IT Planning for Strategic Support: Aligning Technology and Vision

While the appropriate adoption of moderntechnology creates new opportunities to facilitatelife-long learning, universities have to grapple withhow to provide on- and off-campus students withappropriate knowledge and transformative skills in anincreasingly competitive environment. As universitiesrevisit their mission and consider ways of dealingwith the expectations of both society and students, amajor challenge comes from aligning strategic planningand Information Technology (IT) planning. It isessential to have a strategic Information TechnologyPlan which assists in achieving core academicpriorities. The challenge is to maximise the benefitsof ongoing investment in IT by focusing on ways whichensure that the educational aims of the University areoptimally supported. This paper considers such anapproach to strategic IT planning in the context of alarge international technological institution andcritiques the implications of such an approach in thelight of experience and in the broader context of thenew geopolitical realities.