Glossary A-Z

acceptance

Formal agreement that an IT service, process, plan, or other deliverable is complete, accurate, reliable, and meets its specified requirements. Acceptance is usually preceded by change evaluation or testing and is often required before proceeding to the next stage of a project or process. See also service acceptance criteria.

access management

(ITIL Service Operation) The process responsible for allowing users to make use of IT services, data, or other assets. Access management helps to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of assets by ensuring that only authorized users can access or modify them. Access management implements the policies of information security management and is sometimes referred to as rights management or identity management.

access point (AP)

A networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network. The AP usually connects to a router (via a wired network) as a standalone device, but it can also be an integral component of the router itself.

accessibility tools

Integrations or platform features that enable accessibility under the definitions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and related guidance from the US Department of Education and the compliance officers of Western Carolina University.

account manager

(ITIL Service Strategy) A role that is very similar to that of the business relationship manager, but includes more commercial aspects. Most commonly used by Type III service providers when dealing with external customers.

accounting

(ITIL Service Strategy) The process responsible for identifying the actual costs of delivering IT services, comparing these with budgeted costs, and managing variance from the budget.

accounting period

(ITIL Service Strategy) A period of time (usually one year) for which budgets, charges, depreciation and other financial calculations are made. For WCU, this period is July 1 through June 30.  See also fiscal year.

accredited

Officially authorized to carry out a role. For example, an accredited body may be authorized to provide training or to conduct audits.

activation

This is the date when work on a project is started.

Active Directory (AD)

Active Directory (AD) is a Microsoft technology used to manage computers and other devices on a network. It is a primary feature of Windows Server, an operating system that runs both local and Internet-based servers. Active Directory allows network administrators to create and manage domains, users, and objects within a network. For example, an admin can create a group of users and give them specific access privileges to certain directories on the server. As a network grows, Active Directory provides a way to organize a large number of users into logical groups and subgroups, while providing access control at each level.

active monitoring

(ITIL Service Operation) Monitoring of a configuration item or an IT service that uses automated regular checks to discover the current status. See also passive monitoring.

activity

A set of actions designed to achieve a particular result. Activities are usually defined as part of processes or plans and are documented in procedures. Also, an element of work performed during the course of a project. An activity normally has an expected duration, an expected cost and expected resource requirements. Activities are often subdivided into tasks.

activity definition

Identifying the specific activities that must be performed in order to produce the various project deliverables.

activity duration estimating

Estimating the number of work periods which will be needed to complete individual activities.

administrative closure

Generating, gathering, and disseminating information to formalize project completion.

Agile project management

Originated from Agile software Development which is a set of principles that emphasize meeting changing requirements through collaborative development and making ongoing improvements through iteration. Provides the ability to react rapidly to changes and external environments.

agreed service time (AST)

(ITIL Service Design) A synonym for service hours, commonly used in formal calculations of availability.

See also downtime.

agreement

A document that describes a formal understanding between two or more parties. An agreement is not legally binding unless it forms part of a contract. See also operational level agreement; service level agreement.

alert

(ITIL Service Operation) A notification that a threshold has been reached, something has changed, or a failure has occurred. Alerts are often created and managed by system management tools and are managed by the event management process.

analytical modeling

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A technique that uses mathematical models to predict the behavior of IT services or other configuration items. Analytical models are commonly used in capacity management and availability management. See also modeling; simulation modeling.

application

Software that provides functions which are required by an IT service. Each application may be part of more than one IT service. An application runs on one or more servers or clients. See also application management; application portfolio.

application management

(ITIL Service Operation) The function responsible for managing applications throughout their life cycle.

application portfolio

(ITIL Service Design) A database or structured document used to manage applications throughout their life cycle. The application portfolio contains key attributes of all applications. The application portfolio is sometimes implemented as part of the service portfolio, or as part of the configuration management system.

application program interface (API)

An application or protocol that allows controlled and automated exchanges of information between systems.  For the most part the LMS portion of this will be related to interoperable learning tools and the management of data for related systems.

application service provider (ASP)

(ITIL Service Design) An external service provider that provides IT services using applications running at the service provider’s premises. Users access the applications by network connections to the service provider.

application sizing

(ITIL Service Design) The activity responsible for understanding the resource requirements needed to support a new application, or a major change to an existing application. Application sizing helps to ensure that the IT service can meet its agreed service level targets for capacity and performance.

architecture

(ITIL Service Design) The structure of a system or IT service, including the relationships of components to each other and to the environment they are in. Architecture also includes the standards and guidelines that guide the design and evolution of the system.

artifact

Items such as forms, documents, or data that support actual aspects of development of a new tool or installation of an existing tool.

assembly

(ITIL Service Transition) A configuration item that is made up of a number of other CIs. For example, a server CI may contain CIs for CPUs, disks, memory, etc.; an IT service CI may contain many hardware, software, and other CIs. See also build; component CI.

assessment

Inspection and analysis to check whether a standard or set of guidelines is being followed, that records are accurate, or that efficiency and effectiveness targets are being met. See also audit.

asset

(ITIL Service Strategy) Any resource or capability. The assets of a service provider include anything that could contribute to the delivery of a service. Assets can be one of the following types: management, organization, process, knowledge, people, information, applications, infrastructure, or financial capital. See also customer asset; service asset; strategic asset.

asset management

(ITIL Service Transition) A generic activity or process responsible for tracking and reporting the value and ownership of assets throughout their life cycle. See also service asset and configuration management; fixed asset management; software asset management.

assumptions

Factors that, for project planning purposes, are considered to be true and do not require proof.

attribute

(ITIL Service Transition) A piece of information about a configuration item. Examples are name, location, version number, and cost. Attributes of CIs are recorded in a configuration management database (CMDB) and maintained as part of a configuration management system (CMS). See also relationship; configuration management system.

audit

Formal inspection and verification to check whether a standard or set of guidelines is being followed, that records are accurate, or that efficiency and effectiveness targets are being met. An audit may be carried out by internal or external groups. See also assessment; certification.

authentication

The process of identifying an individual, usually based on a username and password. In security systems, authentication is distinct from authorization, which is the process of giving individuals access to system objects based on their identity. See also single sign-on; multi-factor authentication; two-factor authentication.

automatic call distribution (ACD)

(ITIL Service Operation) Use of information technology to direct an incoming telephone call to the most appropriate person in the shortest possible time. ACD is sometimes called automated call distribution.  WCU’s tool for ACD is Clearspan Call Center.

availability

(ITIL Service Design) Ability of an IT service or other configuration item to perform its agreed function when required. Availability is determined by reliability, maintainability, serviceability, performance, and security.

Availability is usually calculated as a percentage. This calculation is often based on agreed service time and downtime.

Availability management (AM)

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for ensuring that IT services meet the current and future availability needs of the university in a cost-effective and timely manner. Availability management defines, analyzes, plans, measures, and improves all aspects of the availability of IT services, and ensures that all IT infrastructures, processes, tools, roles, etc. are appropriate for the agreed service level targets for availability. See also availability management information system.

availability management information system (AMIS)

(ITIL Service Design) A set of tools, data, and information that is used to support availability management.

See also service knowledge management system.

availability plan

(ITIL Service Design) A set of tools, data, and information that is used to support availability management.

See also service knowledge management system.

back-out

(ITIL Service Transition) An activity that restores a service or other configuration item to a previous baseline. Back-out is used as a form of remediation when a change or release is not successful.

backup

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) Copying data to protect against loss of integrity or availability of the original.

Banner

The enterprise resource platform for WCU.  Also the system of record.

Banner feed

The process for updating of the LMS roles and enrollment automatically.  Can also be run manually.

bar chart

A graphic display of schedule-related information. In the typical bar chart activities or other project elements are listed down the left side of the chart, dates are shown across the top and activity durations are shown as date-placed horizontal bars. See also Gantt chart.

baseline

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Transition) A snapshot that is used as a reference point. Many snapshots may be taken and recorded over time but only some will be used as baselines. For example:

• An ITSM baseline can be used as a starting point to measure the effect of a service improvement plan
• A performance baseline can be used to measure changes in performance over the lifetime of an IT service
• A configuration baseline can be used as part of a back-out plan to enable the IT infrastructure to be restored to a known configuration if a change or release fails.

Also, the original plan (for a project, a work package, or an activity), plus or minus approved changes. Usually used with a modifier (e.g., cost baseline, schedule baseline, performance measurement baseline). See also benchmark.

benchmark

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Transition) A baseline that is used to compare related data sets as part of a benchmarking exercise. For example, a recent snapshot of a process can be compared to a previous baseline of that process, or a current baseline can be compared to industry data or best practice. See also benchmarking; baseline.

benchmarking

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) The process responsible for comparing a benchmark with related data sets such as a more recent snapshot, industry data or best practice. The term is also used to mean creating a series of benchmarks over time and comparing the results to measure progress or improvement.

best effort

Description of what IT support personnel will do for requests that are outside of the standard service catalog but also:

• doable within allotted working time without disrupting other duties
• does not create an obligation for an ongoing unsupported service
• does not use a service that puts student or organizational data at risk
• assists the partner to complete the requested activity

best practice

Proven activities or processes that have been successfully used by multiple organizations. ITIL is an example of best practice.

billing

(ITIL Service Strategy) Part of the charging process. Billing is the activity responsible for producing an invoice or a bill and recovering the money from customers. 

book rental program

A program of the bookstore at Western Carolina University, which:

• Lowers student book costs
• Requires departmental alignment for book purchases
• Focuses on printed copies and does not allow the publishers to easily transition to new texts

Effectively makes all publisher and software provider “paid” platforms (i.e.: Pearson MyLab, Labster, Adobe Creative Cloud), which rely upon semester-based or annual subscription fees impossible to shift to student payment.  Side effect is that both publisher representatives and departments are constantly seeking to implement “free” pilot versions of these products and then move the university to an annual site license or other agreement.  This has resulted in the LMS being one of the gatekeepers for the use of new products and methods, and, usually, denying the request for the software or platform.  On rare occasions, the LMS team has become the de facto product manager, including the administration of the product, managing support of the product, managing communications around the product, and managing the search for continuing funding for the product.

brainstorming

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) A technique that helps a team to generate ideas. Ideas are not reviewed during the brainstorming session, but at a later stage. Brainstorming is often used by problem management to identify possible causes.

budget

A list of all the money a division or department plans to receive, and plans to pay out, over a specified period of time. Also, the approved funding estimate for completing the full scope of project work described in the work breakdown structure. See also budgeting; planning.

budget code

The budget code at WCU that pays the fee for the product or service.  These codes are usually representative of a budgeted state item, one-time funds, or, more rarely, endowment funds.

budgeting

The activity of predicting and controlling the spending of money. Budgeting consists of a periodic negotiation cycle to set future budgets (usually annual) and the day-to-day monitoring and adjusting of current budgets.

build

(ITIL Service Transition) The activity of assembling a number of configuration items to create part of an IT service. The term is also used to refer to a release that is authorized for distribution – for example, server build or laptop build. See also configuration baseline.

build environment

(ITIL Service Transition) A controlled environment where applications, IT services and other builds are assembled prior to being moved into a test or live environment.

business capacity management

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) In the context of ITSM, business capacity management is the sub-process of capacity management responsible for understanding future business requirements for use in the capacity plan. See also service capacity management; component capacity management.

business case

(ITIL Service Strategy) Justification for a significant item of expenditure. The business case includes information about costs, benefits, options, issues, risks, and possible problems. See also cost benefit analysis.

business continuity management (BCM)

(ITIL Service Design) The business process responsible for managing risks that could seriously affect the business. Business continuity management safeguards the interests of key stakeholders, reputation, brand, and value-creating activities. The process involves reducing risks to an acceptable level and planning for the recovery of business processes should a disruption to the business occur. Business continuity management sets the objectives, scope, and requirements for IT service continuity management.

business continuity plan (BCP)

(ITIL Service Design) A plan defining the steps required to restore business processes following a disruption. The plan also identifies the triggers for invocation, people to be involved, communications etc. IT service continuity plans form a significant part of business continuity plans.

business impact analysis (BIA)

(ITIL Service Strategy) Business impact analysis is the activity in business continuity management that identifies vital business functions and their dependencies. These dependencies may include suppliers, people, other business processes, IT services etc. Business impact analysis defines the recovery requirements for IT services. These requirements include recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, and minimum service level targets for each IT service.

business operations

(ITIL Service Strategy) The day-to-day execution, monitoring, and management of business processes.

business process

A process that is owned and carried out by the business unit. A business process contributes to the delivery of a product or service to a business customer. For example, the Division of Administration and Finance has a purchasing process that helps to deliver products to the university. This business process relies on IT services.

business relationship management

(ITIL Service Strategy) The process responsible for maintaining a positive relationship with customers. Business relationship management identifies customer needs and ensures that the service provider is able to meet these needs with an appropriate catalog of services. This process has strong links with service level management.

business relationship manager (BRM)

(ITIL Service Strategy) A role responsible for maintaining the relationship with one or more customers. This role is often combined with the service level manager role.

business unit

(ITIL Service Strategy) A segment of the business that has its own plans, metrics, income, and costs. Each business unit owns assets and uses these to create value for customers in the form of goods and services.

call

(ITIL Service Operation) A telephone call to the help desk from a user. A call could result in an incident, or a service request being logged.

call type

(ITIL Service Operation) A category that is used to distinguish incoming requests to the help desk. Call types are incident and service request.

capability

(ITIL Service Strategy) The ability of an organization, person, process, application, IT service or other configuration item to carry out an activity. Capabilities are intangible assets of an organization. See also resource.

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A process improvement approach developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University. CMMI provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. It can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or the entire university. CMMI helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes. See CMMI Institute for more information. See also maturity.

capacity

(ITIL Service Design) The maximum throughput that a configuration item or IT service can deliver. For some types of CI, capacity may be the size or volume – for example, a disk drive.

capacity management

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for ensuring that the capacity of IT services and the IT infrastructure is able to meet agreed capacity- and performance-related requirements in a cost-effective and timely manner. Capacity management considers all resources required to deliver an IT service and is concerned with meeting both the current and future capacity and performance needs of the business. Capacity management includes three sub-processes: business capacity management, service capacity management, and component capacity management. See also capacity management information system.

capacity management information system (CMIS)

(ITIL Service Design) A set of tools, data and information that is used to support capacity management. See also service knowledge management system.

capacity plan

(ITIL Service Design) A plan used to manage the resources required to deliver IT services. The plan contains details of current and historic usage of IT services and components, and any issues that need to be addressed (including related improvement activities). The plan also contains scenarios for different predictions of business demand and cost options to deliver the agreed service level targets.

capacity planning

(ITIL Service Design) The activity within capacity management responsible for creating a capacity plan.

captioning

The process of adding captions to a video.  Captions are required by law for all videos, but the LMS has no way to enforce this law.  We do, however, have multiple ways of supporting the use of captions at WCU.  The office of accessibility services has limited live captioning options.  Panopto and Microsoft Streams both have machine generated captions available for videos stored in those environments.  There is a workflow for capturing live captions using PowerPoint online and recording with Zoom or Panopto as well.  Zoom allows plug ins that do some captioning work.  Panopto includes 1000 minutes of human captioning in its yearly contract.

category

A named group of things that have something in common. Categories are used to group similar things together. For example, incident categories are used to group similar types of incidents, while CI types are used to group similar types of configuration items.

certification

Issuing a certificate to confirm compliance to a standard. Certification includes a formal audit by an independent and accredited body. The term is also used to mean awarding a certificate to provide evidence that a person has achieved a qualification.

change

(ITIL Service Transition) The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have an effect on IT services. The scope should include changes to all architectures, processes, tools, metrics, and documentation, as well as changes to IT services and other configuration items.

change advisory board (CAB)

(ITIL Service Transition) A group of people that support the assessment, prioritization, authorization, and scheduling of changes. The change advisory board is made up of the directors from the division of IT.

change evaluation

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for formal assessment of a new or changed IT service to ensure that risks have been managed and to help determine whether to authorize the change.

change freeze

Points during the academic year when changes are not permissible to maintain stability.

change history

(ITIL Service Transition) Information about all changes made to a configuration item during its life. Change history consists of all those change records that apply to the CI.

change management

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for controlling the life cycle of all changes, enabling beneficial changes to be made with minimum disruption to IT services.

change model

(ITIL Service Transition) A repeatable way of dealing with a particular category of change. A change model defines specific agreed steps that will be followed for a change of this category. Change models may be very complex with many steps that require authorization (e.g., major software release) or may be very simple with no requirement for authorization (e.g., password reset). See also change advisory board; standard change.

change proposal

(ITIL Service Strategy) (ITIL Service Transition) A document that includes a high-level description of a potential service introduction or significant change, along with a corresponding business case and an expected implementation schedule. Change proposals are normally created by the service portfolio management process and are passed to change management for authorization. Change management will review the potential impact on other services, on shared resources, and on the overall change schedule. Once the change proposal has been authorized, service portfolio management will charter the service.

change record

(ITIL Service Transition) A record containing the details of a change. Each change record documents the life cycle of a single change. A change record is created for every request for change that is received, even those that are subsequently rejected. Change records should reference the configuration items that are affected by the change. Change records may be stored in the configuration management system, or elsewhere in the service knowledge management system.

change request

See request for change.

change schedule

(ITIL Service Transition) A document that lists all authorized changes and their planned implementation dates, as well as the estimated dates of longer-term changes. A change schedule is sometimes called a forward schedule of change, even though it also contains information about changes that have already been implemented.

change window

(ITIL Service Transition) A regular, agreed time when changes or releases may be implemented with minimal impact on services. Change windows are usually documented in service level agreements.

chargeable item

(ITIL Service Strategy) A deliverable of an IT service that is used in calculating charges to customers (for example, number of transactions, number of desktop PCs).

charter

(ITIL Service Strategy) A document that contains details of a new service, a significant change, or other significant project. Charters are typically authorized by service portfolio management or by a project management office. The term charter is also used to describe the act of authorizing the work required to complete the service change or project. See also change proposal; service charter; project portfolio.

checkpoint

A predefined time in a project, usually upon completion of a phase, where a management decision is made as to the future direction of the project. For example, after a feasibility study report has been issued, management need to decide whether or not to proceed with the project and which option to use.

Cherwell Service Desk

System used by the Division of IT to document and track requests, IT-related issues, changes, contracts, and assets.

chronological analysis

(ITIL Service Operation) A technique used to help identify possible causes of problems. All available data about the problem is collected and sorted by date and time to provide a detailed timeline. This can make it possible to identify which events may have been triggered by others.  See also curative analysis; root cause.

CI type

(ITIL Service Transition) A category that is used to classify configuration items. The CI type identifies the required attributes and relationships for a configuration record. Common CI types include computer, printer, infrastructure, software license, etc.

classification

The act of assigning a category to something. Classification is used to ensure consistent management and reporting. Configuration items, incidents, problems, changes, etc. are usually classified.

client

A generic term that means a customer, the business, or a business customer. For example, client manager may be used as a synonym for business relationship manager. The term is also used to mean:

• A computer that is used directly by a user – for example, a PC, a handheld computer or a workstation
• The part of a client server application that the user directly interfaces with – for example, an email client.

cloud-hosted

An application or data storage service that is not located on campus and is not operated by WCU IT. Some of these are adopted by an end-user (consumer-level) and others have been adopted by WCU which has a service contract with the provider (enterprise-level).

closed

(ITIL Service Operation) The final status in the life cycle of an incident, problem, change etc. When the status is closed, no further action is taken.

closure

(ITIL Service Operation) The act of changing the status of an incident, problem, change etc. to closed.

COBIT

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) provides guidance and best practice for the management of IT processes. COBIT is published by ISACA in conjunction with the IT Governance Institute (ITGI). See www.isaca.org for more information.

code of practice

A guideline published by a public body or a standards organization, such as ISO or BSI. Many standards consist of a code of practice and a specification. The code of practice describes recommended best practice.

cold standby

See gradual recovery.

Comaround

The platform that hosts ithelp.wcu.edu.  It has a strong search capability and all Ed Tech support articles have been authored and/or moved to the platform since it’s launch in the summer of 2020.

commercial off the shelf (COTS)

(ITIL Service Design) Pre-existing application software or middleware that can be purchased from a third party.

communications planning

Determining the information and communications needed of project stakeholders.

compliance

Ensuring that a standard or set of guidelines is followed, or that proper, consistent accounting or other practices are being employed.

component

A general term that is used to mean one part of something more complex. For example, a computer system may be a component of an IT service; an application may be a component of a release unit. Components that need to be managed should be configuration items.

component capacity management (CCM)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) The sub-process of capacity management responsible for understanding the capacity, utilization, and performance of configuration items. Data is collected, recorded, and analyzed for use in the capacity plan. See also business capacity management; service capacity management.

component CI

(ITIL Service Transition) A configuration item that is part of an assembly. For example, a CPU or memory CI may be part of a server CI.

component failure impact analysis (CFIA)

(ITIL Service Design) A technique that helps to identify the impact of configuration item failure on IT services and the business. A matrix is created with IT services on one axis and CIs on the other. This enables the identification of critical CIs (that could cause the failure of multiple IT services) and fragile IT services (that have multiple single points of failure).

compromise

The release of information, accidental or otherwise, to individuals or organizations that should not have access to the information whether they intend to use it maliciously or not. 

computer telephony integration (CTI)

(ITIL Service Operation) Computer telephony integration is a general term covering any kind of integration between computers and telephone systems. It is most commonly used to refer to systems where an application displays detailed screens relating to incoming or outgoing telephone calls. See also automatic call distribution; interactive voice response.

concurrency

A measure of the number of users engaged in the same operation at the same time.

confidentiality

(ITIL Service Design) A security principle that requires that data should only be accessed by authorized people.

configuration

(ITIL Service Transition) A generic term used to describe a group of configuration items that work together to deliver an IT service, or a recognizable part of an IT service. Configuration is also used to describe the parameter settings for one or more configuration items.

configuration baseline

(ITIL Service Transition) The baseline of a configuration that has been formally agreed and is managed through the change management process. A configuration baseline is used as a basis for future builds, releases, and changes.

configuration control

(ITIL Service Transition) The activity responsible for ensuring that adding, modifying, or removing a configuration item is properly managed – for example, by submitting a request for change or service request.

configuration identification

(ITIL Service Transition) The activity responsible for collecting information about configuration items and their relationships and loading this information into the configuration management database. Configuration identification is also responsible for labeling the configuration items themselves, so that the corresponding configuration records can be found.

configuration item (CI)

(ITIL Service Transition) Any component or other service asset that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT service. Information about each configuration item is recorded in a configuration record within the configuration management system and is maintained throughout its life cycle by service asset and configuration management. Configuration items are under the control of change management. They typically include IT services, hardware, software, buildings, people, and formal documentation such as process documentation and service level agreements.

configuration management

See service asset and configuration management system.

configuration management database (CMDB)

(ITIL Service Transition) A database used to store configuration records throughout their life cycle. The configuration management system maintains one or more configuration management databases, and each database stores attributes of configuration items, and relationships with other configuration items. The official CMDB for WCU IT is Cherwell Service Management.

configuration management system (CMS)

(ITIL Service Transition) A set of tools, data and information that is used to support service asset and configuration management. The CMS is part of an overall service knowledge management system and includes tools for collecting, storing, managing, updating, analyzing, and presenting data about all configuration items and their relationships. The CMS may also include information about incidents, problems, known errors, changes, and releases. The CMS is maintained by service asset and configuration management and is used by all IT service management processes. The official CMS for WCU IT is Cherwell Service Management.  See also configuration management database.

configuration record

(ITIL Service Transition) A record containing the details of a configuration item. Each configuration record documents the life cycle of a single configuration item. Configuration records are stored in a configuration management database and maintained as part of a configuration management system.

configuration structure

(ITIL Service Transition) The hierarchy and other relationships between all the configuration items that comprise a configuration.

constraint

A restriction which is either internal or external to a project that will restrict the performance of the project. For example, a fixed amount of money allotted for a project budget is a cost constraint, and a set date by which a project must be completed is a time constraint.

contingency planning

The development of a management plan that identifies alternative strategies to be used to ensure project success if specified risk events occur.

contingency reserve

A separately planned quantity used to allow for future situations which may be planned for only in part (sometimes called "known unknowns"). For example, rework is certain, the amount of rework is not. Contingency reserves may involve cost, schedule, or both. Contingency reserves are intended to reduce the impact of missing cost or schedule objectives. Contingency reserves are normally included in the projects cost and schedule baselines.

continual service improvement (CSI)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A stage in the life cycle of a service. Continual service improvement ensures that services are aligned with changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements to IT services that support business processes. The performance of the IT service provider is continually measured, and improvements are made to processes, IT services and IT infrastructure in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness and cost effectiveness. Continual service improvement includes the seven-step improvement process. Although this process is associated with continual service improvement, most processes have activities that take place across multiple stages of the service life cycle. See also

Plan-Do-Check-Act.

continuous availability

(ITIL Service Design) An approach or design to achieve 100% availability. A continuously available IT service has no planned or unplanned downtime.

continuous operation

(ITIL Service Design) An approach or design to eliminate planned downtime of an IT service. Note that individual configuration items may be down even though the IT service is available.

contract

A legally binding agreement between two or more parties. A contract is a mutually binding agreement which obligates the seller to provide the specified product and obliges the buyer to pay for it.

contract close out

Completion and settlement of the contract, including resolution of all outstanding items.

control

A means of managing a risk, ensuring that a business objective is achieved or that a process is followed. Examples of control include policies, procedures, roles, RAID, door locks etc. A control is sometimes called a countermeasure or safeguard. Control also means to manage the utilization or behavior of a configuration item, system, or IT service. Also, the process of comparing actual performance with planned performance, analyzing variances, evaluating possible alternatives, and taking appropriate corrective action as needed.

Control Objectives for Information and related Technology

See COBIT.

control perspective

(ITIL Service Strategy) An approach to the management of IT services, processes, functions, assets etc. There can be several different control perspectives on the same IT service, process etc., allowing different individuals or teams to focus on what is important and relevant to their specific role. Examples of control perspective include reactive and proactive management within IT operations, or a life cycle view for an application project team.

control processes

The ISO/IEC 20000 process group that includes change management and configuration management.

core service

(ITIL Service Strategy) A service that delivers the basic outcomes desired by one or more customers. A core service provides a specific level of utility and warranty. Customers may be offered a choice of utility and warranty through one or more service options. See also enabling service; enhancing service; IT service; service package.

corrective action

Changes made to bring expected future performance of a project into line with the plan.

cost

The amount of money spent on a specific activity, IT service or business unit. Costs consist of real cost (money), notional cost (such as people’s time) and depreciation.

cost benefit analysis

An activity that analyzes and compares the costs and the benefits involved in one or more alternative courses of action. See also business case; internal rate of return; net present value; return on investment; value on investment.

cost budgeting

Allocating the cost estimates to individual project components.

cost center

(ITIL Service Strategy) A business unit or project to which costs are assigned. A cost center does not charge for services provided. An IT service provider can be run as a cost center or a profit center.

cost control

Controlling changes to a project budget.

cost element

(ITIL Service Strategy) The middle level of category to which costs are assigned in budgeting and accounting. The highest-level category is cost type. For example, a cost type of ‘people’ could have cost elements of payroll, staff benefits, expenses, training, overtime etc. Cost elements can be further broken down to give cost units. For example, the cost element ‘expenses’ could include cost units of hotels, transport, meals etc.

cost estimating

Estimating the cost of the resources needed to complete project activities.

cost management

(ITIL Service Strategy) A general term that is used to refer to budgeting and accounting and is sometimes used as a synonym for financial management.

cost model

(ITIL Service Strategy) A framework used in budgeting and accounting in which all known costs can be recorded, categorized, and allocated to specific customers, business units or projects. See also cost type; cost element; cost unit.

cost type

(ITIL Service Strategy) The highest level of category to which costs are assigned in budgeting and accounting – for example, hardware, software, people, accommodation, external and transfer. See also cost element; cost unit.

cost unit

(ITIL Service Strategy) The lowest level of category to which costs are assigned, cost units are usually things that can be easily counted (e.g., staff numbers, software licenses) or things easily measured (e.g. CPU usage, electricity consumed). Cost units are included within cost elements. For example, a cost element of ‘expenses’ could include cost units of hotels, transport, meals etc. See also cost type.

cost effectiveness

A measure of the balance between the effectiveness and cost of a service, process, or activity. A cost- effective process is one that achieves its objectives at minimum cost. See also key performance indicator; return on investment; value for money.

countermeasure

Can be used to refer to any type of control. The term is most often used when referring to measures that increase resilience, fault tolerance or reliability of an IT service.

course corrections

Changes made to a plan or activity that has already started to ensure that it will meet its objectives. Course corrections are made as a result of monitoring progress.

course reference number (CRN)

Usually combined with a term designator to give a unique course identity for the purposes of recordkeeping in Banner.

crashing

Taking action to decrease the total project duration after analyzing a number of alternatives to determine how to get the maximum duration compression for the least cost.

crisis management

Crisis management is the process responsible for managing the wider implications of business continuity. A crisis management team is responsible for strategic issues such as managing media relations and shareholder confidence and decides when to invoke business continuity plans.

critical activity

Any activity on a critical path. Most commonly determined by using the critical path method. Although some activities are "critical" in the dictionary sense without being on the critical path, this meaning is seldom used in the project context.

critical path

The series of activities which determines the earliest completion of the project. The critical path generally changes from time to time as activities are completed ahead of or behind schedule. Although normally calculated for the entire project, the critical path can also be determined for a milestone or subproject. The critical path is usually defined as those activities with floatless than or equal to a specified value, often zero.

critical path method (CPM)

A network analysis technique used to predict project duration by analyzing which sequence of activities (which path) has the least amount of scheduling flexibility (the least amount of float). Early dates are calculated by means of a forward pass using a specified start date. Late dates are calculated by means of a backward pass starting from a specified completion date (usually the forward pass calculated project early finish date).

critical success factor (CSF)

Something that must happen if an IT service, process, plan, project or other activity is to succeed. Key performance indicators are used to measure the achievement of each critical success factor. For example, a critical success factor of ‘protect IT services when making changes’ could be measured by key performance indicators such as ‘percentage reduction of unsuccessful changes’, ‘percentage reduction in changes causing incidents’ etc.

CSI register

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A database or structured document used to record and manage improvement opportunities throughout their life cycle.

current state

This is an explanation, at either a high-level or in-depth, of a current process.

culture

A set of values that is shared by a group of people, including expectations about how people should behave, their ideas, beliefs, and practices. See also vision.

curative analysis

A group of people that determine the underlying or original cause of incidents or problems. The curative analysis committee is made up of representatives from all areas within IT. See also root cause.

customer

Someone who buys goods or services. The customer of an IT service provider is the person or group who defines and agrees the service level targets. The term is also sometimes used informally to mean user – for example, ‘This is a customer-focused organization.’  The customer is the person or persons who will benefit from the completion of a project. This is often the students at WCU who benefit from projects that improve the processes at WCU.

customer asset

Any resource or capability of a customer. See also asset.

customer agreement portfolio

(ITIL Service Strategy) A database or structured document used to manage service contracts or agreements between an IT service provider and its customers. Each IT service delivered to a customer should have a contract or other agreement that is listed in the customer agreement portfolio. See also customer-facing service; service catalog; service portfolio.

customer portfolio

(ITIL Service Strategy) A database or structured document used to record all customers of the IT service provider. The customer portfolio is the business relationship manager’s view of the customers who receive services from the IT service provider. See also customer agreement portfolio; service catalog; service portfolio.

customer-facing service

(ITIL Service Design) An IT service that is visible to the customer. These are normally services that support the customer’s business processes and facilitate one or more outcomes desired by the customer. All live customer-facing services, including those available for deployment, are recorded in the service catalog along with customer-visible information about deliverables, prices, contact points, ordering and request processes. Other information such as relationships to supporting services and other CIs will also be recorded for internal use by the IT service provider.

dashboard

(ITIL Service Operation) A graphical representation of overall IT service performance and availability. Dashboard images may be updated in real time and can also be included in management reports and web pages. Dashboards can be used to support service level management, event management and incident diagnosis.

data

Any set of characters that is gathered and translated for some purpose, usually analysis. It can be any character, including text and numbers, pictures, sound, or video. Discrete, objective facts or observations, which are unorganized and unprocessed and therefore have no meaning or value because of lack of context and interpretation.  See also information; knowledge; wisdom; Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom.

Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom (DIKW)

(ITIL Service Transition) A way of understanding the relationships between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. DIKW shows how each of these builds on the others.

data center

A computer facility that generally includes the necessary physical security and environmental controls to properly protect sensitive data. It also includes other technical layers of defense such as additional firewalls.

data custodian

A data custodian is a role responsible for custody, transport, storage of data, and implementation of business rules.  Data Custodians are responsible for the technical environment and database structure. See also database administrator; data steward.

data encryption

Encryption refers to mathematical calculations and algorithmic schemes that transform plain text into ciphertext, a form that is non-readable to unauthorized parties. Data can be encrypted where it is stored (at rest) or encrypted on the network (in transit).

data privacy

Principles and processes that protect user data within the governing rules and processes.  Data Privacy and the management of related risks are drivers of some governing processes and limit some faculty and student requests for reasons of compliance with law and policy.

data steward

A data steward is a role responsible for using data governance processes to ensure fitness of data elements, both the content and metadata. Data Stewards are commonly responsible for data content, context, and associated business rules. Data Stewards are responsible for what is stored in a data field. The Chancellor, Provost, Vice Chancellors, General Counsel, and the Director of Athletics are responsible for ensuring the appropriate handling of the enterprise-level data produced and managed by their division/unit. These positions are the institutional Data Stewards. See also database administrator; data custodian; data stewardship.

data stewardship

Policies and procedures at WCU that identify data types and data stewards for the shared ownership of data management practices.  The LMS, as one of the enterprise systems on campus that contains student data, must adhere to the data stewardship policies of the university.  This sometimes limits the use of outside integrations and tools where the provider is not able to guarantee compliance with law and policy.

data user

A person who makes use of personal information for a certain purpose. When carrying out their work, a data user must make sure that the data used is:

• Accurate and up to date        
• Relevant and not excessive in relation to the specified purpose       
• Held and used only for the specified purpose      
• Used only with the data subject’s consent and processed in line with the rights of the data subject        
• Adequate for the specified purpose       
• Protected by adequate security, e.g., password

An example of a data user would be a university staff or faculty member.

database administrator (DBA)

Database administrators (DBAs) use specialized software to store and organize data. The role may include capacity planning, installation, configuration, database design, migration, performance monitoring, security, troubleshooting, as well as backup and data recovery.  See also data custodian; data steward.

definitive media library (DML)

(ITIL Service Transition) One or more locations in which the definitive and authorized versions of all software configuration items are securely stored. The definitive media library may also contain associated configuration items such as licenses and documentation. It is a single logical storage area even if there are multiple locations. The definitive media library is controlled by service asset and configuration management and is recorded in the configuration management system.

deliverable

Something that must be provided to meet a commitment in a service level agreement or a contract.  Any unique and verifiable product, result or capability to perform a service that is produced to complete a process, phase, or project. It is also used in a more informal way to mean a planned output of any process. 

demand management

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) The process responsible for understanding, anticipating, and influencing customer demand for services. Demand management works with capacity management to ensure that the service provider has sufficient capacity to meet the required demand. At a strategic level, demand management can involve analysis of patterns of business activity and user profiles, while at a tactical level, it can involve the use of differential charging to encourage customers to use IT services at less busy times or require short-term activities to respond to unexpected demand or the failure of a configuration item.

demilitarized zone (DMZ)

A networking configuration that separates the internal systems from the more publicly accessible ones with an internal firewall, thus the internal systems have an extra layer of defense.

dependency

The direct or indirect reliance of one process or activity on another.

deployment

(ITIL Service Transition) The activity responsible for movement of new or changed hardware, software, documentation, process etc. to the live environment. Deployment is part of the release and deployment management process.

depreciation

(ITIL Service Strategy) A measure of the reduction in value of an asset over its life. This is based on wearing out, consumption or other reduction in the useful economic value.

design

(ITIL Service Design) An activity or process that identifies requirements and then defines a solution that is able to meet these requirements. See also service design.

design coordination

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for coordinating all service design activities, processes, and resources. Design coordination ensures the consistent and effective design of new or changed IT services, service management information systems, architectures, technology, processes, information, and metrics.

designee

This is an individual or individuals at WCU who are responsible for endorsing and ranking projects for their division.

detection

(ITIL Service Operation) A stage in the expanded incident life cycle. Detection results in the incident becoming known to the service provider. Detection can be automatic or the result of a user logging an incident.

development

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for creating or modifying an IT service or application ready for subsequent release and deployment. Development is also used to mean the role or function that carries out development work. This process is not described in detail within the core ITIL publications.

development environment

(ITIL Service Design) An environment used to create or modify IT services or applications. Development environments are not typically subjected to the same degree of control as test or live environments. See also development.

development shell

A sandbox version of a course that is to be used only for development.  When the course is ready to add students, it must be copied to either one of the sub-accounts that is owned by the department, by distance education (if there is any sort of payment involved), or into internal training.  

diagnosis

(ITIL Service Operation) A stage in the incident and problem life cycles. The purpose of diagnosis is to identify a workaround for an incident or the root cause of a problem.

diagnostic script

(ITIL Service Operation) A structured set of questions used by service desk staff to ensure they ask the correct questions, and to help them classify, resolve, and assign incidents. Diagnostic scripts may also be made available to users to help them diagnose and resolve their own incidents.

directory service

(ITIL Service Operation) An application that manages information about IT infrastructure available on a network, and corresponding user access rights.

disclosure of sensitive data

See compromise.

document

Information in readable form. A document may be paper or electronic – for example, a policy statement, service level agreement, incident record or diagram of a computer room layout. See also record.

downtime

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) The time when an IT service or other configuration item is not available during its agreed service time. The availability of an IT service is often calculated from agreed service time and downtime.

driver

Something that influences strategy, objectives, or requirements – for example, new legislation or the actions of competitors.

duration

The total number of work periods required to complete a project activity or work breakdown structure component, expressed in hours, days, or weeks.

early life support (ELS)

(ITIL Service Transition) A stage in the service life cycle that occurs at the end of deployment and before the service is fully accepted into operation. During early life support, the service provider reviews key performance indicators, service levels and monitoring thresholds and may implement improvements to ensure that service targets can be met. The service provider may also provide additional resources for incident and problem management during this time.

effectiveness

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A measure of whether the objectives of a process, service or activity have been achieved. An effective process or activity is one that achieves its agreed objectives. See also key performance indicator.

efficiency

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A measure of whether the right amount of resource has been used to deliver a process, service, or activity. An efficient process achieves its objectives with the minimum amount of time, money, people, or other resources. See also key performance indicator.

effort

The number of labor units required to complete a scheduled project activity or work breakdown structure component, often expressed in hours, days, or weeks.

emergency change

(ITIL Service Transition) A change that must be introduced as soon as possible – for example, to resolve a major incident or implement a security patch. The change management process will normally have a specific procedure for handling emergency changes.

enabling service

(ITIL Service Strategy) A service that is needed in order to deliver a core service. Enabling services may or may not be visible to the customer, but they are not offered to customers in their own right. See also enhancing service.

end date

This date is representative of the date when a project either will or must be completed.

endorsement

This is the affirmation by the designee that the division would like to pursue a project.

endpoint device

An internet-capable computer hardware device on a TCP/IP network. The term can refer to desktop computers, laptops, smart phones, tablets, thin clients, printers, or other specialized hardware such POS terminals.

enhancing service

(ITIL Service Strategy) A service that is added to a core service to make it more attractive to the customer. Enhancing services are not essential to the delivery of a core service but are used to encourage customers to use the core services or to differentiate the service provider from its competitors. See also enabling service; excitement factor.

environment

(ITIL Service Transition) A subset of the IT infrastructure that is used for a particular purpose – for example, live environment, test environment, build environment. Also used in the term ‘physical environment’ to mean the accommodation, air conditioning, power system etc. Environment is used as a generic term to mean the external conditions that influence or affect something.

error

(ITIL Service Operation) A design flaw or malfunction that causes a failure of one or more IT services or other configuration items. A mistake made by a person or a faulty process that impacts a configuration item is also an error.

escalation

(ITIL Service Operation) An activity that obtains additional resources when these are needed to meet service level targets or customer expectations. Escalation may be needed within any IT service management process, but is most commonly associated with incident management, problem management and the management of customer complaints. There are two types of escalation: functional escalation and hierarchic escalation.

estimate

An assessment of the likely quantitative result. Usually applied to project costs and durations and should include some indication of accuracy (e.g.,+ - x percent). Usually used with a modifier (e.g., preliminary, conceptual, feasibility).

estimation

The use of experience to provide an approximate value for a metric or cost. Estimation is also used in capacity and availability management as the cheapest and least accurate modeling method.

event

(ITIL Service Operation) A change of state that has significance for the management of an IT service or other configuration item. The term is also used to mean an alert or notification created by any IT service, configuration item or monitoring tool. Events typically require IT operations personnel to take actions, and often lead to incidents being logged.

event management

(ITIL Service Operation) The process responsible for managing events throughout their life cycle. Event management is one of the main activities of IT operations.

exception report

A document containing details of one or more key performance indicators or other important targets that have exceeded defined thresholds. Examples include service level agreement targets being missed or about to be missed, and a performance metric indicating a potential capacity problem.

excitement attribute

See excitement factor.

excitement factor

(ITIL Service Strategy) An attribute added to something to make it more attractive or more exciting to the customer. For example, a restaurant may provide a free drink with every meal. See also enhancing service.

execution

The actual work undertaken to achieve the required results/deliverables.

expanded incident life cycle

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) Detailed stages in the life cycle of an incident. The stages are detection, diagnosis, repair, recovery, and restoration. The expanded incident life cycle is used to help understand all contributions to the impact of incidents and to plan for how these could be controlled or reduced.

external customer

A customer who works for a different business from the IT service provider. See also external service provider; internal customer.

external metric

A metric that is used to measure the delivery of IT service to a customer. External metrics are usually defined in service level agreements and reported to customers. See also internal metric.

external service provider

(ITIL Service Strategy) An IT service provider that is part of a different organization from its customer. An IT service provider may have both internal and external customers. See also outsourcing; Type III service provider.

facilities management

(ITIL Service Operation) The function responsible for managing the physical environment where the IT infrastructure is located. Facilities management includes all aspects of managing the physical environment – for example, power and cooling, building access management, and environmental monitoring.

failure

(ITIL Service Operation) Loss of ability to operate to specification, or to deliver the required output. The term may be used when referring to IT services, processes, activities, configuration items etc. A failure often causes an incident.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

A federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. Directory information is generally not considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. WCU has identified what it considers directory information here: WCU Directory Information.

fast recovery

(ITIL Service Design) A recovery option that is also known as hot standby. Fast recovery normally uses a dedicated fixed facility with computer systems and software configured ready to run the IT services. Fast recovery typically takes up to 24 hours but may be quicker if there is no need to restore data from backups.

fast tracking

Compressing the project schedule by overlapping activities that would normally be done in sequence, such as design and construction.

fault

See error.

fault tolerance

(ITIL Service Design) The ability of an IT service or other configuration item to continue to operate correctly after failure of a component part. See also countermeasure; resilience.

fault tree analysis (FTA)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) A technique that can be used to determine a chain of events that has caused an incident or may cause an incident in the future. Fault tree analysis represents a chain of events using Boolean notation in a diagram.

feasibility analysis

This is a high-level analysis of the project including the benefits and cost of a project to provide the designee the ability to endorse and rank projects. 

first-line support

(ITIL Service Operation) The first level in a hierarchy of support groups involved in the resolution of incidents. The Help Desk and Technology Commons are the first line of support for WCU IT.  Each level contains more specialist skills or has more time or other resources. See also escalation.

fiscal year

(ITIL Service Strategy) An accounting period covering 12 consecutive months. The fiscal year for the university is April 1 to March 31.

fishbone diagram

See Ishikawa diagram.

fit for purpose

(ITIL Service Strategy) The ability to meet an agreed level of utility. Fit for purpose is also used informally to describe a process, configuration item, IT service etc. that is capable of meeting its objectives or service levels. Being fit for purpose requires suitable design, implementation, control, and maintenance.

fit for use

(ITIL Service Strategy) The ability to meet an agreed level of warranty. Being fit for use requires suitable design, implementation, control, and maintenance.

fixed asset

(ITIL Service Transition) A tangible business asset that has a long-term useful life (for example, a building, a piece of land, a server, or a software license). See also service asset; configuration item.

fixed asset management

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for tracking and reporting the value and ownership of fixed assets throughout their life cycle. Fixed asset management maintains the asset register and is usually carried out by the overall business, rather than by the IT organization. Fixed assets are the pieces of equipment owned by or in the custody of WCU. The university is responsible and accountable for the inventory and control of this equipment.

fixed cost

(ITIL Service Strategy) A cost that does not vary with IT service usage – for example, the cost of server hardware. See also variable cost.

fixed facility

(ITIL Service Design) A permanent building, available for use when needed by an IT service continuity plan. See also portable facility; recovery option.

float

The amount of time that an activity may be delayed from its early start without delaying the project finish date. Float is a mathematical calculation and can change as the project progresses and changes are made to the project plan. Also called slack, total float, and path float.

for-credit

Courses that are part of the regular academic plan.  Follow processes through the registrar’s office (drop for non-payment, etc.).

framework

A project management framework is a set of processes, tasks and tools that provide guidance and structure for the execution of a project. The framework helps organizations map out the progression of the individual project steps, from beginning to completion

fulfillment

Performing activities to meet a need or requirement – for example, by providing a new IT service, or meeting a service request.

function

A team or group of people and the tools or other resources they use to carry out one or more processes or activities – for example, the service desk. The term also has two other meanings:

• An intended purpose of a configuration item, person, team, process or IT service. For example, one function of an email service may be to store and forward outgoing mails, while the function of a business process may be to dispatch goods to customers.
• To perform the intended purpose correctly, as in ‘The computer is functioning.’

functional escalation

(ITIL Service Operation) Transferring an incident, problem or change to a technical team with a higher level of expertise to assist in an escalation.

funding type

Budgetary (recurring); Budgetary (non-recurring); vendor promotion; Student Payment (currently limited by bookstore policies); E&T

Gantt chart

A bar chart of scheduled information where activities are listed on the vertical axis, dates are shown on the horizontal axis, and activity durations are shown as horizontal bars placed according to start and finish dates.

gap analysis

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) An activity that compares two sets of data and identifies the differences. Gap analysis is commonly used to compare a set of requirements with actual delivery. See also benchmarking.

gate review

Projects are evaluated and approved to move from one stage to the next. The decision point between stages is referred to as a gate review.

governance

Ensures that policies and strategy are actually implemented, and that required processes are correctly followed. Governance includes defining roles and responsibilities, measuring, and reporting, and taking actions to resolve any issues identified.

grader

A non-instructor and non-student who is allowed to see student work product, enter and change grades. (Faculty sometimes misunderstand the legality of having unpaid students grade work or the risk of paid students who have not been trained appropriately for maintaining student privacy).

gradual recovery

(ITIL Service Design) A recovery option that is also known as cold standby. Gradual recovery typically uses a portable or fixed facility that has environmental support and network cabling, but no computer systems.

The hardware and software are installed as part of the IT service continuity plan. Gradual recovery typically takes more than three days and may take significantly longer.

graduate research assistant

A graduate student who is receiving financial compensation but who is expressly instructed to work on research projects rather than teaching.

Graduate School

For the purposes of the LMS, the Graduate School sets enrollment policies for instructors, students, and instructional assistance for online courses.  For example, the LMS is often asked, by the graduate school, to deny access to courses as a Teaching Assistant for research assistants who are not appropriately leveraged for academic or grant guidelines.

guideline

A document describing best practice, which recommends what should be done. Compliance with a guideline is not normally enforced. See also standard.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

A Federal law which among other things regulates the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI). Refer to University Policy 123 for more information.

help desk

The single point of contact between the service provider and the users. A typical service desk manages incidents and service requests and handles communication with the users. See service desk.

hierarchic escalation

(ITIL Service Operation) Informing or involving more senior levels of management to assist in an escalation.

high availability

(ITIL Service Design) An approach or design that minimizes or hides the effects of configuration item failure from the users of an IT service. High availability solutions are designed to achieve an agreed level of availability and make use of techniques such as fault tolerance, resilience, and fast recovery to reduce the number and impact of incidents.

hot standby

See fast recovery; immediate recovery.

human resources (HR)

The internal training “term” label suggested for all internal trainings managed by HR.

identity

(ITIL Service Operation) A unique name that is used to identify a user, person or role. The identity is used to grant rights to that user, person, or role. Example identities might be the username SmithJ or the role ‘change manager’.

immediate recovery

(ITIL Service Design) A recovery option that is also known as hot standby. Provision is made to recover the IT service with no significant loss of service to the customer. Immediate recovery typically uses mirroring, load balancing and split-site technologies.

impact

(ITIL Service Operation) (ITIL Service Transition) A measure of the effect of an incident, problem or change on business processes. Impact is often based on how service levels will be affected. Impact and urgency are used to assign priority.

incident

(ITIL Service Operation) An unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service. Failure of a configuration item that has not yet affected service is also an incident – for example, failure of one disk from a mirror set.

incident management

(ITIL Service Operation) The process responsible for managing the life cycle of all incidents. Incident management ensures that normal service operation is restored as quickly as possible, and the business impact is minimized.

incident record

(ITIL Service Operation) A record containing the details of an incident. Each incident record documents the life cycle of a single incident.

indirect cost

(ITIL Service Strategy) The cost of providing an IT service which cannot be allocated in full to a specific customer – for example, the cost of providing shared servers or software licenses. Also known as overhead. See also direct cost.

information

Information is data formatted in a manner that allows it to be used in some significant way. A good example would be a computer using formulas, programming scripts, or software applications to turn data into information.  See also data; knowledge; wisdom; Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom.

information distribution

Making needed information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner.

information security management (ISM)

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for ensuring that the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the university’s assets, information, data, and IT services match the agreed needs of the university.

Information security management supports data security, but has a wider scope than that of IT, and includes handling of paper, building access, phone calls, etc. for the entire university. See also security management information system.

information security management system (ISMS)

(ITIL Service Design) The framework of policy, processes, functions, standards, guidelines, and tools that ensures the university can achieve its information security management objectives. See also security management information system.

information security policy

information system

information technology (IT)

The use of technology for the storage, communication, or processing of information. The technology typically includes computers, telecommunications, applications, and other software. The information may include data, voice, images, video, etc. Information technology is often used to support university processes through IT services.

infrastructure service

A type of supporting service that provides hardware, network, or other data center components. The term is also used as a synonym for supporting service.

initiation

Committing the organization to begin a project phase.

insourcing

(ITIL Service Strategy) Using an internal service provider to manage IT services. The term insourcing is also used to describe the act of transferring the provision of an IT service from an external service provider to an internal service provider. See also service sourcing.

instance

One term for the cloud infrastructure for the LMS.

intake

This is the process through which IT will meet with partners to gather information to have an understanding of what is being requested through a project.

integrity

(ITIL Service Design) A security principle that ensures data and configuration items are modified only by authorized personnel and activities. Integrity considers all possible causes of modification, including software and hardware failure, environmental events, and human intervention.

integration

A software or web platform that integrates with the Learning Management System in some way.

integration owner

The person or department that owns the support, renewal, and compliance of an integration.  The challenge of integrations is that they tend to have an initial sponsor and are then handed to the LMS to “own.”  This limits the ability to manage integrations.

interactive voice response (IVR)

(ITIL Service Operation) A form of automatic call distribution that accepts user input, such as key presses and spoken commands, to identify the correct destination for incoming calls.

intermediate recovery

(ITIL Service Design) A recovery option that is also known as warm standby. Intermediate recovery usually uses a shared portable or fixed facility that has computer systems and network components. The hardware and software will need to be configured, and data will need to be restored, as part of the IT service continuity plan. Typical recovery times for intermediate recovery are one to three days.

internal customer

A customer who works for the same business as the IT service provider. See also external customer; internal service provider.

internal metric

A metric that is used within the IT service provider to monitor the efficiency, effectiveness, or cost effectiveness of the IT service provider’s internal processes. Internal metrics are not normally reported to the customer of the IT service. See also external metric.

internal service provider

(ITIL Service Strategy) An IT service provider that is part of the same organization as its customer. An IT service provider may have both internal and external customers. See also insourcing; Type I service provider; Type II service provider.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the world’s largest developer of standards. ISO is a non-governmental organization that is a network of the national standards institutes of 156 countries. See www.iso.org for further information about ISO.

International Standards Organization

See International Organization for Standardization.

internet service provider (ISP)

An external service provider that provides access to the internet. Most ISPs also provide other IT services such as web hosting.

invocation

(ITIL Service Design) Initiation of the steps defined in a plan – for example, initiating the IT service continuity plan for one or more IT services.

Ishikawa diagram

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Operation) A technique that helps a team to identify all the possible causes of a problem. Originally devised by Kaoru Ishikawa, the output of this technique is a diagram that looks like a fishbone.

ISO 9000

A generic term that refers to a number of international standards and guidelines for quality management systems. See www.iso.org for more information. See also International Organization for Standardization.

ISO 9001

An international standard for quality management systems. See also ISO 9000; standard.

ISO/IEC 20000

An international standard for IT service management.

ISO/IEC 27001

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) An international specification for information security management. The corresponding code of practice is ISO/IEC 27002. See also standard.

ISO/IEC 27002

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) An international code of practice for information security management. The corresponding specification is ISO/IEC 27001. See also standard.

IT infrastructure

All of the hardware, software, networks, facilities etc. that are required to develop, test, deliver, monitor, control or support applications and IT services. The term includes all of the information technology, but not the associated people, processes, and documentation.

IT operations

(ITIL Service Operation) Activities carried out by IT operations control, including console management/operations bridge, job scheduling, backup and restore, and print and output management. IT operations is also used as a synonym for service operation.

IT operations control

(ITIL Service Operation) Activities carried out by IT operations control, including console management/operations bridge, job scheduling, backup and restore, and print and output management. IT operations is also used as a synonym for service operation.

IT operations management

(ITIL Service Operation) The function within an IT service provider that performs the daily activities needed to manage IT services and the supporting IT infrastructure. IT operations management includes IT operations control and facilities management.

IT service

A service provided by an IT service provider. An IT service is made up of a combination of information technology, people, and processes. A customer-facing IT service directly supports the business processes of one or more customers and its service level targets should be defined in a service level agreement.

Other IT services, called supporting services, are not directly used by the business but are required by the service provider to deliver customer-facing services. See also core service; enabling service; enhancing service; service; service package.

IT service continuity management (ITSCM)

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for managing risks that could seriously affect IT services. IT service continuity management ensures that the IT service provider can always provide minimum agreed service levels, by reducing the risk to an acceptable level and planning for the recovery of IT services. IT service continuity management supports business continuity management.

IT service continuity plan

(ITIL Service Design) A plan defining the steps required to recover one or more IT services. The plan also identifies the triggers for invocation, people to be involved, communications etc. The IT service continuity plan should be part of a business continuity plan.

IT service management (ITSM)

The implementation and management of quality IT services that meet the needs of the business. IT service management is performed by IT service providers through an appropriate mix of people, process and information technology. See also service management.

IT Service Management Forum (itSMF)

The IT Service Management Forum is an independent organization dedicated to promoting a professional approach to IT service management. The itSMF is a not-for-profit membership organization with representation in many countries around the world (itSMF chapters). The itSMF and its membership contribute to the development of ITIL and associated IT service management standards. See www.itsmf.org for more information.

IT steering group (ISG)

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A formal group that is responsible for ensuring that business and IT service provider strategies and plans are closely aligned. An IT steering group includes senior representatives from the business and the IT service provider. Also known as IT strategy group or IT steering committee.

ITIL®

A set of best-practice publications for IT service management. Owned by the Cabinet Office (part of HM Government), ITIL gives guidance on the provision of quality IT services and the processes, functions and other capabilities needed to support them. The ITIL framework is based on a service life cycle and consists of five life cycle stages (service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement), each of which has its own supporting publication. There is also a set of complementary ITIL publications providing guidance specific to industry sectors, organization types, operating models and technology architectures.  See www.axelos.com for more information.

job scheduling

(ITIL Service Operation) Planning and managing the execution of software tasks that are required as part of an IT service. Job scheduling is carried out by IT operations management and is often automated using software tools that run batch or online tasks at specific times of the day, week, month, or year.

Kano model

(ITIL Service Strategy) A model developed by Noriaki Kano that is used to help understand customer preferences. The Kano model considers attributes of an IT service grouped into areas such as basic factors, excitement factors, performance factors etc.

Kepner and Tregoe analysis

(ITIL Service Operation) A structured approach to problem solving. The problem is analyzed in terms of what, where, when, and extent. Possible causes are identified, the most probable cause is tested, and the true cause is verified.  See also curative analysis; root cause.

key performance indicator (KPI)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) A metric that is used to help manage an IT service, process, plan, project or other activity. Key performance indicators are used to measure the achievement of critical success factors. Many metrics may be measured, but only the most important of these are defined as key performance indicators and used to actively manage and report on the process, IT service or activity. They should be selected to ensure that efficiency, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness are all managed.

keycode

The Banner designation that includes the CRN and the Term Designation.

knowledge

General awareness or possession of information, facts, ideas, truths, or principles. Clear awareness or explicit information, for example, of a situation or fact all the information, facts, truths, and principles learned throughout time. Familiarity or understanding gained through experience or study. See also data; information; wisdom; Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom.

knowledge base

(ITIL Service Transition) A logical database containing data and information used by the service knowledge management system. The official knowledge base for WCU IT is ithelp.wcu.edu.

knowledge management

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for sharing perspectives, ideas, experience, and information, and for ensuring that these are available in the right place and at the right time. The knowledge management process enables informed decisions and improves efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge. See also Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom; service knowledge management system.

known error

(ITIL Service Operation) A problem that has a documented root cause and a workaround. Known errors are created and managed throughout their life cycle by problem management. Known errors may also be identified by development or suppliers.

known error database (KEDB)

(ITIL Service Operation) A database containing all known error records. This database is created by problem management and used by incident and problem management. The known error database may be part of the configuration management system or may be stored elsewhere in the service knowledge management system. The official KEDB for WCU IT is Cherwell Service Management.

known error record

(ITIL Service Operation) A record containing the details of a known error. Each known error record documents the life cycle of a known error, including the status, root cause, and workaround. In some implementations, a known error is documented using additional fields in a problem record.

lag

A modification of a logical relationship which directs a delay in the successor task. For example, in a finish-to-start dependency with a 10 day lag, the successor activity cannot start until 10 days after the predecessor has finished. See also lead.

lead

A modification of a logical relationship which allows an acceleration of the successor task. For example, in a finish-to-start dependency with a 10 day lead, the successor activity can start 10 days before the predecessor has finished. See also lag.

learning management system (LMS)

A software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs. The official LMS of WCU is Canvas.

learning tools interoperability (LTI)

An integration with the LMS that follows the standards of LMS Global.  These are generally the most stable and least prone to difficulty.  The recommendation of the LMS team is that WCU only consider LTIs that conform to the core LTI standard (1.3).

lessons learned

The learning gained from the process of performing a project. Lessons may be learned during any phase of the project and should be documented so other project teams can benefit from the knowledge gained.

life cycle

The various stages in the life of an IT service, configuration item, incident, problem, change etc. The life cycle defines the categories for status and the status transitions that are permitted. For example:

• The life cycle of an application includes requirements, design, build, deploy, operate, optimize.
• The expanded incident life cycle includes detection, diagnosis, repair, recovery, and restoration.
• The life cycle of a server may include ordered, received, in test, live, disposed,  etc.

limited LMS administrator 

A LMS administrator account that allows for most LMS functions but does not allow for changing global setting. Help Desk Role.

live

(ITIL Service Transition) Refers to an IT service or other configuration item that is being used to deliver service to a customer.

live environment

(ITIL Service Transition) A controlled environment containing live configuration items used to deliver IT services to customers.

LMS administrator

A super-user with full access to the LMS.  Subject to the LMS Manager (Sr. Ed Tech) and LMS Administrator.

LMS committee

The shared ownership body that reviews, recommends, and makes decisions for LMS procedures and processes.

LMS crosswalk

A chart showing the equivalencies and changes between Blackboard and Canvas.

LMS roles

Settings for individual capacities within the LMS.

LMS sub-administrator

A person with full control over one of the sub-accounts in Canvas.

logical relationship

A dependency between two project activities, or between a project activity and a milestone. See also precedence relationship. The four possible types of logical relationships are:

• Finish-to-start:  the "from" activity must finish before the "to" activity can start. (This is the most common).
• Finish-to-finish:  the "from" activity must finish before the "to" activity can finish.
• Start-to-finish:  the "from" activity must start before the "to" activity can start.
• Start-to-finish:  the "from" activity must start before the "to" activity can finish.

maintainability

(ITIL Service Design) A measure of how quickly and effectively an IT service or other configuration item can be restored to normal working after a failure. Maintainability is often measured and reported as MTRS. Maintainability is also used in the context of software or IT service development to mean ability to be changed or repaired easily.

major incident

(ITIL Service Operation) The highest category of impact for an incident. A major incident results in significant disruption to the business.

malware

Software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system.

manageability

An informal measure of how easily and effectively an IT service or other component can be managed.

managed storage

Managed storage can either be on-campus or off-campus. What makes it managed is the extra security mechanisms that are in place to protect the data. These mechanisms range from better user access controls to protecting systems to contractual agreements about data protection.

management information

Information that is used to support decision making by managers. Management information is often generated automatically by tools supporting the various IT service management processes. Management information often includes the values of key performance indicators, such as ‘percentage of changes leading to incidents’ or ‘first-time fix rate’.

management information system (MIS)

(ITIL Service Design) A set of tools, data and information that is used to support a process or function. Examples include the availability management information system and the supplier and contract management information system. See also service knowledge management system.

Management of Risk (M_o_R®)

M_o_R includes all the activities required to identify and control the exposure to risk, which may have an impact on the achievement of an organization’s business objectives. 

management reserve

A separately planned quantity used to allow for future situations which are impossible to predict (sometimes called "unknown unknowns"). Management reserves may involve cost or schedule. Management reserves are intended to reduce the risk of missing cost or schedule objectives. Use of management reserve requires a change to the project’s cost baseline.

management system

The framework of policy, processes, functions, standards, guidelines, and tools that ensures an organization or part of an organization can achieve its objectives. This term is also used with a smaller scope to support a specific process or activity – for example, an event management system or risk management system.

See also system.

manual workaround

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A workaround that requires manual intervention. Manual workaround is also used as the name of a recovery option in which the business process operates without the use of IT services. This is a temporary measure and is usually combined with another recovery option.

maturity

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A measure of the reliability, efficiency and effectiveness of a process, function, organization, etc. The most mature processes and functions are formally aligned to business objectives and strategy and are supported by a framework for continual improvement.

maturity level

A named level in a maturity model, such as the Carnegie Mellon Capability Maturity Model Integration.

mean time between failures (MTBF)

(ITIL Service Design) A metric for measuring and reporting reliability. MTBF is the average time that an IT service or other configuration item can perform its agreed function without interruption. This is measured from when the configuration item starts working, until it next fails.

mean time between service incidents (MTBSI)

(ITIL Service Design) A metric used for measuring and reporting reliability. It is the mean time from when a system or IT service fails, until it next fails. MTBSI is equal to MTBF plus MTRS.

mean time to repair (MTTR)

The average time taken to repair an IT service or other configuration item after a failure. MTTR is measured from when the configuration item fails until it is repaired. MTTR does not include the time required to recover or restore. It is sometimes incorrectly used instead of mean time to restore service.

mean time to restore service (MTRS)

The average time taken to restore an IT service or other configuration item after a failure. MTRS is measured from when the configuration item fails until it is fully restored and delivering its normal functionality. See also maintainability; mean time to repair.

memorandum of understanding (MOU)

A document that defines the support level that IT will have with an application or system that is a signed agreement between IT management and the business sponsor.

metric

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) Something that is measured and reported to help manage a process, IT service or activity. See also key performance indicator.

Microsoft 365

The integrated office suite that WCU gets from Microsoft.  Microsoft 365 has a number of features including OneDrive, Word 365, PowerPoint 365, etc.  Microsoft 365 runs on the web and allows for things like automatic translation and captioning in PowerPoint live and for collaboration in OneNote and the live versions of all of the major Microsoft products including the client (desktop) core and Teams. See Office 365.

Microsoft client software

The Microsoft software that runs on the local machine.  It has some features that the 365 does not have, but it also has limitations that do not exist in the online version.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a persistent chat-based collaboration platform complete with document sharing, online meetings, and many more extremely useful features.

middleware

(ITIL Service Design) Software that connects two or more software components or applications. Middleware is usually purchased from a supplier, rather than developed within the IT service provider. See also commercial off the shelf.

milestone

A significant point or event in a project.

milestone schedule

A summary-level schedule which identifies the major milestones.

mission

A short but complete description of the overall purpose and intentions of an organization. It states what is to be achieved, but not how this should be done. The mission of WCU IT is to support the mission of WCU by enabling the effective, efficient, and strategic use of technology in building an empowered and informed university and by cultivating a knowledgeable and engaged IT staff.  See also vision.

mitigation

Taking steps to lessen risk by lowering the probability of a risk event’s occurrence or reducing its effect should it occur.

model

A representation of a system, process, IT service, configuration item, etc. that is used to help understand or predict future behavior.

modeling

A technique that is used to predict the future behavior of a system, process, IT service, configuration item etc. Modeling is commonly used in financial management, capacity management and availability management.

monitor control loop

(ITIL Service Operation) Monitoring the output of a task, process, IT service or other configuration item; comparing this output to a predefined norm; and taking appropriate action based on this comparison.

monitoring

(ITIL Service Operation) Repeated observation of a configuration item, IT service or process to detect events and to ensure that the current status is known.  Also, the capture, analysis, and reporting of a project performance, usually as compared to plan.

multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Multifactor authentication combines two or more independent credentials: what the user knows (password), what the user has (security token) and what the user is (biometric verification). The goal of MFA is to create a layered defense and make it more difficult for an unauthorized person to access a target such as a physical location, computing device, network, or database. If one factor is compromised or broken, the attacker still has at least one more barrier to breach before successfully breaking into the target. See also authentication; two-factor authentication.

non-credit courses

Courses, organizations, and other groupings that are not academic courses.  These can include courses that draw identities automatically out of Banner and courses that are populated manually.

normal change

(ITIL Service Transition) A change that is not an emergency change or a standard change. Normal changes follow the defined steps of the change management process.

normal service operation

(ITIL Service Operation) An operational state where services and configuration items are performing within their agreed service and operational levels.

objective

The outcomes required from a process, activity, or organization in order to ensure that its purpose will be fulfilled. Objectives are usually expressed as measurable targets. The term is also informally used to mean a requirement.

OCTAVE Allegro (OA)

OCTAVE Allegro is a methodology to streamline and optimize the process of assessing information security risks so that an organization can obtain sufficient results with a small investment in time, people, and other limited resources.

off the shelf

See commercial off the shelf.

Office 365 (O365)

The integrated office suite that WCU gets from Microsoft.  Microsoft 365 has a number of features including OneDrive, Word 365, PowerPoint 365, etc.  Microsoft 365 runs on the web and allows for things like automatic translation and captioning in PowerPoint live and for collaboration in OneNote and the live versions of all of the major Microsoft products including the client (desktop) core and Teams.

Online Learning Consortium (OLC)

The Online Learning Consortium.  A quality management and networking group that provides an easy-to-use quality rubric.  The OLC standard OSCQR (Open SUNY Course Quality Review) is free and a bit more simple and “gentle” on new online faculty than the QM Course Review process.

operate

To perform as expected. A process or configuration item is said to operate if it is delivering the required outputs. Operate also means to perform one or more operations. For example, to operate a computer is to do the day-to-day operations needed for it to perform as expected.

operation

(ITIL Service Operation) Day-to-day management of an IT service, system or other configuration item. Operation is also used to mean any predefined activity or transaction – for example, loading a magnetic tape, accepting money at a point of sale, or reading data from a disk drive.

operational

The lowest of three levels of planning and delivery (strategic, tactical, operational). Operational activities include the day-to-day or short-term planning or delivery of a business process or IT service management process. The term is also a synonym for live.

operational cost

The cost resulting from running the IT services, which often involves repeating payments – for example, staff costs, hardware maintenance, and electricity (also known as current expenditure or revenue expenditure). See also capital expenditure.

operational level agreement (OLA)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) An agreement between an IT service provider and another part of the same organization. It supports the IT service provider’s delivery of IT services to customers and defines the goods or services to be provided and the responsibilities of both parties. For example, there could be an operational level agreement:

• Between the IT service provider and a procurement department to obtain hardware in agreed times
• Between the service desk and a support group to provide incident resolution in agreed times.

See also service level agreement.

operations bridge

(ITIL Service Operation) A physical location where IT services and IT infrastructure are monitored and managed.

operations control

See IT operations control.

operations management

See IT operations management.

optimize

Review, plan, and request changes, in order to obtain the maximum efficiency and effectiveness from a process, configuration item, application etc.

organization

A company, legal entity, or other institution. The term is sometimes used to refer to any entity that has people, resources, and budgets – for example, a project or business unit.

organizational planning

Identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.

outcome

The result of carrying out an activity, following a process, or delivering an IT service etc. The term is used to refer to intended results as well as to actual results. See also objective.

outsourcing

(ITIL Service Strategy) Using an external service provider to manage IT services. See also service sourcing.

overall change control

Coordinating changes across an entire project.

pain value analysis

(ITIL Service Operation) A technique used to help identify the business impact of one or more problems. A formula is used to calculate pain value based on the number of users affected, the duration of the downtime, the impact on each user, and the cost to the business (if known).

Panopto

Panopto is the currently contracted streaming media server.  It is the host for broadcasting through the LMS and through URL link.  It provides the following:  Streaming, Storage, LMS course integration, recording of webcam on smartphone, recording of screencast and PowerPoint recordings, and remote recording.

Pareto principle

(ITIL Service Operation) A technique used to prioritize activities. The Pareto principle says that 80% of the value of any activity is created with 20% of the effort. Pareto analysis is also used in problem management to prioritize possible problem causes for investigation.  

partner

Individual or individuals at WCU who will be assisting the IT project management team with the implementation, testing and closure of a project.

partnership

A relationship between two organizations that involves working closely together for common goals or mutual benefit. The IT service provider should have a partnership with the business and with third parties who are critical to the delivery of IT services. See also value network.

passive monitoring

(ITIL Service Operation) Monitoring of a configuration item, an IT service or a process that relies on an alert or notification to discover the current status. See also active monitoring.

pattern of outsourcing business activity (PBA)

(ITIL Service Strategy) A workload profile of one or more business activities. Patterns of business activity are used to help the IT service provider understand and plan for different levels of business activity. See also user profile.

peer evaluator

A non-instructor who is put into the course as an observer to either evaluate student or faculty work.

percentage utilization

(ITIL Service Design) The amount of time that a component is busy over a given period of time. For example, if a CPU is busy for 1,800 seconds in a one-hour period, its utilization is 50%.

performance

A measure of what is achieved or delivered by a system, person, team, process, or IT service.

performance management

Activities to ensure that something achieves its expected outcomes in an efficient and consistent manner.

performance reporting

Collecting and disseminating information about project performance to help ensure project progress.

personal lecture capture software

A software, like Panopto, that records the screen and allows for presentations.

personally identifiable information (PII)

Any data that could potentially be used to identify a particular person. Examples include a full name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, bank account number, passport number, and email address.

phishing

The fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable sources in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers. See also spear-phishing.

pilot

(ITIL Service Transition) A limited deployment of an IT service, a release, or a process to the live environment. A pilot is used to reduce risk and to gain user feedback and acceptance. See also change evaluation; test.

plagiarism detection software

A software that allows students and faculty to measure the originality of a document as moderated through a software that is deployable through the LMS.  Blackboard had an embedded “free” offering (Safeassign).  We will need to contract separately for one of the Canvas partners.  In their endorsement of the LMS recommendation, the Faculty senate specifically requested software parody.

plan

A detailed proposal that describes the activities and resources needed to achieve an objective – for example, a plan to implement a new IT service or process. ISO/IEC 20000 requires a plan for the management of each IT service management process.

planning

Project planning incorporates procurement planning, quality planning, scope planning and resource planning.

Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A four-stage cycle for process management, attributed to Edward Deming. Plan-Do-Check-Act is also called the Deming Cycle. Plan – design or revise processes that support the IT services; Do – implement the plan and manage the processes; Check – measure the processes and IT services, compare with objectives, and produce reports; Act – plan and implement changes to improve the processes.

planned downtime

(ITIL Service Design) Agreed time when an IT service will not be available. Planned downtime is often used for maintenance, upgrades, and testing. See also change window; downtime.

planning

An activity responsible for creating one or more plans – for example, capacity planning.

point of contact (POC)

The vendor recognized contact for support.

policy

Formally documented management expectations and intentions. Policies are used to direct decisions, and to ensure consistent and appropriate development and implementation of processes, standards, roles, activities, IT infrastructure, etc.

pop-up blocker

Very popular features of web-browsers that essentially break several of the LMS features including: Multi-Factor Authentication; In-Browser apps; Proctoring tools; and single sign-on.

portable facility

(ITIL Service Design) A prefabricated building, or a large vehicle, provided by a third party and moved to a site when needed according to an IT service continuity plan. See also fixed facility; recovery option.

post-implementation review (PIR)

A review that takes place after a change or a project has been implemented. It determines if the change or project was successful and identifies opportunities for improvement.

practice

A way of working, or a way in which work must be done. Practices can include activities, processes, functions, standards, and guidelines. See also best practice.

precedence diagramming method (PDM) 

A network diagramming technique in which activities are represented by boxes (or nodes). Activities are linked by precedence relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be performed.

precedence relationship

The term used in the precedence diagramming method for a logical relationship. In current usage, however, precedence relationship, logical relationship, and dependency are widely used interchangeably regardless of the diagramming method in use.

prerequisite for success (PFS)

An activity that needs to be completed, or a condition that needs to be met, to enable successful implementation of a plan or process. It is often an output from one process that is a required input to another process.

priority

(ITIL Service Operation) (ITIL Service Transition) A category used to identify the relative importance of an incident, problem, or change. Priority is based on impact and urgency and is used to identify required times for actions to be taken. For example, the service level agreement may state that Priority 2 incidents must be resolved within 12 hours.

prioritized ranking

A combined list of projects from all divisions and when each will be activated based upon the division ranking and resource availability.

proactive monitoring

(ITIL Service Operation) Monitoring that looks for patterns of events to predict possible future failures. See also reactive monitoring.

proactive problem management

(ITIL Service Operation) Part of the problem management process. The objective of proactive problem management is to identify problems that might otherwise be missed. Proactive problem management analyses incident records, and uses data collected by other IT service management processes to identify trends or significant problems.

problem

(ITIL Service Operation) A cause of one or more incidents. The cause is not usually known at the time a problem record is created, and the problem management process is responsible for further investigation.

problem management

(ITIL Service Operation) The process responsible for managing the life cycle of all problems. Problem management proactively prevents incidents from happening and minimizes the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented.

problem record

(ITIL Service Operation) A record containing the details of a problem. Each problem record documents the life cycle of a single problem.

procedure

A document containing steps that specify how to achieve an activity. Procedures are defined as part of processes. See also work instruction.

process

A structured set of activities designed to accomplish a specific objective. A process takes one or more defined inputs and turns them into defined outputs. It may include any of the roles, responsibilities, tools and management controls required to reliably deliver the outputs. A process may define policies, standards, guidelines, activities, and work instructions if they are needed.

process control

The activity of planning and regulating a process, with the objective of performing the process in an effective, efficient, and consistent manner.

process manager

A role responsible for the operational management of a process. The process manager’s responsibilities include planning and coordination of all activities required to carry out, monitor and report on the process. There may be several process managers for one process – for example, regional change managers or IT service continuity managers for each data center. The process manager role is often assigned to the person who carries out the process owner role, but the two roles may be separate in larger organizations.

process owner

The person who is held accountable for ensuring that a process is fit for purpose. The process owner’s responsibilities include sponsorship, design, change management and continual improvement of the process and its metrics. This role can be assigned to the same person who carries out the process manager role, but the two roles may be separate in larger organizations.

procurement

The process required to acquire goods and services from outside the organization.

procurement planning

Determining what to procure and when.

production environment

See live environment.

pro-forma

A template or example document containing sample data that will be replaced with real values when these are available.

ProfTrn

A designation proposed for professional training in Canvas.  All non-HR and non-IT training mediated through the LMS.

program

A number of projects and activities that are planned and managed together to achieve an overall set of related objectives and other outcomes.

project

A temporary and one-time undertaking to create a unique product or service, with people and other assets, that is required to achieve an objective or other outcome. Each project has a life cycle that typically includes initiation, planning, execution, and closure. Projects are usually managed using a formal methodology such as Projects In Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) or the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). See also charter; project management office; project portfolio.

project charter

A document issued by the Project Management Office that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.

project closure

The process by which a project is formally completed.

project communications management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure proper collection and dissemination of project information. It consists of communications planning, information distribution, performance reporting, and administrative closure.

project cost management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget. It consists of resource planning, cost estimating, cost budgeting, and cost control.

project human resource management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved with the project. It consists organizational planning, staff acquisition, and team development.

project integration management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly coordinated. It consists of project plan development, project plan execution, and overall change control.

project life cycle

A collection of generally sequential project phases whose name and number are determined by the control needs of the organization or organizations involved in the project.

project management

The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.

Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

A project management standard maintained and published by the Project Management Institute. See www.pmi.org for more information.

Project Management Institute (PMI)

A membership association that advances the project management profession through globally recognized standards and certifications, collaborative communities, an extensive research program, and professional development opportunities. PMI is a not-for-profit membership organization with representation in many countries around the world. PMI maintains and publishes the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). See www.pmi.org for more information. 

project management office (PMO)

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A function or group responsible for managing the life cycle of projects. See also charter; project portfolio.

project management software

A class of computer applications specifically designed to aid with planning and controlling project costs and schedules.

project management team

The members of the project team who are directly involved in project management activities. On some smaller projects, the project management team may include virtually all the project team members.

project manager

A Project Manager is the person responsible for managing all aspects of a project to ensure the goals and deliverables are met.  Often, the PM represents the interests of the project sponsor within the project to guide the work towards project goals.  The PM is given the authority by the sponsors to guide project work, maintain documentation, track work, and oversee the Project Team

project objective

Describes the business objective that the project seeks to address; explains how the project will add value to the organization and what strategic priorities are being addressed as well as how this will be assessed after the project has been completed.

project phase

A set of logically related project activities to accomplish the completion of a major project deliverable. Phases are usually completed sequentially but will sometimes overlap.

project plan

A formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions and decisions, to facilitate communication among stakeholders, and to document approved scope, cost, and schedule baselines. A project plan may be summary or detailed.

project plan development

Taking the results of other planning processes and putting them into a consistent, coherent document.

project plan execution

Carrying out the project plan by performing the activities included therein.

project portfolio

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A database or structured document used to manage projects throughout their life cycle. The project portfolio is used to coordinate projects and ensure that they meet their objectives in a cost-effective and timely manner. In larger organizations, the project portfolio is typically defined and maintained by a project management office. The project portfolio is important to service portfolio management as new services and significant changes are normally managed as projects. See also charter.

project procurement management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the performing organization. It consists of procurement planning, solicitation planning, solicitation, source selection, contract administration, and contract close-out.

project quality management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. It consists of quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.

project risk management

A subset or project management that includes the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risk. It consists of risk identification, risk quantification, risk response development, and risk response control.

project schedule

The planned dates for performing activities and the planned dates for meeting milestones.

project scope

The work performed to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions.

project scope management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all of the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. It consists of initiation, scope planning, scope definition, scope verification, and scope change control.

project stakeholder

Any party which may be affected by a project. Individuals with an interest in the successful completion of a project.

project team members

The people who report either directly or indirectly to the project manager.

project time management

A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure timely completion of the project. It consists of activity definition, activity sequencing, activity duration estimating, schedule development, and schedule control.

projected service outage (PSO)

(ITIL Service Transition) A document that identifies the effect of planned changes, maintenance activities, and test plans on agreed service levels.

promotional offer

An effort by a publisher or a vendor to give a faculty member or a member of staff a “free” integration or piece of interactive software.  The LMS team needs to take every “free” offer that requires an integration into the LMS and consider at least a 3-year cost cycle and whether the requestor, department or individual faculty member, can produce a sustainable funding model given current realities (including the revision of the Bookstore policy on charging students additional costs for semester-long access).  Each integration takes the LMS team at least 25 hours of testing and integration time and so has an average cost to the State of North Carolina (even when “free”) of between $625 and $3500 for initial implementation.  If there are any support costs beyond the implementation, those might also be considered.

published data

Making data widely available, such as on a public web page, so that it may appear to be another official version of the data is considered publishing.

publisher platform

A distinctive platform, outside of the LMS, that delivers content and interacts with students.  Publisher platforms often do not allow for discovery for purposes of accreditation and grade disputes, but they are often more technically sophisticated with relation, especially, to adaptive learning.

qualification

(ITIL Service Transition) An activity that ensures that the IT infrastructure is appropriate and correctly configured to support an application or IT service. See also validation.

quality

The ability of a product, service, or process to provide the intended value. For example, a hardware component can be considered to be of high quality if it performs as expected and delivers the required reliability. Process quality also requires an ability to monitor effectiveness and efficiency, and to improve them if necessary. See also quality management system.

quality assurance (QA)

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for ensuring that the quality of a service, process, or other service asset will provide its intended value. Quality assurance is also used to refer to a function or team that performs quality assurance. This process is not described in detail within the core ITIL publications. See also service validation and testing.

quality control (QC)

(1) The process of evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards. (2) The organizational unit that is assigned responsibility for quality assurance.

quality management system (QMS)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) The framework of policy, processes, functions, standards, guidelines, and tools that ensures an organization is of a suitable quality to reliably meet business objectives or service levels. See also ISO 9000.

Quality Matters (QM)

The chosen online course quality rubric for the UNC system.  WCU has chosen to go with an alternative open system mediated by the Online Learning Consortium and the State University of New York.  QM has often been perceived as overly prescriptive, discouraging for faculty, and expensive even with the system discounting.

quality planning

Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them.

quick win

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) An improvement activity that is expected to provide a return on investment in a short period of time with relatively small cost and effort. See also Pareto principle.

RACI

(ITIL Service Design) A model used to help define roles and responsibilities. RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed.

ranking

The designee will rank the endorsed projects for their division in the order they wish or need them to be completed.

reactive monitoring

(ITIL Service Operation) Monitoring that takes place in response to an event. For example, submitting a batch job when the previous job completes, or logging an incident when an error occurs. See also proactive monitoring.

reciprocal arrangement

(ITIL Service Design) A recovery option. An agreement between two organizations to share resources in an emergency – for example, high-speed printing facilities or computer room space.

record

A document containing the results or other output from a process or activity. Records are evidence of the fact that an activity took place and may be paper or electronic – for example, an audit report, an incident record or the minutes of a meeting.

recovery

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) Returning a configuration item or an IT service to a working state. Recovery of an IT service often includes recovering data to a known consistent state. After recovery, further steps may be needed before the IT service can be made available to the users (restoration).

recovery option

(ITIL Service Design) A strategy for responding to an interruption to service. Commonly used strategies are manual workaround, reciprocal arrangement, gradual recovery, intermediate recovery, fast recovery, and immediate recovery. Recovery options may make use of dedicated facilities or third-party facilities shared by multiple businesses.

recovery point objective (RPO)

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) The maximum amount of data that may be lost when service is restored after an interruption. The recovery point objective is expressed as a length of time before the failure. For example, a recovery point objective of one day may be supported by daily backups, and up to 24 hours of data may be lost. Recovery point objectives for each IT service should be negotiated, agreed and documented, and used as requirements for service design and IT service continuity plans.

recovery time objective (RTO)

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) The maximum time allowed for the recovery of an IT service following an interruption. The service level to be provided may be less than normal service level targets. Recovery time objectives for each IT service should be negotiated, agreed, and documented. See also business impact analysis.

redundancy

(ITIL Service Design) Use of one or more additional configuration items to provide fault tolerance. The term also has a generic meaning of obsolescence, or no longer needed.

relationship

A connection or interaction between two people or things. In business relationship management, it is the interaction between the IT service provider and the business. In service asset and configuration management, it is a link between two configuration items that identifies a dependency or connection between them. For example, applications may be linked to the servers they run on, and IT services have many links to all the configuration items that contribute to that IT service.

relationship processes

The ISO/IEC 20000 process group that includes business relationship management and supplier management.

release

(ITIL Service Transition) One or more changes to an IT service that are built, tested, and deployed together. A single release may include changes to hardware, software, documentation, processes, and other components.

release and deployment management

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for planning, scheduling, and controlling the build, test and deployment of releases, and for delivering new functionality required by the business while protecting the integrity of existing services.

release identification

(ITIL Service Transition) A naming convention used to uniquely identify a release. The release identification typically includes a reference to the configuration item and a version number – for example, Microsoft Office 2010 SR2.

release management

See release and deployment management.

release package

(ITIL Service Transition) A set of configuration items that will be built, tested, and deployed together as a single release. Each release package will usually include one or more release units.

release record

(ITIL Service Transition) A record that defines the content of a release. A release record has relationships with all configuration items that are affected by the release. Release records may be in the configuration management system or elsewhere in the service knowledge management system.

release unit

(ITIL Service Transition) Components of an IT service that are normally released together. A release unit typically includes sufficient components to perform a useful function. For example, one release unit could be a desktop PC, including hardware, software, licenses, documentation etc. A different release unit may be the complete payroll application, including IT operations procedures and user training.

release window

See change window.

reliability

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) A measure of how long an IT service or other configuration item can perform its agreed function without interruption. Usually measured as MTBF or MTBSI. The term can also be used to state how likely it is that a process, function etc. will deliver its required outputs. See also availability.

remediation

(ITIL Service Transition) Actions taken to recover after a failed change or release. Remediation may include back-out, invocation of service continuity plans, or other actions designed to enable the business process to continue.

repair

(ITIL Service Operation) The replacement or correction of a failed configuration item.

request for change (RFC)

(ITIL Service Transition) A formal proposal for a change to be made. It includes details of the proposed change and may be recorded on paper or electronically. The term is often misused to mean a change record, or the change itself.

request fulfillment

(ITIL Service Operation) The process responsible for managing the life cycle of all service requests.

request model

(ITIL Service Operation) A repeatable way of dealing with a particular category of service request. A request model defines specific agreed steps that will be followed for a service request of this category. Request models may be very simple, with no requirement for authorization (e.g., password reset), or may be more complex with many steps that require authorization (e.g., provision of an existing IT service). See also request fulfillment.

requirement

(ITIL Service Design) A formal statement of what is needed – for example, a service level requirement, a project requirement, or the required deliverables for a process. A function or condition that must be met by a product, system or service as specified in the project plans and contracts. See also statement of requirements.

requirements gathering

The process of collecting the functions and/or conditions that are currently being met and what this project is intended to meet. This is a detailed analysis and takes place after project activation.

resilience

(ITIL Service Design) The ability of an IT service or other configuration item to resist failure or to recover in a timely manner following a failure. For example, an armored cable will resist failure when put under stress. See also fault tolerance.

resolution

(ITIL Service Operation) Action taken to repair the root cause of an incident or problem, or to implement a workaround. In ISO/IEC 20000, resolution processes is the process group that includes incident and problem management.

resolution processes

The ISO/IEC 20000 process group that includes incident and problem management.

resource

(ITIL Service Strategy) A generic term that includes IT infrastructure, people, money or anything else that might help to deliver an IT service. Resources are considered to be assets of an organization. See also capability; service asset.

resource planning

Determining what resources (people, equipment, and materials) are needed in what quantities to perform project activities.

response time

A measure of the time taken to complete an operation or transaction. Used in capacity management as a measure of IT infrastructure performance, and in incident management as a measure of the time taken to answer the phone, or to start diagnosis.

responsiveness

A measurement of the time taken to respond to something. This could be response time of a transaction, or the speed with which an IT service provider responds to an incident or request for change etc.

restoration of service

See restore.

restore

(ITIL Service Operation) Taking action to return an IT service to the users after repair and recovery from an incident. This is the primary objective of incident management.

retention policy

A policy governing when courses, videos, and other digital artifacts will be deleted and how the owners will be contacted prior to deletion.  The recommendation for Canvas is a two-year retention for courses and a three-year retention for Panopto videos with a warning about deletion for videos delivered to the owner 180 days and 90 days before deletion.

retire

(ITIL Service Transition) Permanent removal of an IT service, or other configuration item, from the live environment. Being retired is a stage in the life cycle of many configuration items.

return on investment (ROI)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Strategy) A measurement of the expected benefit of an investment. In the simplest sense, it is the net profit of an investment divided by the net worth of the assets invested. The expected financial gain of a project expressed as a percentage of total project investment. See also net present value; value on investment.

return to normal

(ITIL Service Design) The phase of an IT service continuity plan during which full normal operations are resumed. For example, if an alternative data center has been in use, then this phase will bring the primary data center back into operation and restore the ability to invoke IT service continuity plans again.

review

An evaluation of a change, problem, process, project etc. Reviews are typically carried out at predefined points in the life cycle, and especially after closure. The purpose of a review is to ensure that all deliverables have been provided, and to identify opportunities for improvement. See also change evaluation; post- implementation review.

risk

A possible event that could cause harm or loss or affect the ability to achieve objectives. A risk is measured by the probability of a threat, the vulnerability of the asset to that threat, and the impact it would have if it occurred. Risk can also be defined as uncertainty of outcome and can be used in the context of measuring the probability of positive outcomes as well as negative outcomes.  Also, an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives.

risk assessment

The initial steps of risk management: analyzing the value of assets to the business, identifying threats to those assets, and evaluating how vulnerable each asset is to those threats. Risk assessment can be quantitative (based on numerical data) or qualitative.

risk event

A discreet occurrence that may affect a project for better or worse.

risk identification

Determining which risk events are likely to affect a project.

risk management

The process responsible for identifying, assessing and controlling risks. Risk management is also sometimes used to refer to the second part of the overall process after risks have been identified and assessed, as in ‘risk assessment and management’. Also, a structured approach to managing a project uncertainty through a sequence of activities including risk identification and assessment. Project team members develop strategies to manage and mitigate risks based upon the probability of the risk occurring and the impact to the project if the risk event occurs.. See also risk assessment.

risk mitigation

A systematic reduction in the extent of exposure to a risk and/or the likelihood of its occurrence. Also called risk reduction.

risk quantification

Evaluating the probability of risk event occurrence and effect.

risk register

A repository in which outputs of risk management processes are recorded.

risk response control

Responding to changes in risk over the course of a project.

risk response development

Defining enhancement steps for opportunities and mitigation steps for threats.

role

A set of responsibilities, activities and authorities assigned to a person or team. A role is defined in a process or function. One person or team may have multiple roles – for example, the roles of configuration manager and change manager may be carried out by a single person. Role is also used to describe the purpose of something or what it is used for.

root cause

(ITIL Service Operation) The underlying or original cause of an incident or problem. See also curative analysis.

root cause analysis (RCA)

(ITIL Service Operation) An activity that identifies the root cause of an incident or problem. Root cause analysis typically concentrates on IT infrastructure failures. See also service failure analysis.

running costs

See operational costs.

scalability

The ability of an IT service, process, configuration item etc. to perform its agreed function when the workload or scope changes.

schedule

See project schedule.

schedule control

Controlling changes to a project schedule.

schedule development

Analyzing activity sequences, activity durations, and resource requirements to create a project schedule.

scheduling

See project schedule.

scope

The sum of the products and services to be provided as a project. Also, the boundary or extent to which a process, procedure, certification, contract, etc. applies. For example, the scope of change management may include all live IT services and related configuration items; the scope of an ISO/IEC 20000 certificate may include all IT services delivered out of a named data center.

scope change

Any change to the project scope. A scope change almost always requires an adjustment to the project cost or schedule.

scope change control

Controlling changes to project scope.

scope definition

Decomposing the major deliverables into smaller, more manageable components to provide better control.

scope planning

Developing a written scope statement that includes the project justification, the major deliverables, and the project objectives.

scope verification

Ensuring that all identified project deliverables have been completed satisfactorily.

screen capture

The process of capturing a computer screen while recording a lecture over it.  The supported software that allows for that at WCU is Panopto, Zoom, and PowerPoint.  PowerPoint is complicated by file size management and uploads of PowerPoint slides to Zoom will be limited, but PowerPoint online recordings can be delivered to students through PowerPoint Online, OneDrive, and the Files structure in Teams (which is also SharePoint Online).

second-line support

(ITIL Service Operation) The second level in a hierarchy of support groups involved in the resolution of incidents and investigation of problems. Each level contains more specialist skills or has more time or other resources.

security

See information security management.

security incident

A security incident is an event that may indicate that the university's systems or data have been compromised or that measures put in place to protect them have failed.  Security events are usually distinguished from security incidents by the degree of severity and the associated potential risk to the university.

security management

See information security management.

security management information system (SMIS)

(ITIL Service Design) A set of tools, data and information that is used to support information security management. The security management information system is part of the information security management system. See also service knowledge management system.

security policy

See information security policy.

separation of concerns (SoC)

An approach to designing a solution or IT service that divides the problem into pieces that can be solved independently. This approach separates what is to be done from how it is to be done.

server

(ITIL Service Operation) A computer that is connected to a network and provides software functions that are used by other computers.

service

A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks. The term ‘service’ is sometimes used as a synonym for core service, IT service or service package. See also utility; warranty.

service acceptance criteria (SAC) information

(ITIL Service Transition) A set of criteria used to ensure that an IT service meets its functionality and quality requirements and that the IT service provider is ready to operate the new IT service when it has been deployed. See also acceptance.

service analytics

(ITIL Service Strategy) A technique used in the assessment of the business impact of incidents. Service analytics models the dependencies between configuration items, and the dependencies of IT services on configuration items.

service asset

Any resource or capability of a service provider. See also asset.

service asset and configuration management (SACM)

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for ensuring that the assets required to deliver services are properly controlled, and that accurate and reliable information about those assets is available when and where it is needed. This information includes details of how the assets have been configured and the relationships between assets. See also configuration management system.

service capacity management (SCM)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) The sub-process of capacity management responsible for understanding the performance and capacity of IT services. Information on the resources used by each IT service and the pattern of usage over time are collected, recorded and analyzed for use in the capacity plan. See also business capacity management; component capacity management.

service catalog

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A database or structured document with information about all live IT services, including those available for deployment. The service catalog is part of the service portfolio and contains information about two types of IT service: customer-facing services that are visible to the business; and supporting services required by the service provider to deliver customer-facing services. See also customer agreement portfolio; service catalog management.

service catalog management

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for providing and maintaining the service catalog and for ensuring that it is available to those who are authorized to access it.

service change

See change.

service charter

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A document that contains details of a new or changed service. New service introductions and significant service changes are documented in a charter and authorized by service portfolio management. Service charters are passed to the service design life cycle stage where a new or modified service design package will be created. The term charter is also used to describe the act of authorizing the work required by each stage of the service life cycle with respect to the new or changed service. See also change proposal; service portfolio; service catalog.

service continuity management

See IT service continuity management.

service contract

(ITIL Service Strategy) A contract to deliver one or more IT services. The term is also used to mean any agreement to deliver IT services, whether this is a legal contract or a service level agreement. See also customer agreement portfolio.

service culture

A customer-oriented culture. The major objectives of a service culture are customer satisfaction and helping customers to achieve their business objectives.

service design

(ITIL Service Design) A stage in the life cycle of a service. Service design includes the design of the services, governing practices, processes, and policies required to realize the service provider’s strategy and to facilitate the introduction of services into supported environments. Service design includes the following processes: design coordination, service catalog management, service level management, availability management, capacity management, IT service continuity management, information security management, and supplier management. Although these processes are associated with service design, most processes have activities that take place across multiple stages of the service life cycle. See also design.

service design package (SDP)

(ITIL Service Design) Document(s) defining all aspects of an IT service and its requirements through each stage of its life cycle. A service design package is produced for each new IT service, major change, or IT service retirement.

service desk

(ITIL Service Operation) The single point of contact between the service provider and the users. A typical service desk manages incidents and service requests and handles communication with the users. See help desk.

service failure analysis (SFA)

(ITIL Service Design) A technique that identifies underlying causes of one or more IT service interruptions. Service failure analysis identifies opportunities to improve the IT service provider’s processes and tools, and not just the IT infrastructure. It is a time-constrained, project-like activity, rather than an ongoing process of analysis.

service hours

(ITIL Service Design) An agreed time period when a particular IT service should be available. For example, ‘Monday–Friday 08:00 to 18:00 except university holidays’. Service hours should be defined in a service level agreement.

service improvement plan (SIP)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A formal plan to implement improvements to a process or IT service.

service knowledge management (SKMS)

(ITIL Service Transition) A set of tools and databases that is used to manage knowledge, information and data. The service knowledge management system includes the configuration management system, as well as other databases and information systems. The service knowledge management system includes tools for collecting, storing, managing, updating, analyzing, and presenting all the knowledge, information and data that an IT service provider will need to manage the full life cycle of IT services. The official SKMS for WCU IT is ithelp.wcu.edu. See also knowledge management.

service level

Measured and reported achievement against one or more service level targets. The term is sometimes used informally to mean service level target.

service level agreement (SLA)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) An agreement between an IT service provider and a customer. A service level agreement describes the IT service, documents service level targets, and specifies the responsibilities of the IT service provider and the customer. A single agreement may cover multiple IT services or multiple customers. See also operational level agreement.

service level management (SLM)

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for negotiating achievable service level agreements and ensuring that these are met. It is responsible for ensuring that all IT service management processes, operational level agreements and underpinning contracts are appropriate for the agreed service level targets. Service level management monitors and reports on service levels, holds regular service reviews with customers, and identifies required improvements.

service level package (SLP)

See service option.

service level requirement (SLR)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) A customer requirement for an aspect of an IT service. Service level requirements are based on business objectives and used to negotiate agreed service level targets.

service level target

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) A commitment that is documented in a service level agreement. Service level targets are based on service level requirements and are needed to ensure that the IT service is able to meet business objectives. They should be SMART and are usually based on key performance indicators.

service life cycle

An approach to IT service management that emphasizes the importance of coordination and control across the various functions, processes, and systems necessary to manage the full life cycle of IT services. The service life cycle approach considers the strategy, design, transition, operation, and continual improvement of IT services. Also known as service management life cycle.

service maintenance objective (SMO)

(ITIL Service Operation) The expected time that a configuration item will be unavailable due to planned maintenance activity.

service management

A set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services.

service management life cycle

See service life cycle.

service manager

A generic term for any manager within the service provider. Most commonly used to refer to a business relationship manager, a process manager or a senior manager with responsibility for IT services overall.

service model

(ITIL Service Strategy) A model that shows how service assets interact with customer assets to create value. Service models describe the structure of a service (how the configuration items fit together) and the dynamics of the service (activities, flow of resources and interactions). A service model can be used as a template or blueprint for multiple services.

service operation

(ITIL Service Operation) A stage in the life cycle of a service. Service operation coordinates and carries out the activities and processes required to deliver and manage services at agreed levels to business users and customers. Service operation also manages the technology that is used to deliver and support services. Service operation includes the following processes: event management, incident management, request fulfillment, problem management, and access management. Service operation also includes the following functions: service desk, technical management, IT operations management, and application management. Although these processes and functions are associated with service operation, most processes and functions have activities that take place across multiple stages of the service life cycle. See also operation.

service option

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A choice of utility and warranty offered to customers by a core service or service package. Service options are sometimes referred to as service level packages.

service owner

(ITIL Service Strategy) A role responsible for managing one or more services throughout their entire life cycle. Service owners are instrumental in the development of service strategy and are responsible for the content of the service portfolio. See also business relationship management.

service package

(ITIL Service Strategy) Two or more services that have been combined to offer a solution to a specific type of customer need or to underpin specific business outcomes. A service package can consist of a combination of core services, enabling services and enhancing services. A service package provides a specific level of utility and warranty. Customers may be offered a choice of utility and warranty through one or more service options. See also IT service.

service pipeline

(ITIL Service Strategy) A database or structured document listing all IT services that are under consideration or development but are not yet available to customers. The service pipeline provides a business view of possible future IT services and is part of the service portfolio that is not normally published to customers.

service portfolio

(ITIL Service Strategy) The complete set of services that is managed by a service provider. The service portfolio is used to manage the entire life cycle of all services and includes three categories: service pipeline (proposed or in development), service catalog (live or available for deployment), and retired services. See also customer agreement portfolio; service portfolio management.

service portfolio management (SPM)

(ITIL Service Strategy) The process responsible for managing the service portfolio. Service portfolio management ensures that the service provider has the right mix of services to meet required business outcomes at an appropriate level of investment. Service portfolio management considers services in terms of the business value that they provide.

service potential

(ITIL Service Strategy) The total possible value of the overall capabilities and resources of the IT service provider.

service provider

(ITIL Service Strategy) An organization supplying services to one or more internal customers or external customers. Service provider is often used as an abbreviation for IT service provider. See also Type I service provider; Type II service provider; Type III service provider.

service provider interface (SPI)

(ITIL Service Strategy) An interface between the IT service provider and a user, customer, business process or supplier. Analysis of service provider interfaces helps to coordinate end-to-end management of IT services.

service reporting

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) Activities that produce and deliver reports of achievement and trends against service levels. The format, content and frequency of reports should be agreed with customers.

service request

(ITIL Service Operation) A formal request from a user for something to be provided – for example, a request for information or advice; to reset a password; or to install a workstation for a new user. Service requests are managed by the request fulfillment process, usually in conjunction with the service desk.

Service requests may be linked to a request for change as part of fulfilling the request.

service sourcing

(ITIL Service Strategy) The strategy and approach for deciding whether to provide a service internally, to outsource it to an external service provider, or to combine the two approaches. Service sourcing also means the execution of this strategy. See also insourcing; internal service provider; outsourcing.

service strategy

(ITIL Service Strategy) A stage in the life cycle of a service. Service strategy defines the perspective, position, plans and patterns that a service provider needs to execute to meet an organization’s business outcomes. Service strategy includes the following processes: strategy management for IT services, service portfolio management, financial management for IT services, demand management, and business relationship management. Although these processes are associated with service strategy, most processes have activities that take place across multiple stages of the service life cycle.

service transition

(ITIL Service Transition) A stage in the life cycle of a service. Service transition ensures that new, modified or retired services meet the expectations of the business as documented in the service strategy and service design stages of the life cycle. Service transition includes the following processes: transition planning and support, change management, service asset and configuration management, release and deployment management, service validation and testing, change evaluation, and knowledge management. Although these processes are associated with service transition, most processes have activities that take place across multiple stages of the service life cycle. See also transition.

service validation and testing

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for validation and testing of a new or changed IT service. Service validation and testing ensures that the IT service matches its design specification and will meet the needs of the business.

service valuation

(ITIL Service Strategy) A measurement of the total cost of delivering an IT service, and the total value to the business of that IT service. Service valuation is used to help the business and the IT service provider agree on the value of the IT service.

serviceability

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) The ability of a third-party supplier to meet the terms of its contract. This contract will include agreed levels of reliability, maintainability, and availability for a configuration item.

seven-step improvement process

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) The process responsible for defining and managing the steps needed to identify, define, gather, process, analyze, present, and implement improvements. The performance of the IT service provider is continually measured by this process and improvements are made to processes, IT services and IT infrastructure in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness and cost effectiveness.

Opportunities for improvement are recorded and managed in the CSI register.

shadow courses

Attempts by faculty to use development shells to run courses that are not sanctioned by the university for some other purpose.  A better solution, and one that is more in line with policy, is to work with Educational Outreach (there also may be a development opportunity to work with Development and Alumni Affairs) to create a “real” course.

shadow IT

Any software that is not approved through regular processes.  These uses are often benign but can open up data and system operations vulnerabilities.  Technically, a faculty member who, by ignoring process and policy, uses shadow IT and exposes protected data or violates copyright will have to provide his or her own legal representation if the situation escalates.

shared data

Data distributed to a limited audience for a limited use is considered sharing. An example is sending a schedule in an email message.  See also published data.

shared ownership processes

The preferred term for “governance.”  It emphasizes the communal aspect and de-emphasizes the elements of control that are perceived to be in the phrase, “governance.”

shared service unit

See Type II service provider.

shift

(ITIL Service Operation) A group or team of people who carry out a specific role for a fixed period of time. For example, there could be four shifts of IT operations control personnel to support an IT service that is used 24 hours a day.

shift-left

The term that refers to the moving of service issues to the help desk.

simulation modeling

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) A technique that creates a detailed model to predict the behavior of an IT service or other configuration item. A simulation model is often created by using the actual configuration items that are being modeled with artificial workloads or transactions. They are used in capacity management when accurate results are important. A simulation model is sometimes called a performance benchmark. See also analytical modeling; modeling.

single point of contact

(ITIL Service Operation) Providing a single consistent way to communicate with an organization or business unit. For example, a single point of contact for an IT service provider is usually called a service desk.

single point of failure (SPOF)

(ITIL Service Design) Any configuration item that can cause an incident when it fails, and for which a countermeasure has not been implemented. A single point of failure may be a person or a step in a process or activity, as well as a component of the IT infrastructure. See also failure.

single sign-on (SSO)

Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication process that allows a user to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials. With SSO, a user logs in once and gains access to different applications, without the need to re-enter log-in credentials at each application. SSO authentication facilitates seamless network resource usage.

SLAM chart

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A service level agreement monitoring chart is used to help monitor and report achievements against service level targets. A SLAM chart is typically color-coded to show whether each agreed service level target has been met, missed, or nearly missed during each of the previous 12 months.

SMART

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) An acronym for helping to remember that targets in service level agreements and project plans should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.

snapshot

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Transition) The current state of a configuration item, process or any other set of data recorded at a specific point in time. Snapshots can be captured by discovery tools or by manual techniques such as an assessment. See also baseline; benchmark.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Subscription use of a software suite or platform.  Our current versions of Microsoft 365, Canvas, and Panopto are SaaS.  SaaS platforms generally update monthly with no user outages and run on one of the large cloud hosting services, AWS, Azure or Google Cloud Services.

software asset management (SAM)

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for tracking and reporting the use and ownership of software assets throughout their life cycle. Software asset management is part of an overall service asset and configuration management process. This process is not described in detail within the core ITIL publications.

solicitation

Obtaining quotations, bids, offers, or proposals as appropriate.

solicitation planning

Documenting product requirements and identifying potential sources.

source

See service sourcing.

source selection

Choosing from among potential contractors.

spear-phishing

A targeted attempt to steal sensitive information such as account credentials or financial information from a specific victim, often for malicious reasons. This is achieved by acquiring personal details on the victim such as their friends, hometown, employer, locations they frequent, and what they have recently bought online. The attackers then disguise themselves as a trustworthy friend or entity to acquire sensitive information, typically through email or other online messaging.  See also phishing.

specification

A formal definition of requirements. A specification may be used to define technical or operational requirements and may be internal or external. Many public standards consist of a code of practice and a specification. The specification defines the standard against which an organization can be audited.

staff acquisition

Getting the human resources needed assigned to and working on a project.

stakeholder

A person who has an interest in an organization, project, IT service, etc. Stakeholders may be interested in the activities, targets, resources, or deliverables. Stakeholders may include customers, partners, employees, shareholders, owners, etc. See also RACI.

standard

A mandatory requirement. Examples include ISO/IEC 20000 (an international standard), an internal security standard for Unix configuration, or a government standard for how financial records should be maintained. The term is also used to refer to a code of practice or specification published by a standards organization such as ISO or BSI. A standard is anything taken by general consent as a basis of comparison: An approved model. A standard is a level of quality which is regarded as normal, adequate, or acceptable. There is a subtle and important difference between product standards and quality standards. A quality standard does not guarantee that products meet their agreed specifications. It ensures that the business is run in such a way that client requirements are properly identified. It ensures that internal resources and processes are managed in such a way that physical and service products will be created which match those requirements. The means are guaranteed, not the outcomes. See also guideline. 

standard change

(ITIL Service Transition) A pre-authorized change that is low risk, relatively common and follows a procedure or work instruction – for example, a password reset or provision of standard equipment to a new employee. Requests for change are not required to implement a standard change, and they are logged and tracked using a different mechanism, such as a service request. See also change model.

standard operating procedures (SOP)

(ITIL Service Operation) Procedures used by IT operations management.

standby

(ITIL Service Design) Used to refer to resources that are not required to deliver the live IT services but are available to support IT service continuity plans. For example, a standby data center may be maintained to support hot standby, warm standby or cold standby arrangements.

start date

This date is when the project is activated or started. It is also the date that begins the duration of a project.

statement of requirements (SOR)

(ITIL Service Design) A document containing all requirements for a product purchase, or a new or changed IT service. See also terms of reference.

statement of work (SOW)

A narrative description of products or services to be supplied under contract.

status

The name of a required field in many types of record. It shows the current stage in the life cycle of the associated configuration item, incident, problem etc.

status accounting

(ITIL Service Transition) The activity responsible for recording and reporting the life cycle of each configuration item.

storage management

(ITIL Service Operation) The process responsible for managing the storage and maintenance of data throughout its life cycle.

strategic

(ITIL Service Strategy) The highest of three levels of planning and delivery (strategic, tactical, operational). Strategic activities include objective setting and long-term planning to achieve the overall vision.

strategic asset

(ITIL Service Strategy) Any asset that provides the basis for core competence, distinctive performance or sustainable competitive advantage, or which allows a business unit to participate in business opportunities. Part of service strategy is to identify how IT can be viewed as a strategic asset rather than an internal administrative function.

strategy

(ITIL Service Strategy) A strategic plan designed to achieve defined objectives.

strategy management for IT services

(ITIL Service Strategy) The process responsible for defining and maintaining an organization’s perspective, position, plans and patterns with regard to its services and the management of those services. Once the strategy has been defined, strategy management for IT services is also responsible for ensuring that it achieves its intended business outcomes.

student centers

The current label for non-credit courses.

student information system (SIS)

WCU’s academic system is Banner.  For nonacademic programs, the process for managing enrollments, student information, and completion tracking is still manual and is being managed by individual departments and programs in local systems like Excel, Filemaker, etc.  This is a functional gap that the LMS has been asked to address but for which we do NOT have the resources currently.  A system like GoSignMe up or Canvas Catalog might meet the current and future needs, but there would need to be an RFP or other process to search for a solution (as yet unfunded.)

subaccounts

A designated account area in a Canvas instance that can have specific branding and administrative privileges.  For example, Extended Education Programs.

subscription cost model

A software service that has a term limited fixed cost.  That fixed cost can be either paid by the university (in which case we would need a responsible department and budget code) or it can be paid by the student (in which case the bookstore would have to allow an exception to the current rental model.) Most publishers prefer the subscription cost because it maximizes their short-term revenue.

super user

(ITIL Service Operation) A user who helps other users and assists in communication with the service desk or other parts of the IT service provider. Super users are often experts in the business processes supported by an IT service and will provide support for minor incidents and training.

supplier

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Strategy) A third party responsible for supplying goods or services that are required to deliver IT services. Examples of suppliers include commodity hardware and software vendors, network and telecom providers, and outsourcing organizations. See also supply chain; underpinning contract.

supplier and contract management information system (SCMIS)

(ITIL Service Design) A set of tools, data and information that is used to support supplier management. The official SCMIS for WCU IT is Cherwell Service Management. 

supplier management

(ITIL Service Design) The process responsible for obtaining value for money from suppliers, ensuring that all contracts and agreements with suppliers support the needs of the business, and that all suppliers meet their contractual commitments. See also supplier and contract management information system.

supply chain

(ITIL Service Strategy) The activities in a value chain carried out by suppliers. A supply chain typically involves multiple suppliers, each adding value to the product or service. See also value network.

support group

(ITIL Service Operation) A group of people with technical skills. Support groups provide the technical support needed by all of the IT service management processes. See also technical management.

support hours

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) The times or hours when support is available to the users. Typically, these are the hours when the service desk is available. Support hours should be defined in a service level agreement and may be different from service hours. For example, service hours may be 24 hours a day, but the support hours may be 07:00 to 19:00.

support model

Whether the integration or software is supported by the help desk; embedded IT staff, by some external unit in the university (example OIPE for Qualtrics), or by the vendor (e.g.:current agreement with Labster and Respondus)

supporting service

(ITIL Service Design) An IT service that is not directly used by the business but is required by the IT service provider to deliver customer-facing services (for example, a directory service or a backup service). Supporting services may also include IT services only used by the IT service provider. All live supporting services, including those available for deployment, are recorded in the service catalog along with information about their relationships to customer-facing services and other CIs.

SWOT analysis

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A technique that reviews and analyses the internal strengths and weaknesses of an organization and the external opportunities and threats that it faces. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

synchronous meeting software

Software like Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting which provides a virtual meeting space.  These two are the only currently supported software.  

system

A number of related things that work together to achieve an overall objective. For example:

• A computer system including hardware, software, and applications
• A management system, including the framework of policy, processes, functions, standards, guidelines and tools that are planned and managed together – for example, a quality management system
• A database management system or operating system that includes many software modules which are designed to perform a set of related functions

system of record

The system in which permanent academic records are stored. At WCU, this is Banner.

system management

The part of IT service management that focuses on the management of IT infrastructure rather than process.

tactical

The middle of three levels of planning and delivery (strategic, tactical, operational). Tactical activities include the medium-term plans required to achieve specific objectives, typically over a period of weeks to months.

task

An action necessary to achieve a project milestone. The work involved to achieve a task is further broken out into activities.  See also activity.

teaching assistant

A graduate student who is hired specifically to teach or assist in the teaching of a course.  Distinguished by graduate school policy from Graduate Research Assistants who are no permitted to teach or be instructors in an LMS course.

team development

Developing individual and group skills to enhance project performance.

TeamDynamix

Software used to help manage a project from beginning to end.

technical management

(ITIL Service Operation) The function responsible for providing technical skills in support of IT services and management of the IT infrastructure. Technical management defines the roles of support groups, as well as the tools, processes and procedures required.

technical observation (TO)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Operation) A technique used in service improvement, problem investigation and availability management. Technical support staff meet to monitor the behavior and performance of an IT service and make recommendations for improvement.

technical review board (TRB)

(ITIL Service Transition) A group of people that support the assessment, prioritization, authorization, and scheduling of changes. The technical review board is made up of peer representatives from all areas within IT.

technical support

See technical management.

tension metrics

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A set of related metrics, in which improvements to one metric have a negative effect on another. Tension metrics are designed to ensure that an appropriate balance is achieved.

terms of reference (TOR)

(ITIL Service Design) A document specifying the requirements, scope, deliverables, resources, and schedule for a project or activity.

test

(ITIL Service Transition) An activity that verifies that a configuration item, IT service, process etc. meets its specification or agreed requirements. See also acceptance; service validation and testing.

test environment

(ITIL Service Transition) A controlled environment used to test configuration items, releases, IT services, processes, etc.

third party

A person, organization, or other entity that is not part of the service provider’s own organization and is not a customer – for example, a software supplier or a hardware maintenance company. Requirements for third parties are typically specified in contracts that underpin service level agreements. See also underpinning contract.

third-line support

(ITIL Service Operation) The third level in a hierarchy of support groups involved in the resolution of incidents and investigation of problems. Each level contains more specialist skills or has more time or other resources.

threat

A threat is anything that might exploit a vulnerability. Any potential cause of an incident can be considered a threat. For example, a fire is a threat that could exploit the vulnerability of flammable floor coverings. This term is commonly used in information security management and IT service continuity management, but also applies to other areas such as problem and availability management.

threshold

The value of a metric that should cause an alert to be generated or management action to be taken. For example, ‘Priority 1 incident not solved within four hours’, ‘More than five soft disk errors in an hour’, or ‘More than 10 failed changes in a month’.

throughput

(ITIL Service Design) A measure of the number of transactions or other operations performed in a fixed time – for example, 5,000 e-mails sent per hour, or 200 disk I/Os per second.

tool

A tool is something that can be used to assist in the achievement of a desired result such as templates and forms.

total cost of ownership (TCO)

(ITIL Service Strategy) A methodology used to help make investment decisions. It assesses the full life cycle cost of owning a configuration item, not just the initial cost or purchase price. See also total cost of utilization.

total cost of utilization (TCU)

(ITIL Service Strategy) A methodology used to help make investment and service sourcing decisions. Total cost of utilization assesses the full life cycle cost to the customer of using an IT service. See also total cost of ownership.

total quality management (TQM)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A methodology for managing continual improvement by using a quality management system. Total quality management establishes a culture involving all people in the organization in a process of continual monitoring and improvement.

Touchnet

The current software used to charge credit cards for registration for non-credit courses.  

transition

(ITIL Service Transition) A change in state, corresponding to a movement of an IT service or other configuration item from one life cycle status to the next.

transition planning and support

(ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for planning all service transition processes and coordinating the resources that they require.

trend analysis

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) Analysis of data to identify time-related patterns. Trend analysis is used in problem management to identify common failures or fragile configuration items, and in capacity management as a modeling tool to predict future behavior. It is also used as a management tool for identifying deficiencies in IT service management processes.

tuning

The activity responsible for planning changes to make the most efficient use of resources. Tuning is most commonly used in the context of IT services and components. Tuning is part of capacity management, which also includes performance monitoring and implementation of the required changes. Tuning is also called optimization, particularly in the context of processes and other non-technical resources.

two-factor authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication is a security mechanism that requires two types of credentials for authentication and is designed to provide an additional layer of validation, minimizing security breaches. Two-factor authentication is also known as strong authentication.  Two-factor authentication works with two separate security or validation mechanisms. Typically, one is a physical validation token, and one is a logical code or password. Both must be validated before accessing a secured service or product. Generally, an authenticating procedure requires a physical token or identity validation, followed by a logical password or personal identification number (PIN).  See also multi-factor authentication; authentication.

Type I service provider

(ITIL Service Strategy) An internal service provider that is embedded within a business unit. There may be several Type I service providers within an organization.

Type II service provider

(ITIL Service Strategy) An internal service provider that provides shared IT services to more than one business unit. Type II service providers are also known as shared service units.

Type III service provider

(ITIL Service Strategy) A service provider that provides IT services to external customers.

underpinning contract (UC)

(ITIL Service Design) A contract between an IT service provider and a third party. The third party provides goods or services that support delivery of an IT service to a customer. The underpinning contract defines targets and responsibilities that are required to meet agreed service level targets in one or more service level agreements.

unit cost

(ITIL Service Strategy) The cost to the IT service provider of providing a single component of an IT service. For example, the cost of a single desktop PC, or of a single transaction.

universal design for learning (UDL)

A methodology that considers the diversity of learners in learning style, sensory abilities, background, and other areas of difference to support a learning design that will assist all learners to engage and succeed.  UDL is opposed to the “look to the right; look to the left” model of educational exclusion.

urgency

(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Transition) A measure of how long it will be until an incident, problem or change has a significant impact on the business. For example, a high-impact incident may have low urgency if the impact will not affect the business until the end of the financial year. Impact and urgency are used to assign priority.

usability

(ITIL Service Design) The ease with which an application, product or IT service can be used. Usability requirements are often included in a statement of requirements.

use case

(ITIL Service Design) A technique used to define required functionality and objectives, and to design tests. Use cases define realistic scenarios that describe interactions between users and an IT service or other system.  Also, documentation of the potential outcomes of a new project. A written document that describes the reasons for initiating a project; it also describes the resources, such as money, staff time and equipment required to achieve the specific business goals.

user

A person who uses the IT service on a day-to-day basis. Users are distinct from customers, as some customers do not use the IT service directly.

user profile (UP)

(ITIL Service Strategy) A pattern of user demand for IT services. Each user profile includes one or more patterns of business activity.

utility

(ITIL Service Strategy) The functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need. Utility can be summarized as ‘what the service does’ and can be used to determine whether a service is able to meet its required outcomes or is ‘fit for purpose’. The business value of an IT service is created by the combination of utility and warranty. See also service validation and testing.

validation

(ITIL Service Transition) An activity that ensures a new or changed IT service, process, plan, or other deliverable meets the needs of the business. Validation ensures that business requirements are met even though these may have changed since the original design. See also acceptance; qualification; service validation and testing; verification.

value network

(ITIL Service Strategy) A complex set of relationships between two or more groups or organizations. Value is generated through exchange of knowledge, information, goods or services. See also partnership; value chain.

value of investment (VOI)

(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A measurement of the expected benefit of an investment. Value on investment considers both financial and intangible benefits. See also return on investment.

variable cost

(ITIL Service Strategy) A cost that depends on how much the IT service is used, how many products are produced, the number and type of users, or something else that cannot be fixed in advance.

variance

The difference between a planned value and the actual measured value. Commonly used in financial management, capacity management and service level management, but could apply in any area where plans are in place.

verification

(ITIL Service Transition) An activity that ensures that a new or changed IT service, process, plan or other deliverable is complete, accurate, reliable and matches its design specification. See also acceptance; validation; service validation and testing.

verification and audit

(ITIL Service Transition) The activities responsible for ensuring that information in the configuration management system is accurate and that all configuration items have been identified and recorded. Verification includes routine checks that are part of other processes – for example, verifying the serial number of a desktop PC when a user logs an incident. Audit is a periodic, formal check.

version

(ITIL Service Transition) A version is used to identify a specific baseline of a configuration item. Versions typically use a naming convention that enables the sequence or date of each baseline to be identified. For example, payroll application version 3 contains updated functionality from version 2.

video hosting platform

A cloud-based platform that hosts and delivers video services.  WCU has one supported platform, Panopto.  Faculty can also use embed codes and LMS tools to drop in their own videos from YouTube and Vimeo.  There are also workarounds that allow videos to be served via OneDrive and Microsoft Streams from Microsoft 365.

virtual application (vApp)

A virtual application is a collection of resources that emulates an application not running on your computer or device. Virtual applications typically run on a server and allow multiple users to have access to a single application without having to install the program on every user's device.

virtual computing and application technology (vCAT)

VCAT encompasses all virtual desktops and standalone virtual applications (vApp) at WCU.

virtual machine (VM)

A virtual machine (VM) has its own operating system (typically Windows) that is running independently from the device the user is connecting from. The VM has its own settings and can have a wide variety of software, printers, and devices installed for use. When a user connects to a VM, they are the only one using that particular VM.

virtual private network (VPN)

A way to extend the campus network to off-campus devices through an encrypted network connection.

virus

A computer virus is a malicious program that self-replicates by copying itself to another program. In other words, the computer virus spreads by itself into other executable code or documents. The purpose of creating a computer virus is to infect vulnerable systems, gain admin control and steal user sensitive data. Hackers design computer viruses with malicious intent and prey on online users by tricking them.

vision

A description of what the university intends to become in the future. A vision is used to help influence culture and strategic planning. WCU’s vision is to be a national model for student learning and engagement that embraces its responsibilities as a regionally engaged university. See also mission.

vital business function (VBF)

(ITIL Service Design) Part of a business process that is critical to the success of the business. Vital business functions are an important consideration of business continuity management, IT service continuity management and availability management.

vulnerability

A weakness that could be exploited by a threat – for example, an open firewall port, a password that is never changed, or a flammable carpet. A missing control is also considered to be a vulnerability.

warm standby

See intermediate recovery.

warranty

(ITIL Service Strategy) Assurance that a product or service will meet agreed requirements. This may be a formal agreement such as a service level agreement or contract, or it may be a marketing message or brand image. Warranty refers to the ability of a service to be available when needed, to provide the required capacity, and to provide the required reliability in terms of continuity and security. Warranty can be summarized as ‘how the service is delivered’ and can be used to determine whether a service is ‘fit for use’. The business value of an IT service is created by the combination of utility and warranty. See also service validation and testing.

WCULearn ID

A workaround created by the CFC and approved by the identity management owners at WCU that allows people without regularly sanctioned identities to have limited access to the LMS.  Current examples of allowed exceptions are Board of Trustees Members, Outside Auditors and Accreditation Reviewers, Visiting Pro Bono Faculty (professional unpaid preceptors), and Pre-Admission Students in Foreign Settings for Extension and IEP courses.  The WCU learn ID is NOT to be used to circumvent required HR practices or to allow for unpaid labor.

wisdom

Wisdom is the ability to think and act using knowledge, and this process is supported by intellect and capacity for logic. Wisdom is what you know, what you understand, and what you comprehend along with both implicit and explicit relationships of provided data, information, and knowledge. Beyond reasoning, wisdom also includes clear understanding of cause and effect of a concept. See also data; information; knowledge; Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom

work breakdown structure (WBS)

A hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.

work in progress (WIP)

A status that means activities have started but are not yet complete. It is commonly used as a status for incidents, problems, changes etc.

work instruction

A document containing detailed instructions that specify exactly what steps to follow to carry out an activity. A work instruction contains much more detail than a procedure and is only created if very detailed instructions are needed.

work order

A formal request to carry out a defined activity. Work orders are often used by change management and by release and deployment management to pass requests to technical management and application management functions.

work package

A deliverable at the lowest level of the work breakdown structure. A work package may be divided into activities.

workaround

(ITIL Service Operation) Reducing or eliminating the impact of an incident or problem for which a full resolution is not yet available – for example, by restarting a failed configuration item. Workarounds for problems are documented in known error records. Workarounds for incidents that do not have associated problem records are documented in the incident record.

workload

The resources required to deliver an identifiable part of an IT service. Workloads may be categorized by users, groups of users, or functions within the IT service. This is used to assist in analyzing and managing the capacity, performance and utilization of configuration items and IT services. The term is sometimes used as a synonym for throughput.