NUIT Policy Development Process

Audience:

All members of the University community who wish to suggest new or revised information technology policies and those required to review policies submitted under this process.

Policy Statement:

Because of the broad impact of policies on the NU community, all policies that address information technology must be developed under the guidelines described herein.

Policy formulation and refinement -- Task Group appointment

The need for a new policy or the revision of an existing policy must be brought to the attention of the OVP prior to performing any substantial work. The OVP will consult with other University offices to further refine the issues and may choose to modify or combine policy initiatives. If a new policy or revision effort is justified, the OVP will appoint a Task Group to author the draft policy statement. This group may include persons who will represent the interests of particular administrative or academic functions of the University.

Task Group Responsibilities

The Task Group will work toward a proposed policy that is complete, accurately stated, and generally agreed-upon by all relevant parties prior to submission to the OVP. The Task Group must consider the full effects of the proposal on University activities now and in the future. This step represents the largest fraction of effort on the policy and should include:

• Creation of an initial draft document with sufficient detail to support review by immediately relevant parties.
• An explicit statement of the purpose and need for the policy.
• Where appropriate, an explicit discussion of financial implications to schools and divisions to comply.
• Consultation with those administrative and academic units most obviously affected by the proposed policy if those units are not represented in the Task Group.
• Consultation with the Office of the General Counsel whenever regulatory or compliance issues are addressed.
• Creation of a final policy draft suitable for review by advisory committees and non-NUIT technical staff, if required.
• Circulation of the draft document to all NUIT directors for comment.

Submission to Vice-President's office

Once in final draft form, the policy is submitted to the OVP, which has final approval responsibility. The OVP may choose to reaffirm understanding of the policy with University offices most affected; however, the OVP will generally assume that those offices have been consulted and that they are in agreement (per the above step).

The draft policy document should be submitted as an Adobe^TM Portable Document Format (PDF) file. A policy template is included below. Along with this document, the Task Group must also submit a completed Request-For-Comments (RFC) Form below.

Posting and call for comments

The OVP will arrange for the draft policy to be published on an NUIT Web site and will send an e-mail message to the review audience requesting that they visit the Web site and comment on the proposed policy. Note that the Web site will be public and that anyone may comment upon the proposed policy, but only the review audience will be solicited to the review. Only one notice will be sent to the review audience -- no reminder messages will be sent.

Period for comments

In general, the time period for comments will be 30 days; however, this may be adjusted by the OVP.

Handling of comments received

All comments received on the proposed policy must be retained and archived for not less than one year. All responses to comments must also be retained for the same period.

Comments on the draft policy will be sent to the e-mail address supplied by the Task Group in the RFC Form. Each comment should be acknowledged. The Task Group should not respond to comments in substance until approximately halfway through the comment period in order to aggregate the comments into particular concern categories.

Toward the end of the comment period, the Task Group should group comments into concern categories for responses. For each category, the Task Group should prepare a response message that indicates how the comments received have been grouped into a conceptual topic, which is then addressed. The resulting message should then be sent to those who originally commented.

If the conceptual topic and the response message are worthy, they may be incorporated into the policy document as a "Question/Answer" section to clarify language or particular cases.

At the conclusion of the review process, the Task Group will assemble all comments and responses as separate text files and provide them to the OVP as a record of the process. The OVP will direct these to an appropriate archive for retention.

Policy revision and resubmission

If the comments received warrant substantial revision of the policy, then the Task Group must redraft and resubmit it to the OVP. Minor or typographical changes are not grounds for resubmission.

Policy adoption and publication

After the comment period has elapsed, the OVP will have the draft policy removed from the Web site. The Task Group will either withdraw the proposal or recommend that the OVP adopt the policy. In either case, the Task Group will provide the OVP with all comments and responses. If adoption is recommended and agreed, then the OVP will have the policy added to the NUIT Policies and Guidelines Web page. The new policy will be announced to the community and will take effect when indicated in that announcement.

At a minimum, adoption of a new policy must be publicized to the review audience. The NUIT Web site should also include a news announcement. The OVP may decide on additional publicity through: University Relations Web Communications, the Observer, the Daily Northwestern, and bulk e-mail to other groups.

The policy PDF file should be placed on the NUIT Policies and Guidelines Web page and any other appropriate policy sites within the University.

Background Issues:

University information technology policies are the responsibility of the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology (OVP). New policies or changes to existing policies are necessary to cover new applications of technology, changes in the technology marketplace, or changes in the regulatory environment. To be effective, the policy development process must respond to rapid change in a timely fashion. Yet, it must fully engage those affected by it.

This document defines how proposals for new policies or changes in current policies will be handled within Northwestern University Information Technology division (NUIT), including processes for soliciting community comment prior to adoption.

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