Executive Summary
This document outlines MET IT Services Strategic Plan for 2006 – 2010, as well as positions the group beyond 2010 as a key contributor in achieving overall College objectives.  Partnering with all departments, MET IT team defines its mission to support and improve educational process by providing classrooms and computer labs equipped with the state-of-the-art technology, supporting innovative educational approaches, closely working with faculty to research emerging technologies and enrich quality of learning, and create a productive and secure environment for students, faculty and administrative staff of Metropolitan College and Extended Education by providing first class services and support.

Over the past decade information technology has been developing at an incredible speed, at the same time, students, faculty and staff expectations of IT resources and support have changed accordingly.  Faculty increasingly relies on effective educational technology tools to enhance teaching and research. Students expect mobility and flexibility in using computing resources.  Staff needs specific, timely, and accurate information to support their work.
To meet growing expectations of all our customers, we analyze past, current and future needs, and prepare recommendations for changes and improvements in the areas of academic and administrative services, research and distance education.

Methodology
The following four steps are used in developing MET IT strategic plan:

1. Strategic assessment of key external trends
2. Analysis of MET business drivers
3. Review of IT Services strength, weaknesses and strategic issues
4. List strategic objectives and actions

 

Analysis of financial implications and critical success factors can be performed after IT strategic objectives are discussed and coordinated with the overall MET objectives.

1. Strategic assessment of key external trends

External Factor	Implications for IT Services
Increased demand for collaboration	Respond by offering technology and training to allow seamless communications across BU campuses, home offices, and travel locations.
Wide presence of Internet technologies in daily life	Enable secure wireless connectivity at MET locations, configure laptops and provide training as necessary.  Constantly look for new opportunities and evaluate emerging technology to provide state of the art service.
Increased workforce mobility	Continue and improve support for laptop computers, configure laptops for remote VPN access.  Provide remote access to key MET applications, web-enable key applications.
Security threats continue to grow	Establish and periodically review security requirements.  Evaluate user administration process to ensure appropriate password policies, authorization procedures and effective streamlined execution across all applications.  Develop a comprehensive security awareness program and use a range of educational, informational, technical and administrative tools to implement it.
Increased complexity of applications, increased need for information management (volumes, security/privacy)	Consolidate multiple data sources to increase accuracy, security and availability, design and implement database, application, web services and client access layers.  Security policies need to address information privacy.
Increased computerization of core business functions, and growing systems availability anmd support expectations	Evaluate the opportunities to setup additional classrooms and labs.  Maintain spare capacity. Re-evaluate staffing and skills requirements.  Look for opportunities to deliver basic user training.
Increased requirements for high job performance	Maintain sufficient number of spare ready-to-go systems to minimize downtime due to hardware failures or software/data corruptions. Streamline backup/restore procedures, make sure users are aware of retention policies

2. Analysis of MET business drivers

Business drivers	Implications for IT services
Establish academic domination of, and enhance links and improve coordination between, on-campus and extended programs	Allocate resources and funds to conduct research in the rapidly developing IT areas; work with MET faculty to develop advanced labs, new advanced class topics, etc.
Increase the availability of distance learning programs, while retaining strict academic controls and “branding”	Establish collaboration with department of distance education. Evaluate needs and offer IT support in the following areas: - Research of new technologies, tools, vendors; - Building test environments for new distance education technologies and tools - Providing support services in course development and course delivery; - Setting up a state of the art recording and teleconferencing studio.
Conserve financial resources without risking revenue generation or stifling new initiatives.	Maintain discount agreements for hardware and software for main applications and platforms.  Establish hardware replacement and software upgrades policies.  Maintain and extend video monitoring systems, include new locations.  Implement hardware and software standards; increase use of imaging to minimize installation and replacement costs.

3. Current Situation and Internal Assessment
For the past five years, IT needs of Metropolitan College and Extended Education have greatly expanded both in volume and in complexity.  This includes a growing number of MET departments, increased number of end users, higher demand for services and resources.  Specifically:

• Four new departments have been created - Distance Education, BU Global, Liberal Arts, and Center for Professional Education.
• Two additional locations (940 Comm. Ave. and 100 Cummington St.) were added to the existing two (755 and 808 Comm. Ave).
• The number of students using PC labs, web and database services has doubled.
• The number of classes conducted in PC labs has tripled.
• The number of personal computers (desktops and laptops) has doubled.
• Six new servers were added for software distribution, web and database services for students; administrative applications and UIS print services; PC imaging, security system with card access and video monitoring.
• IT infrastructure resources, including software and hardware, are now used to support classes for a very broad range of disciplines – administrative sciences, arts administration, actuarial sciences, computer science, and telecommunication to name just the larger programs.
• New labs in Enterprise Java Computing, OPNET, Biometrics, and Digital Forensics were added.
• New educational approaches (e.g. distant education) have emerged.

MET IT Services SWOT Analysis

Strength Strong support from management Highly qualified faculty can provide expertise in key IT areas Strong relationship with central BU UIS/IT departments Alliances with leading technology companies	Weaknesses Key processes rely on fragmented home-grown systems and data Small full-time staff high turnover of students employees No formal information management policy No space and funds for research-supporting environments
Opportunities Establish close collaboration with faculty and departments Leverage new technologies to increase productivity Improve information management, consolidate data Build test environments to support distance education and IT research	Threats High level of labs and support services and distance education availability from competition Business disruptions due to security breach, data loss or system outage Fall behind in monitoring rapid technology advances and Distance learning delivery methods and tools

4. List of strategic objectives and actions

• Develop expertise on new Information Technologies - identify emerging technologies and evaluate selected ones to determine potential benefit to MET and Extended Education.
• Provide IT value to faculty, staff and students - maintain, update and improve the quality and timeliness of IT services and support, communicate and interact with users to build awareness of the services we provide. Create a balance between standardization and meeting non-standard business requirements.
• Systems Infrastructure – maintain and update existing information technology systems, develop and maintain new information management system and tools.
• Security & Disaster Recovery - update existing and create new IT security systems and policies to ensure the integrity, availability and privacy of the data and systems operated by MET and BU.
• Operational Excellence - implement operational best practices to provide availability, reliability and performance of IT services.
• IT staff development - improve the expertise of staff by training existing members and hiring new employees with the skills and knowledge to meet our current and future challenges.  Position the group to grow from implementers and service providers to strategic differentiators and key partners in the education process.