Research Administration Divisional IT Governance

The objective of the Research Administration Divisional IT Governance is to provide a transparent process designed to consistently receive, evaluate, and, when applicable, approve IT software and service(s) procurement requests. This process will take place in a public and inclusive manner.

The primary goals of the Research Administration Divisional IT Governance will be:

  1. To ensure all ORA Departments are aware of proposed IT procurement requests, in order to gain economies of scale among all departments, where applicable.
  2. To ensure the IT procurement will promote software/service(s) consolidation, where possible.
  3. To ensure the IT procurement will promote data sharing within both the Division and University, where possible.

As Research Administration's IT initiatives vary in size from individual to enterprise-level, not all topics will be deemed sufficiently impactful to be presented to the ORA Senior Leadership (SLT). To ensure only appropriate requests are brought before SLT, a selection threshold has been set:

A threshold for SLT-qualifying items is either a budget of more than $500 USD or an estimated effort of 20 or more hours.

The structure dictates that the request be sent to the Director of ORA IT and ORA VP first. If a decision cannot be achieved or if further clarifications are needed, then the proposal will be moved to SLT for consideration. The requestor(s) will be provided an opportunity to present and justify the request before SLT. SLT will evaluate and approve or deny IT requests based on the strategic merit and value to the Division and University as a whole.

The process would be guided by the workflow outlined below:

  1. The requestl will be submitted to the Director of ORA-IT and the ORA VP

  2. If an Approve/Deny decision cannot be reached, or if further clarification is needed, then the proposal will be sent to SLT for further research and consideration.

  3. The requestor(s) will be provided an opportunity to present and justify the request before SLT.

  4. SLT will evaluate the basis for the request and all pertinent information related to it, considering strategic merit and overall value to the Division and University, before making a final Approve or Deny decision concerning the request.