Information and Communications Technology Strategic Plan, 2005-06 to 2009-10

Executive Summary

Introduction to ICT Strategic Plan

ICT Strategy Programme

The University’s Corporate Plan includes a commitment to develop an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) strategy for the collegiate University. In Michaelmas Term 2005 Council gave its approval to a proposal to establish an ICT Steering Group with a remit to develop and bring forward an ICT Strategic Plan for the collegiate University. The Group ¹ was given the task of developing a strategy which would enable the University both to ‘provide high-quality and cost-effective ICT services and training that meets the needs of the University and its members’ and to ‘foster innovation, best practice, and value for money in the use of ICT in teaching, learning and research across the University.’ The 30 members of the Steering Group were drawn from a broad range of constituencies across the collegiate University, held a series of meetings, and engaged in extensive consultation across the University, the record of which is available (http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/strategy/). The ICT Strategy Programme culminated in the production of the ICT Strategic Plan (the full version of which is at http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/strategy/plan/).

The importance of ICT

It is clear that ICT is critical to the continued success of the University. It is important to almost every member of the collegiate University. Members rely heavily on the PCs on their desks, the laptops connected to the network, email and web services, the software that drives the appliances which are used and the back-up; they must all work and do so consistently and effectively. Reliable and efficient ICT systems are also crucial to the operation of the collegiate University itself. Given the frequency with which students, academics and administrators exchange information between colleges, departments and the central University, ICT systems that can ‘talk to’ each other are needed and to which individuals can gain access, whether they are working in a college, a department or Faculty, or working outside of the University. Further, in an environment where there is more and more interdisciplinary work being carried out, ICT systems are needed that facilitate the sharing and exchange of ideas, information and knowledge.

ICT Budget

ICT also raises very significant budgetary issues. The University’s expenditure on running its underlying ICT infrastructure and paying for licences is estimated to be £4m annually. The total expenditure on central ICT services (Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS), Business Services and Projects (BSP) and the IT expenditure within Oxford University Library Services (OULS) approached £20m in 2005/6. At a time when finances are tight, it is vital that the collegiate University makes the very best use of its spending on ICT. In particular, it needs clear procurement policies and a decision-making structure that can deliver the services that its ICT users need within a constrained overall budget.

Ambitions of the Plan

The principal aim of the ICT Strategic Plan is to offer the collegiate University an ICT framework that is appropriate for a world-leading University in the twenty-first century. This will enable colleges, departments, faculties and divisions to offer their users the best and most cost-effective ICT services and resources, to ensure that local ICT investment results in maximum benefits, and to provide the best possible environment and support for academic life within the University of Oxford.

Issues Addressed by the Plan

Some of the specific issues addressed by the ICT Strategic Plan are:

enabling those who use and depend on ICT services (e.g. researchers, lecturers, tutors, administrators) to determine the priorities for ICT investment, direction, and policy;
enabling consensus to be reached for the development of new services which operate across the collegiate University (e.g. access to secure wireless networking, single identifier for accessing systems and resources, shared calendars, online storage of personal files) and to meet statutory requirements in areas such as freedom of information and data protection;
improved management and delivery of mission-critical ICT services to ensure they meet the requirements of their users, are adequately resourced, have future upgrades planned and funded, can adjust quickly as requirements change, and are managed to appropriate standards;
ensuring central ICT investment remains within appropriate limits;
sharing best practice across the collegiate University, minimising unnecessary replication, and enabling nearly.600 ICT staff to operate more cohesively.

Fundamental Principles

The collegiate University benefits from a devolved ICT framework which has ICT support provided locally, has local ICT autonomy, and is complemented by core ICT services provided centrally ². Without doubt the devolved ICT framework is appropriate for Oxford, but it is complex and requires careful coordination in order to operate effectively and cost efficiently.

Principles underlying the development of the ICT Strategic Plan are:

the prioritization and development of ICT services driven by Oxford’s teaching, learning, research, and administrative requirements, whilst ensuring that the provision of ICT services is both flexible and responsive as requirements change;
a framework for the delivery of ICT which ensures tailored local ICT support and management, and which offers the best and most cost-effective service for staff and students;
an environment for ICT Staff in which the cohort operates together, best practice is shared, and career development is a priority;
an effective mechanism to appraise centrally-funded ICT provision, ensuring that overall central ICT expenditure is contained within an agreed budget specified by the University;
central ICT expenditure to be prioritised and managed through an overall ICT Budget and Priority Plan, where prioritisation is determined by the user community and takes into account local ICT requirements and planning.

Underpinning the entire ICT Strategic Plan is a revised framework for the development, deployment and support of ICT services and infrastructure which supports the collegiate University's teaching, learning, research and administrative activities. It is important to recognise that for this framework to be effective, it must be implemented collectively by the collegiate University.

Overview of ICT Strategic Plan

1. The Strategic Plan (http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/strategy/plan/) is divided into seven main sections. The first two sections describe the current state of ICT services across the University and provide the context for the recommendations which follow (recommendations are listed in each section and collated at the end of the Executive Summary).

Section 1: User-Oriented ICT Requirements

2. Section 1 summarises the changes to ICT that have been requested by users. This is a very important element in the plan. The approach has not been to copy the model used in many other universities where the ICT Strategic Plan has been developed by central IT providers, often following standard templates. The Oxford ICT Strategic Plan is fundamentally different in that the process, from its inception, has been wholly inclusive and has sought to respond to the needs of those who use the systems. A fundamental principle underlying the strategy is that user community must be capable of determining priorities for ICT investment.

3. The building blocks of the ICT Strategic Plan are the needs and aspirations of the diverse members of the collegiate University. These have been gathered through consultations and questionnaires and, in summary, include:

easy access to the network for members and authorised visitors;
a single method for accessing online resources, from any location and at any time;
systems to support teaching, research and administration which talk to one another, are continuously available, and can be tailored for, and evolve with, individual requirements;
a means to determine the technical feasibility for new requirements (e.g. plagiarism detection, secure electronic submission);
a system for monitoring undergraduate and graduate academic progress throughout their time at Oxford;
secure online storage for personal files and a digital repository for the outputs from research, teaching and administration;
improvements to Oracle Financials, including an efficient purchasing interface, more flexible general ledger reporting, and better grants reporting;
provision of training and support associated with each ICT service or development.

Section 2: Strategic ICT Requirements

4. Section 2 considers Oxford’s strategic ICT requirements, in particular those requirements necessary to achieve the objectives of the University as set out in its Corporate Plan 2005-6 to 2009-10. The discussion is located in the context of the University’s federated institutional culture which values, among other things, subsidiarity which, in this context, equates to a devolved ICT structure. In order to benefit from local ICT provision within a devolved ICT structure, there must be improved coordination and interoperability and Oxford must be in a position to respond effectively to statutory requirements, applicable to ICT.

5. In order to meet many of its objectives, the collegiate University depends on the availability of a reliable and clearly defined ICT infrastructure in which ICT activities work together seamlessly, and where unnecessary replication can be eliminated. New ICT services must be introduced in a way which is beneficial to all parts of the collegiate University.

6. Sections 3-5 make the case for ICT change in Oxford.

Section 3: Oxford ICT Structure

7. Section 3 sets out the elements of a proposal to refine and develop Oxford’s devolved ICT structure. Three distinct types of ICT provision are identified, namely ‘local’ (within the college or department and generally provided without central ICT funds), shared services based on common standards (essentially a combination of central and departmental/college provision) and University wide services’ (central service provision). Principles are laid down which determine the appropriate allocation of services to each of the three layers (Figure 1).

8. The coordination of ICT services within this framework is the collective responsibility of the collegiate University. It is essential to agree the principles and procedures by which the University can determine which ICT services should be the responsibility of divisions or colleges, and for which the responsibility should be shared with, or delegated to, the central ICT providers.

ICT structure represented by three layers: local services,
standards-based shared services, and enterprise-wide
services.

Figure 1. The Three 'layers' which together comprise the devolved ICT structure in Oxford.

9. It is proposed to create an ICT Forum which will enable the c.600 staff to operate as a cohesive and supportive professional body, able to initiate ICT projects and to exchange best practice.

Section 4: Integration of Enterprise Activities

10. Section 4 emphasises that it is increasingly important for ICT systems to communicate with each other, both within and beyond Oxford, in order to support the full range of activities undertaken by the University. Indeed, there are some services, such as identity management, which cannot be implemented unless interoperability is enabled between the different components of the service.

11. Communication between systems is ineffective without an agreed strategy for joining together processes supporting educational, research and administration activities, and determining responsibility for controlling any given data source. As well as ensuring that the different ICT providers work together, the collegiate University must identify and agree the relevant standards with which ICT systems should conform. The overall standards framework to enable new services to be developed using data and applications from distributed systems will form an important component of a future Information Strategy.

Section 5: ICT Budget and Priority Plan

12. Section 5 begins the process of creating a definitive 5-year expenditure plan for Oxford’s central ICT investment. This gives the University the ability for the first time to set ICT priorities with an affordable budget while at the same time ensuring that its critical applications are appropriately resourced. It also draws attention to the discrepancy between the requirements developed in the Plan and the current planned central capital ICT expenditure.

13. It will also assist planning for the subsequent investment which will be needed in later years (e.g. replacement of hardware, updating of software).

14. To develop an effective 5-year Plan, the University will need a consistent methodology for both costing central ICT activities and identifying the projected investment required to develop and maintain services that are critical to the operation of the University.

15. As an illustration2, an Oxford central ICT expenditure plan has been produced for the first time.

16. A new structure for the governance of ICT is required in order to deploy the 5-year Plan, to optimise expenditure, to reduce replication, to build interoperable services.

Section 6: ICT Structure for Coordinated Decision Making

17. Section 6 outlines a new governance structure for ICT (Figure 2) which: is able to establish user/academic requirements, provides strategic direction for ICT, determines ICT policy, and agrees the priorities for central ICT investment. The structure will also define the standards and service levels required to ensure that those systems on which the collegiate University depend are sufficiently robust.

18. It will be essential that the new structure is directed and coordinated by a Director of ICT. It is confidently anticipated that the cost of the new Director will be more than compensated by the savings made through reduced replication of services, coordinated purchasing, improved oversight of ICT projects, shared software licences and the exchanging of best practice.

Figure 2. Representation of the proposed committee structure for ICT governance.

19. The principal elements of the ICT governance structure are the creation of :-

a post of Director of ICT - a single point of contact for ICT, who provides leadership and coordination for ICT strategic planning and implementation;
an ICT Sub-committee to the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee (PRAC) with;
- a ‘Strategy arm’, with membership comprising representatives of the academic divisions, academic services and colleges, which sets strategy and policy;
- an ‘Implementation arm’ which implements the ICT Strategic Plan, specifies service level definitions, oversees project delivery, undertakes risk analyses, ensures business continuity, ensures the University meets statutory requirements;
accountability of the PRAC ICT Sub-Committee through connections to structures in the collegiate University (eg EPSC, Conference of Colleges);
advisory connections to the PRAC ICT Sub-Committee (e.g. from ICT Forum, Web Strategy Group, etc.)
a User Forum to ensure engagement with ICT users across the University;
an Architecture Group to develop and maintain an interoperability framework for Oxford and to monitor the adherence of ICT projects to appropriate standards;

20. These elements established within a new ICT framework will enable the collegiate University to:

establish academic/user requirements;
provide strategic direction and policy for ICT;
agree priorities for central ICT investment, and ensure mission-critical services are adequately funded;
formulate and review the University’s ICT programme for all capital projects;
ensure business continuity and undertake end-to-end risk assessments;
ensure the University meets its ICT statutory requirements;
optimise overall investment in ICT and respond to changes in funding;
undertake disaster planning;
define the standards and service levels required to ensure that those systems on which the collegiate University depends are sufficiently robust.

Section 7: ICT Strategy Implementation

21. Section 7 addresses the implementation phase of the ICT Strategic Plan. The first steps will include the setting up of the new governance structure, in particular the new PRAC ICT Sub-committee and the post of Director of ICT.

22. The ICT Strategic Plan defines the principles and processes required to deliver an ICT framework which is appropriate for a world-leading University in the twenty-first century. The success of the ICT Strategy Programme and the subsequent implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan will be measured by the improvement to existing services, the quality and cost-effectiveness of new services, the sharing of best practice, the prioritisation and adequate resourcing of central ICT services within a contained budget, and improved working methods for ICT staff.

23. Subject to agreement by PRAC and Council to proceed, preparations will begin for the implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan. The initial steps will be to create the new PRAC ICT Sub-Committee and to establish the post of Director of ICT. While developing the ICT Strategic Plan, the urgent need for an Information Strategy for the collegiate University has been apparent. The ICT Strategic Plan offers a framework to address issues relating to the management and flow of information within and beyond the collegiate University. These principles should be developed into a full Information Strategy.

Summary of the potential benefits of implementation

24. Implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan will enable the collegiate University to coordinate and prioritise the delivery and support of ICT effectively. Subject to there being sufficient resources to implement the changes required, the main benefits which would result, grouped by section within the Plan, are:

Strategic ICT Requirements

ICT policy and investment determined by research, educational and administrative needs (93, 244, 296);
an ICT framework capable of underpinning world-class research (107, 202ff) using innovative ICT to improve efficiency, functionality, and communications;
investment to support the student learning experience (108, 208ff), administrative processes associated with teaching, access to online resources, and innovative use of ICT in teaching;
support for the most appropriate and reliable administration systems, including agreed standards to enable communication or interoperability (188ff) between central and local systems;
access to suitable ICT training and development (106) for staff and students which integrates with their needs and aspirations, whether related to learning, research, teaching, or administration;
a clear set of services designed to assist alumni (115) in remaining active members of the collegiate University.

Oxford ICT Structure

Agreed sets of principles and criteria (130) for the development, maintenance and evaluation of ICT services, especially those under the responsibility of BSP, OUCS and OULS;
support and resources for developing local ICT services into services more widely available (131) – where there is demonstrable demand;
an ICT Forum (157ff) to enable Oxford’s c.600 ICT staff to operate as a cohesive and supportive body, and able to initiate ICT projects;
value-for-money gained through improved support for coordinated purchasing (181) of ICT hardware and software and reduction of replication of services.

Integration of Enterprise Activities

A strategy to enable interoperability between systems, developed and maintained by an ICT Architecture Group (Appendix B);
procurement (200) of centrally-provided systems which match the requirements defined by the part of the collegiate University sponsoring the activity;
availability of University-wide services which provide a single means of accessing (198) online systems and resources for non-resident as well as resident, part-time as well as full-time students and staff;
virtual research and learning environments which exchange information with administration systems (99ff, 209ff) and scholarly information services (176ff, 207) provided by OULS, allowing staff and students to tailor the systems to present the most relevant tools, data and resources.

The ICT Budget and Priority Plan

A single consolidated view of ICT investment (Tables A1 and A2) by the University with spending priorities specified by the user community;
investment in central ICT services (BSP, OUCS and OULS, 167ff) to provide local users with the ICT services they require, and to enable local ICT services to work effectively;
the collegiate University able to set priorities for central ICT expenditure (244ff), and to contain the overall expenditure;
adequate resources to ensure high-priority ICT services are effective, robust and reliable (245), and procedures to ensure the total central ICT investment is correctly managed.

ICT Structure for Coordinated Decision Making

A PRAC ICT Sub-Committee (Appendix B) together with its Implementation arm, to establish the academic requirements and so determine the strategy and policy framework for ICT across the collegiate University, including oversight of the University’s programme of ICT projects;
a post of Director of ICT (Appendix C) to promote ICT across the collegiate University, to provide leadership and coordination for ICT strategic planning, to ensure mission-critical services deliver, and to implement the ICT Strategic Plan (where concomitant savings are expected to more than cover the cost of the post);
a User Forum (Appendix B) to represent the views of the ICT user community across the departments and colleges and help facilitate the community’s input to the ICT strategic planning process;
an ICT Architecture Group (Appendix B) to develop and maintain the strategic framework to ensure interoperability between systems and cooperation between ICT service providers;
management of ICT risk and appraisal of the quality, robustness and performance of core ICT services (Appendices B and C).

Scenarios

25. Appendix E contains a series of brief role-based scenarios intended to illustrate examples of the practical benefits which might flow from the implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan. These include:
Undergraduate student interacting with student portal which allows her, from one website, to save and retrieve her work; find bibliographic resources; discover sources of student funding; update her personal student record; and submit her chosen options.
Graduate student integrating his personal computer with his research activities, including synchronising with a University-wide calendar; contributing a report to the system which monitors his academic progress; participating in a remote seminar; paying his college battels via an Oxford portal.
Part-time masters student participating in Oxford life through tools which enable collaboration with tutors and fellow students together with access to the same interfaces and online resources as students resident in Oxford.
Researcher discovering collaborators via an online database; keeping control over different versions of an article she is writing with a colleague; and profiling a project budget using an application integrated with the financial system.
Lecturer accessing research and teaching resources from home or abroad; arranging tutorials using a University-wide calendar and submitting draft examination papers securely.
Departmental Administrator easily retrieving and contacting particular groups of staff or students; making use of a departmental system for managing research reports which is integrated with University-wide systems; and submitting papers and minutes to a secure document management system.
Head of Division interacting with the new governance structure for ICT in order to escalate a particular ICT requirement which subsequently becomes a programme of projects shared between her Division, other departments and central services.
IT Support Officer making use of a shared helpdesk system; interacting with the ICT Forum, resulting in additional development opportunities and a proposal for project funding.
College Alumni Officer enhancing her communications with her college alumni through news alerts, a shared events management system, and interoperability with the University's contacts database. These, together with a secure wireless network, help in the efficient running of an alumni event.

Recommendations and Principles

26. A consolidated list of Recommendations and Principles from the ICT Strategic Plan is given below in the order that they appear in the document. (Several of the recommendations and principles apply to more than section of the Plan and therefore recur more than once.)

ICT Strategic Plan Recommendations

R1. Develop mechanisms for ensuring ongoing effective input from staff and students into ICT strategic planning, and ensure that future ICT projects are developed according to the needs of the academic community.

R2. Implement a holistic ³ approach to ICT and its coordination across Oxford, which aims to offer the best possible ICT environment across the collegiate University and embraces the principle of subsidiarity.

R3. Recognise that Oxford’s devolved ICT infrastructure should be a heterogeneous but coordinated set of ICT services, some run centrally, some locally, and many shared.

R4. Set up a coordinated and long term approach to the development of ICT infrastructure, information organisation, and decision making, for all parts of Oxford.

R5. Determine and ensure an appropriate and consistent investment in robust infrastructure for mission-critical ICT systems.

R6. Develop organisational and technical policies and standards for interoperability in order to fulfil shared needs within Oxford’s devolved ICT environment.

R7. Establish a University-wide identity management system which provides authentication and authorisation, and enables interoperability with national and international infrastructure.

R8. Develop personalised, federated and secure access to — and management of — University information resources.

R9. Refine the devolved Oxford ICT structure through the application of a three-layer model comprising local services, standards-based shared services, and enterprise-wide services.

R10. Develop, via a new Coordinated Decision Making structure,⁴ the principles and criteria by which ICT services are developed and provided as local, shared or enterprise services.

R11. Develop the principles and criteria by which central and shared services are regularly evaluated against user requirements and are discontinued, enhanced, or expanded as appropriate.

R12. Specify and implement the required standards for interoperability so that local units will be able to make judgements regarding the most cost-effective means of delivering services to their users within the three-layer model.

R13. Establish a process whereby local ICT services for which there is a demonstrable need beyond the originating unit may evolve into shared or enterprise services with appropriate support and resources.

R14. Create an ICT Forum in which all IT support staff within Oxford are represented, coordinated, and allocated a small but sufficient budget in order to develop a secondment scheme and fund other small-scale relevant activities.

R15. Develop the structures necessary to enable Oxford to benefit from coordinated purchasing of ICT hardware, software, and consumables.

R16. Ensure the integration of enterprise and shared ICT services through the development of an over-arching interoperability policy, including both organisational and technical aspects.

R17. Base the interoperability of enterprise systems on standards agreed via an Architecture Group (part of a new Coordinated Decision Making structure).

R18. Procure or develop enterprise-wide systems based on the functional requirements defined by the user community and value-for-money in the entire deployment life-cycle, together with adherence to appropriate agreed standards, where possible, and availability of sustainable support.

R19. Define a Service-Oriented Architecture approach to the development and provision of ICT which is appropriate to the Oxford ICT Structure and which helps facilitate the funding and development of ICT services in response to local demand and innovation.

R20. Develop supporting structures for the planning and management of ICT projects, including the definition and use of appropriate methodologies.

R21. Define an approach and a set of principles to develop a five-year University ICT Budget and Priority Plan covering the services funded centrally.⁵

R22. Enable users across the collegiate University to specify priorities for central ICT investment; the Plan should be updated yearly, and should offer a single consolidated view of central ICT investment.

R23. Provide a breakdown of ongoing operational expenditure and a descriptive and prioritised list of major new central ICT investments.

R24. Place the new five-year University ICT Budget and Priority Plan, and the process used to maintain it, under the ownership of the Director of ICT, and oversee its development through the PRAC ICT Sub-committee.⁶

R25. Establish processes to appraise expenditure on ICT in teaching, learning, research and administration, to measure total cost of ownership, to prioritise expenditure on new central ICT projects, and to establish and keep within a specified budget.

R26. Address the apparent discrepancy between the resources allocated for centrally-funded ICT in the University’s Capital Projects Register and the indicative amounts required for central ICT services in the five-year ICT expenditure plan.

R27. Introduce an ICT Coordinated Decision Making structure to embrace ICT in Oxford, and establish as a fundamental component of the Coordinated Decision Making structure for ICT a PRAC ICT Sub-committee consisting of both Strategy and Implementation arms.

R28. The proposed committee structure should provide strategic direction for ICT, determine ICT policy and agree the priorities for central ICT investment. The committee structure will also ensure mission-critical ICT services are resilient and reliable; identify and manage risks; ensure Oxford complies with relevant legislation; and put in place quality assurance standards for optimal ICT operational delivery. It will ensure central ICT expenditure remains within a total budget set by the collegiate University through PRAC, and will terminate services agreed to be of a lower priority or fund them by cost recovery.

R29. Establish a Director of ICT post as the executive arm of the PRAC ICT Sub-committee. The Sub-Committee and Director of ICT should direct and coordinate the strategic development of central ICT services including those managed by OUCS, BSP and OULS.

R30. The Coordinated Decision Making structure should establish bi-directional communications channels with the appropriate University committees with responsibility for education, research and administration, in order that those aspects of teaching, learning, research and administration underpinned by ICT are properly considered and given appropriate priority by the collegiate University. For research and teaching this should be achieved through the respective PVCs being members of the top-level committee.

R31. Establish an Architecture Group to develop and maintain an interoperability framework for Oxford together with the monitoring of ICT projects' adherence to appropriate standards.

R32. Create a User Forum with a cross-section of Oxford ICT users.

R33. Create ICT Project Boards for new ICT projects or service upgrades.

R34. Form other groups within the ICT structure, as needed, to report to the Strategy and Implementation arms of the PRAC ICT Sub-committee; terminate groups on project completion or completion of activity.

R35. Address full Economic Costing for ICT services through the Coordinated Decision Making structure.

R36. Measure the new ICT Coordinated Decision Making structure against COBIT principles.

R37. Subject to recommendation by Council to proceed, after the forthcoming period of consultation, make preparations for implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan.

ICT Strategic Plan Principles

P1. The ICT requirements of units and individuals, whatever their role within Oxford, must be addressed by the ICT Strategic Plan.

P2. These requirements, whilst primarily relating to enabling individuals to make their fullest contribution to Oxford’s core aims, should be addressed within the context of academic freedom and subsidiarity.

P3. The overall ICT architecture for Oxford should comprise a combination of enterprise services, shared services and local services (including services specific to a teaching or research area).

P4. The provision of enterprise or shared ICT services must be based on the use of agreed standards in order to improve productivity through interoperation with local services and to reduce replication.

P5. ICT is critical to the fulfilment of Oxford’s strategic objectives.

P6. The requirements of Oxford’s teaching, learning, research and administration activities should drive the prioritization and development of ICT services.

P7. The ICT Strategic Plan, like the University Corporate Plan, must be placed within the context of a federated institutional culture which values academic freedom, subsidiarity, disciplinary diversity, parity of esteem, collegiality, and the pursuit of excellence.

P8. Oxford must be able to respond effectively and efficiently to statutory requirements , many of which depend on ICT infrastructure and require on-demand and coherent access to disparate data sources.

P9. The provision of ICT should be agile and responsive to Oxford's rapidly evolving requirements.

P10. The devolved Oxford ICT structure, which is intrinsically more complex than a centralised system, must be actively coordinated, refined, and enhanced.

P11. Locally implemented services across Oxford should be able to benefit from interoperation with centrally-offered services.

P12. Benefits from coordination between central and local services should be maximised, while ensuring an excellent response to local requirements.

P13. The University requires an effective means for setting priorities and coordinating ICT activities.

P14. Oxford (collectively) must contribute to ICT developments, decide which applications are best run centrally, ensure central applications meet the needs of users, and make it possible to develop new ICT activities located in the most appropriate part of the collegiate University.

P15. For ICT services which are anticipated to operate across a large part of the collegiate University, the first consideration should be to provide them centrally, either as enterprise or shared services, in order to avoid unnecessary replication of local solutions.

P16. It is intended that existing mission-critical enterprise services will continue to be maintained by the central ICT providers such as the Computing Services, the Business Services and Projects group, and the Enhanced Computing Environment ICT Support Team. It is expected that a significant number of shared services will also be provided by the central ICT providers.

P17. The development of a culture of interoperability within Oxford is dependent on the development of an Information Strategy which, for example, clearly defines the information available for reuse; ensures processes are in place to guarantee the quality of information; and defines responsibilities with regard to the management and use of information.

P18. Enterprise-wide ICT applications (including shared services) should interoperate, and appropriate coordination structures should be put in place to offer a uniform interface to the user.

P19. The ability to interoperate with other services must be a key requirement for new services.

P20. Software procurement, deployment, and development must be based on analysis of functional requirements, value for money, agreed standards and data interchangeability — where appropriate. Development of new and updated applications should use appropriate project management methodologies.

P21. ICT architecture and standards must be defined, agreed, documented, and regularly updated.

P22. Commitment to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach should be considered as the optimum way forward, whereby IT systems are constructed, where possible, from loosely-coupled, interoperable, and reusable ‘services’.

P23. ICT pervades Oxford academic and administrative life. It is critical to fulfilling both individual and organisational aspirations. The establishment of a central ICT expenditure plan, therefore, which enables the collegiate University to anticipate and prioritise central ICT expenditure and development, is an essential outcome from the ICT Strategy Programme.

P24. The University requires a five-year rolling plan for central ICT expenditure (hereafter referred to as ‘The ICT Budget and Priority Plan’). Central ICT expenditure is an investment which has consequences for the whole collegiate University, and the investment must be managed, kept within a specified allocation, and priorities for expenditure specified, collectively.

P25. The academic community must determine the essential components within a prioritised central ICT expenditure plan; this process itself is dependent on appropriate ICT coordination and decision-making processes being in place in divisions and across the colleges.

P26. The ICT Budget and Priority Plan must take local ICT requirements and investment as its initial focus. It must identify the shared and central ICT services which are essential for the local services to operate effectively.

P27. The ICT Budget and Priority Plan must cover central expenditure on ICT in teaching, research, and administration (including services provided by OUCS, OULS and BSP). It must also foster conditions for local innovation and sustainability. Where appropriate the Plan must allow for, and fund, the scaling-up of local developments into Oxford-wide shared services.

P28. The ICT Budget and Priority Plan must take into account the University’s strategic objectives and the increasingly complex statutory requirements.

P29. A structure for Coordinated Decision Making (CDM) is required for ICT, in order to contribute to meeting Oxford’s values, to underpin world class research, to support learning, to facilitate first class administrative systems, to make intellectual assets accessible, to refine the Oxford ICT deployment model, to integrate enterprise activities, to define ICT priorities and focus resources on mission-critical services, to agree components within the Oxford ICT three-layer model, and to introduce new ICT applications effectively and reliably.

P30. ICT provision must offer full support for, indeed in some respects underpin, Oxford’s principle of subsidiarity. The CDM structure is responsible for coordinating and refining the concomitant devolved ICT deployment model.⁷

P31. The CDM structure must coordinate ICT across the University to ensure that departments and colleges are given the services and interfaces that they require. It must provide a connection for users and IT staff with Oxford’s policy makers.

P32. The CDM must set policy for, and prioritise activities across, the central ICT services, including those provided by OUCS, BSP and OULS; it must ensure that total central ICT expenditure remains within a total allocation set by the collegiate University.

P33. The CDM structure must enable Oxford collectively to establish priorities and policy, evolve and develop ICT, and ensure quality of service to the user.

P34. The CDM structure must have sufficient components (committees and groups) to meet requirements, but should be as streamlined and transparent as possible.

P35. A single individual in the University must be given responsibility to: ensure ICT can offer full support for Oxford’s principle of subsidiarity, coordinate the devolved ICT deployment model, be accountable for central ICT services, and lead the implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan.

P36. Careful planning and commitment from across Oxford is required to make the step change from agreeing the principles of the ICT Strategic Plan to taking forward the implementation in Phase 2.

P37. Implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan will require new procedures, new coordination, and new prioritisations to be agreed.

Notes

The Terms of Reference of the ICT Steering Group are available at http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/strategy/tor.xml.

Provided mainly by Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS), Business Services and Projects (BSP) in Central Administration, and the Oxford University Library Services (OULS).

‘Holistic’ in the sense of considering the requirements of the collegiate University.

A new ICT governance structure for prioritisation, coordination, optimisation and delivery; described in detail in Section 6.

Including the services provided by OUCS, BSP and OULS.

Described in section 6.

It should be stressed that the CDM structure will not have responsibility for, nor interfere with, ICT policy and decisions made within Divisions and Colleges.

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