The
Education IT Issue Panel has released the 2012
top-ten issues facing higher education IT leadership, and instead of the
customary reshuffling of the same deck, the issues reflect much of the tumult
and dynamism facing higher education generally. I find it interesting
(and encouraging) that at the top of this year's list is "Updating IT Professionals'
Skills and Roles to Accommodate Emerging Technologies and Changing IT
Management and Service Delivery Models." This reflects, in my view,
the realization that higher education IT must change in order to fully realize
the potential for transforming the institution, and therefore it's people must
learn new skills, understand and accept new ways of solving problems, and not
be tied down by past practices or institutional inertia.
What
follows in the remaining 9 top issues all speak, in some form or fashion, to
the need for dramatic change, but not just in the areas of "funding
IT" (code for cost containment or reduction), but rather the need to
increase effectiveness and efficiency of the institution through the use of
technology—leveraging the wave of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to the
institution's advantage, rather than viewing it as a threat and a problem to be
contained.
Although
it's #10 of 10, IT Governance (and establishment and implementation of the
governance model throughout the institution) is key to effectively acting upon
many of the preceding issues in this year's list. In the majority of
cases, technology exists to meet the needs and requirements to effectively
address many of the challenges outlined in top-ten issues list.
Which
brings me to my next point. Although I try not to sound too much like an Oracle
commercial in these (all too infrequent) blog posts, I can't help but point out
how much confluence there is between several of the top issues this year and
what my colleagues and I have been evangelizing for some time. Starting from
the bottom of the list up:
1)
I'm gratified that research and the IT challenges it presents has made the cut.
Big Data (or Large Data as it's phased in the report) is rapidly going to
overwhelm much of what exists today even at our most prepared and well-equipped
research universities. Combine large data with the significantly more
stringent requirements around data preservation, archiving, sharing, curation,
etc. coming from granting agencies like NSF, and you have the brewing storm
that could result in a lot of "one-off" solutions to a problem that
could very well be addressed collectively and "at scale."
2)
Transformative effects of IT – while I see more and more examples of this, there
is still much more that can be achieved. My experience tells me that culture
(as the report indicates or at least poses the question) gets in the way more
than technology not being up to task. We spend too much time on
"context" and not "core," and get lost in the weeds on the
journey to truly transforming the institution with technology.
3)
Analytics as a key element in improving various institutional outcomes.
In our work around Student Success, we see predictive
"academic" analytics as essential to getting in front of the Student
Success issue, regardless of how an institution or collections of institutions
defines success. Analytics must be part of the fabric of the key academic
enterprise applications, not a bolt-on. We will spend a significant
amount of time on this topic during our semi-annual Education Industry Strategy
Council meeting in Washington, D.C. later this month.
4)
Cloud strategy for the broad range of applications in the academic enterprise.
Some of the recent work by Casey Green at the Campus Computing Survey
would seem to indicate that there is movement in this area but mostly in what
has been termed "below the campus" application areas such as
collaboration tools, recruiting, and alumni relations. It's time to get
serious about sourcing elements of mature applications like student information
systems, HR, Finance, etc. leveraging a model other than traditional on-campus
custom.
I've
only selected a few areas of the list to highlight, but the unifying theme here
(and this is where I run the risk of sounding like an Oracle commercial) is
that these lofty goals cry out for partners that can bring economies of scale
to bear on the problems married with a deep understanding of the nuances unique
to higher education. In a recent piece in Educause
Review on Student Information Systems, the author points out that
"best of breed is back". Unfortunately I am compelled to point out
that best of breed is a large part of the reason we have made as little
progress as we have as an industry in advancing some of the causes outlined
above. Don't confuse "integrated" and "full stack"
for vendor lock-in. The best-of-breed market forces that Ron points to
ensure that solutions have to be "integratable" or they don't survive
in the marketplace. However, by leveraging the efficiencies afforded by
adopting solutions that are pre-integrated (and possibly metered out as a service)
allows us to shed unnecessary costs – as difficult as these decisions are to
make and to drive throughout the organization.
Cole
