Session entitled: The Top-Ten Higher Education IT Issues for 2015: What They
Are and What They Mean for You (now with top 10 strategic technologies too)
“The Top-Ten IT Issues
is one of EDUCAUSE's most widely consumed products, used by institutions and
solution providers alike to guide strategic planning and better understand the
impact of a range of IT-related issues affecting IT organizations and higher
education.”Top 10 issues selected by about 40 or so panel members who meet several times a year. But, they’re also voted on by EduCause members.
No on-line presentation materials. The chairperson explained that the Top-Ten
list will not be released until January 2015.
This session provided a one-time only early preview. No materials will be released post
conference. And, apologies to the gentleman
who endured my keyboard tapping during the session.
So, drum roll, the top 10 issues are:
1. Developing IT funding models that sustain core service, support innovation and facilitate growth.
2.
Demonstrate the business value of IT and how IT
can help the institution achieve its goals.
3.
Hiring and retaining qualified staff and
updating the knowledge and skills of existing technology staff
4.
Increasing the IT organization’s capacity for
managing change, despite differing community needs, priorities and abilities
5.
Optimizing the use of technology in teaching and
learning in collaboration with academic leadership, including understanding the
appropriate level of technology to use
6.
Improving student outcomes through and institutional
approach that strategically leverages technology
7.
Balancing agility, operational and security
8.
Providing user support in the new normal –
mobile, online education
9.
Developing security policies for mobile, cloud
and digital
10.
Balancing agility, openness and security
The panel of seven discussed three pairs of top IT
issues. Some of the discussion captured
below.
First two pairs for
discussion.
1.
Hiring and retaining qualified staff and
updating the knowledge and skills of existing technology staff
2.
Increasing the IT organization’s capacity for
managing change, despite differing community needs, priorities and abilities
These were categorised under the theme – Pervasiveness and pace of
change reaches an inflection point.
Mark Berman “we should focus on what we are good at.
Gartner have a paper on ‘bi-modal’ IT, Agile and traditional,
operational. Grab the white paper. You really need to be able to be bi-modal –
operational, predictability reliability.
But you also need to be agile – respond quickly and be responsive to
institution strategy”
Robert Solis “Retaining a
team of people to facilitate this in a multiple of ways to attract scarce talent. Try different tricks, be competitive, what
works now is not worked 10 years ago.
Important is to build a culture for staff to feel they are aligned and
have a commitment” “Alternative sourcing is a good approach and
a good strategy for small things. We
could do in house but is distracting”
Angela Neria “Agree,
having a mission in place, a strategic plan and clearly stated goals are essential. We, in Kansas, need to grow our own
sometimes. We look at our Alumni – some want
to come back. We’re a small University
in the mid-West ”
“Keeping our staff up to date becomes very important and convincing our
institutions to invest in training is vitally”
3.
Optimizing the use of technology in teaching and
learning in collaboration with academic leadership, including understanding the
appropriate level of technology to use
4.
Improving student outcomes through and institutional
approach that strategically leverages technology
The pair’s
theme: IT’s primary focus moves from the
back-end to the front-end. IT and the
institution are interdependent.
Paul Sherlock “Build
good relationships and trust”
Mark Berman “Cloud services are important and help us to
focus our energy on the ‘front end’.
This can be used to focus a little more to shift resources to
instructional support. Especially when
student course delivery is happening on-line more and more” “Badging is more important – which requires
our support. How this represents
acheivments of staff and students”
Karin Moyano “We’re
starting to see new apps, technology coming into the classroom. Providing efficiency e.g for student alert
systems. The challenge is how to partner, to be flexible and how to reach out
to what is core to our institutions.
Michael Bourque “It’s
really about a partnership. We shouldn’t
be scared that others might have technology ideas. And, we shouldn’t be afraid of pedagogical
ideas. We can bring real value. It is a bit of a dance”
“When we lead our communities
into change, be mindful of ‘change fatigue’ – if we think about this at the
beginning of progress then that is important.”
5.
Developing IT funding models that sustain core
service, support innovation and facilitate growth.
6.
Demonstrate the business value of IT and how IT
can help the institution achieve its goals.
The pair’s
theme: IT’s primary focus moves from the
back-end to the front-end. IT and the
institution are interdependent (same as last pair).
Karin Moyano “Bring
transparency to how we are running our organisations. Demonstrating value”
Paul Solis “The value
question is helpful. There is nothing
more pervasive in our Institution than IT.
Value has probably been a theme for a while. There are not many discussions on the value
of HR or Finance. But we’re always asked
to look at the value if IT. So, age old
question, how do you get funding. For us
to solve, we need a community effort. We
can’t be out there ourselves. We need to
enlist stakeholders and ensure governance is in place. E.g. One of our senior stakeholders has been
asking for additional network bandwidth to enable research datasets to be moved
around. That’s terrific” “Deferred
maintenance is an issue. Unlike in buildings, You don’t always see the evidence. How do you get funding for this less obvious
stuff? Well, we’ve been saying that more
of our Institution’s revenue needs to go to IT.
More of the capital investment needs to be allocated. But, we need the community involved”
Karin Moyano “Having a
voice at the decision making table is really critical. You need to be there so folks understand the challenges. Has been critical to opening my eyes and
share and learn from others. Being
innovative and creative with funding has been something I‘ve learned from being
at that table”
Paul Sherlock “We’re
involved in everything the Institution does but we struggle to demonstrate business
value. On the funding side, this is
linked of course and it’s really tough. There
is a shift from capital to operational budget perhaps driven by cloud. How do we make sure things are efficient,
effective. We need to make sure we’re
effective before we can argue for funding”
Questions from
audience? (online question)
What % of institution revenue ought to be spent on IT?
“Look at Core Data
Service benchmarking. It will be
different for each institution. They
cautioned having a target % as it will be very specific to the individual
institutional aims, where you are with your technology and where you want to
go. % is a fairly gross measure – needs to
be more about what the Institution wants to achieve.”
And, helpfully, the following Learning Management System market share was provided:
And, US Student Information System market share
Top 10 Strategic technologies
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And, helpfully, the following Learning Management System market share was provided:
And, US Student Information System market share
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