ITSP Planning Process

CU-Boulder's IT Strategic Planning (ITSP) process was initiated by associate vice chancellor for academic and campus technology, Bobby Schnabel, in December 2001. The process was overseen by the campus's IT Council, and directed by a core team consisting of the associate vice chancellor, two of his staff members, and the executive director of ITS.

The overall goal of the ITSP process was to develop a comprehensive plan that combines high level strategic planning with some degree of tactical planning to lead to action in five significant areas: educational technology, online services, network and middleware, central services, and IT management and leadership. That action will ensure state-of-the-art IT resources and services in support of the campus's mission. Previous IT planning efforts, most notably the 1998 ITSP (click here for a summary of the 1998 plan) and the 2001 educational technology strategic planning process, provided the foundation for the 2002 strategic plan. In contrast to the 1998 ITSP, which focused on IT resources, this current strategic plan emphasizes academic and administrative IT services, reflecting the increased maturity of the campus's infrastructure, and a need to redirect primary attention from IT resources to IT services and the ways those services are provided and communicated to the campus community.

Broad participation, significant collaborative work, and extensive campus input are the hallmarks of the 2002 ITSP process. In all, over 100 faculty, staff, and students participated in focus groups, on planning committees, or as reviewers of the planning document.

A visioning process in early 2002 focused attention on the most pressing IT issues facing the campus. Phillip Long, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Yale University, who served as a consultant for the IT strategic plan, conducted interviews and focus groups with the following high level administrators and administrative bodies as part of the visioning process:

• Chancellor Byyny
• The Chancellor's Executive Committee
• The Vice Chancellors Group
• The Council of Deans
• Jim Williams, Dean of Libraries
• Faculty representatives from the Boulder Faculty Assembly

Subsequent focus groups helped refine the plan's vision, and were held with the following:

• Representatives from Staff Council and staff members at large
• Representatives from the Arts and Sciences Council
• Members of the Instructional Computing Working Group (which manages the student technology fee)
• IT Providers from ITS and across campus
• Representatives from the Libraries
• Student Representatives from the Legislative Council

Further data was gleaned from a variety of sources, including surveys and interviews in support of the 2000-2001 educational technology strategic planning process, and ITSP committee-specific surveys. Data collection efforts that were undertaken specifically for the 2002 process include:

• Faculty survey (fall 2001)
• Chairs survey (spring 2002)
• Tier 2 survey (departmental IT liaisons-spring 2002)
• Tier 4 survey (IT core experts-spring 2002)
• IT Council survey (spring 2002)
• Peer institution survey (spring 2002)

The heart of the planning process was the work of twenty-five committees, the members of which were faculty, staff, and students drawn from across the entire campus. The sections of the IT strategic plan roughly correspond to those committees (leads noted in parentheses):

Chapter One: Educational Technology
1.1 Educational Technology Support (Bobby Schnabel)
1.2 Instructional Facilities (Rich Borkowski)
1.3 I/IT Literacy/Fluency (Bobby Schnabel)
1.4 Learning Management Systems (Dennis Maloney)
1.5 Research Computing (Dennis Maloney and Jim Williams)
1.6 Digital Content & Collaboration (Rich Borkowski)
1.7 Libraries (Jim Williams and Dennis Maloney)

Chapter Two: Online Services
2.1 Online Student Services (Jean Delaney, Burton Fox, Malinda Miller-Huey)
2.2 Faculty/Staff Online Services (Bob Fryberger)

Chapter Three: Network and Middleware
3.1 Network (David Wood)
3.2 Enterprise Directory Services (Paula Vaughan)
3.3 IT Service Provisioning Infrastructure (Linda Drake, Paula Vaughan, Dan Jones)
3.4 Telephony (David Wood and David Norman)

Chapter Four: Central Services
4.1 Email (Linda Drake)
4.2 Security (Dan Jones)
4.3 E-Payments (Dennis Maloney and Bill Herbstreit)
4.4 Software & Software Licensing (Dave Bodnar)
4.5 Prep for Next Gen of SIS & PeopleSoft (Bob Fryberger)
4.6 Campus Web-Based Services Infrastructure Strategy (Bob Fryberger)
4.7 Assistive Technology (Deborah Keyek-Franssen and Howard Kramer)
4.8 File Systems (Linda Drake)
4.9 Application Standards & Best Practices (Burton Fox)
4.10 IT Four-Tier Support Model (Ken Schuetz)

Chapter Five: Management & Governance
5.1 Centralized IT Authority (Dennis Maloney and Bobby Schnabel)
5.2 CIO/ITC Structures (Bobby Schnabel and Dennis Maloney)

During summer 2002, the committees' sections of the plans were compiled, and then reviewed by IT Council members. Upon its completion, the report was approved by IT Council, distributed to the campus at large, and presented to key groups on campus, including the Chancellor's Executive Committee, the Boulder Faculty Assembly, Arts and Sciences Council, University of Colorado Student Union, United Government of Graduate Students, and others.