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"Connecting IT Possibilities and Institutional Priorities"
by John C. Hitt, president and professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida, Educause, November/December 2001, Vol. 36, No. 6, p. 8.
"Traditionally, governance within the academy has been a combination of executive leadership and the faculty. We call this shared governance. But now a third party has come to the table: IT leadership." (p. 8) "We have to know what we are doing, from a strategic viewpoint, to justify the kind of investments that are called for if we are going to support significant IT initiatives." (p. 8) "It is no longer possible or advisable to have a disconnect between an institution's strategic plans, goals, and directions and its IT initiatives, resources, and management." (p. 8) "We created a chief information officer (CIO) position and reorganized our information and technology units into a single division." (p. 8) "If an institution does not connect its strategic plan with its resource-allocation process, the strategic plan may end up having very little to do with the future of the institution." (p. 9)
"One-third of our students take at least one course each year through distributed learning technology, and 14,000 students each semester take a course with a major Web component. Fully one-half of our faculty members regularly use the Web in their classes. We have empowered faculty members with technological resources and support systems, which they believe in and adopt." (p. 9) "What we are looking for is not just change but a broad and deep institutional transformation grounded in our mission." (p. 9) "The challenge for both today's and tomorrow's IT leaders is to help form the connections between technological possibilities and institutional priorities and to help presidents and other senior institutional leaders to use their power and influence to chart a successful course." (p. 9)
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"Leading Change: Creating the Future for Education Technology"
by Dale W. Lick, professor at Florida State University and associate director of the Learning Systems Institute, Syllabus, December 2001, Vol. 15, No. 5, p. 22
"Leading fundamental, pervasive technology change on campus is more than implementing and managing new programs." (p. 6) "As we look to the future, we need to recognize that if higher education is to succeed and thrive, it must re-create itself appropriately, using new technologies." (p. 23) "Technology leaders must become more effective practitioners of change creation. Such leaders will:
- Take genuine responsibility for leading change
- Effectively define and plan for the desired change
- Comprehensively prepare the organization for the planned change
- Develop and implement a change approach that transforms people, processes, and circumstances" (p. 23)
"As change leaders, we must then keep 'questioning the answers,' especially those of our culture and subcultures, in search of fundamental changes that will alter the nature, productivity, and effectiveness of important aspects of our institution." (p. 23) "The most urgent need in education is for effectively initiating, implementing, and managing intentional, meaningful, planned change." (p. 24) "In the universal change principle, learning must precede change." (p. 24) "The application of this principle does not guarantee that resistance to a change effort will be eliminated or that a desired change will be accomplished, but its proper application does significantly improve the chances for success…for a change." (p. 24)
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"More than a Portal: Unifying the Digital Campus"
by Jeff Williams, director of information technology services at Appalachian State University, Syllabus, December 2001, Vol. 15, No. 5, p. 27.
"Content management, server integration, and Web portal services are a few of the necessary components in the new realm of the unified digital campus." (p. 27) "Our first priority was to address stability issues across all of the systems incorporated into our digital campus, so our team underwent a lengthy investigation of stability issues and fail-over solutions." (p. 28)
"Next, we began creating a true single sign-on process for the most frequently accessed systems on campus." (p. 28) "Our technology team now evaluates new technologies in the context of their ability to integrate with and support our existing Web platform." (p. 28) "Suddenly, there is an open dialogue across campus about what our digital campus should and could be: a Web forum for the exchange of knowledge and a timesaving tool…" (p. 28)
"We have a few observations and recommendations for those envisioning a comprehensive digital campus for their university:
- First, for a digital campus to be valuable, it must build on your existing technologies and regularly grow with new technologies that enhance the value of those resources." (p. 29)
- "Second, define which aspects of the digital campus project will be controlled and managed by your information technology staff and which will require broader support." (p. 29)
- "Finally, we have seen great success in collaborating with peer institutions and private companies, contributing our expertise and learning from the experience of others." (p. 29)
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"The Answer is Still Technology-Strategic Technology"
by Milton D. Glick, senior vice president and provost of Arizona State University, with Jake Kupiec, special assistant to the provost for university web development at Arizona State University, Educause, November/December 2001, Vol. 36, No. 6, p. 32.
"I recently survey fellow provosts on how they would grade the use of technology with respect to key strategic indicators for higher education. The most striking finding from this survey is the fact that there was almost no variation across the fifteen provosts who responded." (p. 34) Included in the article is a table that presents the grade assigned by the author and "also the average grade these provosts gave to the use of technology in twelve key areas." (p. 34) This strategic technology report card lists the author's grade first and then the average grade of the provosts for the following 12 areas:
- Research Enhancement A (average B)
- Decision-Making D (average C+)
- Information Access A- (average B+)
- Faculty Time Leveraged D (average D+)
- Student Convenience B+ (average B)
- Cost Reduction D (average D)
- Overall Student Experience B- (average B)
- Return on Investment D (average D)
- Cost Containment B (average C-)
- The Paperless Office D (average D)
- People Intensity D (average D+)
- Teaching and Learning I (average C+)
"Institutions have often been directed more by the capability of the technology than by their strategic goals." (p. 36) "…the current fifteen-week semester delivery system for degree-seeking students does not fit the needs of employees who want to stay ahead of the curve in a specific area." (p. 36)
"Changes in societal values have paralleled changes in technology, and one of the most relevant here is the fact that many now perceive a college or university education as a private good rather than a public benefit. When taxpayers believe that the individual degree recipient (not society) is the primary beneficiary, it should not be surprising that support for higher education has decreased in many sectors." (p. 36)
"…for many colleges and universities, the greatest threat may come from the competition for their bread-and-butter courses. Half of the lower-division credit hours in the United States are produced by twenty-five to thirty courses. These courses subsidize much of the remaining enterprise.
A fairly simple business plan shows that if very high quality technology-delivered courseware could capture even a small fraction of the market share for these courses, there would be rapid payback of the initial investment." (p. 39) "To make technology a strategic tool in an institution's toolkit, institutional leaders must recognize that using technology solely to do better what they've always done will not allow campuses to prosper in the next century-nor will it serve society and the many stakeholders in higher education.
The issue of community is of critical concern on campuses as well as in society at large, leading to much discussion about whether technology is more likely to create community or to cause isolation." (p. 42) "The proper mix of high-tech and high-touch will be important in these new communities." (p. 42)
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