Educause Review - Top Ten Issues 2011

8/6/2019 Educause Review - Top Ten Issues 2011

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Educ ausEr e v i ew May/Jun E 2011 May/Jun E 2011 Educ a

he results of the twelfth annual EDUCAUSE Current

Issues Survey reflect the everyday balancing act that

IT leaders need to perform. Many of the issues show

the need for continued and thoughtful long-range

planning, yet new issues have also risen quickly to the

top, requiring nimbleness in both thought and act.

2011Issues

By Bret L. Ingerman, Catherine Yang,

and the 2011 EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee

Top-TEN

ITT IllustratIon by Mark allen MIller, 2011


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26 E du c a u s E r e v i e w M a y/ Ju nE 2 011

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2011

Administered by the EDUCAUSECurrent Issues Committee, the electronicsurvey was conducted in December 2010.1Survey participantstypically CIOs ofEDUCAUSE member institutionswereasked to select the five most-important ITissues out of a selection of twenty-seven ineach of four areas: (1) issues that are criticalfor strategic success; (2) issues that are ex-pected to increase in significance; (3) issuesthat demand the greatest amount of the

campus IT leaders time; and (4) issues thatrequire the largest expenditures of humanand fiscal resources.

The top-four issues critical for strategicsuccess remain the same as in last yearssurvey, though with a slightly differentranking: Funding IT; Administrative/ERP/In-

formation Systems; Teaching and Learning withTechnology; and Security. Whereas contextwas the word used to describe the resultsof the 2010 survey, the word perspective better characterizes the 2011 survey. Forexample, when it comes to Funding IT(#1),

the focus in the past has largely been onsecuring a stable and predictable level offunding. Although that remains a criticalneed, the IT leader now also needs to fac-tor in the perspective of the campus com-munity members and to show them the

value of existing services and investmentsas well as the true cost of future decisions.

Administrative/ERP/Information Systems(#2)also benefits from examining the perspec-tive of those who use these services. Is the

time right to disaggregate the monolithicERP system and use best-of-breed solu-tions, especially those that may be offeredin the cloud as Software as a Service(SaaS)? Is it time to change the focus fromdesktop access for administrative informa-tion to access via the ever-growing typesof mobile devices? For Teaching and Learn-ing with Technology (#3), the perspectiveneeds to encompass not only classroomtechnologies but also the ubiquitous use

of instructional technologies to supportthe educational mission of the institu-tion overall. Security (#4) likewise poses adualistic need for perspective. On the onehand, higher education institutions areincreasingly seeking and securing cloud-based services to meet campus needs. Onthe other hand, the institutions are them-selves cloud-based service providerstothe members of their own communities.This man-in-the-middle position re-quires IT leaders to understand the needs,the perspectives, of both consumers and

providers. While we seek security assur-ances from those with whom we have cho-sen to partner for cloud-based services,we are also mindful of the relative lack ofsecurity on the devices that are used to ac-cess our institutional resources.

The need to fully appreciate perspec-tive is perhaps most evident in the issue of

Agility/Adaptability/Responsiveness (#6). Nowmore than ever, IT leaders and the campusas a whole must realize that technological

EDUCAUSE

Current IssuesCommittee

Bret L. Ingerman

Committee ChairVice President for Computing and

Information ServicesVassar College

Charles D. Dziuban

Director, Research Initiative forTeaching Effectiveness

University of Central Florida

James Estrada

Chief Information OfficerCentral Connecticut State University

Andrea Henne

Dean, Online and Distributed LearningSan Diego Community College District

Ann Kovalchick

Chief Information OfficerDrake University

Michael R. McPherson

Associate Vice President and DeputyChief Information Officer

University of Virginia

Linda Mehlinger

Assistant Vice President of Planning &

Information TechnologyMorgan State University

Joseph A. Moreau

Chief Technology OfficerSUNY College at Oswego

Michael Richichi

Director of Computing and NetworkServices

Drew University

Theresa Rowe

Chief Information OfficerOakland University

Nadine Stern

Associate Chief Information Officer forOperations and PlanningPrinceton University

Joseph Vaughan

Chief Information Officer andVice President for Computing

Harvey Mudd College

Catherine Yang

Staff LiaisonSenior DirectorEDUCAUSE

Top-Tn IT I, 2011 1Funding IT 2 Administrative/ERP/Information Systems 3Teaching and Learning with Technology

4Security

5Mobile Technologies

6Agility/Adaptability/Responsiveness

7Governance, Portfolio/Project Management

8Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure

9Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity

10Strategic Planning

2011


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change demands flexibility and nimble-ness. New technologies and new requestsfor services cannot and should not beperceived as detracting from the institu-

tional mission. Rather, IT leaders need toremember that anticipating and respond-ing to such change is a fundamental re-quirement of our organizations. We needto change our perspective to see how newtechnologies and services can enhance theservices that are provided to or consumedby the campus community.

Nothing more clearly illustrates thisthan the debut, at #5, of Mobile Technologiesin the list of top-ten issues of strategic im-portance. More important, Mobile Technolo-

gies is the #1 issue that IT leaders felt had

the potential to become more significant.In the past, many of us may have viewedmobile technologies as a nonessentialnuisance to the networking and userservices groups. After all, our institutionswere providing a robust wired networkconnecting campus-owned comput-ers to central resources. Now we all findourselves struggling to meet the growingdemands for wireless services on a mul-titude of mobile devices that are ownedby individuals, not by the institution. We

need to place ourselves in the position ofthese individuals in order to see the valuefrom their perspective and to then engagein a conversation on how to best provideservices within the confines of our owneconomic and political climate.

These increasingly mobile needs ofusers, coupled with complexity intro-duced by a bewildering array of potentialoff-campus cloud and third-party services,have challenged many foundational ele-ments of traditional IT services. Conven-tional ways of viewing Governance, Portfolio/

Project Management (#7), Infrastructure/Cyber-infrastructure (#8), Disaster Recovery / BusinessContinuity (#9), and Strategic Planning (#10)are quickly becoming obsolete. A holisticperspective is called for when consideringappropriate and strategic solutions.

Finally, we should note that two topicsfrom the 2010 list of top-ten issues criticalfor strategic success dropped off this yearslist: Identity/Access Management and LearningManagement Systems. Though both continue

to be topics of significance in the profession(coming in at #11 and #12, respectively),they were edged out this year by the mete-oric rise of interest in Mobile Technologies.

The remainder of this article focuses onthe top-ten issues that IT leaders identifiedas the most important for their institutionsto resolve for strategic success.2 For eachissue, members of the 2011 EDUCAUSECurrent Issues Committee offer a fewthoughts and a set of questions, with eachsection written by individual membersof the committee: Funding IT, by TheresaRowe; Administrative/ERP/Information Sys-tems, by Nadine Stern; Teaching and Learningwith Technology, by Andrea Henne; Security,by Michael R. McPherson;Mobile Technolo-

gies, by Joseph A. Moreau; Agility/Adapt-ability/Responsiveness , by Linda Mehlinger;Governance, Portfolio/Project Management, byJoseph Vaughan; Infrastructure/Cyberin-

frastructure, by Michael Richichi; DisasterRecovery / Business Continuity, by JamesEstrada; and Strategic Planning, by Ann Kov-alchick. The questions are not meant to becomprehensive; they are intended to en-courage further thinking and discussion.

Issue #1Funding ITFunding IT, the #1 issue again this year, isthe foundation for the remaining top-nineIT issues. Technology generates high ex-pectations, and high expectations correlateto high costs. There is perpetual agitationbetween these costs of high expectationsand the ability of campuses to effectivelyand consistently fund technology solu-tions to meet these expectations. Short-term budget decreases and long-term lackof budget growth increase the agitation. IT

leaders must be effective in managing thesituation and bringing strategy into the pic-ture. In the best cases, IT leaders are usingbudget constraints as drivers for changemotivation and for evaluation of strategictechnology direction. IT leaders are alsousing an updated vocabulary to discussnew economic realities:

n Multi-year predictable budgetsn Budget transparency, showcasing fixed

and nondiscretionary commitmentsthat lock funds

n Show-backs (rather than charge-backs),explaining to campus constituents the

true cost of technology decisionsn Common language descriptors for

new expectations: convenience, mo-bility, edge-devices, consumerization,

virtualization, presence, accessibility,interactive, integration, social network-ing, cloud computing, evidence-based,data-driven, process efficiencies

n Return-on-value, return-on-mission,and return-on-investment analyses

n Organizational capacity for addingnew technologies given licensing costs,hardware investment, and staffing costs

n Legacy termination

IT leaders and CIOs need to be expertswith language that is focused on workingwithin budget retrenchment and on doingthe best possible with fewer resources.CIOs must seek budget predictability in anIT world that is very unpredictable. Thatexpertise will gain trust from and buildpartnerships with other senior executiveleaders. CIOs need to continue to embracethe excitement and magic that comes with

information technology, but finding theright justification for funding will be achallenge in the visible horizon.

Critical questions for Funding IT in-clude the following:

n Is the IT organization using multi-yearbudgets to demonstrate the future (e.g.,five-year) budget impact of technologydecisions made today?

n Is the IT organization clearly showingthe campus the true cost of technologydecisions?

n Is the IT organization successfullydemonstrating the added value of


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technology implementations using ashared, updated vocabulary that re-flects current campus expectations?

n Is the IT organization demonstrating

alternative values by showing a varietyof possible spends for the same allo-cated funds?

n Has the IT organization honestly evalu-ated how well current investmentsare performing against the predictedreturn-on measures?

n Is the IT organization using quantita-tive analyses to evaluate organizationalcapacity for new initiatives?

Issue #2Administrative/ERP/Information SystemsIn the 2011 survey, Administrative/ERP/Information Systems continued to receivehigh rankings in the areas of strategic im-portance, consumption of the CIOs time,and expenditure of financial and humanresources, yet it ranked lower in potential tobecome more significant. Additionally, thesurvey indicated that this topic is of decreas-ing strategic importance as the size of theinstitution increases. But what we do not

know is how respondents ranked this topicbased on whether they have completed anERP implementation, are in the midst of animplementation, or are determining theirfuture direction. This maturity level maybe a major factor in ranking the strategicimportance of ERP systems.

A question for CIOs is: given that ERPsystems are costly and strategic, shouldand can we continue to devote such highlevels of resources to this issue? Highereducation institutions primary goals arefocused on achieving academic excel-

lence, producing learning outcomes, com-peting in the global world, and success-fully retaining and graduating students.How can ERP systems contribute to thesegoals, and more important, given the costs,how can IT leaders ensure that ERP sys-tems will support and improve these coreinstitutional goals? The long-term strategic

value of these systems may hold their po-tential to positively impact the academicenterprise.

Several survey issues rising to the levelof strategic importance may bear on theissue of Administrative/ERP/InformationSystems. One is the migration of current

web-based ERP systems to the mobile ap-plication environment. This year, MobileTechnologies ranked #1 for all institutions inthe potential to become more significant,and the importance of ERP functionalityon mobile devices is getting quite a bit ofattention. Also gaining interest amongCIOs are opportunities for alternative ITsourcing, including the use of community-source products, options for off-site host-ing, and the outsourcing of entire applica-tion suites.

Critical questions for Administrative/

ERP/Information Systems include thefollowing:

n How will the IT organization adaptthe existing web-based ERP systemsto Web 2.0 mobile technology? Willthis programming be done in-houseor by selected outside vendors? Whattraining will staff need to develop andmaintain these mobile applications?

n Can ERP systems support student-retention efforts, identify students at

risk, and aid institutional assessmentefforts?n How will the institution manage the

high and ongoing costs of maintenancecontracts: will the institution continuecontracts with primary vendors, orwill it seek third-party maintenancecontracts?

n How will the institution manage thecosts and staff resource demands of

continuing ERP-upgrade cycles?n How will the institution evaluate SaaS

models if/as they proliferate? Will thesemodels prove secure while still sup-

porting institutional differentiation?n How viable are community-source

products, and will the institution selectthese suites?

n In the current, extremely tight fiscalenvironment, can CIOs demonstratethe ROI for purchasing new systemsand for continuing investments inupgrades? Can CIOs prove ROI basedon use of data for predictive analysis?Is business intelligence the real winachieved from ERP implementations?

n Should LMS systems be considered

ERP systems and thus supported byadministrative computing staff?

Issue #3Teaching and Learningwith TechnologyNot surprisingly, the strategic importanceof Teaching and Learning with Technology hasbeen steadily increasing in the CurrentIssues Surveys over the past several years.

What is more revealing is that in 2011,

Teaching and Learning with Technology rose tothe top-three issues and was ranked higherthan Security for the first time. This rise instrategic importance is evidence that tech-nology has moved beyond the data centerand institutional administrative systemsand is now part of daily life for faculty andstudents. If you look into classrooms, of-fices, or libraries at any higher educationinstitution and watch students as theymove about campus, you will observetechnology in practical use every day. Offcampus as well, the number of courses

taught online and in blended technology-mediated modes continues to increase.For CIOs and other IT leaders, this

ubiquitous use of instructional technol-ogy poses a challenge that will most likelyescalate in the foreseeable future as newand emerging tools for teaching and learn-ing evolve. Indeed, the 2011 Current IssuesSurvey ranked Teaching and Learning withTechnology as one of the top-three issuesthat has the potential to become more


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significant. The impact on the budget wasnoted in the survey as well, with Teach-ing and Learning with Technology rankingfifth as an issue that consumes financialresources.

On the other hand, Teaching and Learning

with Technology does not appear on the top-ten list of issues that consume the CIOstime. If this is because of the ease of useof the technology tools, this is a good sign.To be effective in delivering instructionand promoting learning, technology toolsneed to be integrated and sustained with-out major adoption, training, and supportchallenges. Lecture capture, smart class-rooms, response clickers, and tablet com-puters are some examples of technologiesthat have become more popular, more

user-friendly, and increasingly seamless. E-portfolios are also becoming mainstreamand integrated into course managementsystems and web applications. Increas-ingly, the demand for mobile access to aninstitutions web-based services, instruc-tional content, and e-collaboration tools isdriving institutions technology plans.

Critical questions for Teaching and Learn-ing with Technology include the following:

n What strategies should the CIO use todetermine which instructional tech-

nologies will meet the strategic goals ofthe institution?n How can IT leaders best provide sup-

port for the institutions technologytools, programs, and learning environ-ments, particularly when the tools areconstantly changing?

n How can the CIO best advise the aca-demic community about assessingand selecting proposed instructionaltechnologies?

n What are the best ways to collaboratewith the institutions stakeholders tocreate integrated, scalable, and sustain-able models and infrastructure for

technology to support teaching andlearning?

n How will the institution keep up withthe demand for 24/7 and mobile accessto web-based instructional and studentservices?

Issue #4SecuritySecurity continues its long run near the topof the Current Issues Survey, coming in at#4 on the strategic importance list. For

the past six years, Security has appearedat #1 or #2 on the potential to becomemore significant in the coming year list.This perennial big and getting biggerstatus implies that we still havent seen thewhole scope of either the challenge or thesolution.

The security arms race continues,with hackers repeatedly finding ways todefeat the best technical, organizational,and social countermeasures created bysecurity experts. We are seeing new ex-

ploits that automated intrusion detectionfails to recognize, malware that is difficultto remove, and whole new waves of riskassociated with the rapid deploymentof smartphones and the new generationof tablets on institutional networks. Weare drawn, both institutionally and indi-

vidually, to cloud computing and otheralternative sourcing arrangements withnew and poorly understood securitycharacteristics.

Large releases of personally identifi-able information (PII) and their aftermath

continue to be regular features of thelandscape for educational institutions. In-stitutional leaders, faculty, staff, students,parents, politicians, donors, and taxpayersall demand, quite understandably, to knowhow educational institutions are goingto address the problem. News coverageof these breaches brings both challengesand, oddly, a bit of help: on the one hand,the coverage raises expectations amongour users for security and privacy efforts;

on the other hand, the constant exposuremakes it easier to raise campus awarenessof the risks involved with inaction.

Annie I. Antn, in her keynote ad-

dress at the 2010 EDUCAUSE SecurityProfessionals Conference (http://www.educause.edu/Resources/ChangingMindSetsinAcademiaHowI/203159),called privacy a Grand Challenge, afundamental problem with broad societalimpact. She encouraged information se-curity officers to partner with their faculty,leveraging faculty expertise and researchto make real progress. All of us in highereducation will need to be creative and seekhelp to address this challenge.

Critical questions for Security include

the following:

n Does the institution have an inte-grated security and privacy strategywith meaningful support at the high-est levels? Is there a person or officeclearly recognized as accountablefor security and privacy strategy andimplementation?

n Does the institution have a compre-hensive communications plan forspreading the word about what is being

done and for involving communitymembers (e.g., academic, financial,procurement, legal, law enforcement,medical, student) as partners in thesolutions?

n Does the institution have a risk-basedapproach to evaluating threats andprioritizing investments in mitigation?Does it have an appropriate gover-nance structure for balancing the de-mands of security and privacy againstthe other, very real imperatives faced byleadership?


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n Does the institution have a formal,auditable approach to evaluatingand mitigating risk introduced byexternally sourced IT services? Does

it have a methodology for revealingand addressing the new concerns thatwill arise in the move from internal toexternal provisioning?

Issue #5Mobile TechnologiesPerhaps no other concept in the higher ed-ucation IT space has evolved more rapidlythan mobility. In previous EDUCAUSECurrent Issues surveys and reports, MobileTechnologies was subsumed in other issues,

such as Agility/Adaptability/Responsivenessor Infrastructure. But considering the swiftpace of change related to mobility, the Cur-rent Issues Committee felt strongly thatMobile Technologies should be consideredindependently of other issues. Survey re-spondents apparently agreed, ranking Mo-bile Technologies #5 this year. It also rankedhighest as the issue most likely to becomemuch more significant in the coming year.

Not that long ago, supporting mobiletechnologies simply meant providing

a wireless network and putting laptopcomputers in the hands of those uniqueusers who might benefit. Most recently,the consumerization of technology hasforever changed the landscape of our tech-nological environment and the needs andexpectations of all users. Seemingly over-night, the phrase Theres an app for that!went from being a catchy slogan to a clich.

From a planning perspective, CIOsshould assume that the entire user com-munity will require support for one ormore mobile devices. For many institu-

tions, that is already the case. Smartphoneadoption is on the rise, with college stu-dents accounting for the fastest-growingmarket segment.3 The success of ApplesiPad has led to the reinvention of the tabletcomputer, with significant competitionentering the market this year. Mobile tech-nologies promise to change the way usersinteract with resources and applications,moving services away from desktop andlaptop computers to devices that increas-

ingly embody a convergence of formerlydisparate functions.

Although mobile technologies maysometimes appear to be just the latest tidal

wave poised to sweep over an institutionand its IT organization, they also presentunique and powerful opportunities to ad-

vance the educational enterprise. Mobiletechnologies have the potential to trans-form instruction, in the classroom andremotely, by providing unprecedentedaccess to educational resources anytime,anywhere. Institutional effectiveness willmost certainly be improved by convenientaccess to services and data from a usersdevice of choice. Communication among

all institutional stakeholders is destined tobe enhanced by customizable and coordi-nated applications literally in the palm of ausers hand.

In many respects, the pilot phase ofmobile technologies is over. Now is thetime to make important decisions abouthow they will be incorporated into aneffective IT program. Regardless of howmobile technologies fit within an institu-tions strategic approach to supporting theenterprise, one thing is clear: those institu-tions with a well-defined strategy for ex-

ploiting mobile technologies will discoversignificant advantages.Critical questions for Mobile Technologies

include the following:

n Has the institution developed a stra-tegic direction for supporting mobiletechnologies?

n Is the institutional infrastructure ad-equately robust and flexible to accom-modate the inevitable and rapid influx

of diverse mobile devices from whichusers will expect to connect to networkresources?

n Does the institutions security strategy

address access to sensitive systemsand data by mobile devices, includingthe storage of sensitive data on thosedevices?

n To what extent is the IT organizationprepared to support the growing num-ber and variety of mobile technologydevices and uses?

n How can the content delivered by theinstitutions information systems beadapted for effective utilization on mo-bile devices?

Issue #6Agility/Adaptability/ResponsivenessThis year, Agility/Adaptability/Responsive-ness is rated as even more essential tocampus IT operations, moving up fromthe #7 slot last year. Institutions of highereducation, along with their IT organiza-tions, need to be able to react quickly witheffective solutions for changing condi-tions in todays environment of reduced

funding and growing demand by students,administrators, faculty, and communityusers. For example, this past year saw theintroduction of iPads and increases in theuse of smartphones, e-book readers, andother consumer technologies. More thanever before, students are expecting cam-pus IT operations to accept and adopt thenew and emerging technologies that havealready made services and applicationsconvenient for them.


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In the not-so-distant past, persuadingstudents to use campus-based e-mail wasoften challenging for the IT organization.Now, with cloud-based computing e-mail

systems, institutions are readily adoptinge-mail and a wide host of services andapplications that they do not physicallymanage. IT organizations must changetraditional computer services as usersdemands change. Faculty and studentsare coming to campus expecting tech-nical services such as wireless, remotesmartphone syncing, online classes, andincreased text-messaging capability. Theyalso expect everything to work seamlessly.

These 21st-century technological in-novations have given campus IT organi-

zations the proverbial slap in the face: ITorganizations must keep up-to-date, be

viable, and remain competitive. That is,campus IT organizations must rediscoverthat technological change requiresno,it demandsflexibility, openness, adapt-ability, and continuous innovation. Tech-nological change and decision-making donot start and stop with senior administra-tive leaders. Quite the contrary: IT leadersmust be included in the decision-makingprocess as early as possible. The IT leaders

role should be one of seekingrather thanprescribingsolutions. When IT leadersare included early in technology-orienteddiscussions, their expertise, insight, cal-culations, and projections set the stagefor effective solutions that address usersgenuine needs. By being proactively en-gaged in the institutions strategic planningprocess and the planning for informationtechnology, IT leaders can be instrumentaland indispensable in helping to avoid theconflicts and confusion that arise whendepartments plan as silos. No longer

relegated to the role of support services,IT organizations can move to the frontof the class and serve as change agents ineffectively communicating technologicalinitiatives, changes, and innovations to thecampus community.

Critical questions for Agility/Adapt-ability/Responsiveness include the following:

n At what point in the decision-makingprocess are IT leaders brought into

the discussion? Are institutional andIT leaders aware of what is shared ITgovernance? Do they know the modelsthat make for effective, evidence-based

decision-making?n Are IT leaders making an effort to be

creative, innovative, and, possibly, risk-taking? What guides their decision-making process? Where do they derivetheir knowledge and justification fortechnological change and innovation?

n How does the IT organization foster aclimate in which change is not an op-tion but is rather an expectation, a wayof professional life?

n With state funding plummeting, services being cut, and employees being

furloughed, how is the IT organizationdoing more with less? How is it re-sponding to these financial challengeswhile managing to maintain operationsand keep current with technology?

Issue #7Governance, Portfolio/Project ManagementThis year, the Current Issues Committeecollapsed the issues of Governance and

Portfolio/Project Management into one. In itsnew form, this continues to be a top-tenissue, ranking #7 in strategic importanceand #4 in terms of consuming the CIOstime. Indeed, according to the Key Find-ings for a 2008 EDUCAUSE Center for

Applied Research (ECAR) survey: Mostrespondents said that IT governance attheir institutions stood at low to moderatelevels of maturity.4 This fact, combinedwith the challenges inherent in the top-sixIT issues of strategic importance, meansthat Governance, Portfolio/Project Management

will likely remain a top-ten issue in thefuture. It appears to be most important inlarge institutions, where it is ranked #2 instrategic importance and #1 in consumingthe CIOs time.

All institutions need a strong IT gov-ernance model or structure and processof authoritative decision making acrossissues that are significant for external aswell as internal stakeholders.5 A markof authoritative decisions is that they are

well understood and widely accepted.6 As CIOs lead institutions toward good ITdecision-making, they will need to bothdemonstrate excellent decision-makingskills and support good decision-makingthroughout the organization. With theincreased use of cloud providers (perhapsleading some to wonder who needs a

central IT organization?), CIOs will needto engage partners and help them under-stand that the factors involved in an ITdecision will not change much whether itis the CIO who makes a particular IT deci-sion or someone else.

Good governance will require soberprioritization and a willingness to scruti-nize all projects in order to determine anoptimal mix and sequencing of proposedprojects. A remaining question is whetherinstitutions should adopt project/

portfolio-management software to aidin this process.Critical questions for Governance,

Portfolio/Project Management include thefollowing:

n Has the institution settled on a gover-nance model? Are both the structureand the process clear? Do stakeholdersunderstand and use the governancemodel?

n If the CIO is not the final decision-maker for a given decision, is the CIOs

role in the decision clear?n As cloud-based options become avail-

able, or even become the only optionoffered by some vendors, how will theinstitution manage decision-making?

Who will review SaaS contracts?n Agility/Adaptability/Responsiveness was

ranked higher in strategic importancethan governance. Does the governancemodel support or impede agility,adaptability, and responsiveness?


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May/JunE 2011 E du c a u s E r e v i e wwww .edu ca u se . edu /e r

Issue #8Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure

As services spread out to the cloud, and

as institutions rely more on their internalnetworks for access to on-site and off-siteservices, campus IT connectivity andintegrationthat is, the infrastructure/cyberinfrastructurecontinues to be ofstrategic importance. The connection tothe Internet is used not just for access toexternal services unaffiliated with the in-stitution but also for critical cloud-basedcampus services such as e-mail, learningmanagement systems, ERP, and otheradministrative functions. Even thoughmany institutions are seeing cost savings

by moving services to the cloud, the onething that cannot be moved is the connec-tivity itself. These connections are in con-stant need of upgrades, and many institu-tions are dealing with cabling plants thatare reaching the end of their functionallifetimes, such as Category 5 twisted-paircabling and multimode fiber optics orany cabling more than fifteen years old.Furthermore, the increasing consumer-ization of technology means that studentsare bringing multiple devices to campus

(e.g., laptop, tablet, smartphone, gamingconsole) and are expecting all of thosedevices to be connected to a ubiquitous,fast, and reliable network, both wired andwireless. As some institutions are begin-ning to pull out of their recent financialtroubles or are learning to budget withintheir new landscape of austerity, invest-ment in critical infrastructure and cy-berinfrastructure will be seen as either awelcome new expense or an essential on-

going one, and stalled projects will beginto move forward again out of the necessityto face the above challenges.

Institutions are increasingly being

asked to ensure network security andmay be challenged to invest in softwareand hardware to improve end-to-endsecurity and monitoring, a challengecomplicated by the increased usage of

4G carrier networks on campus andthe corresponding loss of local control.Educating constituents and adminis-trators on what is possible, and on the

differences between on-site and carriernetworks, may be necessary to articulateservice commitments.

Critical questions for Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure include the following:


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n Does the institution have the ability tomonitor usage of the internal campusnetwork, the Internet connection,and wireless coverage, to ensure that

customers needs are being met andthat the institution is ready for plannedcapacity and performance upgrades?

n Does the institution have a networksecurity policy that informs the selec-tion of hardware and software andallows the IT organization to prioritizenetwork projects that affect networksecurity?

n Can the institution identify networkapplications and devices such as smart-phones, set-top boxes, and other ser-

vices that will make new demands on

campus networks and affect planningand performance?

n What service-level agreements doesthe institution have for network perfor-mance and reliability, and are the nec-essary resources available to providethat level of service?

n How can the institution plan and inte-grate carrier wireless networks into thenetwork planning? Can the need forinstitution-delivered connectivity bereduced by the use of carrier wireless

or other services?

Issue #9Disaster Recovery /Business ContinuityOngoing domestic and international disas-ters have generated a series of lessons forfirst-response and emergency prepared-ness. Thus it isnt surprising that DisasterRecovery / Business Continuity (DR/BC) hasremained in the top-10 list of strategic con-cerns since 2006.

The results of this years survey revealdifferences by size and type of institution.DR/BC was ranked #9 as a strategic con-cern among all institutions, but the issuewas of most importance to medium-sizedinstitutions. Likewise, DR/BC was moresignificant to public institutions than toprivate institutions.

All campuses need to maintain orrestore business and academic serviceswhen circumstances disrupt normal

operations. Business continuity encom-passes disaster recoverythe activitiesthat restore the institution to an accept-able condition after a disasterbut alsoincludes activities such as risk and impactassessment, prioritization of business pro-cesses, and restoring operations to a newnormal after an event. The core of the

concept is a collaborative and integratedapproach in which every department un-derstands and prepares for the role it willplay in keeping the institution functionalin a crisis and viable in the long run.

Even if there is never a disaster to ad-dress on campus, business-continuityplanning requires that key stakeholderswork together to assess risk and prioritizework. Planning develops understandingsacross campus units, builds relationships,and fosters confidence. The process of

planning may also reveal weaknesses incurrent processes or systems. Addressingthese weaknesses can improve campusoperations on a day-to-day basisa poten-tial selling point for business-continuityplanning on campus.

As we move into the next decade, it isntthe level of planning for DR/BC but ratherthe quality of these efforts that will distin-guish commitments among various typesof institutions.

Critical questions for Disaster Recovery /Business Continuity include the following:

n Does responsibility for DR/BCplanning involve more than the ITorganization?

n In addition to plans and checklists,does the IT organization conduct pe-riodic tests or drills involving variousmembers of the campus community?

n Does DR/BC planning include agree-ments with local government and pub-lic safety officials?

n For reasons of economy, some collegesand universities have developed re-ciprocal agreements for the provisionof DR/BC services. Is the institution

aware of the pros and cons of suchagreements?

n Does DR/BC planning include ongo-ing risk assessment and training?

n Does the campus have a solid incident-response plan?

n Does upper administration under-stand the risks of not being prepared:the damage to the institutions repu-tation, the loss of students, and thecosts of being in a reactive mode?

n Is DR/BC infused in everyday processand procedure across campusin sys-

tems and building design, teaching andlearning, research data, all operations?

Issue #10Strategic PlanningIT leaders appear to have a fickle relation-ship with the issue of Strategic Planning.Over the past five years, Strategic Planningmoved steadily down the list of top-ten is-sues of strategic importance and droppedoff the list entirely by 2008, only to reap-

pear last year as issue #9. Although itslisting this year as #10 may reflect a slightlessening of concern, IT leaders remaincognizant that strategic planning has acritical role to play in effective IT servicedelivery.

Discussions about the value of strategicplanning frequently arise among IT pro-fessionals at conferences, on listservs, andin industry publications. IT leaders un-derstand that aligning resources to enablethe IT organization to serve the campusmission and to support business needs

is essential to demonstrating the value ofinformation technology. Yet the strategicplanning processas well as the extent towhich an institution adopts and executesstrategic planning processesis oftenoutside the scope of the IT organization.

As a result, the ability of IT leaders to lever-age strategic planning processes is often afunction of the campus culture.

Even though IT leaders may not al-ways be able to adopt a pure approach to


10/10


strategic planning, the fact that the issueremains as a key concern on this years listreflects the recognition that thinking stra-tegically about projects, budgeting, andbuilding campus partnerships is a criticalsuccess factor. As global economic con-

ditions stabilize around a new reality ofausterity, strategic planning may providea framework for making difficult deci-sions and focusing on core competencies.IT leaders have always struggled with theneed to create agile organizations that canrespond to external drivers such as ven-dor products and emerging technologystandards. As a method, strategic planningmay provide just enough structure to actdecisively, allowing IT leaders to supporttheir institutions in making decisions on

how technology enables priorities morethan on what priorities to enable.Critical questions for Strategic Planning

include the following:

n Is strategic planning a campus-wideprocess in which the IT organiza-tion plays a clear role as an enablingresource?

n Do institutional mechanisms exist for

the IT organization to secure broadcampus input to help define and planfor project priorities? Or must the ITorganization react to a shifting set of

business needs and executive requests?n Is the IT organization able to anticipate

the shifting IT landscape two or threeyears down the road and align current,tactical efforts in that direction?

n Does the IT organization have a pro-cess for realigning itself to adjust tochanging institutional priorities?

ConclusionUnderstanding the significance of theIT issues in the 2011 EDUCAUSE Cur-rent Issues Survey is critical to effective

oversight and provisioning of campus ITresources. In addition to considering theon-campus impact of the top-ten issuescritical for strategic success, IT leadersmust also take into account off-campusperspectives that reflect the fundamentalcrossroads at which higher education andinformation technology find themselves.For higher education, traditional revenueand costing models no longer scale, andconventional models of course deliveryare being challenged. For IT organizations,

the meteoric rise of technologies such ascloud and mobile computing challengemany long-held assumptions about what,how, and who should deliver campus ITservice portfolios.

Indeed, Mark P. McDonald, group vicepresident at Gartner, believes the timehas come to deconstruct and re-examinemuch of what we believe about informa-tion technology: the strategic role, organi-

zation, personnel skills, and processes.7

To survive, and display real value to insti-tutions, IT organizations must cast asidepast practices and must determine new

ways to exhibit strategic alignment, adaptto changing IT paradigms, and transformthemselves with agile approaches totechnology. n

Notes

1. Of the 1,917 EDUCAUSE primary memberrepresentatives who received an e-mail invitation tocomplete the survey, 320 (17%) responded.

2. Complete details of the 2011 Current Issues Surveyare published online. See the EDUCAUSE 2011Current Issues website (http://www.educause.edu/2011IssuesResources/).

3. Ian Mansfield, Smart Phones Displace Computersfor More College Students, Cellular-News, July 1,2010, .

4. Ronald Yanosky and Judith Borreson Caruso, KeyFindings for Process and Politics: IT Governance inHigher Education, EDUCAUSE Center for AppliedResearch (ECAR) study, July 2008, p. 2, .

5. Dennis John Gayle, Bhoendradatt Tewarie, andA. Quinton White Jr., Governance in the Twenty-First-Century University: Approaches to Effective Leadershipand Strategic Management (Washington, D.C.: ERICClearinghouse on Higher Education, 2003), p. 2,.

6. See John W. McCredie, Improving ITGovernance in Higher Education, ECARResearch Bulletin, issue 18 (August 29, 2006),.

7. Mark P. McDonald, Apply Creative Destructionto Re-Imagine IT, Gartner Blog Network, March18, 2011, .

2011 Bret L. Ingerman, Catherine Yang, and the

2011 EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee. The text

of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

Bret L. Ingerman (ingerman@

vassar.edu) is Chair of the

2011 EDUCAUSE CurrentIssues Committee and is Vice

President for Computing and

Information Services at Vassar

College.

Catherine Yang (cyang@

educause.edu), Senior

Director for EDUCAUSE, is

staff liaison to the Current

Issues Committee.

On the EDUCAUSE 2011

Current Issues Websitehttp://www.educause.edu/2011IssuesResources

n Recommended readings for each of the top-ten issues

n Links to EDUCAUSE resources for each of the top-ten issues

n HTML and PDF links to this EDUCAUSE Review article

n Tables with detailed demographic survey results


Documents

Educause Review - Top Ten Issues 2011