From the IT Assessment to the IT Roadmap (2011-2014) John T. Harwood ITS

Background Information

Objectives of the IT Strategic Plan Identify and prioritize three-year strategies to address significant gaps in the availability or use of technology to support teaching, research, outreach and the delivery of support services. Establish a roadmap to address known areas of need to modernize ISIS and IBIS and to continue the implementation of the outcomes from the IT Assessment. Lay the groundwork for longer-range strategies to leverage anticipated technology developments and meet emerging needs.

IT Strategic Plan Timeline * A draft plan will be available in early December for comment and refinement. The recommended plan will be presented to the President, Provost and Senior Vice President in January.

Project Framework The scope of planning encompassed five primary domains: Research technology, Instructional technology, University services, Enterprise administrative systems and analysis, and Technology infrastructure, security and services. Two cross-domain groups were established to review key strategic enablers that cut across all domains IT funding practices IT Operational Effectiveness A major theme for all domains was improved GOVERNANCE

What We Did Five planning sub-committees convened in August, 2011. Initial meetings of the committees focused on: Reviewing the current state of technology and technology services Identifying emerging issues and opportunities that will impact the IT plan Identifying critical gaps in how technology supports Penn State’s institutional strategies Refining a set of framing questions that the IT plan will address

Process More than 150 faculty and staff participated in the assessment A university-wide survey of faculty, staff, students, and IT staff was completed to better understand technology usage and pain points

Critical Issues Governance Questions such as who will make decisions, how those decisions will be made, and where decisions should be made going forward have arisen for each group. Fostering greater collaboration and integration. Committees identified a need to review and revise existing policies and structures to create a more collaborative and flexible future state Members suggested seeking opportunities for better use of existing resources, or collaborative development of new resources

Critical Issues (Continued) Scaling technology and services to meet growing needs. There is a need to shift technology and support capabilities focused on research and instructional technology to a scale that meets current and future demand as computational based research and on- line/blended learning have become core activities. The importance of data as an institutional asset.   Principles in enterprise systems are needed to guide more integrated systems and services. Research data is becoming a more complex need to manage, transport, preserve, etc. Data is becoming increasingly vital to assessment and continuous improvement of learning.  

Final Report and Recommendations Final Report https://it.psu.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/itassessmentexecuti vesummary.pdf Process Documents https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/ITSTRAT/IT+Strategic+Planning University-wide IT Planning gateway: http://it.psu.edu/strategies/strategy.php

Immediate Outcomes The creation of ITLC Provost Pangborn asked ITS to lead a university-wide planning to develop a strategic plan for IT Identification of seven strategic initiatives (https://it.psu.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/itassessmentupd ate_111113_0.pdf) – and progress has been made on many of these.

Summary of the Strategic Plan / Roadmap (2013) Agile, Future Oriented IT Workforce Use technology to extend PSU’s market and student base and diversify access to educational programs. Be a leader in research computing by expanding capability and capacity. Simplify, automate, and enhance administrative services to students, faculty and staff. Improve IT efficiency and effectiveness through consolidation and standardization, multi-sourcing and shared services without hindering innovation. IT Governance

Enhance Support for Research Strategies Changes Create a cultural shift in philosophy regarding research computing. Restructure the organizations that support research computing and institute a faculty led governance model. Significantly increase investment in research computing and data enterprise capabilities. Improve services, expand capacity and align policies with the needs of the research community. Faculty director with reporting line to VP Research and faculty-led governance. Increased investment in advanced research computing capacity and staff. More stability and defined career paths for research support staff. Improved on-boarding support Improved performance and expanded capabilities – networking, user support, storage, server hosting - available to all faculty. More support to make advanced research computing facilities available to unfunded researchers, graduate students and undergraduates.

Enabling Learning Strategies Changes Create a unifying learning strategy supported by technology. Expand instructional design capabilities and capacity. Advance the use of research, data, and assessment to improve pedagogy supported by learning technology. Create innovative learning spaces driven by pedagogy and able to support growing array of devices and content. Support expanded use of digital curricular materials and student created content. More instructional design capacity Learning research informs adoption Laboratory learning spaces created More data and improved tools support learning analytics Best practice models established for course redesign Advanced capabilities to assign learning spaces based on pedagogy, class size, location, and technology Long-term funding model to sustain learning space technology

Enterprise Systems and Services Implement new processes and systems, expand analytics, and align technology infrastructure to facilitate implementation and integration. Adopt principles and architectural standards to guide design, selection and implementation of new administrative environment. Foster data driven decision-making and analytics through improved tools, training and data governance practices. Create the organizational capacity to implement larger-scale change projects, support new technologies, and optimize their use. Buy first, limit modifications philosophy Architecture facilitates integration and enables a best of breed strategy Multi-year program plan establishes implementation priorities Organizational plan to redeploy, retrain and acquire skills to implement and optimize the use of new technologies Recognized structure and principles for decision-making Change leader and project leadership organization Architecture and active data governance to promote effective, secure access to data and analytics