These principles are touchstones to be referenced in the development and execution of BU technology projects and operations.
INNOVATE
Foster innovation by supporting experimentation and providing flexible frameworks and tools.
USABLE
Prioritize accessibility and ease of use in the selection, implementation and promotion of new systems and services, to ensure the broadest impact and benefit to the BU community.
- Ensure access to services for people with disabilities.
- Support major platforms, devices, and browsers in use by most BU community members, including personally owned, often mobile devices.
- Adopt open standards whenever possible.
- Focus on usability in interface design.
- Communicate about service availability and capability in non-technical language, via multiple methods.
GLOBAL
Consider BU’s global reach in design of infrastructure, information and support services.
OPEN
Encourage open sharing of data, other content and expertise by making it easy and safe to do so.
SECURE
Enable compliance with security requirements by making it easy to do so. Apply appropriate controls to administrative and academic work, respectively.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Invest in professional development.
- For technology staff in technical, managerial and specific academic and administrative subject areas.
- For faculty, administrators and staff in the development of pedagogical, computational, analytical and process optimization skills.
SERVICE CULTURE
Continue to foster and sustain a service oriented culture, in which technology is a means, rather than an end, and value is placed on benefits realized by the BU community. Ensure that service sustainability and continuous improvement are prioritized equally with project activity.
- Listen to needs.
- Learn from the experiences and feedback of the community.
SHARED SERVICES
Enable resources to be allocated to innovation by providing common services in the most efficient manner possible.
- Reduce complexity and cost through reasonable standardization.
- Encourage use of and contribution to shared computing facilities for services that benefit from economies of scale.
- Provide central licensing (if applicable), vendor/supplier management and support for widely used technologies.
- Adopt the most cost effective infrastructure, platforms and services that meet BU requirements, regardless of service provider (open source community, BU-hosted, cloud provider, other).
- Minimize investment in legacy platforms; ensure that new systems provide emerging capabilities expected by end users.
- Reduce the number of shadow information systems. Where shadow information systems are identified, work with the owner(s) to identify and address the unmet need.
Support the development of infrastructure through a balance of institutional funding, sponsored research grants and industrial support.
GOVERNANCE
Govern technology services and projects efficiently and effectively, including representation that enables shared services across campuses, while balancing stakeholder engagement with the ability to make timely decisions.