Documents Contributed by ECAR, Business Continuity Planning, and Case Studies

This case study complements the 2007 ECAR study by Philip J. Goldstein, IT Collaboration: Multi-Institutional Partnerships to Develop, Manage, and Operate IT Resources. Researchers undertook this case study to understand the benefits of multi-institutional development of a ubiquitously needed IT service. By leveraging emerging technology, procurement opportunities, and internal resources, the University of California Office of the President and University of California, San Diego were able to develop a complex disaster recovery solution involving the joint hosting and comprehensive mirroring of each location’s mainframe and non-mainframe computing environments.

This case study investigates how two major New York City universities, Pace University and New York University, changed their business continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency response thinking and practices after experiencing a major emergency. Researchers conducted this in-depth case study to complement the 2007 ECAR study, Shelter from the Storm: IT and Business Continuity in Higher Education, which provides higher education with empirical information about where its business continuity vulnerabilities, plans, and practices stand in relation to surveyed institutions, and what factors are associated with success in planning for the delivery of information technology–dependent business services following a spectrum of potential service disruptions. Senior IT administrators at 340 colleges and universities completed the quantitative survey that informed the study.

Researchers conducted this in-depth case study to complement the 2007 ECAR study, Shelter from the Storm: IT and Business Continuity in Higher Education, which provides higher education with empirical information about where its business continuity vulnerabilities, plans, and practices stand in relation to surveyed institutions, and what factors are associated with success in planning for the delivery of information technology-dependent business services following a spectrum of potential service disruptions. Senior IT administrators at 340 colleges and universities completed the quantitative survey that informed the study. This case study examines how one institution, Florida State University, uses high-speed networking to deliver disaster recovery and business continuity services from a remote site.

This case study examines how risk assessment and business impact analysis initiatives emerged and are moving to completion at UCLA, one of the largest and technologically most complex institutions in US higher education. Researchers conducted this in-depth case study to complement the 2007 ECAR study, Shelter from the Storm: IT and Business Continuity in Higher Education, which provides higher education with empirical information about where its business continuity vulnerabilities, plans, and practices stand in relation to surveyed institutions, and what factors are associated with success in planning for the delivery of information technology-dependent business services following a spectrum of potential service disruptions. Senior IT administrators at 340 colleges and universities completed the quantitative survey that informed the study.

This case study discusses the business continuity and disaster recovery activities of the University of California, Davis, Office of Administration, highlighting the implications of these activities for the Information and Educational Technology group. Researchers conducted this in-depth case study to complement the 2007 ECAR study, Shelter from the Storm: IT and Business Continuity in Higher Education, which provides higher education with empirical information about where its business continuity vulnerabilities, plans, and practices stand in relation to surveyed institutions, and what factors are associated with success in planning for the delivery of information technology-dependent business services following a spectrum of potential service disruptions. Senior IT administrators at 340 colleges and universities completed the quantitative survey that informed the study.

This case study examines ways in which the Virginia Alliance for Secure Computing and Networking (VA SCAN) provides a blueprint for higher education institutions interested in collaboratively providing openly accessible IT security resources. VA SCAN is a partnership among five Virginia state higher education institutions and three IT security research programs that provide a repository of IT security tools, training, and consultative services to Virginia higher education institutions. All of the resources are available for free or on a cost-recovery basis. The case study was undertaken as part of ECAR's 2006 study of information technology security practices in higher education, which included a literature review, quantitative and qualitative date from 492 higher education institutions in the U.S. and Canada, input from IT security leaders and specialists, and three case studies.