Information Strategy 2013 | Page 4

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 4