OneIT FAQs
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Since the initial announcement on April 17, 2025, regular communications and town hall meetings for all involved have been undertaken on a weekly and bi-weekly schedule and will continue. The most frequently asked questions about this initiative, from town hall meetings, when presented at faculty and staff senates, and other administrative presentations, are listed below:
We are seeking to improve security, service and reliability for all units at the university. Many of the important goals of the OneIT strategic plan are best realized as a cohesive, collaborative organization.
Any UofL staff member with significant IT duties, including user IT support, hardware support, system support, data interchange and analytics programming. Not included are individuals who primarily use systems to generate content for those systems.
Based on HR job families, an initial set of employees were asked to fill out a survey of their work activities in various IT categories. While analysis of these results continues, some of those filling out the survey were clearly not performing IT work. The remaining staff are part of the initiative, and we will be working with unit leaders to fine-tune all survey results.
Initial reporting line changes will become dual-line reporting. Within the next year, internal IT reporting structures will be refined to meet the goals of optimizing security, service delivery and institutional data systems.
When staff begin reporting to IT, under dual-line reporting, their duties and responsibilities will not change. Their former supervisor will still be directing their work and, for most approving Workday actions. They will, however, be accountable to ITS for following IT standards, practices and guidelines.
We have started discussions with our HR partners to establish effective dual-reporting accountability procedures and for within administrative systems. Over time, we hope to implement a robust practice of utilizing community feedback about service levels delivered by every member of the IT staff as part of our accountability profile.
We will discuss specific cases and scenarios with both the individual and their supervisory organizations. When parts of an individual's job responsibilities are IT-related and parts are not, we will need to better understand how the technology and tech support is maintained for the unit.
We will be working with individual units between now and December to resolve the technology / non-technology issue. Different situations will have different solutions but may include reassigning maintenance duties or building support tasks. Our goal is to align technology and service needs with the individual's role within an effective split or multi-reporting structure.
Based on preliminary results from the survey, we have a substantial number of IT staff that perform multiple IT roles. As we streamline and organize job functions and roles within OneIT, we should see significant efficiency gains by avoiding duplicated work, non-stop task switching and other productivity reducers. As part of this initiative, we are also implementing new systems and strategies to find opportunities to limit the time our staff spend on routine tasks.
Working with the new career ladders system developed by HR, a single, unified IT structure will provide significantly greater opportunity for career advancement for our staff. It will also enhance professional development options as we increase collaboration and cultivate new networking, mentoring and training practices.
Yes, for those that work in IT roles supporting faculty and staff. As part of this initiative, we hope to be able to provide considerably more co-curricular learning and employment opportunities to our UofL students.
No. Effective IT service requires that we continue to have support staff who understand both the needs of each unit and their technology and build upon all relationships already established. This individual can effectively map those needs to IT facilities. We will continue to have such individuals during and after the transition and are committed to the dotted-line relationships to the units.
Yes. However, any changing or consolidating activity will occur over a longer period. For any product or application that might be consolidated, representatives from each unit or group currently using the software or system will be consulted. We will conduct a full analysis of all the features and uses of each product or application. And only when a system that meets all the needs for our user groups has been found, will we be in a position to consolidate.
They will be preserved. Many of UofL's unique spaces are critical to student outcomes, research productivity and facilities management. We are seeking to ensure that every such facility will have at least one if not more backup service staff to ensure that we can provide continued service when the primary support person is unavailable.
We are currently working on a complete inventory of all workstations at UofL. Some computers need a Windows 10 to 11 upgrade, and others need replacement. Once we finish our inventory assessment, we will target outdated equipment, pursue bulk procurement options, and explore ways to garner cost savings for our units.
Please stay engaged in and continue your unit's upgrade and/or replacement process with your unit IT staff or directly with our Desktop Support team if you are supported by central IT.
For the upcoming fiscal year, no changes are planned. As part of the planning process, we will be working during the fall semester to fully inventory and understand all IT spending at UofL. We will then work with our partners in Finance and Administration to develop a comprehensive and sustainable budget model for IT service delivery. Once developed, our answer to your question on the impact of distributed allocations for technology will be addressed.
Yes. We hope to improve the procurement process in multiple ways through this initiative. We will be working with Finance and Administration to have a specialist staff member handling all IT-specific purchases and contracts, relieving other staff from that burden. We also plan to increase engagement in university-wide licensing agreements, allowing greater use of cross-disciplinary software tools and avoiding repeated procurement procedures for the same technology solutions.
We plan on updating our new OneIT webpages regularly and adding additional information as it becomes available. If you would like to be added to our bi-weekly email communications or attend our Town Hall meetings, please contact us via email. The CIO maintains an open-door / open-inquiry policy so contacting him directly is also an option.
Please contact us directly via email. We're happy to answer your questions or add to our FAQs.