In order to take advantage of the collective acumen, knowledge, and bargaining power represented by all campuses of the University of California, the Office of the President (UCOP) sponsors a university-wide Advisory Group on “Technical Acquisition Support” (TAS). This group includes representatives of all 9 campuses, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and UCOP. It communicates regularly by a mailing list hosted at UCI, with monthly conference calls. There are also occasional face-to-face meetings, often linked with events such as the annual UC Computing Services Conference (held this past week at UCSD).
The range of computer products and vendors on which the group consults is broad: Apple, Claris, Cisco, Digital, Eudora, Maple,Microsoft, Netscape, Oracle, SAS, Sun, and Sybase, to name a representative sample. There is no special funding for TAS-based acquisitions; rather TAS serves as a forum for determining whether there is adequate interest and funding available on various campuses to make a system-wide agreement feasible for a particular product or with a particular vendor.
News about products currently covered or under consideration for coverage is communicated through the channels most appropriate for the particular product. In many cases, this is via the UCICSCG@UCI.EDU or UCICSCG-INTERNAL@UCI.EDUComputer Support Coordinator mailing lists. Other mailing lists (e.g., UCI-SUN, MS-SELECT, UCI-STAT-SOFTWARE, UCI-SYBASE, etc.) are also used as appropriate. These mailing lists also represent a good way to bring acquisition issues up for discussion at UCI and in the UC TAS process.