We are pleased to announce that UVM will move to a formal Information Technology (IT) Shared Services Model effective January 1, 2021. Under the leadership of the Chief Information Officer Simeon Ananou, this model will bring together IT services from across the institution, beginning with the academic units in Phase I. IT professionals from all units, including Enterprise Technology Services (ETS), will contribute knowledge and skills to create a pool of shared services to benefit the entire university.

Combining IT resources, including personnel, functions, and budgets, will:

• Provide faculty, staff, and students better access to the technology services they need to be successful, regardless of college or school.
• Create a vibrant IT ecosystem with support, mentorship and professional growth opportunities for those who provide these vital technology services.
• Ensure associated tools, support, procedures, and continuity of operations that are no longer reliant only on local resources.
• We are committed to maintaining the current level of service and quality faculty, staff, and students in the academic units currently receive. In fact, we are confident this effort will improve quality and service.

The model is guided by three overarching goals that will support increased quality and service:

1. Realigning IT resources to better respond to the rapidly changing landscape of higher education, where flexible scheduling and multi-modality instruction and research have become the norm.
2. Increasing efficiency through greater standardization of the use of technology at UVM.
3. Leveraging existing expertise and promoting innovation through collaboration, expansion, adoption, and use of modern centralized enterprise technology tools, practices and procedures.

Phases of the Transition

Enterprise Technology Services and all IT personnel and operations currently housed in the academic units will be integrated into the central shared services model beginning January 1, 2021. Further details about this phase of the transition to shared services will be released on the IT Shared Services website in the coming days. We encourage you to visit this website for frequent updates and information.

The shared services model will exclude the Larner College of Medicine IT unit initially because of the complex interface that exists between the university and the UVM Medical Center. However, shared services IT personnel and LCOM IT personnel will continue to increase collaboration, especially around the sharing of infrastructure resources.

A subsequent phase of the transition will involve the integration of IT operations and personnel within the administrative units into the shared services model. Further details about this phase, including information on key dates, will be shared on the shared services website in the coming weeks.

We hope you will join in our excitement around a new model of IT service delivery at UVM. As the past months have demonstrated, we have a talented and committed staff, whose combined efforts have enabled the university to succeed with in-person, remote, online, hybrid and mixed-modality classes in a way that is the envy of many. We look forward to seeing what we are able to achieve when we work more collaboratively every semester, from now into the future.