IT Services – Help Or Hindrance To National IT Development Programmes?

2 The IT Services’ Perspective Factors such as the rapid development of the Web and the onset of the open source software movement have led to renewed IT development within higher education. However the deployment of e-learning and related networked applications is reliant on the support of an institution’s IT services department. Such departments will, quite rightly, place an emphasis on the need to provide a stable and secure service environment and will be aware of the support implications in deploying new services. There can be a danger that development work, including development funded by national and international funding programmes, can be hindered by institutional IT service departments. However IT services may feel that developers fail to understand the security, performance and support issues which deployment of applications is likely to entail. This paper provides case studies which illustrate successful efforts at bridging this divide. The paper concludes by arguing for greater common understanding and by describing an emerging framework which can help facilitate the deployment process.