An Introduction to the Technology Transfer Partners

Novell would like to extend an invitation to all staff working within academic institutions such as schools, colleges and universities around the world to join the well established Technology Transfer Partners (TTP) group . Membership of the group is totally free of charge. More detailed information is given below.

Background

The TTP is an international group of schools, colleges and universities that have made a substantial commitment to campus IT implementations using Novell technology. The TTP was started in the early 1980's with 3 universities whose goal was to share their networking experiences in order to leverage the knowledge of their diverse campus computing environments. The group has now grown to be a more comprehensive group of several thousand loyal Novell education customers who share information with each other and with the software developers and business units at Novell. Perhaps no other group has more influence on software development at Novell than the TTP members.

Primary Goals of the TTP

• Share successes and failures on their campuses for other campuses to learn from those experiences.
• Solicit information and constructive assistance from other campuses with similar software usage for best practices and recommended configurations.
• Network among peers to leverage relationships in career advancement.
• Mentor and serve as examples to other members through the list serve, the annual regional TTP conferences and marketing materials such as white papers, success stories or articles for the Novell Academic Portal.
• Provide feedback to Novell software development teams on product roadmaps, patch development, bug reports and resolution, and Novell solutions.
• Provide feedback to Novell on leveraging relationships on their campuses for Novell sales to better meet the needs of the individual campuses.
• Provide feedback to other Novell business units to better meet the needs of the academic community in licensing programs, marketing, technical support, etc.

Membership and Confidentiality

Due to the primary method of communication within the TTP organisation being the TTP list serve, membership is restricted to maintain a reasonable number of messages for members to be able to manage. Additionally, the messages need to be of a nature that is substantive and not simply "me too" kind of responses. In that light, membership is restricted to two or three members per campus. We ask that the members be very technical and be senior IT staff. This is the group that implements and manages the software, not the CIO or staff that plan strategy. On very large campuses, more members have been allowed due to the size of the IT staff, but in those cases the person joining the group is asked to help manage the use of TTP information within their IT teams, again to minimize the volume of messages while at the same time being able to share as much information as possible.

Members also are committing to share information on the list serve, not just monitor messages. We are looking for members that will contribute as well and learn from the information made available on the TTP list serve. There are actually two list-serves, one for schools and the other for universities and colleges. Members are added to the appropriate list when they join the group based on the organisation they work for.

In order to become a member of the Novell TTP organisation, the person must digitally sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and then once approved by Novell they will be added to the group. Additionally each individual on the campus that wishes to participate in the TTP organisation must also digitally sign the NDA and be approved by the first person who signs up. This requirement was instituted so that each individual member would understand the confidentiality requirements of the TTP group. Not only do members receive non-disclosure information from Novell, but the NDA applies to information shared between TTP members as well. Member campuses must be willing to share their failures so that other campuses can learn from their experience. Other TTP members must be sensitive to the nature of this kind of information and recognize that employees of other member institutions are putting themselves on the line in order assist other TTP members and let them learn from their experience. Members who do not abide by the nature of the NDA will not only be removed from the TTP membership, but may also be held to the resolution terms of the Non-Disclosure Agreement.

TTP Advisory Board

An Advisory Board has been created from the TTP membership and is reviewed regularly to make sure it is representative of the membership as a whole. The most visible role of the Advisory Board is to help construct the agenda for the regional TTP conferences. They also help in conducting the conferences and coordinating member presentations. In addition, the Advisory Board members represent the TTP members in providing feedback to specific business units at Novell as the needs arise. The Advisory Board also has a group of people who actively monitor the discussion list and pass significant issues and findings back and forth between the list and product managers and developers within Novell. The TTP organisation is sponsored by Novell with a designated manager assigned to monitoring the needs of the group. The TTP Advisory Board works with this manager to organize the Novell resources available to the TTP members.

Annual Conference

The annual conference is a four to five day, free-of-charge, event where all presentations are of a highly-technical nature, including elements under NDA. Presentations will be delivered by senior Novell administration and Product Managers, academic institution staff and carefully selected partner organisations. This conference takes place in Provo, Utah in July each year.

An additional regional conference will be held in EMEA in the April/May timeframe. Members may attend any of the TTP meetings but are encouraged to support their regional event in order to be able to network with more of their colleagues and similarly structured organisations.

Training Courses

Due to the special status of members of the TTP there is an ever growing list of training courses put together specifically for this group. These courses are delivered with academic sites in mind and detail examples and real-world experiences from these environments. The current list of available courses and booking details can be found by following the events tab.

Other Benefits

The main benefit of belonging to the group is the membership of the community and the self-help resource that this brings to your campus. As a member of the TTP you will have access to restricted areas of Novell's web pages intended for their partner community including product and learning collateral. As a TTP member you will also have free access to the Utopia Demonstration System, a series of configured demonstrations of all Novell products, built using Virtual Machines, something which can prove very valuable during the learning and evaluation stage of any project.

How do I join the TTP?

Simply follow the link http://www.novell.com/ttp with your browser and complete the form. Please don't forget to complete the profile information as this can be very useful for other sites to find people who are using similar technologies.

Once you have submitted the application form it will be forwarded to Novell for approval and under normal circumstances you will be added to the group within 48 hours and sent an appropriate welcome email.

Questions

People who join the TTP find it extremely useful and I hope you will take this opportunity to join up today. If you have any questions concerning the group or the processes involved please email Peter Atkins using patkins@novell.com or telephone him on +44 (0)1706 871900.