Licensing
Subcommittee of ITPG and Instructional Computing
Project Summary:
The Software Depot service provides the campus with a one-stop shop for software available at educational and/or volume discounts. Since its inception two years ago it has been run by Instructional Computing (IC) with roughly 50% FTE of donated staffing. In these two years of operation, Software Depot has saved departments across campus more than $150k over traditional vendor pricing.
Due to a number of reasons, IC can no longer support this service with internal funding and donated FTE. These reasons include an increasing demand for discounted software, a growing burden in both the number and complexity of managing campus and UC-wide licenses, and the recognition of legal obligations required for the coordination of large-scale purchases. As a result, the original 50% FTE donated to the service has grown to over a full FTE in demand.
The ITPG Software Licensing Subcommittee has come up with a number of recommendations for the formation of a sustainable Office of Software Licensing. These recommendations have been broken up into two phases of development, to be funded either as a whole or separately.
In the initial phase of development, ongoing funding is requested to provide a dedicated mid-level CNT to the service. Initially these funds would be used to hire a contract programmer to enhance Software Depot’s online shopping and order management system. Currently, order management is handled in multiple database systems (FileMaker, Excel, web/SQL). By extending the existing web/SQL order management system to consolidate the functions of other databases, the service can be run more efficiently. After the modifications to the order management system have been completed, these funds would be used to hire a CNT position as manager of the service. IC has announced that many of the resource-consuming components of the service will have to be discontinued if funding is not available for these “Phase One” enhancements.
For the second phase of development, ongoing funding is requested to provide for the expansion of the service into a true Office of Software Licensing. This expansion of has been separated into groups of required and desired services as envisioned by the Software Licensing Subcommittee. These services are tabulated as follows:
|
core
services |
staffing |
time |
status† |
|
management of the purchasing relationship with the UC-wide software reseller, including the provision of an online software purchasing and license management system, affiliated software lending library, and FTP service |
AA/CNT |
50% |
P |
|
coordination of site licensing and volume purchases for the faculty and staff population, including graduate students when possible |
AA/CNT |
40% |
C |
|
provision of a knowledge base of licensing contracts, including an online repository of license documentation and compliance issues |
AA/CNT |
25% |
C |
|
serves as campus representative to UC-wide TAS committee |
CNT |
20% |
C |
|
provision of limited technical support covering licensing and service operations but not extending to support of software issues |
CNT |
10% |
C |
|
serves as official vendor support contact or conduit for campus license agreements |
CNT |
10% |
L |
|
management of financial and business aspects of the service |
AA |
10% |
N |
|
serves as a liaison to the Purchasing Department for handling the legal issues with large-scale licenses as necessary |
AA |
5% |
N |
|
marketing the available services to campus departments |
AA |
5% |
N |
|
management of departmental licensing records for purchases made through the service |
AA |
5% |
L |
|
core funding for an “contingency fund” in support of reaching incremental price breaks on large-scale licenses |
-- |
-- |
N |
|
desired
services |
staffing |
time |
status |
|
coordination of departmental licensing efforts |
AA |
|
N |
|
coordination of joint ventures with the bookstore |
AA |
|
N |
|
provision of technical analysis, research, evaluations and recommendations for proposed software licenses |
CNT |
|
N |
|
provision of a campus-wide license server |
CNT |
|
N |
|
enhanced record keeping to provide more access and information to departmental administrators |
CNT |
|
N |
|
core funding for true campus-wide software purchases |
-- |
|
N |
Based on these estimates, the Software Licensing Subcommittee recommends an additional FTE for “Phase Two” development: a mid-level AA-class position.
Upon funding of “Phase Two” of the service, it is recommended that an advisory committee be established to provide limited consulting and direction of the service offerings. This body would be responsible for the oversight of the service, including the prioritization and implementation of new services. Further, it has been recognized that IC is not necessarily the best location for an Office of Software Licensing, as such a service is not part of IC’s charter or mission. This advisory committee would be responsible for recommending the most appropriate location for an expanded Office of Software Licensing. Once a suitable location has been recommended, all project funding will go to that department.
Without funding for Phase One, IC will need to discontinue the most
resource-consuming components of the service; only the permanent services (‘P’
in the above table) will be continued. The expected costs to departments of
discontinuing current (‘C’) services are estimated to exceed more than $75k
annually.
How this Project Supports the Academic Mission:
Well over 100 academic and administrative departments across campus use the Software Depot service. In addition to the savings provided, a central service streamlines departmental operations in many ways. Software Depot’s online ordering system provides a single point for software ordering without requiring that the department have any interaction with the off-campus reseller. Primarily, the Software Depot both simplifies the process of software acquisition while providing significant savings.
As software licensing agreements have increased in complexity, such as
with the new campus agreement with Microsoft, the ability of individual
departments to coordinate and maintain a knowledge base of these agreements and
ensure compliance has been outstripped. Additionally, auditing standards
require that departments maintain licensing records for all installed software.
The Software Depot simplifies this aspect of departmental operations by
providing ongoing records for all purchases made through the service.
The Phase One allocation is designed to keep the basic service as it
exists today afloat, which results in a savings of both departmental finances
and man-hours. Phase Two furthers these efforts in generating savings and
efficiency by providing for the most-requested needs of departmental technical
staff.
Funding Source:
A funding source for the proposed development and expansion of the
service is unknown.
Costs:
Phase One: $50k annually, initially to cover contract programming costs and ongoing for support of a single FTE as service manager. Ongoing funds would need to escalate appropriately to cover merit, equity, and range adjustments.
Phase Two: $40k annually to cover additional AA-level FTE, also
escalating to cover merit, equity, and range adjustments; $5k annually to fund
a contingency budget. An additional $10k annually may be needed to cover
departmental overhead, depending on where the service is eventually located.
Matching Opportunities:
The hardware and staff time required to design, develop, and run the
existing Software Depot order management system has been provided by IC. This
support will continue through the first phase of development. After the hiring
of the career CNT in phase one the new FTE would continue the service.
Staff Support Required:
Phase One: One FTE as described above.
Phase Two: One additional FTE as described above.
Existing Resources to be Used:
The planned extension of the order management system will be based on
existing code developed by IC and initially run on hardware purchased and
maintained by IC. The new CNT will be housed and trained at IC until phase two
funding is received, at which point an appropriate location will be decided by
the advisory committee.
Project Timeline:
The Software Depot service is currently in production. It is expected that the design, development, and testing of the extended order management system planned for in Phase One would take approximately one year.
Coordination of Phase Two would begin following Phase One. Estimating a timeline for this expansion is difficult without a decision of where an expanded Office of Software Licensing would be housed.
Life Cycle of Result:
Some incarnation of the Software Depot service will be provided for the forseeable future, regardless of the funding of this proposal. However, without extra-departmental funding, major components of the service will be phased out beginning January 2002.
† P = permanent service: provided with current staffing
C = current service: provided currently but will be cut without phase one augmentation
L = limited service: some parts provided currently but will be cut without phase one augmentation
N = new service: to be provided with phase two funding