"I'm very bullish about it indeed," he says. "It has reflected the leadership of the university - about 10 or 12 key individuals at the top - taking a much stronger personal interest and involvement in and developing a much stronger level of understanding about information technology and the economic behaviour of information technology in our university," he says.

Thelander says discussions with Broadbent and Gartner suggest the university ranks reasonably well on a global scale on governance arrangements. Direct control over the priorities for IT investment in alignment with business strategy for the past three years resides with the leadership group. "Quite sophisticated decision-making processes" are now governed by the group and are transparent to the rest of the university, Thelander says.

And he says it is "fantastic" to be able to have an engaged conversation with the leadership of the university about key issues, like the sustainability of the data network, and get a sympathetic hearing. Being brought to the table and being given an adequate understanding of the wider business issues also expands his capacity to be practical and realistic about his funding expectations, he says.

"Part of my role as director information technology services is not just to lead that service group, but also to have a good understanding and convey that business context to my people so that we play an effective role. So it's about that engagement. So yes, it's been excellent. I have found the university to be a place which understands the need to make that connection to get value out of what are very big investments," Thelander says.

Queensland University of Technology is one member of a loose consortium, known as the Australian Technology Network, which also includes Curtin, the University of South Australia, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the University of Technology Sydney. All members of the network are focused on achieving the strongest possible board-level IT governance.

At Curtin, the central information, communication and technology (ICT) organisation, known as IMS, has been using CobiT since 2001 to self-audit its ICT practices and identify opportunities for improvement. Rather than auditing each objective every year IMS management annually selects the objectives most likely to offer the institution and its clients significant performance gains in response to audit findings.

Acting CIO Professor Ian Rouse says after attempts to impose a centralist model for IT governance caused havoc a few years ago, the university adopted a strong federated model for IT governance, overseen by the information plan advisory committee. [Subsequent to the writing of this story, Curtin has appointed a permanent CIO and Rouse is now Professor of Health Sciences. - Ed] Under this model a significant amount of funding comes to the central organisation managed by the CIO, but an equally significant amount goes to each of the teaching divisions, which maintain their own IT support and to some extent their own IT planning. Rouse says under the model only the business school has its own information plan.

"One of the strengths at Curtin, which has developed and matured over the [past] couple of years, is what I call a very strong, balanced, senior ICT committee - the information plan and advisory committee - that reports . . . as an advisory committee to the executive of the university," Rouse says.