Wait-and-See Approach to Cloud Adoption

It is interesting that higher education seems to be taking a wait and see attitude with cloud computing. Earlier posts suggest that the college and university environment would benefit from leading the transition to the next era of computing. Instead it appears higher education has selected a more conservative action: wait and see. The most interesting issue is we are in an era of economic downturn that has caused many states to take drastic actions to curtail costs, and higher education leaders are not taking advantage of proven solutions from industry leaders. I would suggest there are several reasons for this response:

1. CIOs are uncomfortable with a transition in technology that is controlled by the provider and the consumer, not the local IT organization. It is well documented that a university can offer state-of-the-art email to students at minimal cost to the institution. Universities like Arizona State, Notre Dame, Boise State, University of Maine, and Temple are successful, yet only 35% of universities are taking advantage of this offering. It is clear there are millions of dollars in savings being left unclaimed.
   
   
2. Universities are using security and compliance as the reason for not implementing cloud computing. This is a valid concern which has a number of documented solutions that are being ignored. The real problem is today’s universities are highly decentralized and the adoption of cloud services requires a comprehensive authentication infrastructure. It could be that the first hurdle to migrating to the cloud is the IT leader getting the university's security practices in order, having a disciplined security staff in place, and having best practices in place.
   
   
3. The Chief Academic Officer has not focused on the real savings that are available in using cloud resources. It is time for organizations providing leadership to the Presidents and Provosts to provide education and solutions to allow leaders to make the best choice for the institution. It is clear most CAOs have given total control of technology to the university IT leadership. Should funding issues continue, CAOs will be required to take charge if they want to realize the millions of dollars of savings available today and even more in the near future.

The next 24 months should be interesting to observe. Students are aware of what is available in today’s technology environment. Consumerization of IT is out of the box, and legacy practices will not dominate in the future. Attempts to control technology at universities has not been successful in higher education, and it will become even less so in the era of cloud computing.

Mobility and the Academic Library

I thought our readers might be interested in this interview with Doyle about the impact of the cloud and mobility on the future of academic library services. Elsevier interviewed Doyle shortly after a presentation; the interview is on page two of Elsevier's current issue of Library Connect. The complete text of the interview is available on the main Library Connect page.

Higher Education IT in Transition

We recently spoke at the Internet 2 conference updating leaders on what was happening with cloud computing in higher education. The scorecard presented was based on a nationwide survey to leadership groups such as Frye Leadership Institute alumni, Internet 2 technology and academic leaders, and to the Quilt Group.

As we were preparing the scorecard we became aware of an EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) study, Alternative IT Sourcing Strategies, a report focused on how higher education IT departments were utilizing cloud services in 2009. Our own survey findings were similar to those in the ECAR survey. Our top findings:

1. Higher education funding is at one of the lowest points in recent history; many staff are being terminated, increasing fees and tuition are at unprecedented rates, and states are still cutting budgets. It is very interesting that CIOs are avoiding adopting technologies that would significantly lower costs. It is clear CIOs value control of the technology over providing the university significant recurring savings.
   
   
2. The cloud service with the highest adoption is student email. Adoption is low, only 30-35% of higher education institutions are using the service. Survey results show that offerings (for free) from Google or Microsoft are superior to local email support. The response should be concerning to the Chief Academic Officer; hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on technology that could have been redirected to the academic mission, and academic leaders are not questioning the situation.
   
   
3. Course management systems are the second most cloud-enabled service adopted by universities. The adoption rate is in the single digits, far behind cloud-enabled email. Course management systems in the cloud have significant opportunities to grow for a number of reasons; most important is the faculty will lead the adoption. Many colleges and universities have limited staff to support course management systems resulting in dated systems with limited enhancements. Cloud vendors will offer feature-rich services by leveraging the advantages of crowdsourcing and web 2.0 vendors.
   
   
4. There are several very interesting projects underway, one being OCLC's Web-Scale Management Services. Imagine a comprehensive Web 2.0 integrated library system. If you understand the wealth of content OCLC manages, you are awed by the possibilities of this offering to students and more importantly to research. Keep your eyes on this project.