Information Resources - 2020 Strategic Plan

Message from the Associate Provost for Information Resources…

I am pleased to present Information Resources’ 2020 Strategic Plan. The plan is designed to support the strategic priorities of the College, while providing innovative library and technology services to individuals. The goals will cause us to stretch, but I am confident in our ability to achieve every one of them. We set the bar high, but we did so knowing it will make us better. The objectives are multi-faceted projects, and will require collaboration, professional development and resources. While the goals are fixed, the objectives to achieve them will adapt over the five year period of the plan. Each year in our annual report, Information Resources will report on our progress to achieve the goals and objectives of the plan.

Before creating the strategic plan, the Information Resources Leadership Team: Dan Sidebottom (Director of Administrative Computing), Gail Wood (Director of Libraries), Jeff Dmochowski (Director of Networking and Telecommunications), Joshua Peluso (Director of Systems Administration and Web Services), Lisa Kahle (Director of Campus Technology Services) and I revised Information Resources’ mission, vision and values. It was important to us that before we could begin drafting our strategic plan, we agreed on who we are, who we want to be, and the shared values we all hold dear.

Amy Berg

Associate Provost for Information Resources

Mission Statement:

Information Resources supports the College community by providing information services and technology environments that enable the teaching, learning, scholarly creation, and operational goals of SUNY Cortland’s diverse constituencies.

Vision Statement:

Information Resources will be recognized as a high performance team that aspires to provide information and technology excellence through reliable, creative solutions to advance learning, teaching, research, and critical inquiry in alignment with SUNY Cortland’s mission and goals.

Values:

Mutual RESPECT: the ability to see and appreciate the value in ourselves and others.

We believe in...

• Showing kindness and consideration while seeking to find the best in others.
• Trust, honesty, and openness.
• Empathetic listening, seek first to understand
• Civility, treating all others with dignity, compassion, and thoughtfulness.
• Being accepting, considerate, attentive, encouraging, and appreciative of all.

COLLABORATION: fostering partnerships both inside and outside SUNY Cortland in the pursuit of information solutions.

We believe in...

• Listening, understanding, and engaging campus constituents and colleagues.
• Working together as an effective team.
• Encouraging open and transparent communication.

SERVICE: providing dependable, knowledgeable, and helpful assistance focused on students, faculty, staff, and community.

We believe in...

• Showing a "can-do," friendly attitude.
• Fostering critical thinking and inquiry.
• Teaching information and technology literacy with an impact on learning.
• Continuous learning, professional development, and improvement.

We believe in...

• Promoting imagination and researching new ideas to answer critical issues.
• Nurturing creativity and curiosity.
• Providing opportunities by fostering learning through exploration.

HONESTY: committed to personal and institutional integrity in all we do.

We believe in...

• Speaking with truthfulness and sincerity as a foundation upon which to build relationships.
• Holding ourselves and our organization accountable.
• Being transparent and authentic in our words and actions to ensure our communications.

Strategic Goals and Objectives

1. Leverage existing, emerging, and innovative technologies to strengthen the College’s administrative and academic systems in order to improve services, reduce costs and support data-driven decision-making. 

1. Develop information systems to support data-driven decision-making.
2. Develop an online forms repository including business workflow.
3. Work together with appropriate constituencies to establish a sustainable funding and support model.
4. Offer a safe and well maintained library that offers group and individual study, in-person, telephone, and online assistance, online and print resources, certification testing, technology labs, and technologically enhanced spaces.
5. Develop a hybrid technology approach that involves a blend of many strategies to effectively deliver services to the campus.
6. Develop a long term plan for deploying virtual desktop infrastructure and virtual application infrastructure appropriately to promote accessibility anytime, anywhere.
7. Establish formal project management tools, processes and roles.
8. Develop best practices for shared tools.

2. Partner with campus constituencies to identify and implement applications and services which will enhance collaboration, teaching, learning and the business functions of the college utilizing industry best practices and serving the largest audience possible.

1. Strengthen and enhance the technology ecosystem to support new and existing technologies in a secure and scalable framework.

2. Provide professional development opportunities for Information Resources librarians and staff to advance their skills and knowledge in their respective areas of expertise.  

3. Develop Information Resources searchable knowledge base. 

4. Continue to enhance and evolve the campus’ enterprise student information system.

5. Work to continuously improve information security procedures, policies and awareness.

6. Provide a stable, secure and efficient infrastructure with appropriate disaster recovery and best practices operations to meet and exceed the needs of the campus community.  

7. Provide best in class network infrastructure to promote greater performance, reliability, security, and capacity while maximizing resources and reducing costs. 

8. Provide training and support of available collaboration tools and increase the knowledge of their availability to academic and administrative users. 

3. Create an environment in which technology is ubiquitous, transparent, seamless and accessible.

   This environment will leverage the capabilities of a variety of end-user devices as equally as possible, including users who may not have up-to-date technology.

1. Provide College users anytime anywhere access to information technology applications and services.
2. Ensure an appropriate level of Internet service for off campus, college-approved applications and online resources.

3. Partner with campus users to select appropriate applications and hosting source: cloud-based or local.
   Develop and improve campus web services to provide dynamic user experiences and device specific display of content.
   Provide pervasive, high-speed, wireless network access.
    

4. Balance traditional library services and emerging technologies to best serve the needs of students, faculty, staff, and community.

5. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

   Provide a means for campus community members to effectively utilize their own technology devices and develop policies and education to support their use.  Re-direct savings into classroom and virtual technologies to continue enhancement of user’s personal device experience.

4. Expand the use of existing and new information resources to enhance learning, teaching and research.

   Information Resources will develop and enhance information technology resources and services that promote effective and innovative use by faculty in teaching to enable students' scholarly achievement.

1. Promote and develop strong information literacy teaching, training, consultation, and collaboration with students, faculty and staff.

2. Work with campus partners to increase participation in e-Learning.

3. Continually assess software capabilities in classroom and computer lab spaces and develop strategies and budgets to acquire and offer innovative tools to support instruction in the disciplines.

5. Partner with faculty to foster an environment that promotes critical thinking and places high value on discovery, research, and scholarly creation.

1. Assist faculty and student research by providing consultative services, datacenter computing operations and by providing customized resources to support the advancement of knowledge.

2. Provide leadership and support for the enrichment of teaching and learning by focusing on pedagogy, best practices, and the appropriate integration of technology in both online and traditional classrooms.

3. Develop, implement and expand an information literacy program in partnership with faculty that makes use of multiple literacies and critical thinking.

4. Create an Information Resources research support ‘swat team’ and create a mechanism for faculty to request research support.

6. Establish a communications plan to improve understanding of Information Resources services and projects

1. Develop a communication and marketing plan to help users to understand the services we provide.

2. Establish a formal change management communications strategy.

3. Develop an ongoing plan of internal communication between all the members of the Information Resources librarians and staff.

4. Establish schedule for timely review of all policies.