FY13 IT Strategic Plan Assessment Report

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1 FY13 IT Strategic Plan Assessment Report Introduction The IT strategic plan, adopted in 2012, identified five major issues related to information technology: 1) infrastructure; 2) IT culture and management; 3) academic and research computing; 4) enterprise computing systems and 5) student support. Long- term actions were identified in the plan s IT strategic goals. Prioritized short- term actions were identified in the FY13 IT operational plan. This assessment report measures progress toward goals in the FY13 operational plan. IT infrastructure in support of University strategic goals Work toward building a modern data center and providing data services that support campus units and the strategic goals of the University A technical solution for a secure, energy- efficient facility to house core computing and networking equipment on the UM campus has been developed. The Technology Modular Units will first house central IT equipment but can be expanded over time to service broader campus requirements. The funds for the facility have been budgeted and the project has received final approval by the Board of Regents. Work on a financial model for the provision of data services and the completion of the disaster recovery plan is slated for FY14. Develop and improve core network infrastructure including connections to affiliate and satellite campuses and pervasive wireless connectivity in support of a dynamic learning environment. Major improvements have been made to the campus network (see UM cyberinfrastructure plan) These include the following: Upgrade of the campus firewall to handle much higher data flow Implementation of route reflectors and an authentication server to improve routing efficiency Implementation of redundant core routers to improve network resiliency Upgrade of the affiliate campus links, improving their connectivity Connectivity of four community and tribal colleges to the campus network and access to the Northern Tier Network Upgrade of the last four academic buildings that had very

2 limited bandwidth to a minimum of 100Mb connectivity Approval of a technical and financial plan to provide wireless in all academic buildings with agreement to begin the two year project July, Funding for wireless in the residence halls has not yet been identified but is being actively pursued. Submittal of an NSF cyber infrastructure proposal to upgrade three academic buildings to handle large research data sets Two other significant events occurred in the area of networking. UM brokered the purchase of a 10Gb backbone for the state, completed in June, 2013, Internet2 announced a plan to extend a national 100Gb research and education backbone from Minneapolis to Seattle. The link extends across Montana and will be available for very high bandwidth needs in the future. Refine and expand systems and services to provide a robust and secure IT environment. Implementation of an intrusion detection system was evaluated by deferred due to the expense of such systems. Investigate cloud computing and hosted services initiatives and implement these technologies where appropriate. Action has been deferred pending an evaluation of the services offered through the new technology modular units. Box and Amazon Web Services are under review for campus storage. Meet ADA standards and campus policies for technology accessibility. A campus task force was formed in January, 2013, to address issues associated with accessibility on campus. A final report from this group, due June, 2013, will help prioritize future actions. Steps have been taken to provide video captioning through central IT s Technology Support Services. Several campus organizations collaborated to purchase ABBYY, software that converts pdf files into editable text. Rollout of this service began in spring, Provide identity management services in support of a campus and system wide unified identity for students, faculty and staff. UM is a member of InCommon, an entity that supports a common trust framework which enables shared access to on- line resources in support of education and research in the U.S. Federated identity management streamlines collaboration among higher education institutions and research partners by allowing local identities to be

3 trusted among multiple organizations. UM will become an identity provider soon, meaning that UM students and employees will be able to use UM identities at other institutions. The next step will be to make UM a service provider, meaning that members from trusted organizations beyond UM would be able to access select UM systems and services. UM s IT organization is also working with affiliate campuses to create a federated identity plan among UM campuses. UM will implement Eduroam ( in summer, Eduroam allows students, faculty and staff to connect to the internet on campus or when visiting other participating institutions by using local credentials. Eduroam is an international service and would improve UM constituents internet access while traveling abroad as well as within the U.S. IT enterprise: structure, governance and funding Create an enterprise wide IT organizational structure that provides clear authority and responsibility. Integrate IT leadership and planning across the University into a consolidated decision making process that respects control of individual core activities while centralizing and standardizing the governance, funding, management and delivery of routine, commodity and enterprise wide functions. An enterprise- wide IT organizational structure has been put in place. Each sector has appointed an IT director who reports directly to sector heads with dotted line reporting to the CIO. Sector IT directors meet regularly usually monthly with the CIO and leadership team in central IT regarding IT operational plans. Two actions were planned for FY13 but deferred. They include: Developing an IT staff training program, and Documenting the roles and responsibilities of central and distributed IT. Structure IT governance to unify planning, eliminate duplication, and coordinate budgeting, while allocating A campus IT governing body called IT Senate was initiated in fall semester IT Senate includes representation from all sectors, Faculty Senate, Staff Senate and ASUM. IT Senate responsibilities include developing and assessing an IT strategic plan, managing IT

4 global resources across all segments of the campus population. strategic funds and prioritizing campus- wide IT initiatives. The IT Senate reports to the President's Cabinet through the CIO. During spring semester 2013, IT Senate approved bylaws and decision- making principles, and has begun forming standing committees. An ad hoc committee also formulated and executed a survey to measure student technology priorities. Tech Partners was also restructured during the year to be more collaborative and inclusive of distributed IT issues. While not a governing body, Tech Partners is critical to communication and cooperation between central IT and distributed partners. Build an IT funding model that maximizes efficiency and sustainability and integrates funding decisions with enterprise strategic planning. Discussions have begun between central IT and Administration & Finance on the requirement to change the central IT funding model and work on the cost model has begun. Options for a new funding model should be available for review in late FY14. Identification and assessment of broader IT funding has not yet begun. Develop IT policies that meet both short- term needs to conduct business successfully and provide a framework and support for the development of essential efficiencies and infrastructure consolidation and improvement. A policy gap analysis has been conducted and draft policies have been generated though none have been taken forward for final approval. This is a critical action for FY14. IT for teaching, learning and research Involving Academic Affairs and Research, work to develop a vision for academic and research computing, build out infrastructure and partnerships to enable education for the global century. This action is in progress but not yet completed. Two planned IT Senate committees Academic IT and Research IT committees will be formed this summer. Discussions with Montana Tech have begun relative to UM system researchers use of the newly installed research computing cluster at that campus.

5 Involving sector expertise, work to assess current technology offerings to students and identify technological barriers to student academic success. Collaborate and partner with sectors to explore and evaluate innovative ideas related to new learning spaces. Action taken: several activities in this area have been very successful: An expansion of wireless to include Corbin, Jeanette Rankin Hall, Fine Arts, and Natural Science is completed. A plan to provide wireless in all academic buildings has been approved and funded with work projected to begin July 1, Additional efforts to fund wireless for the residence halls are continuing. An additional twenty- five classrooms will have been outfitted with technology during FY13, bringing the total number of classrooms with adequate technology to 87. This year s upgrades included Urey lecture hall. Academic Planner v3.2 is now in production with additional features for both students and advisers. An inventory of campus- wide software needs in preparation for developing a coordinate licensing model has been deferred. Partner with Academic Affairs to assess support structures and needs for emerging educational technology, student and instructor technology literacy, and application accessibility and consistency. A small team assessed the value of making applications available to computer labs through a central server. The School of Business Administration is conducting a pilot utilizing Citrix for application provision; their report will inform other academic units on the value of this approach. IT for institutional administration, decision making and innovation Align enterprise computing systems with University and MUS strategic goals and policies. The primary focus in this area has been baseline Banner. Substantial progress has been made in moving Financial Aid to a baseline state. Discussions with other Banner users will continue with the intent of continuing the conversion to a less modified ERP. The development of a service oriented architecture designed to allow disparate systems access to Banner data in a standardized format has been explored but the determination of the optimal approach to this issue has been deferred. Implement IT service delivery processes to achieve broad understanding of IT Central IT has formally evaluated and begun implementation of an Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) system using a best practices model called ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure

6 responsibilities and service levels while maximizing the customer service experience. Library). IT has purchased LANDesk Service Desk to provide tools building and managing a service catalog, manage IT resources across the enterprise, and provide a single customer service request and support system. Eight employees in central IT have completed ITIL certification training. Full implementation of the ITSM system is expected to take multiple years. Several service level agreements clarifying expectations between central IT and customers have been generated. More SLAs will be developed as part of the ITSM rollout. The development of a campus- wide project management framework and the provision of training have been deferred, in part due to lack of adequate funds to support the effort. Collaborate with Business Services to achieve IT operating and purchasing efficiencies through economies of scale. A campus committee has been formed to consider ways in which the campus as a whole can become more efficient and generate cost savings. The committee will work with the IT community to identify technology cost savings and that report will inform FY14 priorities and actions. Align electronic business processes to maximize investments in enterprise level software and human resource capital. A campus IT team has reviewed the need for a new student printing solution, one that is cost- effective and meets the needs of all IT organizations. The team has identified and tested a solution that works for all organizations offering that service and implementation of the new application will be completed summer, This collaborative process has worked well and set an example for future decision- making. Provide a robust data warehouse and reporting/data analysis toolset to aid in assessment activities in support of strategic goals. Action has been deferred on this goal until the administration prioritizes this as a critical need and funds are established. Establish a multi- campus approach to computing systems to ensure strategic alignment and to provide bulk purchasing opportunities. No action has been taken.

7 IT to enhance the student experience Involving student focus groups assess current technology offerings to students, identify gaps in technology offerings on campus. Study and predict the expectations of future students and cutting edge technologies. IT Senate established a tiger team to work with students on the identification of gaps in technology offerings and the level of concern associated with each of those gaps. The team is conducting a student survey to inform next steps. Guided by the results of this research, UM will take steps, such as allocating funds and prioritizing projects, to meet the expectations and ensure accessibility to all students. The transparency of this process is critical to its success. Plans to address a mobile application standard and an electronic communication standard have been deferred.