Service Experience Councils

Service Experience Councils make up the Operational layer of the overall IT Governance structure. The membership of these Councils consist of an equal number of IT staff who support the services, and campus representatives who work with the services. KU IT is using the EDUCAUSE "Higher Education IT Service Catalog" as a guide for categorizing the many services KU IT provides to campus. Each of these Service Categories will have its own Service Council, made up of IT services and service offerings.

Service Councils generally meet monthly, and discuss the services within the scope of their Council. KU IT provides information on upcoming changes to these services, discusses outages or issues with the service, and elicits feedback from campus on the future of these services. A major part of the Councils is to develop recommendations on requested projects, and provide feedback on these efforts before they are formally approved to begin. IT policy updates are also submitted to the Councils for review and public comment, before being sent to the KU Policy Office.

All information and recommendations made by the Service Councils will be sent to the IT Strategic Council, which is currently under development. The IT Strategic Council will be responsible for setting annual objectives for the Service Councils, and prioritize the proposed projects.

For specific information on the Service Councils, please select the Council below.

Service Experience Councils

  • Administrative and Business

    The IT Administrative & Business Service Experience Council analyzes and makes recommendations regarding core IT services that support the administrative and business functions of the institution. These services provided by KU IT are usually identified as ‘Enterprise’ services, as they are used across the entire University, and support the core functions of the administrative and business units. The EDUCAUSE “Higher Education IT Service Catalog” defines this service category as the "services that support the administrative and business functions of an institution. Includes business capability and process automation, financial and procurement systems, human resource systems, library systems, and student information systems." This first Council officially launched July 2021, and will be used as the template for creating the additional Councils.

  • Teaching and Learning

    The Teaching and Learning Service Experience Council is already existing at KU, by work done through the ASSC, the Academic Systems Steering Committee. This KU Senate Committee is responsible for approving and setting direction for all teaching and instruction-related solutions, including LMS, instructional technology and design, lecture capture, polling and surveys.

  • Research

    In a joint effort between the Office of Research and KU Information Technology, the Research Technology Working Group was created in 2020. This Working Group is tasked with developing a Research Technology roadmap by the end of 2021, which will outline and make recommendations on a collaborative relationship for the coming years. After the work is complete, we will look at ways to adapt this Working Group to be similar in scope to the other existing Service Councils. This Council is tentatively planned to launch in Spring 2022. The EDUCAUSE “Higher Education IT Service Catalog” defines this service category as the "services supporting the institution's research activities, including advanced or specialized storage and applications, research data services and software, and lab management systems."

  • IT Infrastructure

    The IT Infrastructure Service Council analyzes and makes recommendation regarding core IT services that support the IT infrastructure of the institution. These services provided by KU IT are usually identified as the backbone and foundation of the institution, and are used across the entire University, as well as connecting to the KU Medical Center, Edwards Campus, and other satellite campuses. The EDUCAUSE “Higher Education IT Service Catalog” defines this service category as the “Foundational services that support the operation and management of the enterprise IT environment, includes data center services, database management, network and connectivity management, and server and storage management.”

  • Information Security

    The Information Security Service Council is tentatively planned to launch in Spring 2022. The EDUCAUSE “Higher Education IT Service Catalog” defines this service category as the “services that provide security, data integrity, and compliance for institutional activities. Includes identity and access management, security consulting and educations, incident response and investigation, and security policy and compliance."

  • Communication and Collaboration

    The Communication and Collaboration Service Council is currently being discussed for planning, with a tentative launch in 2022. The EDUCAUSE “Higher Education IT Service Catalog” defines this service category as the "services that facilitate institutional communication and collaboration needs. Includes conferencing and telephones, email and collaboration services, media and audio/visual, and web services."