On-line information at Virginia Tech

Several years ago, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University faced an information problem. The Administrative Handbook, the university's policy and procedures manual, was out of date and in need of revision. The problem had been discussed and many solutions considered, but the one that seemed to be the best way to solve the problem was to put the information on-line.The result was the Administrative Information System, which has been providing information for over three years now, and has spawned a number of additional systems. The AIS was not the first on-line system at Virginia Tech, but it did introduce some innovations and some new ways of looking at old problems.Virginia Tech made an early commitment to office automation with a large mainframe computer, terminals in almost every office, and a network to link the campus together. IBM's Professional Office System (PROFS) was established as the default software package for office automation, making it easy for unsophisticated computer users to work just as well as those already familiar with mainframe computer use.It was because of this commitment to office automation that the on-line Administrative Handbook was considered as a replacement for the printed version. The idea of on-line information was not a new idea, since there already was some information available on the mainframe for users who could remember the unique series of commands necessary to gain access.These “systems” consisted of the weekly employment listings posted by Employee Relations, Standard Operating Procedures from the Office of Sponsored Programs and an electronic version of the University Fact Book, with enrollment and demographic information, maintained by the Office of Institutional Research and Planning Analysis. These systems were developed using the HELP facility available on the mainframe, which avoided the necessity of programming a display management system.These systems, and a prototype system developed by the Computing Center to display the Faculty Handbook, influenced the development of the AIS. The HELP-based systems displayed simple text files on the screen. The Computing Center system did this also, after a user selected a particular section from a table of contents menu. In this “point and push” system, the user moved the cursor to a line in the table of contents (point) and pressed a key to display the text from that section (push).Because the Administrative Handbook had always been the responsibility of the Vice President for Administration, that office was assigned the task of updating the information. As a first step toward an on-line system, the various offices and departments that had information in the Administrative Handbook were directed to enter their policies and procedures into files on the mainframe. After consultation with the campus Computing Center and looking at some of the systems already on the mainframe, the task of researching, designing, and implementing the on-line system began.The initial idea of putting the policies and procedures on-line was to merge all the files a single, indexed document. As the information was gathered from the various departments, it became apparent that a monolithic document would be unmanageable. Some minor revisions could have been handled with little impact, but major revisions or additions to one section would have had a major impact on the entire document.Another discovery during the initial development stages was that a technical writer was needed to provide writing assistance and coordinate the style and format of the individual documents. Because each department involved was required to enter its own information, there were various levels of consistency in format and in the information provided. This position was filled in January 1986 and a detailed development plan was completed.