Technology

Background of the Strategic Plan for Technology

The TechGov committee is in the process of creating the 4th Technology Strategic Plan for Simmons College. Input from faculty, staff and students is essential to creating the strongest plan possible, and one that accurately reflects the priorities of our community. Valuable feedback from the community has already helped shape the initial thinking behind the plan. We are now looking for feedback on the specific goals that have been created.

Information about the planning process to date, and the areas of focus that drove the creation of these goals are provided below, as is a draft of the actual plan, including goals, desired outcomes, and objectives.

Planning Process

  • Engaged higher education technology consultant, Bill Brennan
  • Conducted Focus Groups with graduate and undergraduate faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, President's Council, senior "operations" managers (e.g. Registrar, Dir of Business Affairs, Dir of Admissions...), staff, Technology staff, and one open forum. Over 70 members of the community participated in these groups.
    • Purpose was to identify: perceived strengths and gaps; the degree to which technology is advancing the College's overall strategic efforts; the degree to which members of the community feel "connected" to technology planning and decision-making; top technology priorities/initiatives for the next three years.
  • Developed a technology SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) with lots of feedback from the community (input came from President's Council, Deans, many departments and individuals across campus, over 85 in all)
  • Using all of this, TechGov developed a draft plan: vision, goals, desired outcomes, objectives. TechGov met as a group 4 times for a total of10 hours. Discussion included looking at competitor comparisons, market trends and potential best practices. Development of the plan was iterative, responding and reacting to feedback from the community.

Summary of the Areas of Focus

  1. Academic Vision: Develop a shared academic vision and college plan for the use of technologies to enhance and strengthen teaching, learning, research and scholarship.

    Details: While much has happened at Simmons regarding teaching and learning, we heard from many people that there is a lack of a common direction and language regarding the use of academic technologies, such as the adoption of a course management system, distance education support, faculty expectations and rewards, and student information fluency competencies and assessment. This is a foundational and exciting goal that will involve the active collaboration of Academic Technology Committee (ATC), Deans and faculty.

  2. Student Experience: Identify, evaluate, and adopt technologies that enrich the student experience at Simmons.

    Details: As an academic institution, we know our core mission is to provide an excellent education to our students. An essential driver to achieve this it to ensure the student experience - in learning, living, and working at Simmons - is as simple, easy and rich as possible. While this is implied by many of the other goals, TechGov members felt it was important to specifically articulate a commitment and attention to students, in addition to reflecting service to students throughout the other goals.

  3. Enterprise Services: Develop a vision and plan for an enterprise (institution-wide) information services environment.

    Details: Given the extent to which technology now underlies business processes of every office and service, it is increasingly important that we coordinate these efforts to maximize efficiency and streamline systems. In response to feedback from non-academic units on campus that there was a lack of attention and missed opportunities regarding administrative systems, we will establish a Technology Systems and Services committee (TSS) that will assist in guiding college-wide administrative systems in much the same way ATC works on academic technology.

  4. Specialized Needs: Identify, prioritize, coordinate and respond to the specialized technology needs of academic and administrative departments and individual users.

    Details: Focus groups and other feedback from the community expressed the desire for more clarity regarding needs outside of standard equipment or services. This includes having a better understanding of what is the responsibility of Technology vs. a school or department or an individual. To accomplish this, we need to evaluate and determine the scalability of multi-tiered, flexible support, and communicate the outcomes to the community so there are clear shared expectations and responsibilities. This goal includes ensuring that the College has the proper accommodations for users with physical or learning challenges.

  5. New/Creative Technologies: Continually investigate and creatively use technologies in ways that support the College's Strategic Plan and confirm its competitiveness.

    Details: It is essential that Simmons is flexible and nimble enough to be on the cutting but not bleeding edge of technology. To accomplish this, we need systematic ways to ensure that we are exploring new technologies and new uses for established technologies to improve the way we conduct our academic and administrative business. We have done this very well through programs such as the PTRC Minigrants, as demonstrated in the recent Faculty Showcase, and want to build on this success.

  6. Communication: Adopt communication strategies that involve the Simmons community in College technology initiatives, plans, policies and services.

    Details: One of the most apparent gaps identified by the community was communication. It is clear that Technology and the Technology Governance Committee need to develop better systems for regular communication to ensure that faculty, staff and students feel connected to technology planning and decision making, understand and accept priorities, and thus are committed to implementation. We especially need to ensure the involvement and commitment of leadership - President's Council and Dean's Council, and have already begun to strengthen these connections.