• insufficient and unpredictable funding
• insufficient staffing
• security without sufficient staff
• heterogeneity of support needs without sufficient staff

The committee’s initial observation of the data is the implementation of a new governance structure. Through this structure IT will be able to:

• expand and improve instructional and classroom services
• expand the offering and use of a server club room, together with offering a robust suite of software for remote server management
• consolidate web services, including marketing and web publication services, with a flexible service agreement
• expand the opportunities for professional development for IT staff

Other initial observations include revolutionary changes in culture are necessary to increase the capacity and ability of IT services and administrative systems is where IT’s largest potential gain in efficiencies and productivity is.

The data was collected by working through the CFO of all decanal and VP units. 1491 data records were recorded from 94 entities. As well, 127 people answered the online questionnaire. From benchmarking exercises, it was ascertained that the top 25 research institutions spend 10% of their school’s annual budget on IT. Comparatively, UB only spends 7% of their budget on IT, or approximately $53 million out of a budget of $729 million. Ray Dannenhoffer (Associate Dean for Support Services), concluded that “UB is too lean (on its IT budget) to be competitive.”