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.

1. Provide high speed network connectivity from UD research sites to national labs, supercomputing centers and regional and national institutional collaborators.
   • Complete upgrade of on-campus networks to provide high speed network connectivity, up to 100GB connection speeds to research labs. (Updated 2022)
   • Optimize a portion of the campus network for high performance scientific applications (Science DMZ).
   • Increase connection speeds to Internet2.
   • Partner with a regional networking group such as NYSERNET to create high speed, 100GB research networks between UD and its research partners in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. (Updated 2022)
   • Research options to establish a Delaware Research & Education (R&E) Network to ensure
     accessibility to high speed research networks for Delaware’s R&E member community.
     (Added 2022)
   • Establish 100Gbps southbound connectivity to Ashburn, VA – Equinix. (Added 2022)
   • Establish guidelines for optimized use of Science DMZ. (Added 2022)
2. Leverage improved campus cyberinfrastructure and cloud resources to provide a continuum of high performance computing and data storage capabilities.
   • Expand the capacity of the HPC clusters by facilitating partnerships with interested faculty to co-invest in HPC clusters and to transition their research from departmentally based resources into the shared HPC environment.
   • Collaborate with the University Library and Research Information Management Task Force to design and implement tiered storage solutions to support information management life-cycle needs.
   • Establish configurations (e.g., containers) in the UD HPC environment that parallel national resource such as XSEDE to facilitate the transfer of research projects between environments.
   • Partner with cloud providers including Amazon and Microsoft to develop secure network pathways, pre-negotiated contract terms, and convenient payment vehicles to facilitate using cloud resources as an extension of on-campus resources.
   • Develop advisory services to assist faculty less experienced in leveraging computational resources in their scholarship to assess, plan and implement cloud resources.
3. Expand research computing support services to maximize the time researchers and graduate students can spend advancing their research and scholarship and to broaden adoption of the research cyberinfrastructure to more faculty and disciplines including the social sciences, humanities and the arts.
   • Hire a Director of Research Cyberinfrastructure to collaborate with the Data Science Institute, the HPC research community, the Library and other stakeholders to develop UD’s research technology services.
   • Provide application development support to assist faculty to optimize custom programs and algorithms for campus and cloud-based high performance computing environments.
   • Develop and deliver training programs in multiple modalities (workshops, online) to assist faculty and students to use the cluster and broadly applicable scientific software.
   • Improve communication, create service catalogs and expand outreach to faculty and students to facilitate discovery of UD’s full range of research computing infrastructure, data sets, scientific applications and services.
   • Expand support services to facilitate use of research cyberinfrastructure in faculty scholarship in social sciences, arts and humanities.
   • Establish research liaisons to each college to promote awareness of research IT capabilities across the University and facilitate access to services.
   • Establish research liaisons to each college, cor facility, and research institute, to promote
     awareness of research IT capabilities across the University and facilitate access to services.
     (Added 2022)
4. Establish funding and governance practices to make research computing services responsive to the needs of the research community, sustainable, and widely utilized.
   • Establish a faculty led research IT committee to recommend new initiatives, govern the use of shared research computing facilities, and to advocate for the needs of UD researchers.
   • Create a core set of University funded research computing services that provides faculty and students conducting research with access to a foundational level of computing, storage, and research software.
   • Assist faculty to develop grant proposals and to secure appropriate funding to utilize campus cyberinfrastructure.
   • Evaluate options to fund the on-going hosting, maintenance and upgrade of the research IT
     infrastructure and select an option that best promotes access and adoption and sustains the
     level of capability required by faculty and students. (Updated 2022)

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.

1. Build on the strong foundation of the Faculty Commons to create multi-expertise capabilities that enable sustained faculty engagement with comprehensive course development, instructional design and technology support services.
   • Establish an effective entry point to connect faculty quickly to expanded digital learning support services and expertise including, assessment of services, course design and program development, researching new instructional technologies, project management, and market research.
   • Establish a flexible staffing model with contributed expertise from multiple organizations including the Library, Center for Reaching and Learning, UDIT, Professional and Continuing Studies, and Institutional Research and Effectiveness. (Updated 2022)
   • Create experimental spaces, innovation grants, and research and development support as a proving ground for faculty to pilot new pedagogy and technologies and become a pipeline for changes to learning spaces campus-wide.
   • Establish a multi-faceted communication program to share information about teaching with technology and promote engagement with groups. Elements of the program could include a web site, video presentations (e.g., Ted talks), faculty ambassadors, and events.
2. Support the University’s future online learning strategy with expanded course design and program development services.
   • Create additional instructional design capacity to assist faculty to design and develop online courses and reduce reliance on third-party partners.
   • Partner with faculty to select and implement a quality rubric for online courses.
   • Develop a strategy to provide 24×7 access to support services for online learners and instructors.
   • Work collaboratively with the Office of the Provost to focus online course development resources on programs and courses selected by the faculty to be redesigned to improve learning outcomes, alleviate enrollment bottlenecks that impede time to graduation, or reduce students’ costs for curricular materials.
3. Devise a learning space master plan that promotes flexible room designs, supports varied pedagogies, and improves foundational capabilities important to the learning experience, and usability of all spaces.
   • Implement a consistent method to evaluate the condition and capabilities of all UD learning spaces (Registrar and College controlled) such as the EDUCAUSE Learning Space Rating System. Use the space condition inventory to establish the need and priority for investment in room maintenance and upgrades.
   • In partnership with FREAS and the Registrar, establish an integrated process to plan and fund the renovation of the physical, technological, media, and furnishings in classrooms and collaboration spaces.
   • Invest in foundational capabilities including writing surfaces, access to power, sound quality and video display in classrooms and student collaboration spaces.
   • Form a learning space governance committee of faculty, students and staff to recommend learning space standards, sponsor assessments of quality and satisfaction, and evaluate emerging needs.
   • Evaluate the need for increasing the scale of all classroom renovations/investment in
     classroom technology. (Added 2022)
4. Create innovative spaces to leverage digital technologies in concert with the campus master plan.
   • Create more physical spaces for collaborations supported with robust wireless networks, display screens, and online applications and content.
   • Design additional spaces to support problem-based learning and facilitate students and instructors participating in-person and online.
   • Anticipate more students and faculty bringing their own computing devices to campus with enhanced access to virtual software and decrease reliance on dedicated spaces for general purpose computer labs and classrooms.
   • Support Colleges to incorporate standards and innovations into the design of specialized
     learning spaces that can be evaluated for potential migration to all spaces and ensure
     available services. (Updated 2022)

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.

1. Improve the student experience and lay the groundwork for the next generation of student information systems and constituent relationship management (CRM) strategies.
   • Expand the student services available through mobile applications or web sites.
   • Devise a student support and CRM technology strategy to better understand student interests, track their engagement, and tailor outreach efforts throughout the student life-cycle.
   • Improve information sharing between disparate applications that track student interest and engagement.
   • Implement shared solutions for document management, optical character recognition, and chat bots across student service areas.
   • Develop strategies to leverage mobile devices or campus card to improve methods to access services and record student engagement.
2. Close critical capability gaps and extend the life of the current PeopleSoft implementation through targeted implementation of specialized applications.
   • Strengthen foundational capabilities that support all administrative services by implementing solutions for identity and access management, business intelligence and reporting, and mobile application development.
   • Support improved efficiency and effective compliance by implementing an electronic research administration system.
   • Enable more efficient online processes in finance and human resources by deploying a staff recruiting application and evaluating the cost/benefit of implementing targeted technologies to support employee relations and online commerce (e-procurement) solutions as bridges to the next generation ERP solution.
3. Deploy business intelligence capabilities to improve transactional reporting and enable advanced analytics.
   • Support the work of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and the data governance to improve data management and use.
   • Provide improved tools to facilitate ad-hoc transactional reporting.
   • Deploy Helio campus as a BI platform for advanced analytics.
   • Create a data strategy to improve the integration of data among existing and future transactional systems and the BI platform.
   • Establish a University data catalog to inventory and define University data assets across
     functional units and systems. (Added 2022)
4. Replace the ERP by 2023 and the student information system by 2025.
   • Prepare for implementation of modern, highly configurable, software as a service solution by developing additional business analyst capabilities and streamlining processes.
   • Continue to monitor the maturation of new software solutions to confirm the timing of the replacement strategy and to determine if it’s advantageous to select the same solution for both ERP and student systems (SIS).
   • Develop a long-range financial plan to fund one-time and recurring investments and reallocate any off-setting savings to transition to the new ERP and SIS.
   • Define requirements and undertake a structured selection of the new ERP in 2023 and for
     the SIS in 2023. (Updated 2022)
   • Charge administrative and student systems sub-committees within the new IT governance structure to monitor the long-term replacement roadmap and to evaluate major investments in applications that could potentially overlap with, or detract from, the long-term replacement strategy.
5. Support the redesign of business processes, invest in new technology systems that support improved business processes, and reduce the complexity of the current application portfolio.
   • Select processes for redesign based on organizational assessments and results of cost/benefit analyses completed that considers overall timing of ERP replacement.
   • Develop additional business analyst capabilities and competencies in UD IT and other administrative units.
   • Simplify or retire complex Peoplesoft customizations that can be replaced with vendor-maintained functionality (e.g., asset management, tracking individuals with multiple jobs, leave tracking).
   • Deploy a document management and workflow solution to support paperless processes and more effective document retention strategies.
   • Redesign human resources and finance business processes and adopt PeopleSoft delivered
     capabilities to reduce reliance on UD Web Forms and Applications. (Updated 2022)
   • Invest in an easy-to-use promotion and tenure capability.
   • Streamline effort certification and proposal submission associated with sponsored research.

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.

1. Adopt a structured framework for categorizing IT services and determining the optimal structure for managing the service.
   • Define IT services by purpose rather than by vendor. (Added 2022)
   • Categorize services as core, consortium or specialized.
   • Core services will be available to all members of the University community, funded “off the top” through a University budget allocation, and available at a consistent level of quality and performance throughout the institution.
   • Core services does not necessarily mean UD IT is the provider. Each service will be operated or arranged by the UD organization most appropriately situated to manage it effectively.
   • Given the robust adoption of TDX for non-IT services, the development of standard terms for non-IT services is being considered as a next step which is well in advance of the team’s expectations. (Added 2022)
   • IT Governance will determine when use of a core service should be mandated and how to allocate the costs of fulfilling demonstrable needs for premium capabilities that supplement a core offering.

   IT Strategic Plan Services

   Type	Attributes
   Core	Widely needed by most and available to all Consistent levels of service required More cost effective to offer as core or produces considerable efficiencies for users of the service Strategic to make consistently available Critical to University operations to maintain consistent, quality service Service is more valuable if widely adopted
   Consortium	Needed by many; available at discretion of the consortium More efficient to operate once on behalf of all Important to consortium to maintain consistent, quality service Requires an agility and responsiveness best met by tailoring the service for a smaller group of users
   Specialized	Needed by few and in specific areas Limited economies of scale or specialized skills required Priority of users to maintain consistent, quality service Requires an agility and responsiveness best met by localizing the service

2. Begin the transition to core services with a focus on major enterprise technologies (e.g. learning management system), critical infrastructure, accessibility, and security technologies.
   • In future phases, expand the core services to include communication technologies, personal productivity, web site management, and aspects of user support.
   • Initiate implementation by developing detailed definitions of the scope of each core service and confirming required service levels.
   • As necessary work with departments through annual planning and budgeting processes to phase out local services that will be replaced by a core services and restructure budgets to provide funding to sustain the core services.
3. Establish structured governance and service management processes to provide oversight for core services and facilitate continual improvement of all services.
   • Continue implementing a shared terminology and naming convention for IT services across all IT groups at the University.
   • Establish a shared service catalog to communicate the availability of services to constituents.
   • Complete the selection and implementation of a consistent software solution for ticketing and service management.
   • Create an IT services sub-committee within IT governance to oversee processes to propose new core services and to sponsor assessment of existing core services.
4. Develop the IT workforce required for the future.
   • Devise structured professional development plans for all central and distributed IT staff that extend both technical and non-technical skills.
   • Define alternative career paths for staff that provide opportunities to focus on tracks leading to management and technical expertise.
   • Devise more nimble recruitment strategies and create more opportunities for student workers, recent graduates and UD staff moving among IT organizations.
   • Create a workplace for all IT staff that values diversity and inclusion.
   • Remote Work – multiple work modalities. (Added 2022)
     • Identify and ensure equity regardless of type of work modality.
     • Establish a strong sense of team and expectations.
     • Develop consistent practices for hardware and software needs and support.
   • Building a learning community for IT professionals. (Added 2022)
5. IT Services are core to all University of Delaware operations for academic, administrative, and research computing. The reliability and availability of these systems and their data are often assumed. Improving information security will lead to more reliable and dependable IT Services that are resilient against events that threaten UD’s data and systems. (Added 2022)

    

   • Establish Information Security strategic priorities.
   • Improve IT Service integrity and resilience.
   • Improve Identity and Access Management.
   • Invest in effective controls, tools, technology and processes to address risk.
   • Foster a positive culture of Information Security.