Web Seminars Contributed by EDUCAUSE and Disaster Recovery Planning

In the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, colleges and universities across the country are reviewing their emergency preparedness plans and evaluating their ability to quickly notify constituents in crisis situations. Networked technologies (posting notices on Web sites, e-mailing information, and sending text messages to cell phones) are among the most promising solutions. As campuses explore options for their emergency communication plan, they must also consider infrastructure and policy and procedural components. This session will provide an overview of the strategies for emergency notifications of students, employees, and visitors, as well as a context and resources for campus emergency preparedness planning.

In the past, business continuity and disaster recovery planning weren't necessarily a priority for higher education institutions. Due to recent events, however, colleges and universities are increasingly developing plans to enable their business functions to continue in the face of a disruptive event. 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. This session will explore the tool selection process at the presenters' institutions, focusing on the criteria used and lessons learned. This session may provide the basis for future discussions to delve further into the details of implementing these tools.

The main campus of The George Washington University is located just a few blocks from the White House. The series of events surrounding 9/11 helped to accelerate advancement of a university-wide business continuity (BC) program years ahead of many other universities. Starting six years ago, the central IT program started the planning process for its disaster recovery program with a comprehensive risk assessment, something only about 11 percent of universities have completed to date. Over time the program has evolved from a focus on IT recovery from failure and disaster to a proactive program focused on fault-tolerant continuous modes of operations. In the last two years the focus has shifted and matured to university-wide emergency management and preparedness. Much has been learned over the past six years that will be shared during this presentation, including approaches to help facilitate reliable and continuous modes of operations, the importance of communications, and how to sell and pay for BC. GW will also share their departmental guides and templates for BC planning and assessment and answer questions about BC.

Louisiana State University CIO Brian Voss shares his university's experiences in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. LSU (and IT at LSU) played a key role, providing a central point for relief and response functions and supporting recovery of IT operations for affected campuses. Katrina's devastation should alert CIOs throughout higher education of the need to think about disaster recovery and business continuity planning with a broader perspective, including how we might leverage growing cyberinfrastructure and collaborative partnerships.