Disaster Recovery Planning

EDUCAUSE has joined with NACUBO and several other higher education associations to launch a national campus safety and security project. The project team will conduct an 18-month study that will examine threats of every nature facing colleges and universities and develop guidelines for campus emergency management plans for prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Mark Luker, vice president of EDUCAUSE, underscores the importance of addressing campus threats through a multi-organizational effort: "EDUCAUSE, for example, has investigated cyber security and assisted institutions in solving related problems. Expanding on our past efforts in the most meaningful way to colleges and universities requires more of an enterprise approach. We’re looking forward to this opportunity to integrate the concerns and work of EDUCAUSE with those of our partners in the higher education community who represent other components of campus life."

Related link: EDUCAUSE/Internet 2 Computer and Network Security Task Force

This 36-minute podcast recorded during the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference features Kenneth Richard Schroyer, ITS Disaster Recovery Strategy Manager, The Pennsylvania State University in a session titled "It Can't Happen Here: Developing a Unique Three-Tiered Administrative IT Disaster Recovery Plan."

The session abstract:

What would you do if a broken water pipe temporally disabled your IT capability, or a fire destroyed your primary or secondary IT facilities? Penn State has developed a plan addressing three unique event levels--incidents, disasters, and catastrophes--with three plan phases, each of which initiates a unique recovery response.

This one-hour podcast was recorded at the EDUCAUSE 2007 Southeast Regional Conference. This keynote panel discussion, entitled “Weathering the Storm – Preparing for, Responding to, and Recovering from Emergencies,” features Betty Hawkins, program manager at the University of South Carolina, David Sliman, directory of technology at the University of Southern Mississippi, and Frank O’Quinn, deputy policy and IT disaster recovery officer at Louisiana State University. Using examples from their own institutional experiences, they share real advice for emergency preparedness and response, answering the question, “How can we plan and prepare in a way that is realistic and meaningful?”

Summary: Weathering the Storm -- Preparing for, Responding to, and Recovering from Emergencies

This session was recorded for podcast.

General Session
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Atlanta, Georgia

Session moderator:
Kathryn F. Gates, Chief Information Officer, University of Mississippi
Panel:
Betty Hawkins, Program Manager II, University of South Carolina
David J. Sliman, Director of Technology-Gulf Coast, University of Southern Mississippi
Frank O'Quinn, Deputy Policy and IT Disaster Recovery Officer, Louisiana State University

This podcast features a keynote address from the 2007 Enterprise Conference in Chicago, Illinois. Our speaker is H. David Lambert, Vice President for Information Services and Chief Information Officer at Georgetown University. His speech is titled “The Adaptable University” and runs approximately 53 minutes.

Institutions of higher education have become increasingly concerned about their ability to maintain critical services to faculty, students, and staff in the event of a major disruption. As we build or buy new information systems, enhance new facilities, and design new programs, we must be concerned with business continuity and creating resilient, adaptable institutions that consider academic sustainability in every aspect of the enterprise.

 

EDUCAUSE has identified links concerning business continuity that may be useful to the higher education community on the new Business Continuity Planning resource page, including EDUCAUSE Review and EDUCAUSE Quarterly articles, federal government policies, and university resources.

The latest EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) study, “Shelter from the Storm: IT and Business Continuity in Higher Education,” looks at IT unit readiness to foster and support the functioning of colleges and universities that are challenged by disruption. Responding to a well-documented increase of interest in business continuity and disaster recovery issues among higher education chief information officers (CIOs), ECAR designed the study to inform executives about how institutions approach continuity issues and to identify practices that are associated with good business continuity outcomes.

The study methodology included a literature review; consultation with a select group of CIOs and business continuity experts for the purpose of identifying and validating research questions; a quantitative survey of IT administrators (mostly CIOs) at 340 higher education institutions; postsurvey interviews with 15 executives and IT staff members involved in business continuity; a quantitative survey of institutional business officers (mostly CBOs/CFOs) at 247 member institutions of the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO); and four case studies looking at business continuity planning and operations Florida State University, New York University, Pace University, UC Davis, and UCLA.

The 2007 Enterprise Conference—a small, specialized event for leaders and managers of administrative and enterprise IT in higher education—will be held May 23–24, in Chicago, Illinois. View the program and register by April 25 to save money with low, early-bird rates.

The conference will focus on the following topic areas:

• Challenges Where IT Can Make a Difference
• Project and Change Management/Centralized Services
• Security/Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity
• Running the Organization
• Policy and Governance

View the list of speakers, who will address pertinent topics such as data privacy in higher education, the changing role of enterprise systems, federated identity management, assessment and accreditation challenges, and disaster recovery planning in breakout and plenary sessions.

Business continuity and disaster recovery planning is becoming an increasing priority for higher education institutions. To facilitate this planning, many are exploring the use of business continuity planning tools, which establish a planning framework, offer direction in the planning process, and provide a common platform for the various campus groups involved. In this free February 27 EDUCAUSE Live! Web seminar, speakers from three institutions will discuss the business continuity planning tool selection process at their institutions, focusing on the criteria used and lessons learned. Those unable to tune in can visit the archives after the event.

In this 49-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from Mitchell Dysart and John Ellinger in a session entitled Statewide Disaster Recovery for Ohio's Higher Education. They will share details from a collaboration between The Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati  to establish the necessary infrastructure to support redundant disaster recovery for any higher education institution in Ohio.