Information Technology Strategic Plan Version 1.1, January, 2018

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Table of Contents ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Introduction Mission, Vision and Values Trends in Higher Education and Information Technology Strategic Framework and Priorities Effort and Impact of Strategic Priorities Strategic Initiatives Roadmap with Cost and Benefits Appendix

Introduction It is my pleasure to introduce the next chapter in the Information Technology Strategic Plan. Technology is integral to the teaching, learning and administrative processes that enable academic and student life at Bentley University. Over the past 20 years, Bentley has built its reputation in large part on providing its faculty, students and staff access to cutting-edge technology. The Bentley Information Technology (IT) Team continues to build upon that reputation and support the mission of the University through the implementation of technology solutions that engage and empower the Bentley community.

Strategic Priorities ● Teaching and Learning ● Research and Scholarship ● Student Services & Administration ● Common Platforms ● Foundational Strategies

In 2000 when Bentley was branded the “Business School for The Information Age,” we invested in curriculum strategies that infused technologies into our programs and physical plant. We saw the rise of Academic Technology including high-tech learning centers, synchronous online learning, collaborative learning spaces and building the Smith Technology Center. However, during the economic downturn of the mid-2000s, investment in IT was curtailed and we entered a period of sustaining, not expanding or investing. As a result, entering this period of strategic plan development, we recognize that we need to invest in new and previously deferred areas. This includes appropriate staffing to meet the needs identified by trends and strategic initiatives identified in this plan. The Information Technology Strategy describes how Bentley can best use technology to develop learning environments, research resources and administrative processes that support traditional and online learning, digital scholarship, a rich and engaging student life, and the efficient and safe operation of the University. In addition, it outlines the common platforms and foundational technologies necessary to maintain sustainable and secure technology that manages risk and costs within a future-facing architecture. We are committed to engaging and empowering the Bentley community with technology solutions that enable and enhance the University’s mission to educate creative, ethical and socially responsible leaders. With warm regards,

Bob Wittstein CIO, Bentley University

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Mission Engage and empower the Bentley community with technology solutions that enable and enhance the educational mission of the University by: ● creating extensive and seamless access to information ● providing essential tools to support teaching, learning and research ● collaborating through governance to deliver initiatives that position Bentley to meet current and future needs

Vision To be the technology leader and innovative partner to the Bentley community enabling the University to meet the challenges of emerging trends in higher education with transformational solutions that improve teaching, learning, research and student life.

Values ACCOUNTABLE

We say what we do and we do what we say.

USER FOCUSED

We consider the impact on people.

COLLABORATIVE

We embrace community partnerships.

INNOVATIVE

We are creative and reward risk taking.

OPEN

We are honest and readily share what we know.

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Trends in Higher Education Our physical, technological and human environment, which is designed to meet the dynamic, changing learning environment that characterizes higher education today, is one of our foundational investments and crucial for us to achieve our vision and meet our goals. Constantly updating and improving these environments will support and enhance student life and diversity at Bentley. Paraphrased from the Bentley University Strategy Technology underpins everything we do in higher education, from student life and digital courseware to new research discoveries and data mining. Students have come to expect a college education to be technologically rich in both their learning and living experiences. Students and faculty have high levels of interest in using technology to enhance teaching, learning and research and to communicate new knowledge to a broader academic community. Emerging classroom technologies have the potential to improve student learning and achievement and better prepare them for the future. Additionally, newer technologies create opportunities for more efficient and cost effective processes for university operations and the delivery of quality services in a secure and sustainable manner. The Bentley CIO Team has examined these and other top trends in higher education that impact the management and delivery of information technology (IT) and library services for the betterment of student learning and life, faculty teaching and research and administration. Focusing on annual trends published by Gartner, the Educause Center for Analytics and Research and the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Team has chosen to focus on those trends that most influence teaching and learning, research and scholarship, student services and administration.

Teaching and Learning Future Trends Flexible classroom design fosters collaboration and communication among students and faculty and promotes a sense of well-being while maximizing learning. Responsive design courses are accessible on all devices and platforms and offer an increased level of student interaction and engagement. Improving faculty experience in online environments to deliver synchronous and asynchronous learning is paramount to the support of the learning goals of higher education institutions. Bentley Current State Bentley has been a leader in offering hybrid or blended learning opportunities. Traditional classrooms are being transformed into active learning spaces that foster collaboration and communication among students and faculty and enhance student participation and engagement. Bentley has a history of setting up unique learning environments in centers such as the Trading Room, CMT and ACELAB. With the success of the collaboratory model demonstrated in the MBA studio, more faculty are requesting this type of classroom. This has resulted in the development of two more rooms of this nature in Smith and four planned for the newly renovated Jennison building. Moving Forward Our strategy will be to examine ways to improve both synchronous learning, as well as expand asynchronous opportunities. We will continue to explore optimal learning environments. The strategy will also promote improvements to classroom technology to measure, collect and analyze student academic and other institutional data to improve student learning and predict educational outcomes.

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Research and Scholarship Data Analytics and Digital Repositories Future Trends Scholarly activities occur in a distributed and broad manner and are supported by new research accessible through local, open repositories of data, works and ideas. Data science has emerged as an essential tool in decision making, innovation and research. Academic libraries are poised to support digital scholarship originating from multiple departments on campus and bringing them together in one central location. These repositories provide an efficient way to access big data for more collaborative and interactive research to generate new scholarship. Library science has the goal of organizing, disseminating and communicating information. Data science with its abundance of datasets and new results is in need of the librarian's skill set to organize these datasets and results, and communicate their value to a wider audience. The fusion of these disciplines will support the creation of citizen data scientists, non-experts who understand and can communicate the importance of data science in a larger context. Bentley Current State Employer demand for new hires with data analytics skills has grown significantly in recent years. Through a collaboration between the Mathematical Sciences and Information Technology departments, research on big data and big data systems is underway. This initiative is focused on helping students, faculty and researchers gain insights about data, how it works, how it is tied together and even make decisions based on these observations. Alternatives for platforms are being evaluated in support of faculty research requiring the manipulation of large data sets. Moving Forward With the advent of Bentley’s data science initiative there is an opportunity for librarians to coordinate and assist researchers by advancing the discoverability of big data and fostering the development of new knowledge through the archiving, preservation and presentation of digital resources. Therefore our strategy includes research support and an initiative around Data Science as well as improved access to scholarship. 8

Research and Scholarship Information Literacy Future Trends According to a 2014 survey, librarians are taking a bigger role in integrating information literacy skills into the curriculum through one-shot classes, embedded librarianship, collaborative planning with faculty and workshops geared toward improving students’ research and writing skills. In addition, librarians are increasingly called upon to document and articulate the value of the library and its contribution to the institutional mission and goals. Ongoing assessment and accountability are crucial to demonstrating the library’s performance in a meaningful way to the university. Bentley Current State The mission of the Library’s information literacy program is to teach concepts to and cultivate skills in students that will allow them to frame research processes successfully and to critically evaluate information as students, post graduates, workers and informed citizens. We do this by collaborating with Arts and Sciences and Business faculty to ensure that assignments support teaching students how to find, access and evaluate information and to understand the ethical, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information. Moving Forward The Bentley Library Assessment Team was created to harness data that would inform the library’s contribution to student achievement, faculty research and institutional affordability. With increased expectations for information resources to be delivered quickly and at the point of need, the library will harvest usage statistics to evaluate which resources provide the most information-rich content in multiple formats and across multiple devices. At the same time, the library will explore new technologies that contribute to a more collaborative, interactive learning environment and maintain its reputation as the user-centered, service-rich intellectual center on campus. 9

Student Services and Administration Future Trends According to the New Media Consortium Horizon Report: 2016 Higher Education Edition, there is a growing focus on measuring learning, advancing cultures of innovation and rethinking how institutions work. From the student’s perspective, we will be expected to provide them with a digital environment that accommodates their lifestyle including ubiquitous connectivity, a mobile, simple, intuitive Student Information System (SIS) and engaging communication. Organizations are using the wealth of data being captured from research, social media, traditional and non-traditional sources to provide excellent learning opportunities, support for new technologies (e.g. Internet of Things) and to develop student-driven, personalized learning and living experiences. Bentley Current State Faculty, students and staff currently interact administratively using a 25-year old, unintuitive business and student information system (SIS) which does not lend itself to providing the digital administrative experience people have come to expect from their online transactional lives (e.g. Amazon) In addition, a student’s experience is not administratively seamless. Students are required to access multiple systems to perform different tasks such as submitting work orders, registering for courses, selecting housing or completing assignments. Bentley is implementing Workday, a modern, cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, as its unified HR, Finance and Student system. With Workday, Bentley will consolidate its current patchwork quilt of applications, simplifying support and maintenance while also expanding functionality for students, faculty, staff and alumni. Over the next three years, as we build out more functionality within the Workday platform, older technologies will exist alongside newer ones, making the systems landscape more complex. Additionally, Bentley is investing in Technolutions' Slate for Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions to support the mission-critical Enrollment Management area. This cloud-based platform will bring a more seamless, positive prospective student experience as well as streamlined back-office activities. While some work is being done in the area of measuring learning and outcomes, it is rudimentary at best. There are pockets of research being done to use Bentley’s data to identify and support learning opportunities and classroom innovation, but it is not yet a cohesive, enterprise-wide initiative. 10

Student Services and Administration (continued) Moving Forward Bentley will continue to build on the modern Workday platform, as well as deploy the Slate platform in support of mission-critical Graduate and Undergraduate Admissions activities. When the Workday Admissions product has matured, we will migrate Admissions activities into Workday. Workday and Slate are modern, cloud-based systems which provide a fresh, personalized and collaborative experience as well as greatly enhanced data-driven functionality and reporting. These platforms will improve the recruit, applicant, student and alumni experience. By building this solid foundation, we will be able to offer faculty a 360-degree view of their students to enhance learning opportunities and help identify at-risk students and work toward digitizing the student lifecycle, measuring student engagement and successes both inside and outside of the classroom. These initiatives are part of our SaaS and cloud-first roadmap that will move applications into the cloud so we can leverage its scale, flexibility and reliability. Doing so will allow IT to spend less time managing data centers and infrastructure, and more time on providing strategic services along with collaborative and innovative solutions to our community. Modernizing our technology footprint offers Bentley the opportunity to change the way we work by reexamining and redesigning outdated business processes to increase efficiency. At the same time, we will address infrastructure capacity considerations as personal devices become more prevalent. We will also proactively increase our cybersecurity posture and awareness as cybersecurity threats continue to evolve. Finally, we will develop a strong data governance framework to enable data-driven decision-making while keeping data safe and secure. 11

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Strategic Framework and Priorities

Effort and Impact of Strategic Priorities There are numerous other initiatives that will help move the University forward in a strategic manner, but that would fall outside of this magnified view. The initiatives identified in this most current version of the IT Strategy are the most urgent. Please see the appendix for a continuing list of strategic initiatives. Changes in our environment will make these lists fluid.

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Teaching and Learning Focus on the core mission of the University.

Initiative 1-1: Enrich Scholarly Activities and Student Learning - Empower faculty with state-of-the-art learning management systems, video capturing and hosting, web conferencing, online surveys and other academic, information and communication tools and resources. Initiative 1-2: Deliver High-Quality Online Education - Research, evaluate and adopt tools for delivering teaching and learning content in synchronous, asynchronous and hybrid formats. Initiative 1-3: Support for Classrooms, Specialty Labs and Learning Spaces - Support technology needs for all specialty labs. Design, build and promote active learning spaces and traditional classrooms for an enhanced student engagement and experience. Provide support for academic and classroom technology needs including lecterns (podiums), audio visual (AV), conferencing and presentation tools. Initiative 1-4: Learning Analytics - Collaborate with departments on campus to build a data model and implement solutions for measuring student outcomes and detecting early signs of reduced performance.

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Research and Scholarship Focus on supporting research through collections, technology and data that support scholarship and collaboration.

Initiative 2-1: Provide Research Support & Computational Resources - provide an environment that enables and supports all faculty research initiatives, advise on research analysis and data gathering methodologies, promote cross-discipline collaboration, develop and support research networks, enable scholarly communication and provide researchers with greater access to computing resources and other research communities via the high speed research network (i.e., Internet2). Initiative 2-2: Support Data Science Initiatives - Develop infrastructure, capabilities and expertise to support data science initiatives in research and teaching. Integrate Bentley data science into local academic, technical and business communities. Initiative 2-3: Provide Access to Information Resources - Expand and maintain the library's collections and provide access to information resources that support and strengthen teaching, learning, scholarship and research. Create, disseminate and preserve knowledge for teaching, research and scholarship through an open access repository.

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Student Services and Administration Focus on delivering student services and applications that are efficient, cost effective and meet the compliance requirements of the University. Initiative 3-1: Workday Banner Replacement - Replace Bentley’s 25-year-old Banner system with Workday Human Resources and Payroll (January 2017), Finance (October 2018) and Student (2019) to improve efficiency, access to data and timely reporting for decision making. Initiative 3-2: Access to Institutional Data and Systems Integration - Build a strong data governance framework that ties together key enterprise systems such as Workday, Slate, Millennium and academic systems to simplify data sharing and collaboration. Improve Bentley’s enterprise reporting strategy to support daily operations and management decision making. Initiative 3-3: Support Enrollment Management Capabilities - Implement Technolutions' Slate in Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions to create a seamless, easy, and positive experience for prospective students. This new cloud-based platform will also streamline administrative Admissions.

Initiative 3-4: Support for Student Systems and Student Needs - Implement CourseLeaf academic catalog software to improve access to and features of the published catalog including curriculum planning and progress-to-graduation. Improve student leave of absence reporting. Implement Adirondack Housing Director solution to manage $50M housing operations. Implement Workday Student to improve all aspects of the student lifecycle from registration to student advising.

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Common Platforms Implement Common Platforms to facilitate the sharing of information and simplify the deployment and support of technology for the community. Initiative 4-1: Identity and Access Management (IAM)/Account Creation and Provisioning Management of “digital identities” to ensure users have appropriate and effortless access to systems and services regardless of technology or service provider.

Initiative 4-2: IT Service Management - Implement a service management methodology across IT and procure an ITSM tool to institute best practices in the areas of change control, incident management, problem management, release management and asset management, while also building the foundation for resource management and change management database (CMDB). Initiative 4-3: Cloud including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) - Develop a Cloud computing strategy for services that leverage shared infrastructure and applications, which by design minimizes risk and provides greater functionality and agility in support of the work of faculty, students and staff. Initiative 4-4: Wireless / Cellular - Enhance the campus experience by providing seamless access to services and information via wireless, cellular and IPTV throughout the Bentley campus. Implement, integrate and upgrade access/security systems in support of campus safety and enhance the student residential experience. Initiative 4-5: Collaboration Tools - Enhance the current collaboration environment through the introduction and implementation of Office 365 (O365) while also building the foundation and infrastructure for academic and research collaboration through InCommons and Internet2 (I2). Leverage Microsoft cloud based services (O365) to provide email, calendaring, document sharing and editing, data storage (cloud drive), video chat and project sites for both internal and external collaboration. Take advantage of the high speed research network (I2) to provide Bentley access to technology services via volume contracts. Initiative 4-6: Workflow/Imaging - Implement Jadu, an enterprise e-forms/workflow solution. Complete the ImageNow implementation in Undergraduate Academic Advising. Consider requested ImageNow implementations in Finance, HR, Advancement and the Library. Initiative 4-7: Video - Provide a platform for faculty, students and staff to create, store, retrieve and archive videos including support for digital accessibility.

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Foundational Strategies Implement core building blocks of information technology required for the basic operations of the University, including those of the IT department. Initiative 5-1: Enterprise Architecture – Design solutions around efficient processes that drive application, data and infrastructure design. Design networks to ensure secure and seamless integration of data and applications regardless of location or platform. Develop an enterprise architecture that consolidates applications and data on Software as a Service platforms (Saas) and frees up resources to support the strategic goals of the University. Initiative 5-2: Information Security – Establish a security strategy that maps to the Internet Security Consortium’s System Administration, Networking & Security (SANS) top 20 critical controls. Ensure that applications and infrastructure have guidelines for preventing information security breaches for both in-house and external solutions. Build awareness of security best practices throughout the University. Establish incident management processes. Initiative 5-3: IT Governance and PMO/VMO - Create a Program Management Office (PMO), Vendor Management Office (VMO) and an outsourcing strategy to manage the changing technology landscape at Bentley and successfully align IT resources with University strategic goals. Initiative 5-4: Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - Develop and implement a plan for allowing Bentley to continue vital operations from the cloud or an off-site location in the event of a disaster. Initiative 5-5: IT Organization, Culture and Skills - Establish the IT mission, vision, values and goals. Establish an IT training program. Reorganize to support the IT strategy. Build a mission driven, goal oriented and value based IT organization starting with the establishment of the Information Technology mission and vision. Shift the IT culture toward the values of A-UCIO or Accountable, User focus, Collaborative, Innovative and Open. Establish cascading goals throughout the organization to drive the future strategy and roadmap. Assess the organization’s structure and skills for applicability to new and more effective service delivery technologies and reorganize and provide skills training where applicable.

Roadmap with Cost and Benefits This is a high-level view of the activities, costs and benefits that will take place over the next 5 years directly in support the Strategic Initiatives defined in this document.

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This publication can be found online at http://www.bentley.edu/it/strategicplan © Bentley University, 2016 175 Forest Street Waltham, Massachusetts 02452 USA

APPENDIX IT 90 DAY ASSESSMENT BOB WITTSTEIN - MAY 2016

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