• Section 1 - Purpose
• Section 2 - Scope / Application
• Section 3 - Policy Statement and Principles
• ICT Guiding Principles
• ICT Governance policies
• Section 4 - Roles and Responsibilities
• Approval Authority
• Governing Authority
• Responsible Officer
• Other relevant stakeholders
• Section 5 - Review
• Section 6 - Further Assistance
• Section 7 - Definitions

Section 1 - Purpose

(1) This Policy aims to ensure ACU’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability and investments are well founded, aligned with University strategic priorities, and comply with contractual obligations, policies and standards.

(2) ACU is one of the leading Catholic universities in the world and is one of the principal intellectual assets of the Church in Australia. Organisationally, ACU is geographically dispersed with teaching, learning and administration undertaken in multiple cities across Australia. Management of the business is mainly centred around various Directorates and Faculties.

(3) In the main, ownership of ICT requirements is distributed across Directorates and Faculties who drive their individual strategies, action plans and changes. Cross business unit Enterprise applications and the broader technical infrastructure is generally managed by Information Technology (IT).

(4) Under these arrangements ACU need an ICT Governance Policy that assists in:

1. leveraging our scale in purchasing, skill acquisition / retention and systems licensing and maintenance;
2. prioritising our investment in ICT for the greater good of ACU balancing short, medium and longer-term needs; and
3. ensuring the aggregate of our ICT related student and customer experience is progressive and well aligned.

Section 2 - Scope / Application

(5) This Policy applies to the management of University initiatives that involve ICT services or projects across the teaching, learning, research, and administrative elements of the organisation.

(6) ICT includes the information, applications, processors, storage, networks, and access devices used across ACU, including cloud and communication services.

Section 3 - Policy Statement and Principles

(7) This Policy forms part of the University’s strategic planning processes and establishes priorities for strategic direction, governance, and investment in ICT.

ICT Guiding Principles

(8) In managing the ICT portfolio, ACU has adopted the following guiding principles:

1. ICT is a key enabler of business improvement, and is most impactful when targeted strategically, and implemented with complementary people and process change;
2. it is important that our customer’s experiences are aligned and progressive, so we will coordinate our ICT change agenda across Directorates and Faculties;
3. information is a corporate asset that is willingly shared across the organisation (within appropriate privacy and security constraints);
4. ICT investments are managed as a portfolio to ensure that there is a good balance between short, medium, and longer-term objectives, and that the portfolio is inclusive of various project delivery models that show appropriate levels of agility, innovation and learning;
5. ICT should generally be managed for optimal business value, not just lowest technology cost;
6. investment in ICT is approved by assessing investment opportunities in a business case format that assesses prospective benefits against risks and total cost of ownership (TCO), which includes both capital and operating costs across both ICT and business units, and includes operating costs for systems licensing, maintenance and support;
7. ACU protects itself with appropriate defensive ICT practices (including access, security, cyber security, backup and restore, disaster recovery);
8. Information Technology is the primary custodian of cross business Enterprise applications, and the technology, communications, integration, security, risk and support arrangements across ACU; and
9. Directorates and Faculties are the primary custodian of their individual customer experiences, and associated functional requirements, local applications, information quality, people and processes.

ICT Governance policies

(9) To enact these guiding principles, ACU will:

1. establish ICT architectures and standards that guide us in managing diversity in our systems, information and services, and ensure we have an innovative and robust ICT offering;
2. have agreed governance arrangements that oversee the ICT change agenda for all significant ICT investment proposals, and any ICT investments that are not in line with approved ACU architectures and standards;
3. establish ICT strategic roadmaps for all major Directorates and Faculties that brings together the business and ICT needs into an annualised roadmap for investment;
4. use a structured approach for the review and approval of new ICT projects, that considers benefits, TCO, risk and compliance (including privacy) in a standard business case format;
5. work within a common set of pragmatic and effective project practices that allow us to be confident in our project disciplines, and well-informed about the status of the project pipeline; and
6. sustain an ongoing technology refresh program to ensure our technology remains fit for purpose, recognising that technology capabilities can progress quickly, so we need to continue to investment.

Section 4 - Roles and Responsibilities

Approval Authority

(10) The Vice-Chancellor and President is the Approval Authority for this Policy.

Governing Authority

(11) The Technology Assurance Group (TAG) is the Governing Authority for this Policy.

(12) TAG is the primary governance group for addressing the issues of alignment to roadmaps / architectures / standards to ensure ACU are doing our ICT projects in the ‘right way’ and ensuring the ICT projects and initiatives are:

1. in line with our organisational and systems blueprints (roadmaps, architectures, and standards);
2. consistent with industry directions and our customer service ambitions;
3. meeting business requirements; and
4. in line with parallel change initiatives.

(13) In practice TAG will:

1. review proposed project approach to ensure proposed approach is in line with established architectures, blueprints and standards, and cross-project dependencies are well recognised; and
2. at appropriate milestones, provide oversight and endorsement of each projects proposed detailed design and go-live decision making.

(14) The Terms of Reference define the operating arrangements for TAG.

Responsible Officer

(15) The Chief Information and Digital Officer is accountable for this Policy and associated investment plans and allocations and is authorised to approve capital expenditure within an approved Capital Plan in accordance with the Delegations of Authority Policy and Register.

Other relevant stakeholders

Section 5 - Review

(16) In line with the Policy Development and Review Policy, this Policy is scheduled for review every five years or more frequently if appropriate.

(17) Unless otherwise indicated, this Policy will still apply beyond the review date.

Section 6 - Further Assistance

(18) Enquiries relating to this Policy can be made to the Chief Information and Digital Officer.

Section 7 - Definitions