Who should follow this policy?

Last updated: August 16, 2022

The rules in the technology acquisition policy and stewardship guidelines apply to every IT project or acquisition conducted within any unit or by any individual throughout the University of Washington, including all campuses, colleges, schools, departments, centers, hospitals, clinics and/or other units administered by the University, and irrespective of the source of funding.

The scope of the policy is to be interpreted broadly and includes any and all IT-related equipment, services, contracts and content, including but not limited to:

  • Hardware: Including all computers, processing modules, memory, storage systems, network or communications equipment, displays, imaging devices, input and/or output devices and other peripherals
  • Hardware maintenance: Including maintenance contracts and services
  • Software: Including software services, software licenses or updates and/or maintenance services
  • Data: Data processing, data conversion and/or data collection or other associated services
  • IT: IT applications, IT-related systems engineering, systems analysis, software engineering, network engineering, programming, project management, quality assurance or other services and/or contracts.
  • Consulting: Technology consulting services
  • Electronic content
  • Mobile: Mobile and/or social applications
  • Business and administration: Business process engineering or improvement efforts when they are related to the implementation of a new IT system
  • Networks: Networking, telecommunications and telephony equipment; software and/or services, including either or both wireless and wired capabilities
  • The Cloud: Cloud-based services, or any service and functionality delivered across the Internet with underlying hardware, software and/or infrastructure supported by an external service provider
  • Related resources: Internal staffing and other internal resources related to any of the above.