According to Jim Johnson, vice provost for information technology, three things fueled the reorganization: the recent move of much of the Information Technology Division (ITD) to the North Decatur Building, which meant ITD would now be in three sites rather than six; the explosion in the use of networking at Emory (the number of internet users grew from 3,500 to more than 15,000 last year); and a new desire to focus the organization on networking.
Two new groups have been created within ITD: the Network Systems group, and the Computing Resources Services group. Network Systems deals with systems support, traditional network systems, plus microcomputing support and departmental support. Computing Resources Services includes the area formerly called academic computing; it also includes the help desk, labs and indirect support. According to Johnson, there are plans for the help desk to be open 24 hours per day, seven days a week, probably by April.
What ITD will no longer do is maintain an inventory of computer equipment. In the past, purchases of Apple computer equipment could be made through ITD; now these purchases will be completed through the Emory Bookstore. According to Johnson, ITD will provide advice on the purchase of equipment and software and will diagnose and troubleshoot networked equipment. "We're trying to put a lot more effort into making software, hardware and the network work together."
There was a ground swell of support for the reorganization, according to Johnson. "We went out and talked to a lot of people. They wanted us to support the people providing local support, more in ways of standards and recommendations. They also wanted clarity of what they could expect to get and what they would not get.
The creation of the two new groups is not the only organizational change going on in ITD. "We also created a matrix organization with a series of boards which cut across all units of ITD," said Johnson. One example of these boards is a business practices board to allow the division to be consistent with charges. Other boards include services and products; architecture, standards and recommendations; change management; quality, training and certification; distributed computing support; and marketing. "These boards," said Johnson, "will allow us to get some degree of consistency in an organization where we have gone a lot to self-managed teams. This sets the rules."
The long-term goal of the reorganization, said Johnson, is to make people as self-sufficient as possible. "We're really putting more people in support, not less."
-- Nancy M. Spitler