“Universities and colleges leaders have an opportunity — and an obligation — to build a plan today that addresses strains on existing infrastructure and also looks to the future needs to support its students, researchers, and faculty. That calls for thinking through what a “preparedness” model looks like for higher education and research writ large, one that takes into account the economic implications on the university itself as well as on the services and enterprises it relies on, like publishing and data management infrastructures. …
We propose the creation of a coordinated, cross-institutional “preparedness plan”, in partnership with Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI), to begin work on identifying the opportunities, leverage points, costs and approaches that could be employed to enable the following:
Creation of shared set of principles to help assess solutions based on a values-based framework;
Support that addresses heightened demands on universities as they shift operations online and transform the way they serve their communities;
Coordinated scenario planning that plans for a radical shift towards open scholarship and a convergence on existing, open tools and services;
Ways to pool resources and risk to maximize cost-effectiveness and minimize system failure;
Creation of a shared action plan to facilitate coordinated decision-making ensuring research continuity;
Bolster researcher productivity, continuity, and growth in both the near and long-term. …
Call for University Participation. We are currently seeking university representatives to join us as key participants in this work. Representatives should be able to provide information about the realities abilities at their university, and could consist of roles including, but not limited to university librarians, program directors, technology leads, Vice Provosts, and Deans. Participants will need to be able to speak to budget and programmatic decisions within their department and be able to provide insight to other changes at their Institution.”