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Terms of Reference

  1. To act as a reference group for the Information Technology (IT) Governance Board.
  2. To keep watch on future and advanced IT that will impact on University vision and mission and to provide direction for the use of advanced technologies such as AI (primarily GenAI) to ensure adoption is strategic, ethical, equitable and cost-effective.
  3. The group will focus on removing barriers to the use of advanced technology and identifying areas for improvement and ensuring that the right resources are available for the University to execute University-wide strategy.
  4. Points to note: The Advanced Technologies Reference Group is responsible for keeping watch on future and advanced Technology that will impact the University's vision and mission, and providing direction for the use of advanced technologies such as AI (primarily GenAI) to ensure adoption is strategic, ethical, equitable, and cost-effective. The group will focus on removing barriers to the use of advanced technology, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring that the right resources are available for the University to execute its strategy.

Responsibilities

  1. To be a point of coordination for identifying and quantifying potential resolutions to advanced IT-related opportunities and threats from among stakeholders and operational teams that deliver or use IT services.
  2. To maintain (and share as required) a pipeline of activities for improvements that enable the adoption of advanced IT, such as GenAI, across the University. Within the group, prioritise these activities considering strategic benefit and achievability, and provide guidance regarding implementation. The group will identify areas for:
    1. Immediate action – where this group can directly influence, solve or support delivering a solution (e.g. documentation or supporting procedures)
    2. Future action – identifying enabling initiatives that should be added to delivery and support plans (e.g. establishing new services)
    3. Escalation – raising to appropriate areas, issues that will require consideration with recommendations of possible solutions (e.g. resolving conflicting work streams or funding for initiatives).
  3. To act as the central communications body for all stakeholders including groups of users, departments, and liaison with wider decision makers.
  4. Develop policy, procedure, guidelines and training requirements associated with the use of advanced IT within the University considering areas such as:
    1. Ethical use
    2. Academic integrity
    3. Transparency - how we identify content that has been created by GenAI
    4. Privacy
    5. Information provenance
    6. Protection of University intellectual property
    7. Guidance around appropriate use of GenAI
    8. Support the policy management group with advice and recommendations regarding the inclusion of AI-specific guidance within University policy and procedures as appropriate.
  5. Publish guidance (including the above) to AskOtago knowledgebase articles (and elsewhere as required) that give clear direction on the application of advanced IT, including GenAI, within the University.
  6. Actively consider current, future, and emerging advanced IT, such as GenAI, as tools that we can apply to problems to realise efficiency gains and to ensure the University approach is relevant and in line with the wider world.

Membership

  1. Members will be selected to bring the right skills together to collaborate, fully understand issues and recommend and prioritise improvements for other teams to deliver using standard business as usual delivery models.
  2. The group will have the appropriate skillsets to consider operational impacts and efficiency, practicality of realising outcomes, issue urgency, monitoring of risk, quality and assessing cross department requests for changes.
  3. Voting members:
    1. Chair – Chief Digital Officer
    2. Representative(s) from ITS
    3. Head of Information Systems
    4. Head of IT Infrastructure
    5. Enterprise Architect
    6. ITS technical SME on AI (tbc)
    7. Representative(s) for Research
    8. Chair of eResearch Advisory Group
    9. Representative from Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy (CAIPP)
    10. Representatives from Teaching and Learning
    11. Dean of Teaching and Learning
    12. Representative from CALT
    13. University Privacy Officer
    14. University Legal Counsel
    15. Senior Strategic Adviser Māori
    16. Manager, Disability Information and Support
    17. Student Representative via OUSA.
  4. The following shall be standing invites and receive all documents and attend as required:
    1. Head of Transformation & Improvement
    2. Senior Manager IT Assurance & Cyber Security
    3. Senior Manager Research and Teaching IT Support
    4. Manager Copyright and Open Access
    5. Systems Architect
    6. Domain Architect
    7. Senior Manager Continuous Improvement
    8. University Librarian
    9. Corporate Records
    10. Office of Risk, Assurance & Compliance
    11. Head of Finance Advisory
    12. Representative from Policy Management Group.

Quorum

A majority of voting members.

Other participants

Where agreed by the Chair, other persons may be invited to participate in committee activities. However, such persons do not assume membership or decision-making authority of the committee.

Frequency and timing

Typically, the group will meet every quarter.

Agenda and reports

  1. Agenda to be available and distributed with relevant documentation not less than three working days prior to each meeting.
  2. The minimum agenda will include:
    1. The minutes of the previous meeting
    2. Updated and current prioritised action items list of identified continuous improvement activities. These agreed items will be captured in JIRA and the nominated ITS member will produce and report for the committee.

Secretariat

  1. Minutes of matters discussed will be recorded and stored on OURDrive.
  2. Executive Assistant ITS.

Confidentiality

Certain issues being discussed may be of confidential and/or sensitive nature which will require members to exercise utmost discretion and ensure privileged information remains confidential - unless the Chair decides otherwise.

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