Ohio University's Office of Information Technology, under the leadership of its new chief information officer, is moving into another phase of a strategy to build up the under-funded and under-staffed department.
The university announced July 16 that Brice Bible, chief information officer, had completed his 75-day plan, which he had told the Board of Trustees at their April meeting would be completed July 1.
In that time, he created an IT governance council, worked on the department's budget for the next financial year and reviewed an independent consultant's report on IT services at the university.
Bible's next major project, a strategic plan for IT, will not be completed until after the IT advisory council meets to help determine what direction it should take, Bible said.
Since security breaches brought national media attention to the university last spring and exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands to hackers, IT has had three leadership changes, hired two outside consultants and announced it will reorganize twice.
The university hired Bible on April 16, at an annual salary of $210,000, to get IT back on track. During his fifth day on the job, he told the trustees that $7 million to $10 million was needed to bring IT up to speed and that he was beginning his 75-day plan.
What I put together is some strategic direction
Bible said, adding that he hopes to have a regularly updated two-year plan to guide IT for the foreseeable future.
Quarterly progress reviews, the details of which will be determined by the IT advisory council, and a yearly comprehensive program evaluation will measure IT's success.
A $2 million budget increase, announced at the June trustees' meeting, is intended to fund additional security staff and fill other critical technical staff positions Bible identified to the board on April 20. An independent consultant found the university employs 57 percent less full-time equivalencies'total full-time jobs'than its university peers.
IT also will install additional firewalls to protect sensitive areas within the university network, including the university's data center that houses its servers. After last spring, when it was discovered that five university servers had been compromised and their data exposed to hackers, the university installed a perimeter firewall.
A firewall by itself is not enough Bible said. You want to have a security in-depth approach. He added that the university will begin a security-awareness campaign during the next academic year. That campaign will include security seminars available to faculty and students.
During Bible's tenure, the name of the university's IT organization has also changed. It is no longer Unified Information Technology. Instead, it is the Office of Information Technology
During the tenure of interim-CIO Shawn Ostermann, IT staffers were asked to suggest a new name, which was selected from a list of 14 submissions. Although that list was compiled before Feb. 14, no decision was made until Bible took office.
Before he left office, Ostermann said he was waiting for University Communications and Marketing to approve the name. No official announcement of the name change was ever made
After last spring's security problems, former CIO Bill Sams first combined central IT's two divisions'Computer Services and Communication Network Services'into a new umbrella organization he called Computer and Network Services. He later changed the organization's official name to Unified IT.
In March, Sams said Unified IT was a placeholder name he had created. Allowing staff to work on a new name was a good idea, because it gives people a sense of ownership in the new organization, he said. After that interview, Sams has refused to speak about his two-year tenure as CIO.
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Dave Hendricks
