Governing IT in Higher Education Institutions - onlinepresent.org

Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.36 (Education 2013), pp.1-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/astl.2013.36.01

Governing IT in Higher Education Institutions Racha Ajami & Nabeel Al-Qirim College of Information Technology United Arab Emirates University, UAE [email protected] & [email protected]

Abstract. Despite the importance of IT governance (ITG) to organizations, this research founds scant research looking at ITG adoption and implementation in higher education institutions (HEI) in general and in the case of two large universities in UAE more specifically. Based on critiquing existing ITG frameworks, this research develops an ITG framework which could help HEI govern their IT projects. This framework focuses on evaluating decisions concerning the alignment and the compatibility of IT with the overall strategies and goals of HEI. This is achieved for the purpose of increasing services quality over time, aligning and supporting business strategies, and controlling and minimizing IT risks in order to increase stakeholder’s value and reducing cost. Keywords: IT governance, COBIT, Six Sigma, Higher Education

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Introduction

With IT affecting all aspects relating to organizational structure and processes, efficient IT governance (ITG) framework is needed to assure that all such significant investments and complex IT infrastructure is governed strategically. ITG is a term that indicates specifying decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behaviour in the use of IT (Weill & Ross, 2004). Haes and Grembergen (Haes & Grembergen, 2005) anticipated that ITG can be implemented through a framework that consists of three main key elements; Structures, Processes and Relational Mechanisms. With IT affecting all aspects of university’s/school’s academic and business affairs, an efficient ITG is required to assure that all kinds of expensive and complex IT is appropriately governed. Dewey and DeBlois (2006) found that governance, organization and leadership have constantly stood among the top 10 issues of strategic importance in organizations. Despite the development of procedures in terms of ITG for business organizations, many Higher Education Institutions (HEI) have shown great interest in implementing these procedures to manage their IT (Dewey & DeBlois, 2006). However, despite the importance of IT in the education industry, there has been not enough research focusing on how ITG may be implemented in higher education institution. “An effective ITG structure is the single most important predictor of getting value from IT (ITGI, 2009; Weill, 2004). Accordingly, the following research question is posited: how can we improve ITG adoption and implementation in HEI in

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Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.36 (Education 2013)

UAE. This research will propose a framework based on COBIT (ITGI, 2007) and Six Sigma (Pande & Holpp, 2001). The reasons for selecting COBIT and Six Sigma is due to their appropriateness to the educational context (Al-Atiqi & Deshpande,2009; Ribeiro & Gomes, 2009).

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Companies Vs Higher Education Institutions (HEI)

Companies and higher educational institutes differ widely not only in their missions, environment, policies and processes, but also in their IT application, requirements and infrastructure. Zhen and Xin-yu (2007) compared and shown the difference between companies and campuses in their IT systems and departments. Understanding such difference will help widely in choosing the most suitable IT Governance framework to be applied in higher educational institutions. With that wide range of difference between universities and companies, not all applied IT governance systems that proved their efficiency in the industry can be considered as efficient in the educational field. Researchers as Ribeiro, Gomes, AlAtiqi and Deshpande (Ribeiro & Gomes, 2009; Al-Atiqi & Deshpande, 2009) proved the efficiency of some general IT governance frameworks in education institutions. Ribeiro and Gomes (Ribeiro & Gomes, 2009) tested the application of COBIT and its suitability and showed that COBIT is a suitable framework for the implementation of IT governance in public education institutions. On the other hand, Al-Atiqi and Deshpande (Al-Atiqi & Deshpande, 2009) showed how the use of Six Sigma can improve the performance of all university operation, from student recruitment to graduation, including all the processes in between.

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ITG in Education

Understanding what is needed from applying ITG helps in developing the right framework. Accordingly, this research proposes a framework (Figure 1) that will help in governing IT in HEI/Universities. The developed framework is based on COBIT (ITGI, 2007) and Six Sigma (Pande & Holpp, 2001). The selection of these two frameworks was due to their general application/advantages, applicability to the nature of educational institutions, and due to their proved positive effect when adopted in HEI. The structure of the proposed framework was built with the consideration of the typical Education framework (Planning, Teaching and Improving Efficiency), which in turn will be aligned with overall organization’s strategy. The proposed framework includes five main stages. Some of which are common in COBIT and Six Sigma, others are not. Stage1 Identify Objectives (COBIT/Six Sigma): When applying IT governance in education institutions, the first stage to consider is to Identify Educational Institution Objectives. In this stage, institutions’ goals should be identifies along with, End-users and Stakeholders. Stage2 Identify Stakeholders’ Value (Six Sigma): After identifying the goals, Six Sigma recommends identifying Stakeholders’ value. The value of different stakeholders as University’s/School’s Dean and Executive Dean, 2

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Department management, IT management, Students and Staff; should be identified. Stage3 IT Resource Decisions (COBIT): The third step is Identify IT recourses, in terms of Systems, People, Data and technology. The mentioned three stages are aligned with the Planning stage in Education Framework. Stage4 Stakeholder and IT Resource Management: This stage is aligned with Teaching and Administration stage in Education Framework and it includes a number of actions that should be done, as developing CTQs (Al-Atiqi & Deshpande, 2009), developing governance models, optimizing governance design and models, classifying projects’ schedules and risks assessments, and identifying institute and IT capabilities aligned to institute goals and strategies. Stage5 Verify and Control (COBIT/Six Sigma): Verify and Control all previous stages, aligned with improving education efficiency. In this stage, results should be compare with planned strategies, document development results and control all processes with required mechanisms. All five stages are directed towards applying IT governance and aligning IT with Institute goals and objectives.

Fig. 1. Proposed ITG Framework in Education

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ITG Framework

This research adopts Yin’s (1994) multiple case (comparative) design in studying three single units of analysis (holistic). Conducting multiple case studies require a lot of resources and time (Yin, 1994). The universities involved in the study were selected based on the availability of senior IT and business decision makers and their willingness to take part in this study. In keeping with participants’ requests for anonymity, the universities will be referred to as University A and University B in this research. The data was gathered through open and semi-structured interviews with the CIO’s in both universities as well as from relevant documents obtained from both interviewees and the universities’ websites.


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It was clear that both universities did not follow a formal strategy in selecting and evaluating the most suitable ITG framework that suites their settings. Interestingly, both cases were found adopting aspects of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and not COBIT and Six-Sigma as proposed in this research. Therefore, it is important here to assess the application of ITG in both cases with respect to the proposed ITG framework in this research by considering and look for further insights. Stage1 Identify Objectives When applying ITG, the first stage to consider is to identify the university’s objectives. Without identifying such organizational and IT objectives, strategies can’t be set and accordingly, ITG will not fulfil its role in achieving such objectives. From the above findings it was clear that both cases were able to develop their objectives. Stage2 Identify Stakeholders’ Value The value of the different stakeholders at both universities (deans and executive deans, department heads, students and staff) were identified and considered. Governmental and private universities are directed towards maximizing students’ benefits and to increase stakeholders’ value. Stage3 IT Resource Decisions The third step is identifying IT resources, in terms of systems, people, data and technology. Both institutions were found to apply aspects of ITIL in this regard. However, none of the case had a strategy or a selection criterion in place to properly assess and govern such resources. Therefore, it is important here to appraise the suitability of different ITG framework as this research found the majority of universities Adopting COBIT and Six Sigma (Al-Atiqi & Deshpande, 2009; Ribeiro & Gomes, 2009). Stage4 Stakeholder and IT Resource Management This stage is aligned with teaching and administration stage in education framework and it includes a number of actions that should be achieved such as developing governance models, classify projects’ schedules and assessing risks. Based on the research findings ITIL was partially adopted in both cases. The applied parts of the ITIL framework have improved processes and efficiencies at both universities but indeed, many gaps left unfilled and missing alignment evaluation between IT goals/strategies with universities’ goals and strategies. Stage5 Verify and Control Both universities fall short on applying evaluation methodologies or performance monitoring and control or even considering the effect of ITG, rules, strategies, and applied projects on the educational process. This is due in part to the lack of such aspects (on the need of evaluation and review) in ITIL. ITIL describes the service management processes and recommends security and control practices but does not have a standard for them as such like COBIT. COBIT can audit ITIL processes and Six Sigma can help in checking the alignment with the universities’ goals and strategies. The proposed framework in this research will direct processes towards 4



evaluating any decision and application to check the alignment and compatibility with the overall strategies and goals of HEI and helps in reaching the main aim of the ITG framework in reducing the gap between IT and business managers.

References 1.

Weill, P., and Ross, J. W.: IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. (2004). 2. Haes S. D., Grembergen W. V: Analysing the Relationship Between IT Governance and BusinesslIT Alignment Maturity. 41st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (2005). 3. Dewey, B. I., DeBlois, P. B., Committee, E. C. I.:Top-10 IT Issues 2006. pp. 41, 58-79 Educause Review (2006). 4. Weill, P.: Don’t Just Lead Govern: How Top-Performing Firms Govern IT. MIS Quarterly Executive (3)1, pp. 1-17 (2004) 5. ITGI (IT Governance Institute): An executive view of IT governance. Rolling Meadows, IL, available at: isaca.org. (2009) 6. ITGI (IT Governance Institution): Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology. 4.1th Edition, Rolling Meadows, IL, Retrieved from: isaca.org. (2007) 7. Pande P, Holpp L. (2001) “What is Six Sigma?”, McGraw-Hill:Maidenhead, Berkshire. 8. Ribeiro, J. & Gomes, R.: IT Governance Using COBIT Implemented in a High Public Educational Institution: A Case Study. Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on European computing conference, pp. 41-52, (WSEAS) World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society (2009) 9. Al-Atiqi, I, Pradeep B. Deshpande: Transforming Gigher Education with Six Sigma. INQAAHE (International Network of Quality Assessment Agencies in Higher Education) Biannual Conference in Abu Dhabi (2009). 10. Yin, R. K: Case study research: Design and methods. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage (2003). 11.Zhen Wang, Xin-yu Zhang, : An ITIL-based IT Service Management Model for Chinese Universities. Fifth International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications (2007)


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