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OUR MISSION

"The Georgetown University Law Center Information Systems Technology (IST) Department is a team of ever-improving professionals committed to lead the information technology efforts of its community through effective planning and on-going teamwork resulting in a positive experience."

To Lead
The IST Department proactively manages and exercises technology leadership rather than merely responding or reacting to the Law Center community's needs.

Planning

The IST Department has a vision for technology that is several years ahead of implementation, so that we can take advantage of new technologies at the most ideal time.
Teamwork
Technology is not something that the IST Department does for people, but rather the result of close cooperation with all members of the Law Center community and the University, peer institutions, and business partners.
Positive Experience
While keeping in mind the realities of budgets and information security constraints, the IST Department strives to achieve community satisfaction with technology by closely matching expectations with actual services and resources.
VISION
  • The virtual Law Center is an integrated collection of web services for legal education and research. Secure and private access is granted to all Law Center community members and visitors through any Internet-enabled device.
  • The physical Law Center uses high-performance and wireless communications to support all Internet-enabled devices and multimedia interactions throughout the entire campus.
STRATEGIC GOALS
  • To use technology to facilitate teaching and legal research.
  • To provide community members and visitors with state-of-the-art technology that enhances the perception of Georgetown University Law Center.
  • To advance the mission of the institution beyond its physical and geographical limitations.
FIVE-YEAR OBJECTIVES
  • To organize and update secure, privacy-aware, and scalable databases and web services integrating administrative and academic processes.
  • To maintain a 99% reliable, convergent, and increasingly wireless network infrastructure composed of communication services, wired and wireless access points, servers, third-party providers, and security systems.
  • To provide adequate distance-capable multimedia services in the majority of classrooms, courtrooms, seminar and meeting rooms, public library areas, research clusters, and living spaces.
  • To train and support community members through individual and group orientation sessions, on-line self-help resources, electronic publications, live support, instructional technology assistance, and technical education programs.

BEYOND THE HORIZON

A key component of the new strategic plan for technology at the Law Center is an image of how legal education will be transformed in the next two decades, partly because of technology developments. Some of our faculty members envision walking into a classroom, giving verbal orders to the room systems, and having the system intelligently search and display the multimedia segment of their choice. Others would like to type their names or those of their colleagues in a computer and have their entire intellectual production one-click away. Some students dream about laptop computers without hard disks that can operate for many hours on their batteries. Others believe that sophisticated mobile phones with voice-recognition will make computers obsolete. Administrators envision teaching sessions in which students and faculty members sometimes seat in different continents.


Revised July 11, 2006 (PGM)