January 2008 IT News

A new office has been created to ensure that campus departments and employees are dealing with private sensitive information appropriately and complying with all IT rules and regulations.

The mission of the University of Utah OIT Compliance Office is to support the University in its goals of teaching, research, patient care, and public life by assuring a comprehensive and integrated approach for access, integrity, availability, secure and appropriate use of information and information systems.

The strategic direction and tactical implementation of this mission are accomplished through the University Information Security Office and University Privacy Office, both divisions within the OIT Compliance Office:

• Auditing & Assessments
• Business Continuity Facilitation
• Compliance with Applicable Law, Regulation, or Requirement
• Communications & Awareness
• Incident Management
• Investigations & Enforcement
• Pro-Active Risk Management Program
• Policy, Procedure, Standards, and Best Practices
• Training and Education

The Compliance Office is located at 650 Komas in Research Park. Chris Kidd is the Chief Compliance and Information Security/Privacy Officer. Education efforts and specific training programs will be widely available by summer 2008.

If you have concerns about private sensitive data for which you are responsible, or if you need to report an incident, please visit the Compliance Office website at www.compliance.utah.edu (currently under construction) or contact them at compliance@utah.edu or 587-9241.

The recently formed IT Project and Portfolio Management Office will have the responsibility of organizing and managing resources so that campus IT projects are completed within a defined scope, time and cost constraints.  

Mission
The objective of the IT Project and Portfolio Office is to optimize the university’s IT projects and portfolios in order to contribute to the organization’s successful performance and its sustained viability, value and growth.  The objective is to further develop and implement well defined and formally adopted governance structures, practices, tools, and processes for investment reviews, and applications performance monitoring. 

IT Project and Portfolio Management Defined

Project
IT Project Management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources in a way that the project is completed within a defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints.  It is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.

Portfolio
 IT Portfolio Management is defined as a strategic and dynamic decision-making process used to assess value, prioritize actions, and allocate resources to meet key university objectives.  An IT portfolio is a collection of projects and initiatives grouped together to facilitate efficient and effective management so that fiscal, staffing, and other scarce resources can be optimally allocated to provide the most benefit or greatest value for investments made. 

Joe Taylor directs the IT Project and Portfolio Management Office.  For more information concerning this new IT Project and Portfolio Management Office, please contact Kimball Lovin (klovin@acs.utah.edu) or Rene Eborn (reborn@acs.utah.edu).

The campus network backbone supplies campus buildings with access to the campus network and internet via a series of switches and routers. Most departments and buildings on campus have an IT Manager that manages the building's internal local area network (LAN).

Funding of the network backbone has always been shared by all departments on lower campus, Health Sciences, and the hospital. The funding model is based on FTE (full time equivalent) count per Home Department ORG. FTE information is obtained from Human Resources department records from the month of November of each year. Charges for campus backbone network appear on your monthly telephone bill as Backbone Network.

Your department's backbone contact will be receiving an email in the next week or two to inform you of your Campus Network Backbone charges for FY 2009. If you have questions, please contact OIT's Michelle Foulger at 581-5520.