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Strategic Plan for Information Technology

Mission

The Information Technology Division’s mission is to partner with our community to provide exceptional services, innovative solutions, and resources to advance and facilitate learning, teaching, and research in support of the University’s educational mission and strategic priorities.


Vision

The Information Technology Division’s mission is to deliver seamless, transformational, and secure technologies designed to enable and empower people to achieve more. 

Values Statement

The Information Technology Division’s values include:

  • People first (Respect, Collaboration, Communication, Diversity, Accessibility, and Growth)

  • Integrity (Trust, Honesty, Accountability, and Transparency)

  • Innovation (Going boldly into the unknown, embracing risks, and improving experiences)

  • Privacy (Security, risk, governance, and compliance)


Planning Process

The Information Technology Division planning process was facilitated by the IT Senior Leadership Team, IT Leadership, and staff at large.

Most significantly, the preparation of a Digital Transformation Strategy was developed in alignment with the Reach Higher 2025 Strategic Plan. In fact, this strategy was endorsed by the University Technology Council on December 21, 2021.

Throughout the planning process, key observations were gathered based on executive listening sessions, interviews, focus groups, facilitated workshops, and surveys with faculty, staff, and students. Strengths and weaknesses were raised by key stakeholders, which gave rise to new opportunities to pursue, as well as identifying specific strategic objectives moving forward. These objectives were grouped into three key areas: 1) service excellence and greater university support, 2) modernization of enterprise solutions, and 3) accelerating transformation through innovation.


Collaboration

The Information Technology Division facilitated a variety of cross-division and cross-college collaboration through committees such as ATAC, UTC, as well as specific areas with touchpoints through project requests submitted to the IT Project Management Office.  

Building Capacity

The Information Technology Division is focused on reallocating, repurposing, or reprioritizing existing work in order to build capacity for achieving commitments and implementing strategies. For example, Blackboard has been transitioned from a locally hosted environment to SaaS, freeing up staff time and resources. Further, four separate telecom solutions have been consolidated into one Ucaas provider, Zoom. Activities such as these have empowered the division with a greater focus to dedicate staff talent and resources in support of Reach Higher.  

Commitments

Empowered Educational Experience

Key Performance Indicator

Security Score

Baseline

The current security score is 60% out of a possible 100%. 100% is difficult to reach but that is the goal we are aiming to achieve.

Description

Develop a holistic strategy to ensure the security and integrity of our educational ecosystem, which is considered an intrinsic value for individual learners and the broader communities we serve, guiding and supporting students in their educational journey while safeguarding against security risks. The strategy considers the following elements: Open Vulnerabilities – regular vulnerability assessments and prioritize patching and mitigation efforts. Duo Authentications - Monitor authentication logs and ensure that all critical systems require MFA authentication for access. Phishing Messages – a goal for reducing the click-through rate on phishing messages by a specific percentage. Compromised Accounts - incident response plans to address compromised accounts effectively. Use a comprehensive security score encompassing these elements to assess the overall security posture of the educational environment regularly. This score should reflect security measures' effectiveness and alignment with our commitment to education as an intrinsic value and a public good.

Progress - Winter 2024

60.54/100

Current security score is 60.54%


Key Performance Indicator

Satisfaction Score

Baseline

The current satisfaction score is 86% out of a possible 100%. That is at a 14% response rate.

Description

Delivering care for our people and culture to serve the community. Use a satisfaction score that combines survey results to assess overall community satisfaction. This score should reflect the effectiveness of our efforts in aligning with community needs and our commitment to providing a high-quality service delivery for all members.

Progress - Winter 2024

90/100

Our latest community satisfaction survey has revealed a significant improvement in satisfaction among our members between November 1st, 2023, and April 23rd, 2024. The survey received a response rate of 4.7%, with over 90% of the feedback being positive. This is an impressive result, given the broad outreach of the survey, which was extended to 24,703 community members. One notable improvement in the survey methodology was shifting towards sending out survey invitations on every ticket resolution instead of only to 20% of members, as was previously done. This change ensures consistent and comprehensive feedback to understand client experiences better. The data also underscores the unwavering commitment of our IT support groups to continuous improvement, a commitment that has significantly contributed to the positive community satisfaction results.


Key Performance Indicator

Enterprise Services

Baseline

The current goal is 99% out of a possible 100%. 100% is difficult to reach as 1% of the time is reserved for maintenance

Description

Dedicating digital access to empower student learning in an ever-changing world at the intersection of technology, teaching, learning, and life. Strategy for enhancing education as an intrinsic value, both for individual learners and the broader community that aligns with this commitment and considering the following elements: Network infrastructure - Providing access and connectivity. System Uptime - goal for system uptime, such as achieving 99 % availability. ERP / SIS – Modernizing services by way of move to Workday LMS - a plan to increase LMS adoption among faculty and students. Zoom - optimize the use of Zoom for remote and hybrid learning. Panopto - Assess the impact of Panopto on learning outcomes through student performance data and feedback. Bandwidth Consumed - Analyze current bandwidth utilization patterns and identify areas for improvement.

Progress - Winter 2024

99.92/100

We currently at 99.92%


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