University Information Technology (UIT) resources are an integral part of every service provided by the University of Houston. ITAC's first and greatest goal is to ensure that those resources are available for the achievement of mission success in all operations of the University of Houston. To this end, ITAC provides tier four level support for all critical core services and critical information resources as defined in the Continuity of Operations Plan.

The Continuity of Operation Plan is the guiding document for ITAC's emergency procedures. If there is a conflict with any emergency procedures used by ITAC, the Processes identified in the COOP take precedence.

ITAC uses the four phase emergency management concept of operations identified in the COOP.

1. Preparedness: The range of deliberate, critical tasks and activities necessary to build sustain, and improve our operational capability to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from incidents. Preparedness is a continuous process involving efforts at all levels of the university IT department and between other university departments to identify threats, identify risk, determine vulnerabilities, and identify required resources.
2. Prevention: Actions taken to avoid an incident or to intervene to stop an incident from occurring, actions taken to protect lives and property and applying intelligence and other information to a range of activities.
3. Response: The activities that address the short-term, direct effects of an incident. Response also includes the execution of the EOPs and of incident mitigation activities designed to limit the loss of life, personal injury, property damage, and unfavorable outcomes.
4. Assessment, Recovery & Mitigation: The timely resumption of standard operating procedures on campus, moving from "disaster" mode to "normal" mode through treatment, rebuilding, reorganization, and recovery.