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.

Even while setting long-term strategic direction, IT is not standing still.  Significant progress has been made by the University to address gaps in applications, upgrade research infrastructure and build organizational capacity to improve execution of projects and services. However, pressing challenges remain that require continued short-term actions and long-term strategy including:

  • Insufficient network capabilities to support the rapid movement of large research data sets and enable researchers to move projects efficiently and securely between campus computing resources and cloud-based capabilities;

  • Gaps in consultative services and capacity to support the optimal use of research computing infrastructure and broaden its adoption by new faculty and new disciplines;
  • Fragmented processes in the planning, funding and managing of learning spaces that create inconsistent capabilities and a lack of some fundamental necessities;
  • Instructional design and academic technologies that are well regarded but at an inadequate scale to meet present interest in adopting digital content and learning technologies and creating partially and fully online courses;
  • An administrative applications portfolio that is difficult to sustain (e.g., UD Webforms and applications, PeopleSoft customizations), missing important capabilities (e.g., eProcurement, Research Administration), and lacking tools to enable process improvements (e.g., document management); and
  • A community of IT organizations that, while increasingly collaborative, lack frameworks and decision-making processes to limit duplicative services and establish a standard set of University-wide capabilities.