Meanwhile, IT expenditures have moved beyond baseline technology infrastructure to encompass an information infrastructure in which institutional data have been unified and integrated across a number of different systems—student information system, financial system, human resources system, course management system, and a variety of systems representing various vertical lines of service at the institutional and departmental level.  The individually customizable, self-service portal is the visible metaphor for the emerging information infrastructure.  Reliable self-service access to integrated data, however, does not, in its own right, provide the knowledge required to plan and manage the future using available data about the past, present, and various institutional constituencies.  Increasingly powerful analytical software tools will power a next transition phase toward an analytics infrastructure, which will provide the technical and analytical foundation for selecting and investing in the kind of innovations discussed in the NII report—those that are designed to improve institutional performance in a way that reduces unit costs.   This last phase might be called “innovation infrastructure” in recognition of the NII’s vision.  In all four phases, “infrastructure” is used to connote more than technical infrastructure—e.g., to connote also mission-appropriate governance, planning, and resource allocation models to support the identification and tracking of institutional performance priorities and the allocation of IT and other resources to them.

A surprising number of colleges and universities, however, continue to struggle with baseline technology infrastructure and information infrastructure.  Whether internally or externally (outsourced) staffed, operated, and managed, a high-performance baseline technology infrastructure supporting an information infrastructure is characterized by:

high levels of user satisfaction, and

competitive per-student-FTE (or per-student) IT expense at a predictable annual level to cover:

• ubiquitous access to the campus network and the Internet;
• baseline network and server-based (back-office) systems, such as the administrative system, the course management system, security systems, back-up and disaster-recovery systems, and the campus network with its connection to the Internet;
• hands-on technical support and training, as required, for centrally supported desktop, lab, and classroom technologies and for the applications of the above systems;
• technical systems integration services to implement and manage an individually-customizable self-service web portal providing single-logon access to a unified set of application services based on the above systems—the basics of a reliable, accurate, and easily accessible information infrastructure;
• 24x7x365 monitoring for all the above systems;
• 24x7x365 technical help desk for all students and faculty/staff members; and
• assessment, planning, selection, conversion, and upgrade processes for all the above systems, managed within budget and to meet planned schedules.