Office of Information Technology

Organizational Overview



IT Customer Service

The IT Customer Service group is responsible for reliable and effective information technology services management, delivery, and communications to the AU community. The group employs industry standard best practices in ITIL Service Management, Change Management, and Performance Measurement. The IT Customer Service group includes:

  • the IT Help Desk team-answers questions and provides general troubleshooting assistance for the AU community via telephone, e-mail, and instant messaging. The Help Desk staff are empowered with system administrator rights to fix most problems, as well as coordinate with other technical support, networking, academic and administrative computing staff to solve customers' problems and questions.
  • the technical support team- provides on-site technical support of AU faculty, staff, students, and guests for issues pertaining to AU-supported hardware, software, and network connectivity. Responds to requests for service, either through direct interaction with customers at OIT's walk-in service or through issues that have been escalated from the OIT Help Desk. Installs, troubleshoots, and maintains workstation hardware components, network printers, software applications, and network related protocols to ensure a reliable and usable computing environment is maintained in support the university's academic and business needs.
  • the technical training team-designs, administers, and delivers the technical training curriculum. Assesses departmental and organizational needs utilizing performance measurement tools and consultation. Leverages industry best practices to design and implement learning and development solutions that meet university goals and IT process standards.
  • our IT Service Manager-provides team leadership in developing and managing service standards and processes with the goals of: fostering effective relationships, managing expectations, and reporting of performance metrics to the functional service owners and primary customer contacts across the University.


Enterprise Systems

The Enterprise Systems group is responsible for providing a comprehensive, integrated set of technology solutions that enables American University to improve the way we conduct business, supporting various staff and academic functions. Managing the university's technology portfolio continues to be a fine balance among modernizing existing solutions, charging ahead with new solutions, and continuing to operationalize best practices. The group is organized to provide a single point of contact to the staff and academic units, with specialized focus on the university’s data infrastructure and Web site.

The Enterprise Systems group includes:

  • the application management team-provides application administration and third-level technical support for all enterprise systems applications, through the formulation of a well-defined quality assurance function.
  • the business applications team-shapes and furthers enterprise solutions in support of university business functions in the areas of finance, accounting, budget, human resources, payroll, facilities, and risk management.
  • the information services team-defines the university's data infrastructure, thereby providing reliable, accurate, secure, and accessible data to the campus community through management of the university's data warehouse and analytical reporting functions.
  • the project office-institutionalizes best practices in several IT management service areas, building a reusable framework related to technology project and portfolio management practices.
  • the student applications team-shapes and furthers enterprise solutions in support of all schools, departments in the provost division, the Office of Campus Life, and the Office of Development.
  • the Web development team-realizes an effective and compelling university Web site and a high-quality, Web-enabled campus, integrating Web technologies to support learning, teaching, and communications through the Web.


Information Security

The Information Security group is responsible for protecting and defending American University's data resources by implementing industry-accepted security practices in IT planning, implementation, management, and operations, while ensuring confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and availability.

The team works to accomplish this through:

  • ensuring compliance with applicable policies, laws, and regulations
  • enforcing university policies and standards
  • highlighting sources of risk to university management
  • implementing technologies that increase the visibility of potential risks to our data
  • developing repeatable processes that validate security in IT systems and services
  • contributing to awareness, training, and education programs
  • initiating partnerships with departments to evaluate and improve their computer security practices
  • safeguarding new technologies and services


Technology Operations

The Technology Operations group continually strives for the balance of efficient applications of human resources, repeatable processes, and technology investment to administer the university information technology infrastructure.

The Technology Operations group includes:

  • the network operations team-provides operations management and monitoring, afterhours Help Desk assistance, information technology facilities management, and network engineering. The team also furnishes telecommunications services, desk-side technical support, and workstation lifecycle management.
  • the systems engineering services team-provides directory architecture management and engineering, systems engineering and operations, and database administration. The team also administers the e-mail and collaboration software environment and server and storage platforms architecture, engineering, and operations.

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