CVM-IT Mission

The overall goal of the MU-CVM Information Technology (CVM-IT) section is to establish and maintain a state-of-the-art information management system supporting the CVM’s teaching, service, and research missions. CVM-IT provides:

CVM-IT supports the most local of a three tiered computing environment in the University of Missouri System. The following is an excerpt from the UM System Information Technology Mission Statement.

 

The mission of Information Technology organizations is to help their customers meet their individual missions efficiently and productively through the intelligent and practical application of information technology. The Information Technology support organizations serve the University’s faculty, staff and students and support these groups and their respective missions. The efficient delivery and management of information to the university community is a critical success factor for the IT support organizations. Information technology management within the university system is highly decentralized and occurs at the System, campus, department and school or investigator level. Each level is Organizationally autonomous providing support to their customers. This decentralized model operates with mixed success at the university.

 

Local control of information technology can provide users with greater access and flexibility. However, the necessary investments in technology cannot always be made, thereby limiting the potential benefits of local management. Additionally, local control sometimes results in inefficiencies such as duplicate support organizations, costly hardware and software contracts and duplicate system development initiatives.

 

The core concepts regarding distributed computing at the university are sound. However, changes in the organization support and funding model need to be made in order to achieve more efficiencies in the support of technology. Therefore, a three-tiered structure providing varying degrees of infrastructure support, consultative services, strategic direction, tactical hands-on support and overall technological guidance will be established….In general, support will be provided as follows:

 

System-wide support, provided by System IT, will encompass strategic technology planning, information technology policy and suggested standards, and will cover the design, implementation, maintenance and management of the inter-campus communication network infrastructure and enterprise level application software.

 

Campus level support, provided by the four campus IT organizations, will serve the academic and research community within each respective campus. Campus IT will design, implement, maintain, and manage the inter-department communication network infrastructure and application software serving the campus as its own enterprise. In addition, Campus IT will provide support with departmental technology planning, ensure compliance with system wide and campus standards established to meet unique local needs. Campus IT will represent campus academic, research and administrative information technology concerns during enterprise technology planning initiatives. Finally, Campus IT will provide its customers training on the proper use of the systems and tools they support.

 

Additional department level support may be needed by larger or more technologically aggressive units, divisions, departments or schools.…In some cases, where departmental needs are not within the standards supported by the System or campus IT units, the employment of individuals to operate, modify and maintain these custom applications will exist. These are typically systems serving very unique academic or research needs. Departmental support for these systems may include hardware, software, communication devices and education.

                                                           

The MU College of Veterinary Medicine clearly functions as a “larger and more technologically aggressive unit” relative to other MU Divisions. CVM-IT faces a tremendous challenge in meeting the rapidly changing needs of a complex organization reliant upon rapid, easy access to the growing sea of biomedical information. We are committed to meeting that challenge, and will measure our success by the extent to which we assist the CVM achieve its missions.