Added value

Problems in IT Governance (ITG) are not particular of a given country or continent. Taking this into account, IT Governance artefacts can be common to almost all country in the world. However, special needs in the deployment are purely local (i.e. dependant on the University teaching portfolio, the ownership of the HEI, the level of knowledge on the topic, its history, …). These two assertions lead to the fact that already implemented approaches in ITG for Universities can be used as inspiration for an Albanian governance initiative. However, this cannot be done without the active participation and competence of Program Countries. In other words, previous success case studies, for example in Spain, and currently in Tunisia, and current competence on the topic will lead to a better ITG setup. Thus, knowledge and experience gained by Program Countries is a sine qua non condition. This active participation cannot be reached without European cooperation in this case, formed by four HEIs institutions from four different countries.

Innovative character

IT Governance is playing a crucial role in the successful alignment between IT and business. In university settings, studies like Creasey (2008) discovered a positive relation between effective IT governance and organizational performance in Universities. The Spanish experience in UNIVERSITIC project about Operation, Management and Governance of IT, meant a powerful maturity factor for HEI and their technology and a bechmarking experience for improving. As a consequence, IT Governance is key for Universities. However, and in spite of the importance of the topic worldwide, with relevant actors like, for instance ISACA, the penetration of IT Governance in universities is still scarce. Currently, we coordinate this effort in four Tunisian Universities through the ITG4TU Erasmus⁺ project.

In the specific case of the East Europe, this penetration is even weaker. In previous and recent studies like, for instance Jairak et al. (2015), the three main obstacles in IT Governance implementation in Universities are 1) Lack of clear ITG principles, 2) Budget limitations and 3) Lack of method for selecting the ITG framework. This project aims to tackle the three obstacles by providing a set of experts from HEIs with previous experience on the topic, by getting some budget to develop the framework and by providing a framework developed by the consortium.

The innovation of the project is based on the implementation of an IT Governance framework based on previous efforts, but also specifically designed for Albanian Universities. Developing a specific framework for Albanian Universities is, itself, a pioneering task. This will be a new development that will also lead way to the development of new research lines in the field among Albanian universities. An introduction of such framework would be an innovation not only to Albania but also to entire region.

Additionally, this framework should induce an interest among other surrounding universities (state or private) in developing their own research groups and increase the interest in the discipline.

ITG4AU - A project of the Capacity Building in the field of Higher Education

585578-EPP-1-2017-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP Call: EAC/A03/2016

Disclaimer

This project (Project number: 585578-EPP-1-2017-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP) has been funded with support from the European Commission. This website reflects the views only of its author(s), and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.