Information Technology

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Information Technology Strategic Plan

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Office of Information Technology
Â鶹´«Ã½
Kalamazoo MI 49008-5206 USA
(269) 387-5430

Goal 1: Strengthen the foundation of information technology that empowers academics, research, and institutional administration.

  • Strategy 1.1.1: Define and secure the proper organizational alignment of IT to ensure enterprise scope and resource allocation.
  • Strategy 1.1.2: Obtain human resource funding necessary to sufficiently maintain, advance, and mitigate organizational risk.
  • Strategy 1.1.3: Develop IT staff recruiting techniques and processes that enhance hiring by attracting diverse internal and external talent.
  • Strategy 1.1.4. Create a professional development program and budget model aligned to strategies and projects to continually develop IT staff knowledge and skillset based on the most current university goals and technology requirements.
  • Strategy 1.1.5: Cultivate an inclusive, community-oriented workplace through staff empowerment, engagement, and equal and ample Â鶹´«Ã½ for participation.
  • Strategy 1.2.1: Enhance IT Service Management (ITSM) operations and systems to enhance and streamline the management, delivery, and communications of services.
  • Strategy 1.2.2: Develop an asset inventory management system that tracks all information technology including software, hardware, and related information and data required for budgeting, support, planning, contracts, compliance, and accounting requirements.
  • Strategy 1.2.3: Conduct an analysis of all institutional systems and services to identify redundancies, risks, and Â鶹´«Ã½ for financial and operational efficiencies.
  • Strategy 1.2.4: Develop a holistic, sustainable technology services maintenance and transformation budget model that funds growth and advancement.
  • Strategy 1.3.1: Define a cloud-first digital vision that prioritizes the implementation of cloud information technology resources and illustrates IT staff career pathways related to digital change.
  • Strategy 1.3.2: Implement and employ standards and best practices for the management of enterprise technology to guide the selection, implementation, and maintenance of all on-premises, cloud, and custom-developed solutions.
  • Strategy 1.3.3: Fully evaluate and develop a comprehensive Microsoft architecture plan to reduce dependency on on-premises, unsupported and legacy systems.
  • Strategy 1.3.4: Assist the university in the development of a business continuity plan, resulting in a failover and disaster recovery plan including investing and developing a robust physical infrastructure.
 
  • Strategy 1.4.1: Institute a culture of information security and risk management throughout the university and in information and technology practices.
  • Strategy 1.4.2: Review, revise, implement, and maintain information technology, security, and privacy policies, procedures, and guidelines.
  • Strategy 1.4.3: Establish a modular, extensible, flexible Identity Management system.
  • Strategy 1.4.4: Implement and maintain policies, processes, procedures, and systems enabling adherence to CIS controls.
  • Strategy 1.4.5: Develop a standard security incident response procedure including the use of documentation, systems, and tools across all university IT staff.

Goal 2: Enable the advancement of the university mission through the delivery of contemporary and sustainable IT services.

  • Strategy 2.1.1: Constitute and empower cross-divisional, enterprise-focused advisory and governance teams to provide oversight and representation of key services, functions, and endeavors.
  • Strategy 2.1.2: Employ standard project and portfolio management processes, practices, and procedures to effectively maintain an all-IT roadmap of all projects and provide the resources to IT staff to develop and manage individual project plans.
  • Strategy 2.1.3: Further enhance and streamline technology planning, acquisitions, and compliance review process to ensure the proper planning, procurement, implementation, effective resource utilization, and security of new information systems and technology.
  • Strategy 2.2.1: Annually review and amend instructional environment standards to inform refresh investments in collaboration with Faculty Senate and the instructional support teams.
  • Strategy 2.2.2: Build a 5-year instructional environment lifecycle with a financial model that is sustainable.
  • Strategy 2.2.3: Design, realize and support a modern instructional support space on the UCC 2nd floor that inspires and promotes academic innovation and robust IT support methods in partnership with WMUx.
  • Strategy 2.2.4: Provide leadership on Hyflex and other advanced learning environment standards to deliver proactive solutions that are anticipatory of customer needs.
  • Strategy 2.2.5: Maintain standard, recommended, and supported instructional technology standards for physical and virtual instruction in collaboration with shared governance entities including Hyflex and classroom environments.
  • Strategy 2.2.6: Examine, test, deploy, and train faculty, Â鶹´«Ã½s, and staff on the effective use of software to improve the teaching and learning process.
  • Strategy 2.3.1: Conduct a comprehensive current state evaluation of enterprise systems and make recommendations for projects and additional strategies to advance the mission of the university.
  • Strategy 2.3.2: Re-establish shared governance and change control processes, that govern the adoption, development, and change of interdependent and core systems.
  • Strategy 2.3.3: Increase the capacity to enhance and deliver new IT services through the elimination and reduction of existing, legacy technologies and services
  • Strategy 2.4.1: Conduct a study of all constituents to understand existing work and communication processes, preferences, gaps, and priorities to establish a unified communications roadmap into the future.
  • Strategy 2.4.2: Critically examine mailing list needs, current processes, and systems, and recommend and implement a contemporary solution that enables stakeholders to communicate in a timely and accurate manner.

Goal 3: Provide outstanding service delivery, customer support, and user experience to all constituents and partners.

  • Strategy 3.1.1: Define and publish a fully articulated university-wide IT service portfolio that identifies the service, technology, personnel, and resources that drive those services for the university community and serve as a point of contact for continuous planning, oversight, and improvement.
  • Strategy 3.1.2: Revision of IT website to service, project, and a roadmap-oriented format that includes point of contact information for each item.
  • Strategy 3.1.3: Enhance goWMU articles/knowledge base with additional, rich content about IT services and support, ensuring all available technologies and service offerings have relevant and necessary content.
  • Strategy 3.1.4: Create, maintain, and publish service level agreements (SLAs) with every stakeholder.
  • Strategy 3.1.5: Evaluate user experiences (UX) throughout all systems, services, and applications to ensure maximum effectiveness, consistency, adoption, and accessibility.
 
  • Strategy 3.2.1: Analyze existing services portfolio support resources to identify those that need to be created, updated, or converted to a more appropriate modality.
  • Strategy 3.2.2: Provide training on supported resources in-person, remote, etc.
  • Strategy 3.2.3: Strengthen collaboration and resource sharing between Helpdesk and ITC support services.
  • Strategy 3.2.4: Develop a system that delivers customized digital toolkits that guide stakeholders to the appropriate technologies, support resources, and information based on their unique needs.
  • Strategy 3.3.1: Measure and evaluate customer support modalities (phone, email, support case, etc.) and practices of IT staff to identify areas for improvement and process efficiency.
  • Strategy 3.3.2: Based on customer support evaluation, implement new processes and procedures to automate or eliminate inefficiencies or redundancies.
  • Strategy 3.3.3: Implement enhanced and standardized computer device and software deployment processes to reduce redundancy, and inefficiencies and the application of timely and consistent security measures.
  • Strategy 3.3.4: Implement new, streamlined software delivery, installation, and streaming services to all university constituents, reducing time-to-access and increasing availability.

Need help?

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) offers a wide variety of information and instructional technology-related services to Â鶹´«Ã½s, faculty, and staff. These services include online collaboration tools, two-factor authentication, classroom technology, email, network connectivity, online information security education, and more.