Shared IT Services - Legal issues

CSG 5/14/09

When to use legal?

• Not always appropriate• In some cases simple MOUs can provide all that

is need– Samples collected and will be made available

(Deliverable 1)– Your bilateral hosting in 10 easy steps (Deliverable 2)– OK if not everyone can follow the steps

• Need to assure legal language is supporting our values

NACUA next steps

• Working group believes that our lawyers can represent our values and assure our needs are represented– May be not be applicable with external counsels

• Working group to provide NACUA with charter and work with NACUA task force (Deliverable 3)– Legal framework to provide structure for conso– Outline our principles/values and trust based culture– Draft created in the working group

Issues to address with NACUA

• Liability and risk– Early risk assessment– Avoid strict liability, in favor of accountability for negligence for coalition

members while pushing for strict liability from Providers unless the Providers are coalition members. How do we shift focus from liability to negligence among members?

– No risk transfer from institution to institution – Consortium can take on more risk. Aggregating risk where there are no

assets is a good thing.

• Intellectual property• Design narrow scope to HE peers, member agreements

may be preferable• Whose Laws? Arbitration?

Risk matrix

•No risk transferred from one Institution to another•It is OK for the consortium to take more risk (aggregation of risk)•Corporations with strict liability

Covenant

• Coalition model– NYSER net– Careful not to have consortia that server consortia

has to follow the members (should be starving and easily started and stopped)

• Designated negotiator– P2P

• With disposable service (student e-mail) neither is needed

Coalitions of the willing

• Lightweight coalitions perhaps in Educause or other umbrella organization– Owns assets of the child consortia– Provides framework– Amazon z-store model

• Add hoc aggregations – Not geographically aligned– Time and issue

• Built on common foundational principles

Foundational principles

• Trust-rich• Ad-Hoc alliances, Temporal nature • Not to sustain itself, its mission driven by needs

of members, fiduciary responsibility secondary• Coalitions have to be ready to dissolve

themselves• Metrics for success• Sunset date – strongly encouraged