IT Organizational and Staffing Study - November 30, 2004

The IT Organizational and Staffing Study was conducted by Elert & Associates in the Fall, 2004. The process conducted for this study included interviews with the President, the three Vice-Presidents, the Dean of Enrollment Management, the Director of University Relations, the Deans, some campus leaders, and five supervisors and twelve staff members within IT.

The Study offered recommendations in the areas of planning, organizational structure, communications, and resource allocation. The recommendations are as follows:

Planning

  • Develop a Strategic Information Technology Plan for the institution and align it to the overall Campus Strategic Plan.
  • Institute and implement standards for technology - especially infrastructure - to ensure consistency, improve uptime, and reduce troubleshooting time and effort.
  • Within the plan development process, consider what type of work may be completed by outside contractors vs. internal staff.
  • Develop a plan for campus-wide cabling infrastructure upgrade to EIA/TIA-568B.

Organizational Structure

  • Create a Chief Information Officer (CIO) position and organize IT by function to provide more effective coordination and better service.
  • Create a structured approach to user support via a multi-tiered help desk/call center to better and faster resolve users' problems.
  • Contract for PC and printer hardware repair and maintenance because this is outside the current staff's areas of expertise, and to avoid hiring additional FTE's.
  • Create a Cyber Security Officer position to ensure coordination throughout the organization and help safeguard private/confidential information and reduce cyber threats.
  • Add one IT Staff Development position to assist instructors with online course development and help staff members extend their effective use of technology.
  • Transfer high-speed printing to the Service Area since keeping these functions separate is no longer logical.

Communications

  • Provide a single point of contact for users with immediate resolution of most problems and tracking and reporting on escalated issues.
  • Publish a monthly IT newsletter to provide users with status and news about IT projects and people.
  • Open channels of communication between departmental IT personnel and central IT to make the best use of resources.
  • Diligently work to ensure all IT staff understand the entire scope of what the department does for the campus and to communicate this information to the clients they work with.
  • Hold periodic internal meetings for IT departmental groups to ensure everyone understands their objectives and is current with other teams' project work.

Resource Allocation

  • Outsource cabling installations for large projects through a competitive RFP process to better even out the need for internal staff resources and improve coordination of construction and remodeling projects.
  • Fill the vacant web technician position to help keep up with service requests and continue the best possible web services for users.
  • Retrain some IT staff to User Support to help keep high quality people on board and put their knowledge to work in the most direct way that will most benefit users.
  • Make more uses of student resources to stretch the IT budget and provide valuable work experience to Washburn students.
  • Continue to increase the number of mediated classrooms thus allowing media support resources to be better utilized in one-on-one support.

Other Observations

While many recommendations were specific to the departmental organization, there were a couple of pertinent observations that may be of particular interest to persons across campus.

Funding

More than a dozen interviewees expressed a desire for modification of the ETC funding mechanism. Many offered meritorious suggestions, but there was no real consensus as to the best way to approach such a change. Since this is considered a politically charged issue, any change will require support across all levels. There was, however, a general consensus that the present once a year grant funding mechanism is not working as intended.

Strategic Planning

The lack of planning puts Washburn University in the bottom 25% of similar institutions, per an EDUCAUSE report. Thus, the campus should develop a strategic IT plan. Further, Washburn may wish to re-examine its technology advisory structure. In effect, determine whether the current Electronic Technology Committee (ETC) and Technology Steering Committee are still the optimum advisory groups, and whether additional existing resources should be consulted.