An Enabling Strategy
The Information Strategy is a University-wide
strategy and is thus relevant to everyone. It is best
appreciated as an enabling strategy and, though
capable of standing on its own, its true value can
only be realised through its impact on other
strategies. Like all strategies it must support and
enable the main University Strategy but it must also
be seen as a key component of other strategies such
as the Learning, Teaching & Assessment Strategy,
the Research, Knowledge Transfer &
Commercialisation Strategy and so on.
Information can be seen, along with the business,
application and technology perspectives as one of
the four components of Enterprise Architecture (EA).
The information perspective defines the raw data that
the organisation requires in order to operate
efficiently. The other three perspectives define
processes, standards, inter-actions, hardware,
software and networking solutions that together
across the University (the enterprise) ensure
strategies are addressed in an holistic manner.
these individual strategies will need to work closely
with colleagues in Information Services to achieve
this. Planning must be inclusive but must be led by
the strategy owner.
Information Services is particularly well-placed,
following the merger of Library and C&ITS, to take a
prominent role in the promotion and delivery of the
Information Strategy. The bringing together of a
range of skills and experiences through the common
interest that IS staff have in “information” naturally
focuses on enhancing the support for teaching,
learning and research throughout the University. In
addition, through the role that the many IS staff who
are involved in major projects across the University
can play, the need for a greater understanding of
information and its management can be more widely
understood and embedded.
The Information Strategy at its core is about the
development, processing and application of
information at all levels. Data which is defined and
understood in a shared way becomes information.
This information in turn becomes evidence and that
evidence once analysed and researched becomes
knowledge.
Business process and the information infrastructure
cannot and should not be separated in strategic
planning. This helps to emphasise the importance of
information to all University activities and ensures a
consistency of approach to its management. This
applies as much to learning and teaching as it does
to overall corporate strategy.
It follows therefore that each of these strategic plans
should have their own component setting out the
extent and nature of their dependency on information
resources and a consideration of how they are
managed. Furthermore it follows that the “owner” of
Edinburgh Napier University Information Strategy 2013
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