Campus PARTNERSHIPS FOR TECHNOLOGY
SOLUTIONS
Connecting the University's IT community members, resources, and clients across the institution.
From Continuity to Coordination
During the early months of the pandemic lockdown, campus and central IT staff were meeting five days a week. They needed frequent contact to solve issues, get answers, share tips and collaborate on solutions for serving students, faculty and staff who were suddenly remote.
In the past year, the focus shifted towards giving updates on projects, sharing processes and recommendations, and discussing new or current IT issues. Meetings were reduced to two days a week. The name of the group changed from IT Continuity to IT Coordination, and the Microsoft Team for the group has become a central sharing point for project information and news.
The tone for the meetings changed to reflect the general evolution in the relationship between UITS and campus IT towards a partner role.
When the University needed to respond to the State Auditor General with accountability for network connections, 345 IT staff collaborated in the Teams channel for wired network registration. 90 of those were IT leaders responding weekly on the progress they were making.
Campus IT Partnerships supported this coordination with easy-to-use reporting tools, progress reports, and equipment ordering, in addition to making space for discussing the project in the bi-weekly meeting. Network managers from departments shared their tips and their questions, and UITS network staff were there to resolve issues together with them.
In addition to the IT Coordination meeting, CIO Division staff focused on creating communities of practice around other technologies. For example, the Business Process Automation Collaborative (BPAC) is developing shared knowledge, best practices, processes and resources for achieving business goals from technologies like Power Automate and Adobe Sign.
Pooling knowledge and resources gave IT staff major benefits: Support to meet important, yet basic requirements like videoconference technology and information security; and spending less time duplicating effort and more time on projects that support the high-value work of their departments.
Job Functions: CIO Division
IT Support
62.5
IT Infrastructure
30.9
IT Network
28.0
IT Security
11.0
IT Project Management
21.0
IT Applications
71.0
IT WebDev
6.0
IT Instructional Tech
10.0
IT Analysis
32.5
Research/Data Science
8.5
Job Functions: Campus IT
Percent of Total
IT Support
215.6
28%
IT Infrastructure
112.4
15%
IT Network
32.3
4%
IT Security
12.0
2%
IT Project Management
26.0
3%
IT Applications
180.9
24%
IT WebDev
59.1
8%
IT Instructional Tech
44.0
6%
IT Analysis
75.0
10%
Research/Data Science
8.1
1%
Developing shared knowledge, best practices, processes and resources for leveraging technology
Central and distributed IT worked together towards common goals
Business Process Automation Collaborative (BPAC): Reduce human errors, eliminate paper, improve customer experience and expedite business processes
Establishing Communities of Practice
Mutual accountability and shared responsibility