UD IT Strategic Plan (2019-2024)
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Overview
In 2018, the IT Steering Committee at the University of Delaware began the process of creating a multi-year strategic plan. Four outcomes drove the strategic planning process:
- To establish a three to five year roadmap for University information technology
- To surface ideas and opportunities to align IT priorities with UD’s strategic goals
- To engage colleagues from around the University in discussion of technology strategies and priorities
- To strengthen IT governance, IT management processes and organizational capacity to prepare to implement
Context
UD has many talented IT professionals and a strong technology foundation that has been incrementally improved over the last decade. However, incremental gains are no longer keeping pace with UD’s rapidly expanding technology needs. The substantial growth of data intensive research requires more extensive network, storage and computational infrastructure. Furthering academic quality requires improved digital learning technologies and more extensive support services. With an emphasis on operational excellence, new University budget and administrative structures require administrative technologies that are more configurable and conducive to delivering effective services. Click ‘VIEW DETAILS’ for additional information on plan context.
Strategic Goals
The IT plan addresses current challenges and transforms technology to be an asset to research growth, student success and operational effectiveness. The plan consists of four goals each with immediate priorities, supporting strategies, and initiatives. A summary of each goal is displayed by clicking the orange “+”. Click ‘VIEW DETAILS’ to view detailed information on each goal.
Strategic Goals
UD has many talented IT professionals and a strong technology foundation that has been incrementally improved over the last decade. However, incremental gains are no longer keeping pace with UD’s rapidly expanding technology needs. The substantial growth of data intensive research requires more extensive network, storage and computational infrastructure.
Support Research & Scholarship
The IT plan will deploy technologies and services to enable UD’s strategies to increase research and scholarly activity, impact and innovation. UD will deploy a research cyberinfrastructure that facilitates complex, data intensive research. Research networks and partnerships will enable UD researchers to move their computer-intensive projects between on-premises and cloud-based resources. Expanded research computing services and data management expertise will encourage more faculty to apply research technologies to their work and maximize time available to focus on their scholarship. Improved consultative services will enable faculty in all disciplines to leverage IT capabilities, such as high performance computing (HPC) or data visualization, in their scholarship.
Facilitate Improved Student Learning and Success
In conjunction with campus partners, the IT plan improves physical and virtual learning spaces and provides faculty with support to adopt digital learning technologies that are broader and more multi-disciplinary. It lays the technology and services foundation to support the academic strategy for online learning. Extended outreach will help more faculty and students discover digital learning capabilities. Innovation incubation programs will help early adopters evaluate emerging technologies and deploy new pedagogies. Integrated facilities and technology planning will improve baseline classroom capabilities and reflect innovations in learning space technologies in the campus master plan.
Enable Administrative Excellence
The IT plan sets a roadmap for the core administrative technologies that support student and administrative services and enables operational excellence. By approximately 2027, the University’s major administrative technology, PeopleSoft, will be phased out by its vendor. As this date approaches, the software will become more costly to maintain and fall further behind leading capabilities and practices. This goal sets a roadmap to upgrade PeopleSoft and address acute gaps in other administrative technologies. It prepares the University to move to the next generation of student information (SIS) and enterprise administrative systems (ERP). Strategies create the technological and organizational capacity to streamline processes and enhance user experiences with digital services.
Optimize IT Services
To further operational excellence, the IT plan also introduces mechanisms to improve existing IT services and creates a framework to better organize responsibility for services among IT organizations. Strategies to optimize IT services create efficiencies, provide a more consistent service experience for faculty and students, and reduce information security risks. Most importantly, this goal creates transparent mechanisms to govern services to promote accountability and establish trust in University-wide IT services.
Implementation
Selective implementation of the IT plan began while the planning process was underway. While important groundwork has been laid, multiple initiatives are underway to address immediate implementation priorities and create the organizational capacity needed to execute the strategies proposed. Full implementation of the IT plan will occur over three to five years. Click ‘VIEW DETAILS’ for additional information on plan implementation, IT Governance at UD, and to view related roadmaps.