Information Technology Strategic Plan 2013-16
“IT @ your service”
Major plans/ projects in IT for the next three years -
Simplify to serve
Our goal with simplify to serve is to decrease the complexity of GCC’s computing environment while still providing
valuable services to our students, in a more consistent and timely manner.
Position for Success - budget pressure, alignment one maricopa initiative-SSE, resource utilization
Upcoming Challenges/Concerns - financial ability, lack of expertise, Migration of a production environment,
Consensus of services needed, SSE,
Linkages - Access, Dynamic Learning Environments, and Resources for growth.
Linking to the Five Pillars
1. Professional Development - Promoting training opportunities and hands-on experience for OIT personnel
while utilizing industry standard processes and tools (e.g. remote assistance, virtualization, dynamic
configuration and deployment, etc.).
2. Community 3. Focus on the Future - Economic forces, operating efficiencies, and service level targets necessitate that
we provide timely service outcomes at a sustainable level, yet have the flexibility to adapt to future changes
in a reasonable timeframe. A significant portion of this effort positions us to more thoroughly address the
current and future mobile/BYOD trends and requirements.
4. Outcomes 5. Data Informed Decision Making - ITSM software will allow OIT to capture, catalog, and interpret data in an
unprecedented way. Additionally, industry data - especially that which pertains to technology trends,
capabilities and readiness - will help keep us in step with, or ahead of the curve in providing for the current
and anticipated needs of our clients.
Action
Measurable outcome
Time frame
Assumptions, Dependencies, Concerns
Self Help Tools
Implement tools which will allow all
campus clients the ability to
service themselves at their
convenience.
TBD
Integration with other systems
Knowledge
Remote Assistance
Select and implement remote
TBD
assistance tools so that at least
25% of new requests for assistance
are initially analyzed remotely by
OIT personnel.
Must work on both platforms
User acceptance
Funding
Need for best practices
Implement Enterprise
FAX Solution
Discontinue the purchase of
individual FAX machines within
departments, and replace them
with an enterprise fax solution,
consistent with district-wide
standards/recommendations.
On Hold due to
SSE project
Funding
System integration
District-wide (yes/no?)
Provide a complete
documentation
environment
Selection and implementation of a
complete doc environment
On Hold due to
SSE project
User acceptance
Governance
District mandates
e-discovery
Redesign Desktop
utilizing virtual
technologies
Increase ease of access by campus 2014-2015
computing clients, so that the
targeted users who have a need to
access limited software (initially
only a few packages) will be served
the software applications (both
locally and remotely) via virtual
delivery.
Funding
District-wide solution (yes/no?)
Purchasing
Redesign college web
presence
Web Site cutover
Departmental website issues
2012 - Summer
2013
Implement classroom
alert system
Provide a functioning Alert
Notification System at both the
main and north campus so that
there is complete general coverage
(via desktop alerts), followed by
additional beacon coverage for
increased saturation.
2012- Fall 2013
Integration with broadband system
New regulations limiting part time hours
Continue to improve
wireless network
bandwidth
Provide easy to configure/use,
ubiquitous wireless coverage for
both GCC authenticated users and
non-authenticated users who are
on campus at both the main and
north campuses.
Jan 2014
Funding
Purchasing
Remote updates
Provide an environment where
Spring 2013 - Fall Security
remote updates can be pushed in a 2013
User acceptance
less-obtrusive manner as to provide
Cross platform
up to date services with minimal
Best practices
impact on customers.
ITSM (Information Technology Service Management)
This project is to move to an industry standard best practice model for all IT services by refining current processes
and implementing those processes in a comprehensive ITIL compliant software package. Modules in the package
include, but are not limited to ticketing, change management, SLA, problem management, release management and
a web based service catalog. Reporting from the tool will allow us to make data driven decisions.
Position for Success - Moving to district-wide Industry standard best practices (ITIL), One Maricopa initiative,
IT standardization, IT program review
Upcoming Challenges/Concerns - financial ability, lack of expertise, purchasing/legal, being a pilot.
Linkages - Resources for growth and Access
Linking to the Five Pillars
1. Professional Development - Promoting ongoing training and ITIL certification programs for OIT personnel
moves us towards industry standard best practices and processes.
2. Community 3. Focus on the Future - Implementing an ITSM framework will allow us to adopt an industry wide set of
best practices. Training new and existing employees in those standards, and defining processes will foster
greater accountability and service standards. GCC will be the pilot for this new software.
4. Outcomes 5. Data Informed Decision Making - ITSM software will allow OIT to capture, catalog, and interpret data in an
unprecedented way. This data will provide insight on current services as part of continuous improvement and
opportunities to identify the need for additional services. Data informed decisions allow us the opportunity to
monitor success rates on meeting Service Level Agreements to our customers.
Action
Measurable outcome
Time frame
Implement the incident
and fulfilment tracking
portions of a modern
ITIL based Service Desk
Software
To implement an ITSM package for
all of IT employees to use for
tracking 100% of all incidents and
requests for service.
2013-5
Assumptions, Dependencies, Concerns
There is a current One Maricopa initiative to
purchase ITSM software. The RFP was vetted
and we are further defining the project
deliverables, so the vendor can finalize pricing.
We will also waiting on purchasing and the VC’s
of IT to determine a funding source for the
purchase. We are currently looking at
processes that will need to be redefined.
Refine existing Change Refine current Change Management
Management processes process to limit the number of
emergency change request by 10%.
Awaiting ITSM
Software
Develop and maintain a Publish a service catalog listing 50% Awaiting ITSM
service catalog
of all IT services provided to
Software
customers 6 months after ITSM
Service Catalog module
implementation
Provide all IT employees To increase the number of IT
2013-14
a base level training in Foundations certifications to 40% for
ITIL
IT employees within 1 year
Funding
Administrative support
Obtain intermediate
To increase the number of IT
level certifications for
employees certified in intermediate
Service Operations and process by 100% in 1 year.
Service Transitions
processes
2013-2014
Funding
Administrative support
Develop Service Level
Agreements
To increase the number of customer
SLAs to 2 by the end of 2016
Awaiting ITSM
Software
Develop Problem
management process
Identify, classify, and track 90% of
incoming problems based on like
incidents.
Awaiting ITSM
Software
Big Data
The push towards data-informed decision making (both from GCC and the district office) is the primary driver for
this project. Staff from OIT and SPA will be working together on some of this project’s actions, including the new
DSS and IRIS databases.
Position for Success - budget realities requiring informed decision making, SSE, Maricopa Priorities
Upcoming Challenges/Concerns - lack of expertise within the district, political perceptions, finances, migration
of current data, lack of clarity in scope, the CS9 upgrade and dependency on the district office
Linkages - Resources for Growth and Access
Linking to the Five Pillars
1. Professional Development - OIT and SPA staff will first need theoretical and practical implementation
training (both formal and self-directed). End users will require additional training to use their tools.
2. Community - GCC should be able to quickly provide data to any community that supports why key
decisions were made, especially expensive initiatives.
3. Focus on the Future - Predictive Analytics, in particular, will help the college make decisions now that will
be the most effective for GCC’s and our students’ future.
4. Outcomes - Databases and end user tools that can provide timely answers to critical business questions.
5. Data Informed Decision Making - will make the best use of our human, capital and financial resources.
Action
Measurable outcome
Time frame
Assumptions, Dependencies, Concerns
BD#1) Consolidate and % decrease in shadow systems per
standardize standalone semester
databases
2013-2014
- will be an ongoing effort that seeks to reduce
the amount of duplicate and possibly
inconsistent and out of date data being used
across campus
BD#2) Provide college
input to district team
rearchitecting Decision
Support System (DSS)
Summer 2013 Fall 2014
- the original architect of DSS, Linda
Hawbaker, has retired. The district Institutional
Research dept is in the process of hiring a new
mgr for DSS.
- Although SPA knows of DSS it is not currently
SPA and interested staff are actively
using the new DSS to support data
informed decision making
using its OLAP cube data for any reporting or
research purposes. One goal of this action is to
work with the new DSS mgr to ensure that the
data that GCC is interested in using for data
informed decision making ends up in the new
cube design.
- assume that this effort will be undertaken
with the new college Research and Analytics
Council headed by Phil Arcuria
- GCC currently has a lack of expertise in
working with OLAP cubes. Getting staff up to
speed will require formal and self-directed
training.
BD#3) Actively engage
in district
RDS/CDS/IRIS redesign
due to CS9 upgrade to
ensure college data
needs are addressed
new IRIS/RDS/CDS datasources are
online and meet the following
requirements:
BD#4) Work with SPA
to find a tool that can
new tool is in production use and is
publishing interactive drill-down
Spring 2013 Fall 2014
- the timeline for the CS9 go-live and
RDS/CDS/IRIS replacement is not firm,
preliminary date seems to be Spring Break
2014.
- IRIS data warehouse is heavily used by SPA.
- CDS gives all colleges a “close to real-time”
subset of SIS data
- RDS data is 24 hours old, goes back two
years, and is a larger subset of SIS than CDS
- in the past Amber would frequently lament
that data she was hoping to mine was not
available in IRIS. The same problem exists with
CDS and RDS. The main goal of this action is to
ensure that college needs are addressed by
the district team that is replacing these
databases.
2013 - 2015
- tool may either replace or augment Hyperion
which is SPA’s current IRIS query tool.
- data is at least a superset of the
current data
- age of data is at least as new as
current data
- data snapshots are at least as
frequent as current data
- any additional data/relationships
defined by GCC power users before
go-live are included in the new
databases
- a defined, efficient process exists
for colleges to request that district
expand or modify a schema
publish interactive data reports to the GCC website (internal
online to designated
and/or external to be defined)
users.
BD#5) Predictive
Analytics
a production system is in place that
can predict future trends versus
simply reporting and comparing
historical data
Hyperion does not have the ability to create
web-enabled interactive reports.
- ‘designated users’ may end up being defined
as the general public.
- IRIS is the data warehouse database
currently used by SPA. Since it is derived from
SIS and RDS it may be replaced as part of the
CS9 upgrade.
- the timeline for the CS9 upgrade and IRIS
replacement is not firm, preliminary date seems
to be Spring Break 2014.
- such a tool could also include a student
progress dashboard *if* the required data is
available (Big Data projects #2 and #3)
2014-2015
- GCC implementers and practitioners will need
training to become familiar with the theory,
methodologies and tools used in this field
including statistical analysis, data mining and
predictive modelling