Five things a Chief Academic Officer should never believe

If you have heard one of these statements from your Chief Information Officer, it is time to ask your CIO to update themselves on emerging technologies. It may be a lack of understanding of today’s technology environment, or perhaps the CIO is just trying to cover up a bad decision. In both cases, it is apparent that the CIO is out of step with the mission and goals of the university and is also not aware of the impact of their decision on the business practices of the university.

1. Open Source software will save the university money. There is no free lunch with applications necessary to manage a complex organization like a university. Open Source will almost always result in additional staffing, and commercial applications will be more expensive to acquire. The new rush to cloud computing is too new and immature to evaluate on total cost of ownership. In the end it will amount to your university spending more up front for your enterprise systems, or if you want go open source you will pay significantly higher operational costs annually.
   
   
2. Capital investments in traditional telephony equipment are safe. This was true for 50 years and lots of CIOs who have spent millions upgrading traditional equipment will be embarrassed in the next three years. As a matter of fact, there are few traditional telephony vendors remaining; both Nortel and Lucent are or have been through reorganizations and are a shadow of themselves. Voice technologies have become just another application on a data network. IT organizations need to address change by adopting the right unified communication technologies and by reorganization the information technology department to reflect the changes in technology. On top of this you have the whole cell phone issue.
   
   
3. Emerging technologies like smartphones, netbooks and virtualized desktop computers will replace the traditional computer and cost less. Everyone is looking for the magic combination that will make computing relevant and cost less--that day is beyond the horizon. The basics of a computer are all still the same, whether it is a traditional notebook or a smart-phone: it still has a processor, memory, disk drives, and needs electricity to run. The smart CIO understands the role of all devices and has the right equipment in the right place. Remember a university is a more like a city and less like a corporation.
   
   
4. Return on investment and best business practices are not relevant to a university. Might have been true for the past decade but no longer. The current economic conditions require the CIO to understand the “business” of the university and to implement changes that were unheard of several years ago. Recently the University of Virginia announced the university would close all student computing labs in the next three years. Many CIOs are already building the case on why this is impossible at their university; we no longer have the luxury of staying the same and change is eminent. Your CIO needs to begin compiling a list of changes in business practices that will improve service and lower the cost of technology.
   
   
5. Web 2.0 is a fad. Many legacy IT staff (including CIOs) would like to think the Web 2.0 technologies will not impact enterprise applications like the ERP or the course management systems because of the significant work required to integrate the tools of social networking with enterprise applications. CIOs need to recognize the front door many students use today to access resources begin with applications like Facebook. In addition we have a new generation of students in high school that spend hours on YouTube rather than watch television. Time for the CIO to invest thought in how your campus IT departments are meeting the needs of the students.