While everyone applauds the financial support that has been forthcoming for instructional technologies, these and other services and functions cannot continue to be supported out of opportunity funds. There needs to be a mechanism for securing funding for multi-year strategic initiatives and for the support costs these initiatives engender. Upgrade, repair, and replacement programs must be accommodated. A viable and robust IT environment cannot be funded on a zero-based budgeting scheme. When new systems or services are implemented resources must be planned and allocated for maintenance and support.
All institutions have client-based advisory structures in place to guide policies and directions.
Institutions generally apply an accepted set of IT management practices and procedures. These include policies related to acceptable use, access control, and disaster recovery. There are standards for data sharing and network interfaces. A lot of effort is made to do joint training, knowledge and software sharing, and collaboration on various projects. The results of a recent EDP audit were generally favorable with an emphasis placed on the need to more formally document management practices and to extend disaster recovery plans and testing.