A well-defined data strategy is essential for our campus to realize the full value of data as a strategic asset, enabling informed decision-making and operational excellence. The university’s single, overarching data strategy—the Boldly Illinois Data Strategy— was developed by the Boldly Illinois Data Strategy Project Team and delivered to executive sponsors in October 2025.
The Boldly IT Data Infrastructure Initiative supports the campuswide Boldly Illinois Data Strategy by turning its recommendations into practical, campuswide improvements. The Boldly Illinois Data Strategy recommendations include making institutional data easier to find and use, building a stronger foundation for innovation, preparing data for responsible use with emerging technologies like AI, and ensuring privacy, security, and compliance are built into everyday data practices.
Early projects for the Boldly IT Data Infrastructure Initiative include:
- A pilot Campus Data Catalog
- Shared data engineering pipelines to support data work across units
- Expanded learning analytics capabilities
- Defined practices to make institutional data ready for use with AI
This initiative will operationalize and advance key priorities of the Boldly Illinois Data Strategy, including support for student success, enhancement of data literacy, improvement of data quality, strengthened data access and management practices, and the integration of security, privacy, and compliance requirements into data management.