ENTERPRISE 2006 1

Improving IT Governance in Higher Education

Jack McCredie

UC Berkeley, Emeritus & ECAR

ENTERPRISE 2006 2

EDUCAUSE 2006 Current IT IssuesSurvey (overall results)

• Security & identity management (5)• Funding (1)• Administrative/ERP/ systems (2)• Disaster recovery/Business continuity• Faculty development, support, training• Infrastructure management• Strategic planning (3)• Governance, organization & leadership (4)• E-learning/distributed teaching & learning• Web systems & services

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Security & Identity Mgmt

Year

Rel

ati

ve

Imp

ort

an

ce

2005

Funding IT

Security& Identity MgmtAdmin/ERP Systems

Strategic Planning

Infrastructure Mgmt

2003

Funding IT

Admin/ERP Systems

Infrastructure Mgmt

Faculty Dev,Support & Training

Security & Identity Mgmt;

2002

Admin/ERP Systems

Funding IT

Faculty Dev,Support & Training

Strategic Planning

2001

Admin/ERP Systems

Funding IT

Faculty Dev,Support & Training

IT Staffing/HR Mgmt

Distance Education

2000

Funding IT

Faculty Dev,Support & Training

Distance Education

E-Learning Environments

Admin/ERP Systems

2004

Funding IT

Admin/ERP Systems

Security & Identity Mgmt

Strategic Planning

Faculty Dev,Support & Training

EDUCAUSE Critical IT Issues Surveys2000–2005

ENTERPRISE 2006 4

Jack’s Top IT Opportunities, Issues & Challenges - 2006

Security & privacy Re-invent central IT organizations Transform teaching & learning

environments Governance & Structure

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Defining Governance

“The structure and process of authoritative decision making across issues that are significant for external as well as internal stakeholders within a university.”

ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Governance in the Twenty-First-Century University, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2003

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Defining Governance (cont)

Who makes which decisions, who provides inputs and analyzes the issues, who implements the results of the decisions, and who settles disputes when there is no clear consensus.

Producing timely decisions, responsible actions, and reasonable results.

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Focus on Research Intensive Universities EDUCAUSE Core Data Survey – 2005 (121)

Central IT staff as % of total campus

Title of VP or CIO Where IT reports Sits on cabinet Campus plan – IT Stand alone IT plan Input from trustees Input from cabinet

49% (m=429 total)

76%

59% Pres/provost

54% Yes

74% Yes

76% Yes

26% Yes

54% Yes

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Baccalaureate Degree Granting EDUCAUSE Core Data Survey – 2005 (176)

Central IT staff as % of total campus

Title of VP or CIO Where IT reports Sits on cabinet Campus plan – IT Stand alone IT plan Input from trustees Input from cabinet

88% (m=22 total)

38%

64% Pres/provost

41% Yes

80% Yes

57% Yes

27% Yes

65% Yes

ENTERPRISE 2006 9

Question

How do most colleges and universities govern the large and rapidly evolving set of information technology (IT) activities and initiatives that take place on their campuses?

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Characteristics of IT Structures in Many Research Universities

Independent research projects Departmental computing organizations Colleges and professional schools Campuswide organizations Systemwide coordination National and regional networking

organizations Complex committee structures Distributed budgetary process

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Questions for you

If IT governance is an issue on your campus, what are some of the most prevalent symptoms of this problem?

ENTERPRISE 2006 12

Questions for you

What percentage of your campus community understands the IT governance structure on your campus?

Do the campus leaders understand it?

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Symptoms of Governance Problems

Lack of understanding of how governance works

Significant gaps and overlaps IT security breakdowns Low measures of IT effectiveness Ineffective involvement of faculty Decisions take forever Lack of alignment

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UCB Admin/StaffUCB Faculty

AcademicSenate

COMPCAPRALibrary

Dept Chairs

Chancellor and EVC

e-BerkeleySteering Committee

Dept IT Staff ITAC

IS&T

Vice-Provost

UndergradEducation

ETC

ETS

CNS

Scholar's Workstation

CCSDisasterPlanning

UC Senate ITTP

Supervises:

Sends Representative to:

Fall 2004 Academic Senate Committee on Computing - View of IT Decision Making at UC Berkeley

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Some Illustrative Measures from theCommon Solutions Group – (25 R1s)

IT governance process well understood

Faculty members are actively involved

IT governance process is effective

Department IT priorities are aligned with institutional priorities

3.5 (out of 7)

4.5

4.4

4.6

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Weill & Ross Governance Model

Key Issues for each IT Decision Area IT Principles IT Architecture IT Infrastructure Strategies Customer Application Needs IT Investment and Prioritization

Source: MIT Sloan Management Review – Winter 2005

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Weill & Ross Governance Model

Six IT Governance Archetypes Business Monarchy IT Monarchy Federal System IT Duopoly Feudal System Anarchy

Source: MIT Sloan Management Review – Winter 2005

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Question

Could your college or university save significant money if leaders could enforce important IT standards throughout the campus?

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Question

Could you improve services by coordinating IT personnel throughout the campus? What about the quality of your IT personnel?

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Case Study – University of California, Berkeley

Strategic planning process Focus today on governance http://technology.berkeley.edu

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“We do not have enough budget to do the job correctly, but somehow we scrounge the resources to do it multiple times in half-baked ways.”

Anonymous Berkeley observer - 2003

UC Berkeley Background circa 2003

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IT guiding principles for UC Berkeley

Competing information technology needs must be carefully evaluated and information technology decision makers must balance:

Innovation vs. Stability/reliability Standardization vs. Autonomy/experimentation

Accessibility vs. Security/privacy Consensus vs. Efficiency in decision making Centralized services vs. Distributed services

Proprietary vs. Open source

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Guiding Principles (cont)

Support for teaching and research Integration and inclusion Security and reliability Ubiquity Ease of use Alignment Information technology excellence

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We worked with each area toanswer these questions:

What are the trends in this area?

What are the implications of each trend for UC Berkeley?

What are the specific implications for IT?

And to Develop specific goals & IT plan

1. Teaching &learning

Six Critical Campuswide IT Issues

3. Studentexperience

2. Research

IT support of these 3 areas:

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Structure: Relationships among the parts

Governance: Decision-making process

Funding: The flow of, and path to, money

Six Critical Campuswide IT IssuesIT support of these areas…

4. Security, reliability, access, privacy

5. IT structure, governance, funding

6. Optimization of IT expertise

… and across-the-board improvements in:

1. Teaching &learning

3. Studentexperience

2. Research

ENTERPRISE 2006 27

IT Structure, Governance, and Funding

Step 1: Self Study Step 2: IT External/Internal Review

Committee

Step 3: Recommendations

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Step 1: Self Study – five key findings

1. The IT investment process is disconnected from the campus funding and budgeting process.

2. A "silo-specific" and incremental budgeting approach is applied to central administrative systems.

3. The CIO does not manage (or necessarily know about) two-thirds or more of the IT activity on campus.

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Step 1: Five key findings (cont)

4. Central administrative roles are unclear with respect to instructional computing, research computing, and campus IT services.

5. There is no mechanism to encourage IT managers to migrate toward "best practices" or to provide basic levels of service.

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Step 2: Best practices Structure(As identified by review committee)

1. Achieve better partnership and coordination between central and localIT units

2. Clarify and enable the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO)

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Step 2: Best practicesGovernance(As identified by review committee)

3. Clarify IT decision making roles and responsibilities of campus leaders

4. Distinguish central issues fromlocal issues

5. Simplify committee structure and give clear and needed roles

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Step 2: Best practicesFunding(As identified by review committee)

6. Connect analysis and decisions to the budgeting process

7. Rationalize funding and enabling of both instructional and research computing

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Question

Should the campus CIO also manage the central IT operations unit? What conflicts are inherent in such a structure?

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Step 3: Final Recommendations

1. The CIO function needs to be strengthened, defined more clearly and differentiated from the function of running IS&T.

2. The CIO should be involved in formulating all campus-level IT budget requests.

3. Etc., etc.

ENTERPRISE 2006 35

Question

Why do IT governance practices in higher education differ so much from best practices in successful corporations?