Strategic Alignment

Bridging innovation and education.

Advancing the Odyssey to Extraordinary

The University of Nebraska’s “Odyssey to Extraordinary” strategic plan is a transformative initiative aimed at elevating the university system beyond excellence. Technology plays a critical role to enable this journey by supporting the foundational pillars of the strategy. Our Top Projects align to each of these initiatives.

View Our Top Projects

Extraordinary Teaching and Learning

Establish the University of Nebraska System with all of its educational programs as the most extraordinary learner-centered university with nationally recognized programs and top-tier faculty and staff.

AI Expansion, Innovation and Support

Identifying Gen AI options within existing platforms, piloting good opportunities for our university community, as well as participate in, align to, and help to advance AI governance efforts at NU.

Digital Learning Ecosystem

Keeping the Canvas+ environment future-looking, user friendly, and integrated with streamlined and modern technology - including affordable/accessible materials and appropriate uses of Generative AI.

Student Support Services

Prioritizing our support of key enhancements to the CRM environment and other focused student-centric strategies in order to help our campuses win the enrollment race.

Extraordinary Research & Creative Activity

Establish the University of Nebraska System research and creative activity scope and prominence as widely recognized for extraordinary societal impact as a top tier institution.

Research IT

Collaborating, supporting, and serving all stages of the research lifecycle, pre- and post-award, and serves as a catalyst to advance research by reducing overhead, ensuring compliance requirements are met, and providing secure scalable infrastructure. NU-ITS's growing emphasis on supporting a scalable research IT environment will be a foundational element for researchers across NU to compute, store, collaborate, and execute their projects effectively.

Extraordinary Partnerships and Engagement

Establish the University of Nebraska System and our engagement partners as having the highest-quality and impact that are recognized for extraordinary rural and urban outcomes.

Network Nebraska

Partnering with the State of Nebraska’s Office of the CIO to manage and support Nebraska’s statewide research and education network that serves as the Internet Service Provider for approximately 430,000 K-20 students throughout the state to maintain more than 300Gbps of connectivity to local, regional, and national R&E and commodity networks.

Title II

Supporting and working closely due to updated federal mandates with a variety of internal partners across NU including but not limited to academic leaders, Marketing/Communication divisions, business units, faculty, and instructional designers on dashboards, processes and troubleshooting.

Student Security Operations Center

Partnering with NCITE, UNL Computer Science, & UNO IS&T, NU ITS to manage a security operations center staffed with student interns. Interns participate in this experiential learning opportunity in a “grow your own” capacity and go on to become full-time staff of NU ITS, graduate from NU, complete certifications, and/or get hands-on experience that better prepares them for future jobs outside NU in cybersecurity.

Extraordinary Culture and Environment

Establish the University of Nebraska System campuses, across all their missions, as having an extraordinarily vibrant and engaging culture in environments that are safe, welcoming.

Investing in Our People

Continually seeking new ways to grow and develop talent, create an exceptional work environment, and recognize our team's talents and wins. This includes Leadership Programming, our NU ITS Extended Leaders, upskilling as well as our Award Program and CREW (Creating Really Engaged Workers).

Extraordinary Stewardship and Effectiveness

Establish the University of Nebraska System as an extraordinarily effective, efficient, and sustainable organization for planning and implementation of all mission-driven goals.

Next Generation Infrastructure and Security

Leaning into advanced technologies that will enable NU-ITS infrastructure and security services to serve as a strategic enabler for growth and innovation.

Data Center Alignment

Expansion of the Nebraska Hall Data Center (NHDC) and future retirement of the Scott Engineering Center Data Center (SECDC).

Driving IT Scale and Efficiency

Across NU As NU evaluates future state, NU ITS will be embarking on a variety of efficiency efforts in support of broader institutional change efforts.