INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Investing for the Future
As a service-driven organization, University Information Technology (UIT) provides
over 100 essential services to faculty, staff and students. These range from critical
niche services like Classroom Technologies to large-scale systems such as Networking,
PeopleSoft and Microsoft productivity tools that serve the entire university community.
Resource management in UIT is both adaptive and responsive. UIT annually reallocates
space, funding and human capital as circumstances and demands change, shifting resources
to sunrise services for emergent needs, support growth and sustain services in key
areas, and suspend or sunset services with reduced demand. By staying focused on university
goals, customer needs and legal/policy requirements, UIT ensures efficient use of
resources to maintain a nimble service environment and infrastructure. You can see
this principle at work in the Strategic Planning Process described on page 11 and
in the Alignment of Priorities to the goals of the university, the UH System and the
State of Texas Department of Information Resources on pages 12-13.
Rather than seeing Information Technology as an expense, it is better to view it as
an investment in an essential, strategic asset, and as a means to advance the university’s
goals for student success, research and community engagement. Consider the Peer Benchmarks
tables to see how UH compares to state and national peers in IT investment. Yes, prudent
budget management and cost control are important, and are practiced throughout UIT.
But IT’s greatest value is in fostering innovation to make processes less costly and
laborious, freeing humans to do the things humans do best — for the university, for
each other and, most of all, for the students. As an investment, Information Technology
is indispensable.