The ICT Department of a university compared to the ICT Department of a Secretariat for a network of universities

I work in the field of information and communication technology (ICT). When I joined the ICT industry it was called the information technology (IT) industry. Communication was added during the early 2000’s to recognize the important aspect of the communications infrastructure and related systems.

Having worked in ICT departments for banking services, national railways services, higher institution of education and currently a secretariat for a network of 46 African universities – I understand that the functions of the ICT departments in varying industries remain similar.

When I moved to Uganda to take up the position of Program Manager responsible for supporting ICT Services at the RUFORUM Secretariat I was struck by the differences in the implementation of the strategy for the ICT Department of a university and the ICT Department for a secretariat of a network of universities.

Prior to joining the RUFORUM Secretariat I worked for 10 years at Africa University – initially as a Systems Engineer and was later promoted to Director of the ICT Department.

The table below highlights the differences I have noted while leading the implementation of the two strategies - the Africa University ICT Strategy and the RUFORUM Secretariat ICT Strategy:

	Africa University ICT Department	RUFORUM Secretariat ICT Department
Strategy Focus	To strengthen the university and align the ICT strategy to support teaching, learning, collaboration  and research	To strengthen the Secretariat and inspire member universities to harness ICT
Department Size	Had a team of 20 technical staff	Has 2 technical staff
Technical Skills	A diverse set of technical skills was available among the technical staff Limited need to outsource technical roles	Narrow set of technical skills Have to outsource technical roles
Hosted Services	All mission critical systems were hosted on campus – because there was capacity to maintain the systems	The majority of the mission critical systems are hosted on the cloud – to ensure uptime and reduce maintenance burdens
The users of the ICT services – accessing the systems and network	A narrower set of users – these were students and staff.	Potentially a wider set of users located in various countries globally – these are secretariat staff, students on RUFORUM scholarships, grantees, governance bodies, faculty staff from member universities and other stakeholders
Decisions on new projects	Guided by a Senate Committee: the computerization committee	Guided by RUFORUM Secretariat Management supported by consultants
The ICT infrastructure and equipment	Larger local area network, about 1,000 concurrent users of network services	A smaller local area network, about 50 devices on the local area network
Funding	The budget is part of the university-wide budget. Students pay a technology fees. The department offers training services to the community for a fee.	The budget is supported through projects funding. Need to continuously mobilize resources

 

Conclusions

The fundamental functions of ICT departments do not change. Their roles are to support the business processes of a particular industry. As a Manager of an ICT Department one needs to develop a strategy that fits the business of that organization. In my case I had to step out of my comfort zone and operate across different technical areas, work with external service level providers, write proposals to mobilize resources and generally multi-task. I have benefited from the experience that RUFORUM has given me – I have been part of “sowing the seeds” by participating in developing web-based information management systems that are being used by network stakeholders across Africa to extract, share and deposit information.