Interesting Student Technologies in 2009

2009 will be a challenging year for universities as campus needs, budgets, and technologies all struggle for our attention. Some key student needs/expectations in 2009:

1. iPhone is the real winner. The iPhone will challenge university IT departments to offer students information in a new user interface. IT departments must develop new applications to allow students to use student information systems and course management systems on mobile devices, particularly the iPhone. Facebook sets a high standard on the iPhone interface that must be met by IT departments.

2. Online course response systems are driving students crazy. Students are requesting university IT departments standardize on a single course response clicker. Currently faculty members are establishing contracts with textbook publishers to use proprietary clickers. Students will demand a single standard clicker for all classes. Several universities have developed course response software for cell phones, and it would be wonderful if Turning Point would establish an iPhone application.

3. Students want universities to develop team study environments. Libraries have taken the lead here with the popular information commons model. Libraries that developed information commons are enjoying success and are finding record numbers of students visiting. The information commons that are most successful are those which are partnerships of multiple campus units, such as libraries, IT, and teaching/learning centers. A good source of information about the commons environment is Stacey Greenwell’s blog, The Uncommon Commons.

4. Facebook is the meeting place for college students. Universities that understand this and successfully integrate Facebook with campus systems will be relevant. Information Technology departments that ignore social networking will be ignored by students.

5. Google and Microsoft have developed very good collaborative tools for the university marketplace. Collaborative learning is very popular with high school and college students, and students have already adopted many free online collaborative tools. University IT departments must find ways to support both Microsoft and Google tools in their customer support centers.

The Tower and the Cloud

In addition to The Big Switch, The Tower and the Cloud is another must-read for those interested in the effects of cloud computing on IT as we know it. The Tower and the Cloud is a collection of essays focused specifically on higher education and how these technologies will impact higher education institutions and the IT organization. Librarians, CIOs, faculty, and other experts describe the role of technology in the higher education enterprise and predict where we are headed in the future.

The entire volume is available online.

Managing the Funding Gap

In the current economic environment, it's impossible to avoid our funding situation and what the future may hold. With this blog less than one month old, we've already commented on the future of technology funding on campus and expect many more posts around that topic.

Managing the Funding Gap: How Today’s Economic Downturn Is Impacting IT Leaders and Their Organizations, an EDUCAUSE whitepaper from a December 2008 ECAR Symposium, describes some immediate and long-term responses to the current funding environment. How can you make the best of this difficult situation? Read the full whitepaper online.

2009 Horizon Report Now Available

The Horizon Report, a project co-published by the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, is one of those must-read reports that I look forward to each year (view past reports). The report focuses on emerging technologies for teaching and learning and identifies a timeline for mainstream adoption. The report includes specific examples and challenges, as well as key trends. This year's predictions:

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
Mobiles
Cloud Computing

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
Geo-Everything
The Personal Web

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
Semantic-Aware Applications
Smart Objects

Read the full 2009 Horizon Report online.

Funding Technology on Campus

An update on the state of funding at universities seems to be in order. Two months have passed since we discussed the importance of finances on translational technologies and uncertainty in the traditional higher education revenue resources has moved to gloom. State revenue continues to drop and the pressure from unemployment insurance payments are unprecedented, draining remaining state reserves. It is clear additional funding from the state will be nonexistent in all but a very few states. The stock market remains unstable without near term hope for a recovery that would help endowment funds. The only glimmer of hope is scholarship funding; the financial markets' deterioration has had minimal impact on student financial aid.

The remaining hope of many Presidents (CAOs) is the Obama stimulus plan. The initial draft is available and higher education projects were not omitted. The clear winner is funding for science and ensuring facilities are energy efficient. The Obama plan attempts to stabilize budget cuts to 2008 levels. The breath of fresh air was funding for science research and research facilities. Another real plus is funding for scholarships.

An obvious omission in the Obama stimulus plan is funding for campus technologies, computing, or networking. It is clear the Obama plan considers the state of technology at most universities acceptable without need of stimulus funding. This will require the CIO to focus on funding technology projects with traditional funding that is in short supply. The future remains uncertain for campus technology departments. The traditional methods of delivering applications is under considerable pressure. The next 24 months will be very interesting as cloud vendors offer campus solutions to technology requirements, and the CIO will have to decide their University’s strategy for the future.

Translational Technologies on the Academic Front

Historically, academic computing at universities has basked in the shadow of academic freedom. This implies that issues related to supporting the faculty and student has been open to an unstructured environment. It is often possible to find multiple technologies deployed to support a single campus-wide need...an example would be course management systems like Blackboard or Moodle. Often you will find multiple course management systems at a university. The diversity has led to innovation that is often not evident in other areas of the campus IT department. Going forward it appears the instructional areas of information technology will need to become standardized. This does not mean the innovation will be absent, but does imply local control will possibly give way to “cloud applications.” I predict the course management vendors will begin to migrate applications to the “cloud” to ensure a place in the marketplace. I would not be surprised to see Microsoft to offer a course management system to compliment the “Live” services it is promoting to the higher education world. I would expect the other leading vendors to respond aggressively. Do not be surprised to find you will have alternatives to campus-based solutions by 2010.

The good news is the cloud solutions will remove the many “religious wars” that take place today on whose application is the best and focus attention on developing course content. The migration to the cloud will also encourage many campus IT departments to address authentication and authorization using directory federation. Simply put, campus IT staff will be responsible for ensuring its student and faculty are legitimate, and the course management vendor will be able to offer virtual meeting services between higher education institutions. I have high expectations that this service will offer faculty solutions that will enhance their course materials at a very reasonable cost the university. This concept has been maturing in the social networking world and will be easily portable to the academic community.

Next, consumerization of IT will influence campus technology solutions in instructional computing. Campus IT will have to recognize its ability to “tell” users what to use to login is limited. The user will vote with their pocketbook on what device they want to use to access campus applications, some will use a laptop, others will want to use an iPhone, and many will want to use the computer in the home or office. Bottom line is the campus IT department will need to know what the end-user is using and ensure the campus applications will work with that device. The cloud vendors will offer the faculty and students this flexibility. We can be sure the device of choice is going to become increasingly mobile. Over the next 24 months faculty and students are going to migrate to the “smartphone” or “netbook.” The campus IT support organization will need to react to the needs of the user community. Good news is the faculty or student is going to pay for the mobile device, the bad news is the campus must be nimble and able to react to the needs of its community.

The changes coming to instructional computing will be positive to the university. Campus IT departments that are customer embracing will have little difficulty adapting to the emerging environment. Universities that resist the change will find the faculty and students will become frustrated and will use resources offered off campus when possible. The truth is the user community will be strongly influencing IT’s decision and that is good.

They say timing is everything...

Presidents (CAOs) must be prepared to make hard choices this fall. There is a little hope—the smoke has not cleared enough to determine if the fiscal outcome is good for the university or just another mirage. All campus leaders are hoping the winter is mild and the significant increase in energy costs will be marginalized to a manageable number, though it is still too early to count on this savings. Next in line is the Obama incentive funding programs, a long shot, but helps many campus leaders sleep at night. Most leaders have worked with state governors and Washington lobbyists to ensure their university gets a fair amount of the funds available. Early reports suggest the Presidents (CAOs) have listed all the building programs that are ready to build and are awaiting funding. In addition, the leadership has developed a list of all the deferred maintenance which has accumulated in the past decade. It is quite possible the number the Obama incentive tallies will be staggering, and when weighed against the job creating (non-university) projects, universities will be dismayed in the final distribution.

A truly innovative university would take quite the opposite approach. I would be interested in identifying any plan to invest in innovative new programs that would provide the country visible forward-looking leadership that is clearly charting a new direction whose results would provide answers to private industry and government. (Don’t hold your breath on this one). It could be a university reinventing itself to establish relevancy with the public, it could be a new model of offering degrees that make sense and really tackle today’s problems in medicine, education, and environment. Another idea would be innovative funding for research, such as the goals of NIH to fund translational medicine. Problem is all of the above are long shots, and the university needs revenue today to continue paying the faculty, investing in student scholarships, and paying staff. In addition, rising costs of facilities are unmanageable.

This leads us to where the President is going to identify the revenue required to maintain the university. The problem is all normal funding streams are receding or just not offering any hope. State budgets are declining at unprecedented levels – it is not uncommon to be asked to cut state funds 10% per year. Few states are in the position of West Virginia or Arkansas that have a state surplus. Even the states’ rainy day funds are depleted, and budget cuts are often and deep. Problems with the endowment funds declining are causing institutions like Harvard to reevaluate how to fund academic programs. What alternatives does a President have remaining to assist in managing across this fiscal perfect storm?

An area that has always proposed to be the tool to manage the university is the campus Enterprise Management System (ERP). It is time to reap the benefits of the multimillion dollar investments. CIOs have justified the ERP application on two returns. The first savings was to make information available to departments to make informed decisions. This is a measurable outcome, and the CIO needs to show university leaders examples of this working. If not, the CIO must be prepared to justify continued investments in ERP applications. The second promise of ERP savings was the reduction of staff. With information being input one time and used many times, the university should be more efficient. Again it is time for the CIO to identify the amount of savings for the university. If the ERP application has not provided this reduction, many across campus will remind the administration the funding for the ERP application might have been better spent investing in more faculty or upgraded classrooms.

Today it looks like the initial budget cuts are going to come from the traditional lines in the budget: reduce operational expenses and cut staff. After many years of using the same tools, the university is at the point of not being functional in important areas (more about this later). To complicate the issue further, students and faculty are demanding the technology tools they are personally purchasing be connected to the university computing systems. Consumerization is new to many CIOs, and the options available to integrate faculty and student devices (iPod, iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) marginalize the CIO’s ability to control his community of interest. Technology could be one of the innovative tools used to assist the President in transforming university funding models. Technology unchanged will become an albatross. The CIO will not be able to justify further funding and will often be required to undergo a significant budget cut.

Cisco’s John Chambers (Cisco CEO) states that in times like this you can do one of two things: retrench until capital is available to finance future projects, or you can identify certain areas that can provide you a competitive advantage and invest heavily while others are not. A perfect example of this is the current Disney investment in a new theme park in China. So your CIO should be able to offer your alternatives today, they should reflect one of the two methods Chambers cites above. At that time the President must decide if his vision for the future of the university is the same as the CIO’s or decide if it is time for change.

Evolving Customer Support Model

A significant change we are already seeing, and we expect will become more widespread is that IT support will not necessarily be based in IT but at the point of need. One emerging model to support this found at many research universities is the Information/Learning Commons which typically combines multiple library, technology, writing, and other instructional support services in one convenient, student-friendly location. The kind of assistance offered here includes but moves beyond resetting of passwords and other basic functions. Offering technology assistance from the point of learning can strengthen the connection between relevant technology tools and academic tasks. It is evident that both IT and the library, as well as other support units, must continue to evolve in order to remain relevant. The Information/Learning Commons encourages a blending of strengths of the organizations which makes support much more successful.

While I write about Information Commons-related issues on my blog, The Uncommon Commons, I will be discussing the commons here as it relates to technology support. Over the last year our campus has expanded the commons concept beyond the library and into the campus computer labs. We'll discuss that in more detail, as well as future plans and other changes that have made support more seamless for students and faculty.

Top 5 Issues for Presidents and CAOs in 2009

The top five translational technology issues Presidents and Chief Academic Officers will pay attention to in 2009:

1. Funding issues will top the list for many reasons, the greatest being all revenue sources will be at their lowest point in years and relief is not in sight. State funding is being slashed, endowments are low, and student financial aid is problematic. The funding issues will cause the Office of the President to consider reducing expenses in all areas; one area of interest will be technology. A new funding model will emerge.

2. Chief Information Officers will be asked to consider new ways of doing business. Many universities will follow the University of Washington and sharply cut technology development budgets expecting the CIO to find the resources needed in the Web 2.0 world rather than developing specialty software applications on campus.

3. Presidents (CAOs) will finally ask hard questions about the university technology organization. Duplication of staff will be of primary interest. The questions will be a result of financial pressures, but will also have momentum from projects other universities are undertaking. An example of this will be the question: “Why are we still buying hardware and software to provide student email?”

4. Presidents (CAOs) will evaluate where the CIO should report in the organization. In recent years the CIO has moved from the President’s cabinet to the Chief Financial Officer or the Provost. The trend will not subside and a greater number of CIOs will not report directly to the President.

5. Consumerization of the campus technology infrastructure will become important as students and faculty request equipment such as the iPhone to be connected to the university's administrative and academic applications . CIOs will be expected to address integration of consumer products into the campus enterprise architecture.

The book that started it all

My interest in cloud computing began after reading Nicholas Carr's book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. Doyle had suggested it to me and was so impressed with the book that he gave copies to his staff. We had several lively discussions about the book which ultimately led us to where we are now, writing and presenting on how the cloud will change higher education IT as we know it.

If you haven't read Carr's book yet, we encourage you to do so. Carr draws a thoughtful, carefully constructed analogy between the evolution of the power utility and the future of computing. The idea of computing as a utility is not new, and especially not now, a year after the book was published, but it makes for very interesting reading. What I find particularly compelling is covered in the second half of the book--the economic and social impact of cloud computing, i.e. what will this all mean for us?

That will be one of the main topics of discussion on this blog--stay tuned.

What is Translational Technology?

As a result of translational technologies, colleges and universities are at the precipice of change in technology deployment. Translational technology is the perfect blend of three organizational shifts in deploying technology to the university community. The first change is the consumerization of technology deployment to all segments of the IT community. The second change is increasingly receiving the attention of early technology adopters and can best be defined by the term “cloud computing.” The final organizational change is the shift of technology decision-making away from the IT department, a result of the current financial markets and the eventual death of traditional IT funding sources.

Many university IT organizations might have managed their way through one or two of the above changes but will be challenged to overcome the concurrent momentum from the total environmental shift. Most IT departments will oppose these changes and will grasp the power found in past campus IT models. Tomorrow’s leaders are already embracing the change and are welcoming the transition that ultimately results in a customer friendly and organizationally relevant technology leader.

This blog will discuss these and other changes on campus as well as how to successfully transition into the support organization of the future. You'll learn more about how we got here--funding models, Web 2.0 applications, millennial culture--as well as where we're headed--IT as service provider, distributed customer support, trends in unified communications, cloud-based services, new university partnerships, and more. We'll describe how to get away from "mother-may-I" IT and move into a more open, user-embracing environment. We'll post examples, best practices, suggested reading, and commentary on navigating this shift in IT culture. Join us on this journey into the new era of IT.