Introducing the Office of Information Technology Innovation Team

Meet the Office of Information Technology’s innovation team – dedicated to exploring artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, systems, and applications to assess their potential for broader implementation across the University of Texas at Arlington. 

“That might mean taking an idea like around augmented reality, and there’s a special use case, and then testing that to see if it makes sense to spend more time and more money and try to roll that out to a bunch of classrooms or the campus,” said Lee Pierce, director of OIT Planning and Management. 

Students, faculty and staff members can submit ideas and requests on the Innovation Department at OIT’s website. 

From there, Innovation Design Analyst Tabitha Wiles will set up a time to explore the details of the idea, including whether it is feasible, who it affects and how it solves a university problem or need.  

“At present, I’ve been setting up experiments and working with groups, developing some documentation, kind of doing some exploratory work,” said Wiles. “Then I’ll do an analysis on the back end on were the success parameters appropriate or did we find that there were some benefits or was this not beneficial at all?” 

Mei Lin, an innovation strategy specialist, said cross-university collaboration plays a major role in shortening development timelines, reduces implementation costs for emerging technologies, and unlocks the ability to accomplish more with fewer resources – ultimately driving more impact. 

University Collaborators Affiliated with UTA: 

• The University of Texas at Austin 

• Dallas Baptist University 

• Texas A&M University 

• University of North Texas at Frisco 

• Dallas College 

• University of California San Diego    

“[The OIT Innovation Team is] actually, in my opinion, the frontier,” said Lin. “We are the people who go out scouting possibilities. If there is a high chance for us to succeed, then we’ll bring that back to OIT and UTA for a university-wide program.” 

The OIT Innovation Team aims to raise awareness and foster an innovative culture through AI Community of Practice events, where UTA employees can receive help navigating AI use in academic, research and work environments, as well as AI “Prompt-a-Thons” that help educators and researchers expand their skills. 

The team is currently exploring several proof-of-concepts across campus with various campus stakeholders using AI to improve department efficiency. 

Active Innovation Experiments: 

• Travel Agent 

• Ambient Listening (Advising Appointments) 

• Regulatory Services Search Agent 

• Retrieving Student Balance (Connections to student information systems) 

If you are interested in exploring a proof-of-concept for your area, and for more information about the team, their roles, and long-term and short-term goals, please visit the Innovation Department at OIT’s website. 

Kayla Beazley • 2025-Oct-01