Optimising IT Provision in Universities: The Key to Academic and Student Success 

Universities face diverse IT challenges. A hybrid approach combining self-service and expert support is emerging as a solution. This model offers a catalogue, customisable options, and bespoke IT services, balancing efficiency with specialised needs.

It is no understatement to say that universities are driving the advancement of humanity. From curing diseases, to developing solutions to climate change, academic research is key to ensuring future generations survive and thrive. 

Whichever field they are in, today’s academics will be heavily reliant on IT. Access to suitable computer resources is critical if they are to achieve maximum impact through their research and teaching. It also minimises the likelihood of shadow IT emerging, where people go off-piste and procure their own IT. Moreover, a message we hear repeatedly from universities is that having the right IT available to both staff and students is a powerful draw that helps them attract and retain the best talent and for students is an essential part of preparing them for their future work and career.  

It is therefore essential that modern universities have the means to provide staff with the right technology, at the right time. 

Universities’ unique IT challenges 

Of course, the complexity and diversity of universities mean that actually doing this is a highly complex task. Universities do not just have a handful of classes of user, each with their own requirements; many will have hundreds.  

At one end of the spectrum, you could have people needing high-performance computing (HPC) resources to support work in areas such as computational fluid dynamics, drug discovery, genomics, and advanced artificial intelligence. At the other, you might have visiting lecturers, for whom portability and connectivity are the most important considerations. Even within these groups, no two users’ needs are going to be the same. And requirements will also evolve over time, as roles change and new technology becomes available that staff want to benefit from. 

Taking a one-size-fits-all approach simply will not work for university staff. But then from an operational perspective, neither will a manual process to design, procure, and set up tailor-made IT for every person. 

So where is the middle ground? How do universities ensure staff have access to the right IT when they need it, without placing an unsustainable burden on their IT teams? 

A hybrid approach to meeting IT requests 

The solution we are seeing increasing numbers of universities adopting, is a model that automates large parts of the IT procurement process, blending self-service with access to solution architecture expertise where required. 

Under this new approach, universities offer staff a self-service IT procurement portal. Requests sent via the portal are handled by a specialist external IT partner that takes care of procuring and setting up the equipment as well as shipping it to wherever it needs to go. The partner will generally also provide ongoing hardware maintenance and end-of-life management. 

The user-facing portal will typically contain three main areas, to cover the diverse range of user needs. We will now look at each one and consider the role it plays. 

1. Off-the-shelf IT catalogue 

Many IT requests will be straightforward. Someone may need a new headset, larger monitor, replacement keyboard, or a standard-issue laptop replacing at the end of its useful life. 

These sorts of requirements can usually be met by offering a catalogue of pre-approved hardware. Staff order from this at their convenience, and kit is delivered direct to them, ready to use. What they see in the catalogue, and how much they’re able to spend, will be linked to their role and departmental budgets, drawn from the university’s central identity and access management (IAM) system and finance systems. This type of request therefore typically needs no input from the university’s in-house IT team.  

2. Customisable options 

A subset of academic staff will have more nuanced requirements. This could be the need for more memory, or a higher-spec processor than the standard-issue machines come with.  

These spec variations are also supported via self-service, with certain users having a configurator for selected products within the IT request portal. This gives them the freedom to spec their equipment the way they need it, within budget, without taking up valuable IT team time. 

3. Bespoke IT with solution architecture support 

Many universities find that by providing the two capabilities we have outlined so far, a significant proportion of their staff’s IT requests can be taken care of on an entirely self-service basis. But that still leaves the highly bespoke requirements that go beyond what many would consider ‘standard IT’. We’re talking servers, large-scale storage, access to GPUs, and the like. 

This is where the third element of the portal comes in: the ability for staff to request custom IT for highly specialised use cases.  

Some will have the IT skills to specify exactly what they need. These individuals can simply detail the kit they need and submit for approval. Others won’t have the know-how to design their IT platform – and neither should they be expected to. For this group, an essential part of the third pillar is therefore to have access to solution architecture expertise. Staff provide details of their workload requirements, and a specialist can then design a suitable solution. The architect could be from the university’s in-house IT team or from an external specialist IT partner. 

Other success factors 

The unique IT requirements of universities mean it is important to work with partners that genuinely understand and have experience in the space. Does the organisation providing the service have a track record of delivering on diverse and demanding requirements in other universities? And for ease of equipment procurement, are they on approved procurement lists or part of relevant frameworks? 

Elsewhere, with IT considerations forming a core element of large organisations’ sustainability drives, will the partner help firstly extend the life of IT equipment through proactive repair and re-use? And secondly, will it provide responsible end-of-life services, with devices donated or recycled in line with stringent environmental standards?  

Supporting academic excellence 

Academics are the lifeblood of universities. Their success supports outcomes that benefit students, the organisation, and wider society. And so much of it is underpinned by having access to the right technology at the right times. But as anyone involved in university IT will know, the exceptionally diverse range of IT requirements found in academia mean this is easier said than done. Fortunately, organisations adopting the approach we’ve outlined here, tell us that their IT teams, and their academic staff, appreciate the speed and flexibility they enjoy as a result. 

By David Furby, CEO and founder of Novatech