Office of the CIO Annual Achievement Report

Who We Are

The Office of the Chief Information Officer encompasses CIO core services, plus the Office of Information Technology, and Technology Enhanced Learning and Research, and employs 360 staff and 250 students. The organization consists of the following:

Chief Information Officer core services. The core CIO Office provides IT leadership, policy-making, planning, communications, innovation, outreach, cybersecurity, project management, and technology support services, and oversees the operations of the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and Technology Enhanced Learning and Research (TELR). The CIO office also maintains liaisons with many university entities including the Research Computing Advisory Committee, the CIO stakeholder group of college and business unit representatives, University Libraries, Legal Affairs, University Internal Audit, University Relations, and the University Senate Council on Libraries and Information Technology governance committee.

The Office of Information Technology. OIT has the larger staff, budget base, and revenues of the CIO’s two operating units. OIT provisions, operates, and maintains the university’s wired and wireless networks, telephone systems, central e-mail system, and web servers; supports the university’s administrative systems for human resources, finance, grants, research, students, and alumni; and offers many technical services in support of eLearning and classroom activities. All are mission-critical, utility-grade communication, collaboration, and business and academic infrastructures for the entire university community.

Technology Enhanced Learning and Research. TELR is a growing CIO operating unit increasingly essential to the university’s teaching, learning, and research enterprise. In addition to supporting Carmen, the university course management system, TELR provides many eLearning services including providing the academic community with innovative instructional and new media support, and researching and assessing new and emerging learning and knowledge management technologies. TELR staff are national leaders in developing eLearning policies and guidelines, building eLearning business cases, and managing academic technology projects.

Core Values
Our core values–accountability, teamwork, integrity, excellence, and respect–guide us as we interact in many venues with faculty, students, staff, customers, partners, vendors, and the public.

Mission
Our individual offices embrace the core values and maintain complementary mission statements that, while differing in details, all focus on the objective to improve the teaching, learning, research, and administration of the university through the innovative applications of technology, enhanced by sound leadership, policy development, and coordination.

Vision
Our collective vision is captured best in the vision of PlanIT, the Information Technology Strategic Plan:

The Ohio State University will be recognized among its peer institutions as a premier provider of infrastructure, services and support to facilitate the innovative use of technology for teaching, learning, research, and outreach, as envisioned in the Academic Plan.

Goals
Provide reliable, collaborative, and visionary technology leadership that considers emerging technologies and reflects the needs of the diverse university community.

Deliver responsive, efficient, and effective instructional and administrative technology services to university constituents.

Enable and support a dependable, scalable, and cost effective technology infrastructure for the university enterprise.

Information Technology Strategic Plan
PlanIT, Ohio State's Information Technology Strategic Plan, continues to guide the university in creating and sustaining a dynamic IT infrastructure and services. The IT Plan's Strategic Initiatives define specific directions for Ohio State's information technology in support of the Academic Plan. Work is well under way on many of them; some are still incubating, and at least one, the development of a university-wide course management system, is essentially realized. The initiatives guide our day-to-day and year-to-year activities and constitute the structure of the Achievement Report.

We have learned through the PlanIT process that certain circumstances must exist to move technology forward at Ohio State. We call them Critical Success Factors, of which there are five:
- Engaged leadership
- Sound and enabling infrastructure
- Seamless and secure access to systems and the Internet
- Knowledgeable and empowered users
- Collaborative, cooperative, sharing atmosphere