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.

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.

Academic Computing Support

The Chief Academic Officer will look at all areas of the university to restructure costs from the administrative functions of the university. One of the first areas to be evaluated for restructuring will be the information technology support areas. Faculty and students are getting tired of having to go to so many places to resolve an issue. Support organizations will need to rationalize themselves. Two events will ensure the evaluation happens in the near future: the first has been discussed in prior posts, the state of the economic downturn for the foreseeable future. The second event will be the influence of cloud computing on functional areas. Legacy practices have allowed IT to request and be allowed to oversee and set the rules for all areas of technology on a university campus. Too often this has allowed support practices to focus on what is expedient for IT rather than the core mission of teaching, research, and service.

The current deployment of applications from off campus cloud computing vendors, known as Software as a Service (SaaS), will allow faculty and students to experience personalized technology support. Legacy practices of IT departments will be challenged by relevant and flexible applications from off campus. Faculty and students will be quick to point out the off campus applications, and these will often cost the university less than legacy campus applications. The probable result will be the CIO meeting the deans to determine the future direction of computing.

The fragmentation of service will highlight the need to restructure technology support on campus. Major SaaS providers will offer point product support, and the campus will continue to support central campus applications (ERP). The university community will require transparent support across all technology. Support might find itself being offered in one of the following scenarios:

1. A likely area to emerge as the technology support area is the library. Why? The primary reason is the library administration has transformed from a campus-based resource to a largely virtual resource successfully. Additionally, the library has introduced the Information Commons that has been a hit, widely received by the students and faculty. Further, the library has been able to transform to the digital world without losing the trust of the faculty. The academic community would welcome one-stop technology and research support located close to the college. The major issue will be if the library is willing to change its traditional culture to become the “information resource” for the academic community.
   
   
2. Another option would be for support to remain in IT. IT will need to create innovative and transparent relationships with the faculty and students to establish a transparent support organization in the minds of the academic community. IT has the skills to be very successful in offering support; the issue is credibility. Many faculty and staff feel that IT has not made the successful transition to the digital world and often suggest IT is a better gatekeeper than a customer service advocate.
   
   
3. The dark horse for IT support on campus would be an outsourced vendor. A number of large organizations have outsourced the customer support function to one of the large service providers. It is clear that an outsourced customer support contract would provide a university with a large number of scenarios that would meet the different needs of individual colleges. An outsourced vendor with clear service level agreements would ensure a defined level of service is achieved. The greatest difficulty with an outsourced relationship will be to get buy-in from all vested user communities. I fully expect individual colleges to establish outsourced vendor relationships and if successful could become the central model of support.

Uncommon Learning Spaces: What is the Commons?

In the last month, both major publications of EDUCAUSE have focused on learning spaces: EDUCAUSE Review and EDUCAUSE Quarterly. As we seek more ways to collaborate in these difficult budgetary times, it makes sense for campus units to work more closely together to provide student and faculty support services in shared spaces. When redesigning or building new learning spaces, it makes sense to create comfortable, inviting spaces that allow for maximum flexibility. These dynamic spaces, built largely on partnerships, are often known in libraries as information/learning commons. This is the first in a series of posts I will write about the transition to the commons environment.

While there are numerous textbook definitions of the commons, as well as hairsplitting debates on whether a commons is an information commons or a learning commons, I see three basic elements of the commons:

A collaborative space. The commons is a warm, welcoming space, which facilitates student work and encourages collaboration. Sometimes this is called a third place, basically an ideal gathering place for students that is not in the classroom and not at home. Typically these spaces include comfortable furniture that is easily rearranged for group work.

Well equipped with technology and related services. Computers in soldierly rows with students stacked elbow-to-elbow just don't cut it anymore. Reconfigured lab spaces which include different types of furniture that can easily be rearranged are quickly becoming the norm, especially as students increasingly bring laptops to the space and the future of the computer lab itself is questioned. While the technology is important--particularly the specialized software and hardware that most students would not have otherwise--the key to a successful commons space is knowledgeable, friendly experts that can provide library and IT assistance. Technology in the commons is more than just a glorified computer lab.

A place to have a little fun. While these spaces are usually in libraries, the environment is generally relaxed to encourage students to spend time in the space. The food policy is often more liberal than other areas of the library, as well as the policy on noise. Student influence is often visible in the space with artwork, signs, or other elements of creative activity. Basically it's not your typical library environment.

Next post in the series: I'll discuss the changing support model for libraries and IT.

More on iPhone Applications

We've mentioned previously that creating relevant campus applications for the iPhone is one of many student services that IT departments should give attention to in 2009. Several items I have seen recently have reminded me of just how important this is.

Abilene Christian University is the first of likely many universities to incorporate the iPhone into campus life; while this video is a dramatization, it does give us a picture of what future iPhone applications could do for the classroom and for everyday student life. Imagine a world where the iPhone really is a student's "campus lifeline"--the video is worth a look. (Incidentally, ACU has an impressive information commons in the library; I attended a presentation from their director last year and made a few notes.)

Speaking of libraries, I wrote a bit recently about a new iPhone application which allows users to search the library catalog, place holds, and view summaries/book jackets. The code will eventually be available to other libraries so that they too can build iPhone applications for their local catalogs.

A post today on The Chronicle's Wired Campus blog discusses a new iPhone application created by Georgia Tech students which provides an interface to several campus services. The application gives students iPhone-friendly access to campus email, a campus map, a bus schedule, and the course management system. One particularly nifty feature is that the application also includes a real-time computer availability map to see when a machine is available in their information commons. This is seriously cool.

Incidentally a librarian had suggested that the students incorporate the computer availability map into their application. He has a very good point about the importance of working together to build applications:

It is easy for us (as librarians) to complain that we don’t have money or staff to develop cool things—but sometimes that’s ok, because maybe we can partner with those who are (doing cool things) and get our materials and resources included in their work. Instead of investing our time in “a library app” we can attach ourselves to an already popular and successful app and gain a wider audience.

I couldn't agree more. So as IT departments (or groups of students) look to building iPhone applications, consider working with libraries and other campus departments to incorporate important student resources into your applications. Those applications will be far more valuable to students, and certainly we librarians will thank you for it.

The Cloud and Libraries

Most libraries, including university libraries, typically offer at least a few computers available for use by the general public. In the university library, the purpose of these machines is primarily to provide the general public with access to the library catalog, subscription databases, and in the case of federal depository libraries, government information. For obvious reasons these public machines are pretty locked down, and they generally offer few applications beyond a web browser and perhaps word processing software. Some libraries have moved toward thin client solutions, but many still manage expensive desktops which barely make use of the 80GB or more hard drives. Utilizing cloud technologies could potentially make these machines easier to manage and less costly. Read more on the ALA TechSource blog.

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.