See also accompanying document that follows.

1. Your description of the position might include these elements:

  • optimal title, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
  • scope of responsibility (What reports to this person? RMIS? ITD? DELTA? Libraries IT? Any stuff currently in departments or colleges?) and what form that takes (command-and-control, federation, gentle guidance),All utility components of ITD, RMIS, and ComTech should reporting lines to the VCIT. The VCIT should serve as the head of a federation comprised of all college IT units and other heavily IT-dependent business units of the university.
  • how the central enterprise is organized (Do the various units merge, or are they separate with a common boss?),The central units should be reorganized to provide a more consistent horizontal structure (see accompanying document). There may be elements of the central units listed above that split off as separate units, or may merge with existing units above the central IT layer.
  • what areas fall within or outside the position's cone of influence,Utility IT functions are administratively under the VCIT; all college IT units and other heavily IT-dependent business units are under the influence of the VCIT through a federated model; technology-related research and academic programs (e.g., Computer Science, Computer Engineering) are independent of the influence of the VCIT.
  • where the position reports and/or participates in the senior hierarchy, Cabinet-level position, reporting to the chancellor.
  • the resources that will need to be consolidated, diverted, or created for it to succeed, The reorganization suggested above will result in some financial and human resource consolidation; the VCIT should look to outsourcing or collaborative opportunities for resource sharing with other UNC schools, for example, to focus limited resources on added value IT functions specific to the institution. and
  • the oversight and/or advisory entities that might prove useful as IT moves in this direction.An NC State IT federation, headed by the VCIT (see accompanying document), and a new University Standing Committee on Information Technology to provide broad faculty, staff and student representation.

2. Your outline of qualifications and attributes presumably will touch on the usual dimensions -- degrees, prior experience, and so on -- but perhaps will go beyond these to touch on

  • management style, collaborative, articulate, visionary, consensus-builder
  • familiarity with environments like NC State's, a must!
  • whether particular kinds of IT expertise are necessary or desirable, experience in multiple areas of academic IT in a research-extensive institution, preferably a land grant; preferably experience at multiple levels of the institution
  • whether faculty or other non-IT experience is important, faculty credentials/experience are a plus, assuming the individual meets all other criteria
  • rhetorical competence, a definite plus; must be able to clearly articulate plans and vision to constituents in layman's terms
  • willingness to commit for the necessary term, five years minimum

and other details that may be important to the position's success.

Proposed IT Model for NC State

IT is an enabler for NC State’s core mission of teaching, outreach, and research. As an enabler, it is both necessary (many business functions today can only be performed electronically) and strategic (a high quality IT environment provides a competitive edge in many areas, such as streamlining the admissions process to bring in the best students).

Because of IT’s role as an enabler in many areas of the university, it tends to be pervasive and decentralized. Some business units are highly dependent on IT (e.g., libraries, registration and records, distance education) while others may be less so. Similarly, some academic disciplines may require access to highly specialized computing hardware and software for research and teaching, while others may have more generic requirements.

There is clearly not a “one-size-fits-all” IT model for a research-extensive university, given the overall organizational complexity and the rich diversity of programs. Therefore, a “vertical” approach where all IT functions are under a single administrative umbrella would not be likely to work well. This notion is supported by recent EDUCAUSE data, which shows that 49% of IT staff work in central units at research universities, as compared to 88% for baccalaureate-only institutions.[1]

A better model for NC State is more horizontal, where the generic IT utility functions (networking, enterprise-level servers (web, email, calendar, etc), enterprise-level databases, storage, machine room, etc) are under a central organization which provides those utility services to its “customers,” the academic and administrative units whose mission is something other than the provision of IT utility services. This model is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Horizontal IT organizational model.

This model assumes an interface between Central IT and Unit IT where the Unit IT staff are focused on applications specific to the mission of the unit, and the Central IT staff are tasked with provisioning the infrastructure components (servers, networks, databases, etc) to meet the requirements of the units’ applications.

The other side of the unit interface is represented by “Customer Service Functions.” This would include staff whose job is to service the needs of the unit’s customers. This is best illustrated by example. DELTA’s mission statement reads as follows:

Education is the key to a prosperous future for North Carolina. DELTA promotes the quality of education by extending the reach of the faculty, collaboratively applying expertise in technology and pedagogy in an efficient, effective, and service-oriented environment.

DELTA’s DE and Instructional Services groups provide the “customer service functions,” working with the faculty, colleges, and DE program directors to identify and service their needs related to this mission, both technical and non-technical. Where technical needs exist, the DELTA IT staff research, acquire and support the mission-specific applications. This is done in collaboration with DELTA’s technology infrastructure providers, ITD and MCNC, for mutual assurance that the applications and infrastructure will be compatible, supportable, and cost effective.

In the case of a college IT unit, the distinction between “unit IT staff” and “customer service staff” may not be as clear; however, the same principles apply. In most cases, the unit should not be involved in the provisioning of core infrastructure, such as email and web servers. This only makes sense in the case where there is a customer need for some specific infrastructure that can not be met by central IT. For example, a niche web application unique to a particular discipline that requires specialized server software not supported on the central IT web servers. In that case, and only after consultation with central IT, it may make sense for the unit IT staff to set up and support the specialized server.

An important function of the college IT units is innovation. For example, the College of Engineering’s need to provide students with access to advanced engineering workstations led the college to develop the Eos project, an offshoot of the MIT Athena project. A few years later, the Eos infrastructure became the basis for Unity, NC State’s current academic IT infrastructure. That innovation never would have happened without the college’s IT unit responding to a college-specific need. Similarly, the need to make a multitude of large and complex engineering applications accessible from student-owned laptops led the college IT unit to innovate again with the Virtual Computer Lab. As with Eos, VCL has migrated from the college to central IT, but likely would have never happened without the need-driven innovation in the college. (While the two examples here are from Engineering, a number of IT innovations have come from the other colleges.)

What does all this imply then for NC State? We need:

  • One central IT organization which is responsible for all generic utility functions including email and web servers, enterprise-level databases, enterprise-level storage systems, machine rooms and networks. This unit should be responsible for provisioning these utility functions with service agreements for uptime, system performance, security, support, and disaster recovery. The central IT unit should view the university’s business units whose mission is heavily dependent on IT applications as its primary customers.
  • A federated model for the colleges and business units which depend heavily on IT communicate and collaborate effectively with each other and with the central IT unit. The mission of the central IT unit should be to support the infrastructure needs of these units. The federation should clearly spell out the different roles of central IT and the IT-dependent units, and should include mechanisms to leverage innovations and avoid redundant efforts.
  • A cabinet-level CIO, reporting to the chancellor, who has administrative authority over the central IT unit and serves as head of the federation. The CIO should be the voice articulating IT plans and advocating IT needs on behalf of the federation to the chancellor, fellow cabinet members, and key external constituents.

[1] McCredie, J., Improving IT Governance in Higher Education, ECAR Research Bulletin, vol. 2006, no. 16, August, 2006