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UL Lafayette IT Strategic Plan

Mission Statement

It is our mission to implement, monitor, manage, and maintain information technology resources (such as the campus data network, telephone system, computer systems, computer labs, and servers) at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in support of the primary University functions of instruction, research, and public service.  Additionally, we offer centralized support, training, and consulting services related to the technology provided to our campus community.

The Office of Information Technology is one of the primary divisions at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette reporting to the Vice President for Administration and Finance.  Its’ more than 60 employees in four departments includes programmers, systems analysts, consultants, system and network administrators, operators, and service support personnel.

Vision

UL Lafayette will have an open, secure, integrated, and state-of-the-art Information Technology environment.  It will be supported by an accessible, adaptable, reliable and sustainable infrastructure and services that support excellence in teaching, research, scholarship, and public service.

Guiding Principles

The following principles will guide the pursuit of this strategic plan:

  • Technology services will support and encourage teaching, learning, research, and interdisciplinary collaboration;
  • Technology choices will be packaged and consist of all the necessary elements for the adoption and best use of the service, including training, support, appropriate funding, and accessibility;
  • Technology choices will favor solutions offered that are standards-based, requirements-driven, sustainable, robust, and if mission-critical, redundant and resilient;
  • Technology choices will leverage the overall buying power of the University and will work together to limit duplicative or outdated services so that investments can be redirected toward new technology needs;
  • Systems will make their data available for other processes whenever possible, while respecting limits required for personal privacy, regulatory compliance, and Information Technology security.

Supporting Documents

Other Strategic Plans and documents that influence, guide, or link to the IT Strategic Plan:
The University Strategic Plan consists of four primary strategic imperatives:

  • Strategic Imperative Related to Faculty - Create a stimulating academic environment supported by the latest innovations in technology and informed by best practices, in which faculty members can realize their full potential as educators and scholars.
  • Strategic Imperative Related to Students - Cultivate a student body that is intellectually curious and civically engaged by developing an infrastructure that ensures student success.
  • Strategic Imperative Related to Research - Foster a stimulating academic environment for all members of the university community that supports the development and advancement of knowledge and creative works.
  • Strategic Imperative Related to Governance - Institute a system for shared governance based on trust, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Supporting Links

Goal I: Talent Management – Work with Human Resources to develop processes and procedures designed to attract, develop, motivate, and retain well-trained, productive, and engaged information technology staff.

In order to best serve the University, Information Technology wishes to create a high-performance, sustainable organization that meets or exceeds industry best practice.

Strategic Initiatives:

  • Promote and encourage staff to actively participate in local, state, national and international conferences and organizations focused on higher education information technology, embracing opportunities to showcase success stories, best practices, and to partner with other institutions on technology solutions;
  • Evaluate Information Technology job classifications and update job descriptions to more accurately reflect jobs in the organization. 
  • Create and maintain appropriate career paths for IT staff;
  • Identify budgetary resources to support an Information Technology professional development fund.

Success will be measured by:

  • Number and frequency of professional development opportunities attended by staff;
  • Job Satisfaction;
  • Promotions based on defined credentialing/tracks;
  • Central IT training and professional development spending per central IT staff FTE;

Goal II: Technology Enhanced Academic and Support Facilities - Provide the University teaching, learning and research community with the facilities, technologies, resources, and administrative solutions necessary for recognition as an eminent major research university.

Create a stimulating academic environment supported by the latest innovations in technology and informed by best practice, in which faculty members can realize their full potential as educators and scholars.

Strategic Initiatives:

  • Build-out, deploy, and expand the high speed science DMZ to enhance research collaborations in Louisiana and with our peers across the nation;
  • Develop a process to prioritize, provide, and fund connectivity to academic (teaching and research) buildings on campus that require access to the LONI HPC environment;
  • Work with Research Office to build a Consolidated Research IT Infrastructure on campus consisting of a shared, co-located data center; a hosted, scalable, server environment; a pooled/shared IT human resources; a shared research IT governance model; and a shared technical knowledgebase and collaborative efforts to enhance/expand IT research expertise;
  • Revise the STEP Plan to align with an increased emphasis on SMART Classrooms and TEC rooms;
  • Work with Network Services and STEP Support to create a more granular approach to deploying SMART Classrooms and TEC rooms;
  • Explore and redefine STEP's role in funding of SMART classrooms and TEC rooms on campus;
  • Work with STEP (OSS) to include a palette of undergraduate research employment opportunities for students;
  • Work with the Instructional Technology Advisory Council [ITAC], Academic Affairs, and other stakeholders to plan and update technologies in all of the classrooms and laboratories on campus;
  • Provide technology to support and improve the teaching and learning experience for our students, faculty and staff;
  • Advance the academic mission of the University through innovative and effective technologies, resources, and services;
  • Coordinate and expand the research support community across the university, providing support that goes beyond narrow technical issues and complements domain-specific expertise with knowledge of best practices and available resources;
  • Transform areas that provide technology support for research into a unified, national leader in research computing, supporting a full-university research infrastructure;
  • Coordinate with the initiative #1 above (funding model) to ensure research services are compatible with researcher funding;
  • Create useful and intuitive workflows, along with supporting technology, that cover the life cycle of research data from creation to publication and preservation.

Success will be measured by:

  • Science DMZ buildings/connections/ports on campus;
  • Internal and external traffic/bandwidth use of the Science DMZ;
  • Number and percentage of classroom and laboratory space that have internet access, computer, and projection/sound capabilities.

Goal III: Service Management - Create, develop, deploy and manage meaningful enterprise services that produce business value that matters

There is clear demand for Information Technology to be competitive, cost-effective, current and excel at the delivery of enterprise services and support.  Information Technology needs to be agile and deliver value to the UL community by focusing on commoditizing those services that are not unique, and in turn ensuring those services that are specialized be delivered via qualified and capable resources. The Information Technology Division has a role to package enterprise services in a way to benefit and bring value to the UL community.

Strategic Initiatives:

  • Information Technology will provide an exemplary customer service focus and experience in all service delivery;
  • Implement, advance, and progress an institutionally shared information technology service management system including an issue tracking system with routing and local management;
  • Continue to improve and expand asset management, software distribution, patch management, and remote assistance solutions for the University community;
  • Continue to develop, maintain, and expand software deployment and associated desktop computing services.

Success will be measured by:

  • Customer Satisfaction;
  • Percentage of service incidents with first call resolution;
  • Incident time to resolution;
  • Incidents resolved within 24 hours;
  • Service escalation;
  • Incident/ticket abandonment rate;
  • Service level objectives and attainment;
  • Self-service support utilization;
  • Central IT FTEs per 1,000 institutional FTEs (faculty/staff/students).

Goal IV: Information Technology Infrastructure - Establish a sustainable, scalable, secure, robust, and reliable Information Technology infrastructure that enables a positive and consistent technology experience for all users.

Provide Access to Excellent Infrastructure: Deliver highly functional, reliable and invisible infrastructure that just works—and doesn’t get in the way.

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette should build and maintain a sound, advanced, secure, and productive physical information technology infrastructure (including but not limited to facilities, hardware, networks, and software) capable of supporting broad and effective use by students, faculty, and staff throughout the institution, including remote university members such as e-learning students, faculty, and staff, contractors, and volunteers.

Strategic Initiatives:

  • Prepare a network operations center [NOC] plan and build/execute a staged implementation/deployment plan;
  • Begin planning and execution of primary data center upgrades and enhancements;
  • Continue to grow and expand the Science DMZ;
  • Continue to build and enhance resiliency and redundancy in mission-critical services;
  • Complete identity management system roadmap and implement;
  • Create a network bandwidth scaling metric to associate customer service levels with aggregate bandwidth demand.

Success will be measured by:

  • Service availability and up time measures for key services and assets;
  • Percentage of critical end user devices covered by appropriate security service;
  • Customer bandwidth availability and utilization by service;
  • Percentage of campus covered with Wifi (802.11n and 802.11ac).

Goal V: Information Technology Governance - Develop information technology policies, procedures, and practices that efficiently and effectively manage Information Technology assets and meet the technology needs, goals, and objectives of the university.

The Information Technology governance structure of a campus aids in the prioritization of resources and can lead to a more collaborative, as well as potentially more efficient, approach to Information Technology decision-making.  Technology advisory groups, tasked to view Information Technology from a campus perspective, can help balance the ‘have’ and ‘have-nots’ environment associated with a ‘siloed’ approach to technology.

Strategic Initiatives:

  • Continue to work with and guide the Instructional Technology Advisory Council (ITAC) defining and managing classroom and laboratory technology standards, prioritizing instructional technology projects/initiatives, and recommending/developing new pedagogies that fully utilize technology to enhance the educational experience and increase learning outcomes of our students;
  • Expand IT Managers group and build onboarding techniques to expand technology knowledge on campus;
  • Establish and Organize a Strategic Business Intelligence governing body;
  • Establish Operational Management Group of BI Analysts across the Enterprise;
  • Expand/Grow expertise in sophisticated reporting, analytics, and interpretation of results with a business intelligence competency center;
  • Enhance policies, governance structures, and metrics to increase effectiveness of Information Security program and foster accountability across the University;
  • Continue to build the University IT community in order to improve innovation, collaboration, diversity, and inclusion through initiatives such as ongoing communities of practices, lunch and learn seminars for IT managers, mentoring and coaching, and university-wide awards and recognition;
  • Identify and implement a common service and support philosophy across the enterprise, including the use of IT management tools and processes where it will improve the service and support experience for faculty, students, and staff;
  • Build common leadership language, strengths and a culture of inclusion by investing in a continuing leadership development program and ongoing activities that bring IT leaders at all levels together.

Success will be measured by:

  • Number and cost of recommendations that are actionable and implemented;
  • Annual published IT Roadmaps to identify key short-term tactical plans;
  • IT Governance charters.

Entire IT Strategic Plan (PDF)