Accountable Leader:

Ed Hill, executive director, ITS Administrative Information Systems

How we'll accomplish our goal

Objectives and Strategies

1. Collaborate with the UI Data SPARC team and campus stakeholders to ensure that the data community is aligned, working on the right problems at the right levels to deliver transformative outcomes.

[UI Strategic Plan: Holistic Well-Being and Success, p. 12–D, people] [UI Strategic Plan Data Tactics 4 & 5]

  1. Reinvigorate data community efforts to better understand current gaps in data strategy and ensure alignment for identifying paths forward. 
    1. Align and support the UI Data SPARC effort to establish a hub-and-spoke model.
Year 1 Tactics
  • Provide IT perspectives for the UI Data SPARC through sponsorship at the CIO level and participation from DAI [Matt Anson]. (SP) 
  • Support Y2 Data SPARC tactics, which include: [DAI group] (SP) 
    • Draft initial documentation of roles and responsibilities for the hub and spoke.
    • Identify individuals in each spoke/org who are the data liaisons for deans/VPs when they have data questions/needs. 
    • Identify individuals in each spoke/org who are the data liaisons that deans/VPs want their users going to for data questions/needs. 
    • Identify leadership roles. 
    • Identify areas to serve as test cases for implementation of a hub and spoke model. 

B. Reach out to existing functional and technical communities to better understand their data needs.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Initiate collaboration with the Student Success SPARC to explore data literacy needs related to supporting academic success initiatives (SP) [DAI group] 
  • Work with senior Finance and HR leadership to help plan and present on data literacy topics at their annual HR/BO conference. [DAI group] 
  • Reach out to collegiate and departmental data groups to better understand their needs and identify gaps in current service offerings. [DAI group] 

C. Reestablish technical and functional data-focused communities. 

Year 1 Tactics
  • Reestablish Institutional Data Users Group (IDUG). (SP) [DAI group] 
  • Establish a new technical data community. (SP) [DAI group]
  • Establish a new community for data stewards. (SP) [DAI group]

B. Reach out to all UI SPARC teams to develop data plans for their efforts.

Year 1 Tactic
  • Engage with UI SPARC teams as appropriate to offer data support. Track and prioritize those specific efforts to assess and measure impact. [DAI group] 

C. Through community efforts, continue to shape the university’s data culture to encourage collaboration across the institution and grow data-driven decision-making at all levels.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Reach out to collegiate and departmental data groups to better understand their needs and identify gaps in current service offerings. [DAI group]
  • Define metrics that track engagement with data services and communities to measure the success of those collaboration efforts. [DAI group]

D. Define the different roles that exist in the university data community (provider/consumer, central/decentralized, functional/technical, trustee/stewards) and build consensus that outline responsibilities of community members in those roles.

Year 1 Tactic
  • Draft initial documentation of roles and responsibilities for the hub and spoke, identify individuals across the university in these roles and provide this information in a central location as part of the Campus Data redesign. [DAI group]. (SP) 

2. Implement institutional data governance to increase transparency and data availability, manage risks, and ensure privacy protections.

[UI Strategic Plan: Holistic Well-Being and Success, p. 12–D, policies] [UI Strategic Plan Data Tactic 1]

  1. Identify and socialize the current state to identify areas of focus across all subject areas regarding roles, processes, ownership, quality, security, and compliance.
Year 1 Tactics
  • Establish a data governance landing page as part of the Campus Data redesign that outlines current practices and resources and shares data governance goals and plans organized by the different legs of data governance. Ultimately this will serve as the home for a data governance handbook as it is developed in the years ahead. [DAI group] 
  • Document expected and perceived roles, responsibilities, and activities of data trustees and stewards [DAI group] (SP). 

B. Facilitate the collaborative, campuswide development of an institutional data-governance framework and its implementation, supporting and in alignment with the Data SPARC team.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Develop a strategy to leverage the hub and spoke framework as the foundation for future data governance efforts. Our initial focus on community and literacy efforts will provide a common understanding of roles and responsibilities that will be required to build an effective governance framework. [DAI group] 
  • Research data governance frameworks and best practices in use at peer institutions by leveraging relationships through the BTAA, CSG and other resources. [DAI group] 

C. Identify a process to resolve ambiguities when issues arise that span different data areas (administrative, research, or clinical).

Year 1 Tactics
  • Work with the CIO, CISO, and senior leadership in the Provost Office, OVPR, and Healthcare to define a charter to establish a top-level data governance committee to discuss and resolve data governance issues that span data domains. (DAI, CIO, CISO) [DAI group] 
  • Create a central inventory of existing data governance practices/teams and document their scope and contact details. [DAI group] 

D. Develop a data governance handbook and training materials to ensure campus data providers and data consumers are aware of their role in data governance with regard to communication, quality, security, and compliance expectations.

Year 1 Tactic
  • Establish a data governance landing page as part of the Campus Data redesign that outlines current practices and resources and shares data governance goals and plans organized by the different legs of data governance. Ultimately this will serve as the home for a data governance handbook as it is developed in the years ahead. [DAI group] 

3. Enhance the data literacy of the campus community to enable data-informed decisions.

[UI Strategic Plan: Holistic Well-Being and Success, p. 12–D, technology] [UI Strategic Plan Data Tactic 3]

  1. Identify and create resources that allow our data community to understand, navigate, and collaborate across our data ecosystem.
Year 1 Tactics
  • Build a new data “home page” at data.uiowa.edu that acts as a landing page for all data efforts and documentation, not just the Campus Data catalog. The catalog will continue to be supported and improved, supplemented with documentation and links to data resources beyond dashboards and reports. [DAI group] 
  • Create a training plan that offers introductory training to Campus Data through both in-person and online options, supplementing existing efforts such as participation in the Iowa Academic Leadership Academy (IALA). [DAI group] 

B. Identify role-specific training and materials appropriate to different literacy levels and responsibilities.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Support the UI Data SPARC efforts to examine a wide range of models for data literacy initiatives. [DAI group] (SP) 
  • In collaboration with the Data SPARC and the Office of the Provost design, support, and begin implementation of the 3-year, Higher Learning Commission Quality Initiative Project. The purpose of which is to provide a multi modal data literacy program that supports meaningful and appropriate use of institutional data by academic decision makers. [DAI group] (SP) 
  • Identify gaps in supporting technical data users on campus and develop a better support model to support those users, initially targeting PowerBI as it becomes available under the campus A5 license. Use these support interactions to explore why existing solutions could not solve their needs. [DAI group] 
  • Create a training plan that offers introductory training to Campus Data through both in-person and on-line options, supplementing existing efforts such as participation in the Iowa Academic Leadership Academy (IALA) [DAI group]. 

C. Evaluate whether current data publishing and collaboration solutions meet the needs of campus and develop a plan to bridge any identified gaps.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Complete currently identified improvements to Campus Data, which include improvements to navigation and collections, better support for marketing and documentation of solutions, and better support for health care users. (DAI, AIS) [DAI group] 
  • Perform a market analysis of other data portal and catalog solutions to know how Campus Data compares to other options used by our peers and develop a prioritized plan for improvements to address gaps in year two. [DAI group] 

D. Establish a common data nomenclature for frequently used data elements and terms.

Year 1 Tactic
  • Build an accessible resource that describes and defines common metrics used in higher education and position it centrally for common use and discussion [DAI group] (SP).  

4. Provide curated analysis and insights so that campus leaders have timely, relevant information in an easy-to-understand format to inform critical decision-making.

[UI Strategic Plan: Holistic Well-Being and Success, p. 12–D.2, technology]

  1. Explore and provide guidance to the campus on artificial intelligence (AI) tools, opportunities, and challenges.
Year 1 Tactics
  • Create a Data + AI landing page that provides resources to policies, tools, and best practices for using institutional data with AI services. [DAI group] 
  • Identify and evangelize innovative uses of AI to solve data-related issues. [DAI group] 

B. Develop a framework for providing insightful core, common, and unique data solutions that are impactful, valuing consistency and usability for core solutions while allowing agility for unique needs.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Establish a shared governance model for Power BI, evaluate if practices from that effort can assist with other collaborations across providers or data domains. [DAI, HCIS]
  • Identify gaps in supporting technical data users on campus and develop a better support model to support those users, initially targeting PowerBI as it is now available under the campus A5 license. Use these support interactions to explore why existing solutions could not solve their needs. [DAI group] 
  • Assess data organization frameworks at peer institutions for ideas and insights as we start our framework planning efforts. [DAI group] 

C. Work with data consumers and providers to review existing solutions, archiving or revising solutions as needed to ensure ongoing relevancy, accuracy, and usability.

Year 1 Tactic
  • Identify and start tracking usage metrics across, initially targeting unused or obsolete solutions that can be removed from service. [DAI group] 

D. Improve discoverability of data and solutions within the data community.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Simplify and improve search results within Campus Data. [DAI, AIS]
  • Add support within Campus Data to better organize solutions by data provider/domain, allowing providers to better organize how their solutions are presented within Campus Data. [DAI, AIS]
  • Explore functionality to better support role-based discoverability, presenting curated data solutions to decision makers based on their institutional or academic role. [DAI,AIS]

E. Evaluate data and analytics platforms to ensure the institution is positioned to support evolving data needs and to take advantage of emerging technologies (AI, Constituent Relationship Management, etc.)

Year 1 Tactics
  • Create a Data + AI landing page that provides resources to policies, tools, and best practices for using institutional data with AI services. [DAI group] 
  • Explore integrations with Bing Chat Enterprise and other AI tools that support approved data protections that would allow users to securely and easily use those tools with institutional data as appropriate. [DAI, AIS]
  • Explore how AI tools can integrate with Campus Data and other local solutions to improve functionality, usability, security, and other aspects of data management and utilization. [DAI, AIS]
  • Evaluate Salesforce as a CRM platform and outline a data integration and reporting strategy as part of the analysis. [DAI, AIS]

  

5. Improve data infrastructure so that it aligns with data governance efforts and better connects data with data-driven decision makers.

[UI Strategic Plan: Holistic Well-Being and Success, p. 12; Innovative Research and Creative Discovery, p. 10;  Welcoming and Inclusive Environment, p. 11]

  1. Together with campus, develop a plan for a next-generation data warehouse that supports the university’s community, literacy, and governance efforts.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Research modern data warehouse products and architectures. [DAI, AIS, EI]
  • Inventory/document existing data warehouse usage and data domains and identify other campus data sources that should be considered for future warehouse implementations. [DAI, AIS, EI] 

B. Develop a strategy to reduce data silos and fragmentation, consolidating data for enhanced usability and greater alignment with the needs of the institution.

Year 1 Tactics
  • Research Master Data Management (MDM) best practices in and develop a long-term plan to better organize authoritative Person information to improve data usability, streamline identity management, and prepare for CRM and future ERP implementations. [DAI, IAM, AIS]

C. Enhance data storage, delivery, and integration infrastructure that facilitates data use across the entire data community, focusing on consistency, reliability, and security. 

Year 1 Tactics
  • Identify and prioritize efforts that will improve the security posture of enterprise Oracle and SQLServer databases. [AIS-Oracle, EI-SQLServer] 
  • Research tools and practices for anonymizing or masking data in application test environments and develop an implementation plan. [AIS, AIS-Oracle, EI-SQLServer]
  • Migrate enterprise databases to Veeam backup/recovery software. [AIS-Oracle, EI-SQLServer]
  • Develop plans to transition Oracle systems to multitenant architecture and Oracle 23c. [AIS-Oracle]
  • Through technical/policy efforts, reduce data warehouse storage growth. [AIS-Oracle]
All Goals

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OneIT, along with campus partners, will align data strategy to support the UI Strategic Plan. Through collaboration with the Data SPARC team, OneIT will provide the data and solutions needed to make data-driven decisions to meet the business and academic objectives of the institution. 

OneIT Strategic Plan Goal and Tactics

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