Strategic Information System Report: UniSA IT Strategy Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Strategic Information System (SIS) at the University of South Australia (UniSA). It begins by defining the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), highlighting their responsibilities in shaping IT strategy, vision, and ensuring efficient information delivery. The report traces the evolution of the CIO role at UniSA, from early IT management to the current emphasis on digital competency and innovation. It then examines top management's expectations of IT, focusing on digital literacy and the integration of technology in teaching. The influence of the CIO on UniSA's technological advancements, including the development of the online learning platform and cloud strategy, is assessed. The report evaluates the performance of UniSA's IT, particularly the success of the learnonline platform and the UniSA mobile app, while also identifying weaknesses in the current SaaS cloud service model, such as dependency and security risks. Finally, the report proposes IT improvement strategies, including high-speed network adoption, enhanced security measures, and the implementation of a process cloud, while also acknowledging the challenges associated with these strategies, such as security threats and integration complexities.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Strategic Information System
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s notes

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Table of Contents
Part 3................................................................................................................................................2
Role of CIO.............................................................................................................................2
Evolution of the role of CIO...................................................................................................3
Top management expectation from IT...................................................................................3
Influence of CIO.....................................................................................................................4
Performance of IT...................................................................................................................4
Weaknesses of IT....................................................................................................................5
IT Improvement Strategy........................................................................................................5
Challenges of the proposed strategy.......................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Part 3
Role of CIO
The Chief Information Officer is responsible for handling the IT services and the library
of the University (People.unisa.edu.au 2017). The main focus of the CIO is on the strategy and
vision of the University. CIO is responsible for making the correct and accurate information
available to the right candidate at the right time in an efficient manner. Their aim is to improve
the research and development methods and techniques in order to incorporate advanced
technology in the IT environment of the University (Strand 2013). Proper utilization of IT will
enable the University to achieve the strategic mission. The CIO is the facilitator in the essence.
The CIO is the visionary of the University and thinks about the future growth and development
of the University of South Australia. He is responsible for managing the strategy related to the
information technology for supporting the objectives and goals of the University. The CIO is
considered to be one of the key contributors of organizational strategy. The role of CIO rapidly is
rapidly growing and evolving with the growth of digital technology in the University. The role of
the CIO is innovative and collaborative in nature. He is also responsible for balancing the budget
of the information technology and motivating the IT staffs. The CIO is said to report to the CEO
of the University. The CIO approves annual investment plans regarding ICT support. They
ensure that the ICT capital budgeting planning is properly integrated with the capital planning of
other processes like research infrastructure. The CIO is also responsible for reviewing and
approving ICT policies and strategies over time. They also take care of the technical support and
management part of the University. They also look after the ICT related risks and challenges,
and play a major role in planning for the disaster recovery of the information.

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Evolution of the role of CIO
The role of CIO has evolved through the years. UniSA was founded in the year 1991.
Initially there was the IT team whose main focus was on the hardware and software development
and management in the University. With the emergence and growth of ICT, the role of CIO had
been created. Initially there were information officers and MIS managers who used to handle all
the IT related activities in the organization. They used to analyze and develop the systems that
were to be used by the University staffs and employees. They were also responsible for training
the staffs for making proper utilization of the systems in the University. The IT managers were
highly skilled and experienced.
Top management expectation from IT
The top management of the University expects the IT staffs to be competent and highly
skilled so that they are able to develop innovative and advanced technologies for delivering
industry relevant experience for the students. They expect their students to develop and gain
digital competencies that will help them to excel in the future. They expect their IT staffs to be
digitally literate so that they are able to introduce advanced digital technologies in the teaching
practices of the University. They expect their IT professionals to utilize the digital technologies
in an effective and efficient manner. They expect to integrate digital innovations in the learning
and teaching processes of the University. Continuous development in the field of IT is expected
by the top management team. The main expectation from IT is not restricted to service and
technology. It has extended to addition of business value by making use of IT enabler. The IT
professionals are expected to be responsible and loyal to the University. They must focus on
developing new plans and strategies for the purpose of organizational development. The

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University will be able to achieve its objectives of becoming digitally competent by hiring
efficient and well trained IT professionals.
Influence of CIO
The CIO of the University plays an influential role in the technological development of
the organization. UniSA is well known for its innovation, smart planning as well as adaptability.
This would not have been possible without the support of the CIO. The CIO is responsible for
the IT related services in the University. The Horizon 2020 focuses on the future goals and
objectives of the University (Unisa.edu.au 2017). Proper strategic planning and technical
competencies of the CIO has led to the development and success of the online learning platform
for UniSA. The University has been able to make the students digitally literate with the support
of the CIO. The CIO has also played a significant role in developing a cloud strategy by
maximum utilization of SaaS. The success of the Jeffrey Smart Building also shows the
influence of the CIO in the IT development of the University.
Performance of IT
In the year 2009, UniSA had launched a personal online environment for the purpose of
enabling the students to learn online. The name of the platform was learnonline. In the year
2014, this platform had become successful. It had 11 million registered students. This shows the
performance of IT of the University of South Australia. It of UniSA has been able to blend the
digital resources with the teaching practices of the University (Liebowitz and Frank 2016). The
technical staffs with the guidance of the CIO are involved in further innovation and advancement
of the online learning platform. The online platform facilitates the students with virtual
classrooms, lecture recording, e-portfolio, Turnitin and the course outline and curriculum. The
aim of this University is to deliver a digitally enriched platform for making the students digitally

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competent and professional. The UniSA mobile app has been recently released and it has been
extremely helpful for the students.
Weaknesses of IT
The Cloud service model that is adopted by UniSA is the SaaS model. There are certain
weaknesses involved in this IT infrastructure of the University. UniSA is dependent on the
provider of SaaS (W3.unisa.edu.au 2017). There are high chances of loss of control. If the SaaS
provider ever gets bankrupt then it will harm the students and the business continuity of the
University. This cloud service cannot be availed without Internet connection. This makes UniSA
dependent on Internet. Security issues are a major concern of SaaS service model (AlZain et al.
2012). If the server is down then the performance of SaaS will be low. The use of technology
cloud has several disadvantages as discussed above (Jamsa 2012). The mobile app is susceptible
to various security risks and threats. There is also lack of a smart university environment.
IT Improvement Strategy
UniSA can take certain steps for overcoming the issues faced due to its IT infrastructure.
Adoption of high speed network connection can overcome the connectivity issues of the students
and the staffs. While adopting a cloud service from a vendor, UniSA must ask about the
application and infrastructure security provided by the vendor. Proper agreement must be made
between UniSA and vendor. UniSA must know the correct location of its data (Kulkarni et al.
2012). A process cloud must be adopted by UniSA for designing, automating and managing
business processes that are present in the cloud. A smart university environment can be built
where the devices, doors and windows will be embedded with sensors, software and network
connection (Tikhomirov and Dneprovskaya 2015). Process cloud will provide a design-time and
runtime environment to UniSA.

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Challenges of the proposed strategy
The process cloud is targeted mostly towards non IT authors and it has less configuration
complexities but it sacrifices some capabilities like case management, advanced analytics and
heavy integration. With the growth and development of ICT, the attackers are also finding new
ways to access data and misuse it from mobile apps and cloud storage. IoT will be highly
susceptible to virus attacks, phishing attacks and Trojan horses (Jing et al. 2014). Security issues
remain a major challenge for the IT infrastructure of UniSA.

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References
AlZain, M.A., Pardede, E., Soh, B. and Thom, J.A., 2012, January. Cloud computing security:
from single to multi-clouds. In System Science (HICSS), 2012 45th Hawaii International
Conference on(pp. 5490-5499). IEEE.
Jamsa, K., 2012. Cloud computing. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Jing, Q., Vasilakos, A.V., Wan, J., Lu, J. and Qiu, D., 2014. Security of the internet of things:
Perspectives and challenges. Wireless Networks, 20(8), pp.2481-2501.
Kulkarni, G., Gambhir, J., Patil, T. and Dongare, A., 2012, June. A security aspects in cloud
computing. In Software Engineering and Service Science (ICSESS), 2012 IEEE 3rd International
Conference on (pp. 547-550). IEEE.
Liebowitz, J. and Frank, M. eds., 2016. Knowledge management and e-learning. CRC press.
People.unisa.edu.au., 2017. Paul Sherlock Home Page, University of South Australia. [online]
Available at: http://people.unisa.edu.au/paul.sherlock [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017].
Strand, R., 2013. The chief officer of corporate social responsibility: A study of its presence in
top management teams. Journal of Business Ethics, 112(4), pp.721-734.
Tikhomirov, V. and Dneprovskaya, N., 2015, April. Development of strategy for smart
University. In 2015 Open Education Global International Conference, Banff, Canada (pp. 22-
24).
Unisa.edu.au., 2017. Home - University of South Australia. [online] Available at:
https://www.unisa.edu.au/ [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017].

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W3.unisa.edu.au., 2017. Cloud Strategy. [online] Available at:
http://w3.unisa.edu.au/ists/new/staff/strategy-policy/cloud.htm [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017].