Every once in a while you read a blog post that makes a difference in your thinking, I had this experience reading a blog post of Brian Mathews.  Brian's blog "The Ubiquitous Librarian" post on organizations at a university resonated with my thoughts of what needs to happen to be effective in meeting the expectations of today's students. Brian points out it is time to rethink our purpose and provides  two resources to guide your thinking, the two books are:

• Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry
• Community: The Structure of Belonging  

Brian blends thoughts from both authors to develop a process to follow in transforming your organization.  Brian's thought were focused on what he wanted to accomplish with The Learning Division at the Virgina Tech library. 

My goal in the next few months is to read the two books and create a similar transformation process to improve student support services for the 21st century.   As I look across the university I find a number of individuals trying to help students, but we are using the same technology and tactics we have used for the last 25 years.   Change may not be required but the university community needs to debate why we are doing what we are doing and expecting different results.

Changes in learning spaces at the University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky is evaluating learning spaces holistically across campus.  The participants are who you would expect; faculty, undergraduate studies, the library, Information Technology, facilities and the Learning and Teaching Center.  The University of Kentucky Library Faculty initiated the discussion with the creation of an Information Commons that has expanded  the past to cover two floors of the library.  The Information Commons introduced the idea of collaborative study spaces that is widely embraced by the students.   The success of the Information Commons introduced a debate on the role of traditional student computer labs that resulted in a plan to convert the computer labs into collaborative study spaces that were enriched with significant technology support.  Plans are underway to convert all general purpose computer labs into study spaces that address the specific academic needs of each college. Discussions are currently underway to determine the best staffing model for the new learning space, initial thoughts suggest technology experts are no longer needed and staffing should focus on student success instead of technology.

The second effort was by the College of Arts & Science, it introduced a Living Learning Community that equipped each student with an iPad and hosted an active learning classroom.  Faculty were encouraged to integrate technology with pedagogy to expand student learning experiences.   The A&S Wired LLC has continued to expand and initial results indicate students who live in the residence hall have higher retention rates than the remainder of their cohort.   An outcome of the A&S Wired residence hall  introduced the need to consider alternative classroom environments in creating learning spaces.

The University of Kentucky introduced UK Core that emphasized multimodal communications across the curriculum.  In response to the needs of students Information Technology introduced a new Student Media Depot that provides students with the technical resources necessary to be successful.  Concurrent with this effort the Office of the Provost created a faculty support organization, Presentation U, which provides faculty with skills to support teaching in a multimodal curriculum environment.   Information Technology is following by creating Faculty Media Depot to support faculty who are not a member of the cohorts of Presentation U or who have completed the faculty program.
 

The College of Arts & Science and Information Technology are creating an active learning classroom to support the Statistics Department.  The goal of the project is to extend the ideas that were successful in the A&S Wired to a classroom that support a large number of undergraduate students.   The College will use the research outcomes of this classroom in building a new facility.

The recognition of the success of the Information Commons and the A&S Wired has resulted in the creation of new learning spaces being created on campus.  The College of Business and Economics is currently building a new facility with over 10 classrooms to support collaborative case management learning spaces.  It is interesting to note the new facility will not have college based library or centrally supported computer lab.  The classrooms are designed to support open study spaces when not assigned to a classroom and the public spaces are equipped with collaborative study areas.  A second building is being built by the College of Arts & Science (Academic Sciences Building) and thirteen classrooms are active learning classrooms and open collaborative study spaces.  The two buildings will provide the university an opportunity to understand the impact of alternative learning spaces on student success.

The University recognizes on college or department cannot change the learning space experience but a coordinated effort of all interested and invested partners will begin the transform of the learning space environment.

Will University IT departments exist in 15 years?

I thought it would be interesting to gaze into the future to understand what a university Information Technology department might look like in 2025.   The following might happen as consumerization, cloud computing and mobile devices continue to dominate the technology in the next 15 years.  The following are ideas that mirror trends that have taken place in many industries.  

The first technology transformation is the consumerization of the technology environment.   Historically, higher education introduced technology innovation to the campus community.   The ability of an individual to purchase a powerful mobile device to connect to information resources is growing at a remarkable pace.   The cost of many laptop computers and tablets are below 500.00 and continuing to decline in price.   Every university today, even the elite’s, are unable to provide students, faculty and staff with the technology resources they can purchase themselves today.   Further, the growth of educational sites like Kahn’s Academy and the thousands of MOOC’s suggest a transformation is underway in delivering course content.  Universities most valuable asset today is its ability to credential a degree is valid.   

So what might the future look like for the Information Technology department?

1.      Access to information will become central to the IT function, students will be able to take courses at many institutions and will need the University to credential their coursework for a degree.

2.      Analytics will be a central offering of Information Technology departments.   The question is will this function become a responsibility of the Chief Financial Officer or the CIO.

3.      A recent presentation suggested in 2020 only 18% of IT operations found on campuses today would remain.  The remainder of the academic and administrative applications will be purchased by individual colleges from software vendors, not IT departments.   IT departments will be required to identify all sources of university information to provide university officials the ability to make wise decisions. 

4.      Branding will become important to a university to attract top students and faculty.   Marketing and social networks will be critical to ensuring a University continues to be recognized as a leading academic institution.   Many of the functions now found in Information Technology departments will become the responsibility of the Chief Marketing Officer.   It is not farfetched to find enrollment management a function of the CMO.

5.      Computing will migrate off campus as cloud computing gains prominence. Students have already moved to Google and Microsoft.   All academic and administrative computing will be done by boutique vendors who ensure their software meets the unique needs of various departments.  The shift has started with major vendors like Adobe moving all their users to the cloud, many other vendors are following.  Two companies to watch are the administrative ERP vendor Workaday and the academic learning management software vendor Instructure.  Both are the fastest growing companies in the higher education marketplace.

6.      Campus networking functions will move to the facilities management organization.  University administrators will understand that there is little difference in structured electrical systems and data systems.  The growth of smart building being managed by the facilities organization will ensure the skills necessary to successfully manage the campus network.  

7.      Universities are creating a new office to oversee all learning, often called the Associate Provost of e-Learning or the Vice President of e-Learning.   The office will be responsible for coordinating all learning on a campus, this would include libraries, study spaces, academic computing departments and the teaching and learning centers.   

8.      Student computing labs will cease to exist.  Universities will convert student computing lab space and library spaces into collaborative study spaces. .  The emphasis on retention will be the catalyst of the transformation.    The purpose of the study space will be to ensure all students are successful.  The study spaces will be managed by knowledge navigators and will support the personal devices a student or faculty owns.  The responsibility of the space will be to bridge the classroom to information resources. 

9.      General administrative computing will be available from vendors like Google, Amazon and Microsoft.  Departments will replace purchasing servers with contracting for services.  Server administrators will dwindle and application specialist will grow..

10.  Research computing will migrate to large multi-university clusters or national labs.  High-speed academic networks will grow in importance.

Just some thoughts to consider, the future will definitely be different than it is today.   The individuals that will be difference makers will be individuals that understand the mission of the university and provide students and faculty with the technology necessary to be successful.

Universities Responsibilities

Two recent articles in the New York Times points out the importance of the freedom of access to information. The first was an article by OP-ED columnist by Thomas Friedman that challenged readers to understand the importance of ubiquitous access information. The article suggests the growth of the Internet produced two important outcomes, the first was access to information and the second was economic growth. It is clear Universities were critical to the development of the Internet by becoming anchors of the Internet 2 project and leading the effort to ensure information was available to the general population. The new university based project GigU expects to do the same for economic development. The challenge to universities is to transform and innovate, MITx online access to education is an excellent model for others to replicate.

The second article was a letter to the editor by Vince Cerf, titled Internet Access Is Not a Human Right. Cerf points out that technology is an enabler of rights and must be available to everyone to ensure the expansion of freedom in the world. It is amazing how social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook provide access to what is really happening in real time. Universities must continue to be the spokesperson to demand that emerging technologies are allowed to remain open and available to everyone everywhere. Cerf states Internet access must become a civil right.

The two articles challenge university leadership to remain committed in their resolve to ensure the Internet is allowed to grow and not be restricted by others who would like to control information for profit or political gain. Universities should be proud of the success they have achieved in their investments in technology to support the growth of the Internet. Universities should be congratulated on the leadership that ensured everyone has equal access to information.