OIT Annual Report

Our values:

• We listen to and respect our technologists, students, staff, and faculty.
• We provide operational excellence through efficient, sustainable, secure, accessible, and stable technology.
• We strive for exemplary customer service across all OIT departments.
• We encourage creative and critical thinking in our solutions, practices, and operations.
• We are dedicated to a team environment through diverse perspectives, sharing knowledge, and building relationships.
• We leverage open communication, accountability and thoughtful business processes.

• Keep Score: We measure our work, share those measurements, and fix what’s broken.
• Free the Data: Consistent with data governance, privacy, export control, and other applicable laws, we make data accessible and usable to our staff and clientele.
• Concept of One: We align our IT services to reduce duplication of effort and services. Do it once. Do it right. Use it everywhere. We use one technology, not multiple, to do the same thing.
• Which leads to the Concept of Zero: Don’t do it at all. Let someone bigger do it.
• Cybersecurity: We strive to keep Boise State safe, compliant, and secure.
• Stop Doing Stuff: To implement new technology we may need to stop supporting old technology, especially when it is inefficient, of limited use, or past reasonable support and maintenance lifecycles.
• IT Rationalization: We evaluate the proper sourcing of our technology. Looking first to the cloud, sometimes we build, buy, outsource, or partner to focus on value-added IT services.
• Future-Proofing our Technology: We select sustainable and compatible technology solutions.
• Team Sport: We stand on the shoulders of others. We learn from others. We borrow from others.
• Value the Human: The human factor is important to the use of technology.
• Change is Inevitable: Technology constantly changes, and change creates opportunities.
• IT Governance: Our projects and initiatives are guided by university strategies in collaboration with the Information Technology Planning Council (ITPC), VP Council, colleges, and departments as appropriate.
• Consolidate Technical Services and Support: Centralization of commodity technology can improve consistency and quality of support, and increase efficiency and effectiveness. This requires leveraging current resources to grow services and/or reduce costs. Commodity technology includes desktop support, classroom tech support, server and storage support, and networking. Continue to look for opportunities to consolidate department commodity technology into OIT

OIT Strategic Objectives

• • Boise State University will develop and maintain a robust, multi-tiered staff support environment that meets the diverse levels and specific needs of our university community, allowing community members to effectively use the university’s technology resources.
  • Boise State University will build and maintain a sound, advanced, secure, and productive physical IT infrastructure capable of supporting broad and effective use by students, faculty, and staff throughout the institution in Boise and beyond.
  • Boise State University will cultivate excellent teaching and learning using appropriate and innovative technologies and processes.
  • Boise State University will develop, integrate, and maintain IT resources; and acquire, develop and deploy information systems, applications, and tools enabling effective and efficient function of the university as an enterprise.
  • OIT will plan and implement specific organizational initiatives to improve quality and effectiveness.
  • Boise State University will advance research through innovative technical partnerships and sponsored program development to support a robust cyberinfrastructure.

IT Governance FY2023 Projects and Initiatives

Implement University Large Development Information Technology Projects as approved and prioritized by the Executive Council and IT Planning Committee (ITPC) as resources allow. There are currently (April 2023) 16+ active approved projects.  See the current active and approved ITPC listed here.

• Salesforce Student Success Hub implementation in support of general advising.
• Implement Salesforce Marketing Cloud for college and department use.
• Implement Next Frontier – Data Ecosystem Assessment by implementing next generation data and reporting infrastructure,  delivering reports/dashboards to support critical operational and strategic decision-making. Implement a uniform one-stop reporting gateway to access university student, financial, and operational data.
• Create and implement an Identity and Access Management roadmap to move university user authentication, and access to resources, to a modern cloud-0based Active Directory/ADFS role-based model over the next three years. Eliminate 250,000+ inactive accounts.
• Information about additional Large IT Development Projects is available here.

• Evolve and enhance Boise State Mobile and myBoiseState to be the mobile app and website of choice for Boise State students, faculty, and staff.
• Provide researchers with access to high-performance computing resources, expertise, and support. Determine a five-year master plan for research computing infrastructure.
• Acquire, Deploy, Support, and Utilize R3, Boise State’s Next HPC cluster: In partnership with Idaho Power and Idaho National Labs (INL), utilizing the new Collaborative Computing Center (C3) located at INL in Idaho Falls.
• Continue to expand and optimize cybersecurity effectiveness through the adoption of Center for Internet Security (CIS) Critical Controls and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework while continually gauging effectiveness against industry peers. Continue to mature and refine data and network compliance.
• Expand network redundancy and make architectural improvements to support modern educational needs, research and cloud access. Implement a sustainable network funding model.
• Build and implement a three to five-year master plan for technical infrastructure and our hybrid cloud (AWS, SAAS, and Boise State) architecture including investment and funding model. Build and maintain multi-year expense projections for Compute, Storage, and Network asset replacement.
• Partner with the Office of Budget and Planning on applying the RCM budget model to OIT.
• Continue to lead campus efforts in understanding and reacting to new generation of generative AI as it applies to education. Success will be measured as campus resources, workshops, and other activities are developed and presented.
• Expand and refine the role of IT Project Governance.
• Annual Career Progression and Salary Planning for OIT staff that supports workforce development and retention.