Support Services and ITIL

Cornell Information Technologies has launched an initiative to mature the technology-driven organization to one that is both process-oriented and service-oriented. Significant improvements in several process areas have resulted from referencing the ITIL framework as a guide and leveraging and optimizing existing business knowledge.

Since its inception, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has remained the most widely recognized and adopted framework for IT service management. The many benefits of ITIL have become widely known and continue to grow as the community of practice matures. Most institutions using ITIL started with version 2 and are in the midst of their adoption process. Version 3 represents a significant change in the architecture of ITIL. ITIL version 3 aligns service management with evolving business environments, rapidly advancing technology, compliance requirements, and governance models, and it shifts ITIL from a process focus to a lifecycle focus. This research from the Burton Group discusses the notable shift in terms of how IT is viewed in the overall context of the institution.

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Burton Group (www.burtongroup.com) provides technically in-depth research and advisory services for colleges and universities, government agencies, and commercial enterprises. Burton Group's practical and unbiased research and advice helps technologists make smart IT infrastructure decisions in increasingly complex environments. Burton Group covers directories, identity management, application platforms, architecture, and network and telecom infrastructure topics. Like ECAR, Burton Group is an unbiased advocate for the user and more than 80% of Burton Group's clients are user organizations rather than suppliers. EDUCAUSE member institutions can become users of Burton Group research services through EDUCAUSE pricing. Burton Group is an ECAR partner and can be contacted by email at slesueur@burtongroup.com or by telephone (801-373-5767).

ITIL is a leading framework for managing and delivering IT services. It helps IT organizations become more efficient and effective in their service planning, delivery, and oversight. ITIL is flexible enough to be adopted by IT in higher education. This discussion will briefly introduce ITIL and its place in the wider IT value chain. It will also cover the experience of an ITIL implementation at Yale University, including the time, resources, and skills required.

This ECAR case study complements the 2007 ECAR study by Mark C. Sheehan, Service on the Front Line: The IT Help Desk in Higher Education, which examines the state of higher education help desk organizations, services, tools, resources, and management practices and how these and assorted other measures are related to desirable help desk outcomes. ECAR undertook this case study of New York University to demonstrate how the framework of IT service management practices and functions known as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) can strengthen service management practices in a complex higher education institution.

Citation for this work: Pirani, Judith A., Mark C. Sheehan, and Bob Albrecht. “ITIL at New York University: A Framework for Excellence” (Case Study 1). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.