3 | EmpoweringTransformation Dear Colleagues: Information technology (IT) is completely integrated into the very fabric of our lives – it is a critical enabler in higher education. IT impacts everything – it has permeated every aspect of the University, from contacts with prospective students and community members through the enterprise systems that manage the collaborativeprocessesofapplicationsandenrollment,employment,finances,researchadministration,andmany more. Today more than ever, IT has a critical impact on pedagogy, providing the catalyst by which our faculty membersexplorenewwaysofteachingandourstudentsengageinbroadenedapproachestolearning. Research today also depends on a rich and robust cyberinfrastructure supporting the process of discovery, opening new horizons and expanding the understanding of existing knowledge; and not just for sciences and engineering, but for growing uses in the arts and humanities and other fields. We must address modernization, maintenance, and support of the IT environment to sustain our University’s place and recognition as leaders nationally and globally. The technology itself is only part of the equation. These are the physical tools that we all can see and touch. However, perhaps more critical are the people who apply these tools in productive manners – the humanware. These human resources include those who use the tools every day in their roles in the University of Kentucky (UK) community – students learning and living, faculty conducting research and classes, and the staff and administrators who translate academic priorities into action. It also includes those individuals who enable others use of the technology and advance the community’s effectiveness in utilizing the tools. At UK, we must realize the importance of both components as foundational elements of a solid IT infrastructure – the tools and people who make their use productive. We need to not only be thinking about how we modernize, and periodically update such tools. We must also ensure that, as new tools emerge, we are investing in training people in their use as well as in resources to help us understand new ways to conceptualize and support how these tools can be utilized. Critical to UK’s success in effectively utilizing IT is to adopt a view that it is a fundamental asset of the institution. Imperative to this is the concept of IT Abundance – where IT is current, advanced, readily available and adopted to facilitate and support UK’s students, faculty, and staff within their respective assignments, disciplines, and tasks. The value in an environment featuring IT Abundance is that it redefines what it is possible to do in teaching and learning, research and innovation, and in the efficient and effective operation of our University. The most effective way to ensure that we can address IT at UK is to have a well-structured, broadly- based, and detailed strategy for use. And just as important as having this “blueprint” for IT advancement, is realizing that the advancement of IT goals in support of the University Strategic Plan – Transforming Tomorrow – is everyone in the UK community’s responsibility – not only the central IT organization. Hence, the best means for such a strategic plan to be successful is for it to flow from the needs of the community served by information technology. The plan must be UK’s plan for IT, not the IT plan for the University. FOREWORD LETTER FROMTHE CIO