Tech Tips
Number 13, July 17, 1001

"Technology"
by James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan and Director of the Millennium Project, Educause Review, January/February 2001, Vol. 36, No. 1 p. 48.

"We have entered a new era in which the engine of progress is not transportation but communication." (p. 49) "These rapidly evolving technologies are dramatically changing the way we collect, manipulate, and transmit information. They change the relationship between people and knowledge." (p. 49) "Since information is the raw material for knowledge, it is reasonable to suspect that a technology that is expanding our ability to manipulate information by orders of magnitude every decade will have a profound impact on both the mission and function of the university." (p. 49)

"…it is clear that while the fundamental knowledge server roles of the university do not change over time, the particular manifestation of these roles do change…" (p. 49) "It could well be that faculty members of the twenty-first century university will find it necessary to set aside their roles as teachers and, instead, become designers of learning experiences, processes, and environments." (p. 49) "The library is becoming less a collection house and more a center for knowledge navigation, a facilitator of information retrieval and dissemination." (p. 50) "In the years ahead higher education will be challenged to address our ever-changing social priorities, for example, economic competitiveness, K-12 education, and global change." (p. 50)

"…information technology is rapidly becoming a strategic asset for universities, critical to their academic mission and their administrative services, that must be provided on a robust basis to the entire faculty, staff, and student body." (p. 51) "…robust, high-speed networks are becoming not only available but also absolutely essential for knowledge-driven enterprises such as universities. Powerful computers are available at reasonable prices to students, but these will require a supporting network infrastructure." (p. 52) "While the processing power of computers continues to increase, of far more importance to universities is the increasing bandwidth of communications technology." (p. 52) "The key theme will be connectivity, essential to the formation and support of digitally mediated communities." (p. 52)

"As digital technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous, universities will have to make intelligent decisions as to just what components they will provide and which should be the personal responsibility of members of the community." (p. 52) "The issue of financing will become significant as institutions seek a balance between institution-supported central services and point-of-access payments through technologies such as smart cards." (p. 52)

"Universities should be prepared to support the personal computing needs of students by providing robust network linkages both in residence halls and student commons areas." (p. 54) "In a very real sense, these computer cluster sites are becoming analogous to the role that libraries played in the past. They provide students with the access to knowledge necessary for their studies, as well as places to study, gather, and collaborate." (p. 54)

"We have already noted that there will be great diversity in the technology needs of various disciplines and programs, and these needs will likely not be aligned with financial resources." (p. 55) "Our experience tells us that it will not be the faculty or staff but rather the students themselves that will lead in the adoption of new technology." (p. 55)

"It is our collective challenge as scholars, educators, and leaders to develop a strategic framework capable of understanding and shaping the impact that this extraordinary technology will have on our institutions." (p. 56)

"Conditions for Transformation"
by Carole A. Barone, Vice President of EDUCAUSE and responsible for the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII), Educause, May/June 2001, Vol. 36, No. 3, p. 41.

"Meeting the needs of all students will require ‘evolving the traditional campus from a solely physical place to a hub of learning that blends virtual learning opportunities with the social living and learning experience of a physical campus’." (p. 42) "Rather than being selected and compiled into a collection by a librarian, the information stored and accessed on the Web must be located, evaluated, and assembled into new knowledge by students, who having grown up in the information age are comfortable with this active role in knowledge construction." (p. 42) "The new economic, social, and technical realities that are emerging as higher education adjusts to the information age call for new governance conventions—designed to involve faculty in strategic, decision-making processes that have much faster turnaround—in the context of a globally competitive higher education marketplace." (p. 43)

"The NLII Focus Sessions revealed that twelve conditions must be present for a higher education institution to be able to sustain and scale support for faculty members who commit to changing their modalities of teaching to accommodate new student learning styles and new institutional goals for distributed learning." (p. 43)

The Twelve Campus Conditions for Transformation: (p. 45)

  1. Choices – Identifying a strategic direction and selecting a path to get there based on a clear sense of institutional mission.
  2. Commitment – Allocating resources and aligning policy to enable the institution to adjust its course and to follow the path selected.
  3. Courage – Providing visible and focused leadership from the very highest level of administration.
  4. Communication – Building a climate of trust by including the entire campus community in the transformation process through a carefully conceived and well-executed strategy for consultation (conversation and critical discussion) and for dissemination of information about extant and emerging services, plans, decisions, etc.
  5. Cooperation – Collaborating across functions and throughout levels and constituencies to achieve a consistent and integrated set of support services for teaching and learning.
  6. Community - Complementing the community of support nurtured through cross-functional collaboration with an equally cohesive community of faculty across disciplines and creating an engaged community of learners.
  7. Curriculum - Reconceptualizing the curriculum to reflect its distributed, interdisciplinary, and outcomes-oriented nature.
  8. Consistency – Reflecting institutional commitment to transformation through consistent action and acknowledging the importance of standards, both within the technology industry and within the institution; aligning organizational rhetoric to support and reinforce transformative behavior.
  9. Capacity/Competency – Reflecting institutional commitment to transformation through consistent action and acknowledging the importance of standards, both within the technology industry and within the institution; aligning organizational rhetoric to support and reinforce transformative behavior.
  10. Complexity/Confusion – Overcoming the confusion associated with coping with transformation by adapting to the inherent complexity of the decision-making process through adoption of more agile and responsive governance processes.
  11. Culture/Context – understanding the culture, values, and sensitivities of a given campus climate.
  12. Creativity – Developing strategies and tactics that harmonize with the campus culture and context and recognizing that this is a creative, not merely a political, process.

"The core message of the twelve conditions is that technology must be employed within an overall sociotechnological system." (p. 47) Thus in selecting presidents and chancellors to lead higher education institutions in the information age, boards of trustees would be wise to consider candidates’ awareness of and attitude toward the Twelve Campus Conditions for Transformation. The changes needed in higher education today cannot occur in a leadership vacuum." (p. 47)

"The Steam Engine and the Computer – What Makes Technology Revolutionary"
by Herbert A. Simon, Educause, May/June 2001, Vol. 36, No. 3, p. 28.

"There is no more sense in having each university prepare all its own instructional programs than there would have been in having each one publish its own textbooks. In general, for every megabuck we spend in hardware and systems software, we will need to spend another megabuck for research on effective learning and development of modern learning environments in the schools." (p. 38) "Our task is not to peer into the future to see what computers will bring us, but to shape the future that we want to have." (p. 39)

Address:
Ferris Library for Information, Technology and Education
1010 Campus Drive
Big Rapids, MI 49307-2279
Telephone: (231) 591-3500
Fax: (231) 591-3724
Send Questions/Comments to: Sharon Hamel, Coordinator
FSU Home Publications Library Search