ctcLink Operational Governance

ctcLink has already brought lasting change to the way our colleges do business and structure themselves across departments, as well as across the entire college system.

As the system approached the cusp of 34 colleges live in ctcLink, the Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (STAC)  Governance Task Force subcommittee was tasked with developing a governance model for ctcLink sustainability and collaboration.

WACTC approved the guiding principles, governing charters, and formation of a new systemwide ctcLink Collaboration group.

Governance Goals

The new governance model is designed to close gaps in the implementation phase governance process to meet the following goals:

• Engage in decision-making and business process alignment across our system with the designated ctcLink leader at each college
• Broad stakeholder participation in decision-making
• Ensure college subject matter expert input to prioritize changes and maximize limited system resources
• Establish transparent communication channels for clear processes and activity status

Governance Executive Summary proposal approved by WACTC, April 28, 2022.

Each college district and SBCTC has named a ctcLink leader to serve as its primary contact and participate in the ctcLink College Collaboration Group.

ctcLink College Collaboration Group proposal proposal approved by WACTC, April 28, 2022.

ctcLink Prioritization Process Change Approved

Since the ctcLink deployment was completed in May 2022, the task of considering and prioritizing Enhancement Requests (ERs) has faced competing priorities, resource fatigue, and unclear expectations for the ctcLink Production Support teams responsible for implementing approved ERs.

In response, a team comprised of members of the ctcLink College Collaboration Group (cCCG), the Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (STAC), and ctcLink Support team members proposed a prioritization process for ctcLink Enhancements that aims to be transparent, inclusive, streamlined, and effective.

What is the ctcLink College Collaboration Group?

cCCG was established to ensure colleges have a voice in ctcLink decisions and to help prioritize requests for ctcLink systemwide changes. Each district president or chancellor has named a ctcLink College Leader (Point of Contact) for this important role in representing the system.

cCCG consists of the primary ctcLink College Leaders approved by each college’s president/chancellor as well as college business analysts (or similar representatives). Each ctcLink College Leader is allocated one vote in the cCCG.

STAC voted Feb. 16, 2024 to recommend approval of the ctcLink Prioritization proposal to the WACTC Technology Committee (WACTC-Tech). WACTC-Tech approved STAC’s recommendation during its Feb. 29 meeting.

Highlights of objectives

• Gives cCCG official standing in the ctcLink governance structure.
  • It is crucial to recognize the importance of having the colleges' voices at the table when shaping priorities for the ctcLink system. The established cCCG has representation from each college and broad expertise across functional areas.
• Establishes three Production Support prioritization queues: In-Flight, Next Up, Future Work
• Easily accessible notes on priority decisions
• Colleges will have access to view prioritization queues

See the ctcLink Prioritization Proposalone-pager for more details.

Next steps

• Share current In-Flight (approved by ctcLink Working Group, but not yet implemented) ERs with cCCG
• Implement a brief “ER Pause” to prioritize the 69 outstanding ERs already submitted
• Begin work on the prioritization queue with cCCG in mid-March
• cCCG is working to formalize the voting and prioritization process to go through the 68 ERs in the queue and to solidify the group’s process moving forward as new ERs come in.

Supporting documentation

• ctcLink Prioritization Proposal
• ctcLink Prioritization Process
• Simplified Process Flow
• ctcLink Prioritization Proposal One-Pager

Since the ctcLink deployment was completed in May 2022, the task of considering and prioritizing Enhancement Requests (ERs) has faced competing priorities, resource fatigue, and unclear expectations for the ctcLink Production Support teams responsible for implementing approved ERs.

In response, a team comprised of members of the ctcLink College Collaboration Group (cCCG), the Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (STAC), and ctcLink Support team members proposed a prioritization process for ctcLink Enhancements that aims to be transparent, inclusive, streamlined, and effective.

What is the ctcLink College Collaboration Group?

cCCG was established to ensure colleges have a voice in ctcLink decisions and to help prioritize requests for ctcLink systemwide changes. Each district president or chancellor has named a ctcLink College Leader (Point of Contact) for this important role in representing the system.

cCCG consists of the primary ctcLink College Leaders approved by each college’s president/chancellor as well as college business analysts (or similar representatives). Each ctcLink College Leader is allocated one vote in the cCCG.

STAC voted Feb. 16, 2024 to recommend approval of the ctcLink Prioritization proposal to the WACTC Technology Committee (WACTC-Tech). WACTC-Tech approved STAC’s recommendation during its Feb. 29 meeting.

Highlights of objectives

• Gives cCCG official standing in the ctcLink governance structure.
• It is crucial to recognize the importance of having the colleges' voices at the table when shaping priorities for the ctcLink system. The established cCCG has representation from each college and broad expertise across functional areas.
• Establishes three Production Support prioritization queues: In-Flight, Next Up, Future Work
• Easily accessible notes on priority decisions
• Colleges will have access to view prioritization queues

See the ctcLink Prioritization Proposalone-pager for more details.

Next steps

• Current In-Flight (approved by ctcLink Working Group, but not yet implemented) ERs have been shared with cCCG
• A brief “ER Pause” was implemented to prioritize the 69 outstanding ERs already submitted
• Work began on the prioritization queue with cCCG in early April and will conclude by June 1, 2024
• cCCG is working to formalize the voting and prioritization process to go through the 68 ERs in the queue and to solidify the group’s process moving forward as new ERs come in.

Supporting documentation

• ctcLink Prioritization Proposal
• ctcLink Prioritization Process
• Simplified Process Flow
• ctcLink Prioritization Proposal One-Pager

The Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) developed the ctcLink Guiding Principles meet the long-term needs of the colleges in support of ctcLink governance. The principles were adopted by the system-wide presidents’ group (WACTC) in April 2022.

Download the ctcLink Guiding Principles.

ctcLink Guiding Principles

1. Ensure IT investments closely align with the mission, vision, values and goals of WACTC and SBCTC, to prioritize equitable access to technology resources for students across the college system, especially students of color, low-income, students with disabilities, and other systemically minoritized populations.
2. Enhancement Requests seeking ctcLink customizations must be considered only as meets the following conditions:
   • Mandated by Statutory Requirement
   • Business Cases (approved by governance ) that benefit the system as a whole, or an overriding majority of colleges. (Note:  may need to add specific exception clauses for technical college, small rural, etc.).
   • Does not adversely delay Oracle releases and/or updates due to excessive retroactive code updates.
3. The ctcLink system is the system of record. System enhancement requests that seek to replicate information and processes of ctcLink are discouraged.
4. For functionality not available within the product, a custom integration to commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) products may be considered only as meets the following conditions:
   • An overriding majority of colleges are consistently adopting the product.
   • Integration is generic in form to support multiple similar products
   • Colleges assume local responsibility for external product business usage support.
   • Costs associated with integration and ongoing maintenance will be shared across all colleges.
   • Oracle-delivered functional updates and enhancement requests intended to reduce one-time and ongoing costs in the system should be considered and prioritized for adoption.
5. Colleges and the SBCTC will commit the necessary human resources to design, implement and test system “releases and enhancements” in a timely and efficient manner, with the understanding it will require the dedication of many of their best “key” staff members.
6. ctcLink Program leaders, governance members, and other participants involved in the long-term operational guidance of ctcLink will be representative of diverse groups empowered to make equity-minded decisions.
7. Consistent data structures and data security/privacy practices are required. User access levels are regularly reviewed to allow only the minimal rights necessary to complete tasks.
8. Processes and procedures may not need to be identical on each campus; however, processes and procedures must be sufficiently similar to remain within the common academic and business services framework of the community and technical college system.
9. Colleges are responsible to:
   • Attract and retain staff with key business and software skills
   • Retain a primary contact for ctcLink system release management
10. Communications will be available and accessible through multiple channels to a diverse range of constituents.