Delivering a Unified Digital Experience for One UCLA
Over the past several years, UCLA has undertaken a significant effort to strengthen and modernize the technology environment that supports the university’s teaching, research, and operational mission.
Beginning in 2020, Digital & Technology Services (DTS) initiated a series of conversations with campus partners to better understand the evolving needs of UCLA’s academic, administrative and research community. These discussions included listening sessions with faculty, collaboration with academic and administrative leaders, and engagement with IT professionals embedded across schools and departments.
Through these conversations, a shared goal emerged: to build a more integrated, secure, and user-centered digital environment that enables the university’s community of more than 80,000 students, faculty, and staff to work, teach, and innovate more effectively.
The DTS Timeline provides a transparent view of the progress made along this journey. It highlights milestones across three key dimensions:
People
Strengthening organizational alignment, collaboration, and partnerships across campus IT teams.
Processes
Developing governance, planning, and service delivery models that improve coordination and accountability.
Systems
Modernizing infrastructure, improving cybersecurity capabilities, and advancing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
The timeline also reflects the growing number of partnerships between DTS and campus units seeking to align their technology services with UCLA’s broader One IT strategy.
One recent example is the Fielding School of Public Health, which transitioned its IT services to DTS. The partnership enables the school to benefit from shared infrastructure, stronger security practices, and expanded technical expertise while allowing faculty and staff to focus more fully on advancing public health research and education.
As UCLA continues evolving its digital environment, the timeline serves as a resource for the campus community to understand where the university has been, what progress has been made, and where the work is heading next.
Future editions of Digital Directions, our DTS Timeline, will continue highlighting milestones and partnerships that support UCLA’s digital transformation.
Building a Shared Understanding
UCLA continues advancing the One IT initiative, a campus effort focused on improving coordination across the university’s distributed IT organizations while supporting the unique needs of individual schools and departments.
As part of this effort, One IT working groups have received a Discovery Data Package to support recommendation development. These materials provide directional insight into UCLA’s current IT landscape and are designed to help inform discussions, surface patterns, and support prioritization.
The discovery materials are organized using a capabilities framework, which groups technology activities into domains to better understand how IT services and platforms are delivered across campus. These resources are intended to establish a shared understanding of UCLA’s existing environment before recommendations are developed.
By grounding discussions in a common set of insights, the One IT process is designed to help campus leaders identify opportunities to improve service delivery, strengthen collaboration, and align resources more effectively across the university.
Cybersecurity and Risk Management
Protecting UCLA’s technology environment remains a critical priority as the university continues expanding its digital capabilities.
This spring marked the completion of the Asset & Data Visibility project, an initiative designed to improve UCLA’s ability to track and manage technology assets across campus. With the project now concluded, operational teams are responsible for maintaining ongoing oversight of campus IT asset compliance requirements.
In parallel, several additional cybersecurity initiatives continue moving forward.
The Active Directory Consolidation Assessment will evaluate a key component of UCLA’s identity infrastructure to ensure it remains secure, resilient, and capable of supporting the university’s future needs.
In parallel, the Information Security Risk Management Framework is establishing a more consistent framework for identifying, assessing, and managing technology risks across campus systems.
Together, these efforts support UCLA’s commitment to maintaining a secure technology environment while enabling innovation and collaboration across the university.
Preparing for Pilot
The Network Unification program continues progressing toward its first pilot deployment, an important milestone in modernizing UCLA’s campus network infrastructure.
Over the past month, the project team finalized the pilot migration strategy, outlining the approach for transitioning participating units to the new unified network environment.
The team also held engagement meetings with campus partners to prepare for the pilot kickoff and to review upcoming network security policy updates that will accompany the new architecture.
Additional work underway includes:
- Continued development of core network infrastructure
- Planning for telecommunications room remediation across campus buildings
- Enhancements to the program’s website to provide clear updates and resources for campus partners
Once complete, the Network Unification program will provide UCLA with a more resilient, scalable, and secure network capable of supporting the university’s growing digital needs.
Action Risk Teams
UCLA continues moving forward with its Digital Accessibility initiative, an effort to strengthen the accessibility of digital content, systems, and services used across the university.
Six cross-campus Action Risk Teams (ARTs) have begun conducting institutional risk assessments to better understand accessibility challenges and opportunities for improvement.
The assessments will help identify:
- the number and types of accessibility risks across campus systems
- common patterns and emerging issues
- areas where improved tools, training, or resources may be needed
At the same time, the Digital Accessibility Steering Committee is collecting information from units across campus through a Digital Accessibility Snapshot intake process.
This effort is capturing existing initiatives, training programs, staffing resources, and accessibility support efforts already underway across the university.
Together, these insights will help UCLA prioritize future accessibility improvements and prepare for upcoming federal digital accessibility compliance requirements.
Modernizing Our Systems
The Bruin Financial Aid (BFA) program continues improving the systems and processes that support students throughout their financial aid journey at UCLA.
Current aid-year disbursements remain on track while teams across Digital & Technology Services, Student Affairs IT, and campus partners prepare for the summer 2026 awarding cycle.
In addition to operational readiness, UCLA teams are preparing for new federal financial aid requirements introduced under the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) legislation. These changes require updates to university financial aid systems nationwide.
Work is currently underway to assess the impact of the new legislation on system configuration, reporting requirements, and student portal communications.
The BFA program is also strengthening its long-term operational model by refining support workflows, improving coordination across campus teams, and expanding transparency around how system enhancements are prioritized.
The Bruin Financial Aid Partners Forum continues serving as a key venue for collaboration and communication, helping ensure the program evolves in alignment with campus needs while continuing to support UCLA students effectively.
