Foster IT Leadership and Innovation

YouTube: UCLA Vice Provost Jim Davis discusses this theme

UCLA is a major research university with tremendous talent and assets. Thus, given the extensive and growing role of IT in research, education, and civic engagement, UCLA aspires to be viewed as a leader among similar institutions for its innovative use of technology to further its academic goals.

Each cohort of new students that comes to the campus brings new skills and expectations for their use of technology throughout their educational career. Researchers, too, expect state-of-the-art infrastructure as a basis for their innovation. There is significant interest in the campus becoming a leader in the areas of data analysis, digital media, and computational-based research.

UCLA will strive to meet these expectations by continuously evolving its IT tools and services. Further, the campus must have the flexibility to evaluate and adopt new technol-ogies as they emerge in a timely manner, while maintaining a cohesive architecture and remaining selective about the technologies it chooses to embrace – a "technological agility."

A necessary prerequisite will be for the campus to build upon the work done at other universities and collaborate with them in the creation of new applications of technology for higher education. Incentives must be created to encourage and support technological innovation in the academic units, where most innovation will occur.

This vision element supports the institutional goals of draft academic plan Transforming UCLA for the Twenty-first Century to enhance academic excellence through innovation and leadership in research and education. It also supports the goal to deepen public engagement through the creation of new modalities for the delivery of information and interaction with the community.