Information Technology Report The past year has heralded a period of dynamic transformation at Northern Lakes College, with many shifts in the operating environment for the post-secondary sector compounded by the disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The College’s Information Technology (IT) Services has played a critical role in ensuring service continuity to students during this period of dramatic change, while delivering on planned projects, and enabling and sustaining a seamless transition to remote work for many College staff. Northern Lakes College’s strategic IT focus remains on improving student access, experience and outcomes with the College’s Supported Distance Learning model. This primary focus is supported by a continuous drive to improve the effectiveness of the College’s enterprise systems and processes. Post-secondary collaboration is an integral part of the College’s digital services strategy and underpins the approach to the planning and delivery of IT services, as well as proactive cybersecurity threat management.
SPOTLIGHT ON COLLABORATION Northern Lakes College, Portage College and Lakeland College have conducted a series of joint IT strategic planning sessions that surfaced many opportunities to
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innovate, generate value and to be more responsive to dynamically shifting requirements. The colleges also discussed ways to share best practices, increase control over existing resources, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of digital service delivery. This series of highly interactive online workshops took place weekly through the summer of 2020 and were attended by approximately 30 staff and management from the three (3) partner institutions. This pioneering initiative, supported by Cybera, Alberta’s non-profit innovation accelerator, also helped develop a collaborative, reusable approach to IT strategic planning which will be shared with the broader Alberta post-secondary community. Cybera, as part of their ShareIT mandate, will continue to work with the partners to develop joint capability sets and broaden the scope of strategic collaboration. The College continues to collaborate with other Alberta post-secondary institutions directly, through ShareIT partnerships and other programs facilitated by the Government of Alberta, wherever feasible. Other collaboration opportunities under exploration at this time include AI-based services such as robotic process automation and chatbots to enhance student support, online proctoring, digital credentials and virtual lab facilities.
