Title: A Case Study of Improving Information Technology Governance in a

University Context
Author/s: Michael Hicks, Graham Pervan &Brian Perrin
Date of Publication: 2010
No. of Pages: 19

In many developing Universities, IT Governance is one of the processes

that ensure the effectiveness of using IT so that the universities or an
organization can achieve their goals and objectives. Universities are highly
dependent on the institutional processes that create and use information to
support their research, administration, and teaching activities, according to
studies. Outlining potential problems is probably the clearest way to illustrate why
Universities need IT governance. According to Todd Pombert, vice president of
information technology and campus CIO at Collegis Education, one common
issue is that different departments don’t recognize how a particular technology
could affect them. If they’re not involved in discussions surrounding IT initiatives,
why would they? Without cross-departmental support, though, institutions
struggle to move forward with any technology initiative. It’s also possible that
different areas of the institution will take the initiative to adopt solutions without
consulting anyone else. This is particularly problematic if the department in
question doesn’t seek input from any IT professionals. The result is a collection
of technologies that don’t communicate with one another. It actually makes life
more difficult for many employees. This is a common problem at many
organizations, not just colleges and universities. Institutions also struggle with
making sure projects are completed in the proper order. Every department has its
own priorities. Without IT governance, it’s impossible to decide which initiatives
need to happen first.
IT governance is a broad concept that is centered on the IT department or
environment delivering business value to the enterprise. It is a set of rules,
regulations and policies that define and ensure the effective, controlled and
valuable operation of an IT department. It also provides methods to identify and
evaluate the performance of IT and how it relates to business growth. Moreover,
by following and implementing an IT governance framework such as COBIT, an
organization can comply with regulatory requirements and reduce IT business
while attaining measurable business benefits.
IT Governance is the subject of this paper’s research. To make IT
governance effective it must have a characteristic so that it will be emphasized
by many different approaches adopted in analyzing IT governance. According to
Penrod, Pirani and Salaway, they pointed to the importance of the
interrelationships of the various university governance bodies in maintaining
effective decision making, that’s why Penrod recommend the creation of an IT
policy group to make the high-level strategic IT decisions, with IT management
responsible for the operational detail.
The influence of IT governance to a University is investigated using
Qualitative Approach. This study conducted a survey to the selected range of
faculties across the university. After the survey recorded, transcribed, then
checked and verified, the data was analyzed and categorized into themes or
patterns of general criteria of effective IT governance, a technique developed by
Miles and Huberman (1994).
The goal of this research is to see how IT Governance affects the
performance of an organization in a particular University. Responses show that
57 percent agreed or strongly agreed in relation to teaching and 63 percent
agreed or strongly agreed in relation to research. Although the interviews
indicated lower-level support for the changes, it is clear from the survey results
that the base level users are not participating to any large extent in the IT related
decisions that directly affect their key responsibilities of research and teaching.
This would appear to support the major concerns of the faculties about the
increased centralization that was a major feature of the proposed restructuring of
IT within the university; namely, that there would a substantial loss of
responsiveness and flexibility that would directly impact faculties and individual
users. The whole study deserves praise for presenting us with a thorough and
unbiased examination. This study might be used as a reliable source of data for
future studies.

References
Skopec, Christine. “Why IT Governance in Higher Education Institutions Is so
Essential.” Collegis Education — Tech-Enabled Higher Ed Solutions, 16 Dec. 2020,
collegiseducation.com/news/technology/it-governance-in-higher-education/. Accessed
16 Sept. 2022.
“What Is Information Technology Governance (IT Governance)? - Definition from
Techopedia.” Techopedia.com, 2019,
www.techopedia.com/definition/19641/information-technology-governance-it-
governance.