President McRobbie's Charge
In May of 1998 IU's IT Strategic Plan was presented to then IU President Myles Brand. In December of that year, it was approved for implementation.
By any standard IU's ITSP has been an enormous success. The awards and recognition that IU has received in just about every area of IT services and infrastructure confirm in aggregate, IU's national and international leadership in IT. It also played a major role in helping create the environment that lead to the establishment of IU's School of Informatics.
However, ten years have elapsed since this plan was developed. While the plan's ten general recommendations remain remarkably relevant, I believe the time has come to develop a new plan that will guide the future directions for the development of IT at IU for the next 5 to 10 years.
IU has developed IT services and infrastructure second to none over the last 10 years, and the impressive impacts of these have been seen in education and research in many disciplines. But this impact has been uneven. As well, new waves of technology innovation are continuously building.
Hence the next IU IT Strategic Plan should be a plan to develop the pervasive use of IT to help build excellence in education and research in all disciplines, in administration, in IU's engagement in the life of the State, across all campuses, and in collaboration with IU's key partners such as Clarian Health and institutions of higher education in the State. The plan should sustain IU's leadership in services and infrastructure, while maximizing how these are leveraged to build excellence in education and research. And the plan should attempt to take into account the impact of the new waves of technology innovation in education and research based on the best predictions and analysis that can be developed.
In developing this plan a key guideline needs to be kept firmly in mind. IT at IU must continue to be seen as a University-level service provided at both the IU Bloomington campus and the IUPUI campus by University Information Technology Services (UITS) under the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology (OVPIT). OVPIT should also continue to provide guidance and oversight to the IT units on all the regional campuses.
The aim of this is to continue to ensure that IU maximizes the collective leverage of IU's total investments in IT in a way that is efficient, effective and financially responsible. However OVPIT must also continue to be responsive to the IT needs of the individual campuses and schools, but in a way that is consistent with the forgoing principles.
This means for example, that university and campus administrators should ensure that "shadow" IT administrative systems, infrastructure or services are not developed or acquired that provide duplicate or similar IT systems, services or infrastructure to those provided by UITS, unless these are compelling and exceptional reasons for doing so and with the approval of OVPIT. University administrators should instead work with UITS to either provide these IT systems, infrastructure or services, or to modify existing IT systems, infrastructure or services. Where university or campus administrators require completely new IT systems, services or infrastructure, discussions should first be held with UITS about the provision of these and to ensure that security and economic efficiency considerations are taken fully into account.
You will be responsible for the development of the new IU IT Strategic Plan. I would like to receive it on 1 October, 2008. Please insure that in developing the plan, there are substantial opportunities for involvement and input from faculty, staff, students, administrators and IU's many external constituencies.
Michael McRobbie
President
Indiana University
