EDUCAUSE Tracks Evolving Campus IT Environments

EDUCAUSE has just released the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2006 Summary Report, which summarizes data collected early in 2007 for the past fiscal year from colleges and universities about their campus IT environments, practices, and policies. As of October 1, 2007, 952 campuses had completed the survey, an 42% response rate of EDUCAUSE members and other invited institutions. Responding institutions were 58% public and 42% private.

Given the participation of so many institutions—representing all enrollment sizes, Carnegie classes, and types of governance, as well as international institutions—the Summary Report provides a broad and deep view of the current IT environment in higher education.

While there are significant trends in higher education IT benchmarks from one year to another, many of the most interesting changes are specific to community colleges, research institutions, or other Carnegie groups. The survey had 55 questions with nearly 300 data elements. Key findings include the following:

Organizational Structure and Leadership

• The percentage of top-level IT leaders at all reporting institutions who sit on the president’s cabinet increased nearly 2% over last year, to about 48%, but once again a higher percentage of community colleges reported this to be the case (about 63%, up from 59%).

IT Financing and Management

• Looking at the total number of centralized FTE IT staff this year compared to last year, there was a significant mean increase of 1.85 FTE staff for all responding institutions.
• The ratio of centralized IT funding spent per FTE student for ALL respondents increased from the 2005 to the 2006 survey, with a median of $909 per FTE student for ALL respondents.
• The percentage of institutions that reported using external suppliers to run various IT functions increased over the past year, from 57% to nearly 62%, the third year in a row that a significant increase has been found.
• Schools that track bandwidth utilization increased overall from about 67% to over 71%. In addition, there was a significant decrease in the number of two-year institutions that reported no tracking or shaping.

IT Security Practices

• Nearly 50% of all campuses reported deploying personal firewall software, a significant increase since last year.
• More than 63% of all campuses reported that they had undertaken a formal campus security risk assessment, up from 58% last year.
• Nearly 57% of all respondents reported that they require end-user authentication for all network access. Another 24% are either in the process of implementing this requirement or are planning to do so, with an additional 12% considering it. Only about 4% of all respondents had no plans for such a requirement.

Deployment of Technologies

• There was a significant increase in the use of voice-over-IP among all responding schools since last year.
• The highest level of wireless network access is in libraries, with over 80% of respondents reporting that 76–100% of their libraries provide wireless access, an increase of nearly 10% from last year and 30% over the previous three years.
• There was a significant leap in deployment of wireless security technologies since last year at all types of institutions, with an approximately 7% increase in deployment overall and about a 34% increase over the last two years.
• The spam plague has resulted in almost universal adoption of antispam tools, with nearly 98% of all respondents having deployed this technology and fewer than 0.5% not planning to do so.
• Nearly 75% of all campuses have deployed antispyware software, with only 2.5% not planning to do so, indicating that this technology also has been readily embraced in a very short period of time.

Student and Instructional Computing

• More than 12% of all respondents offer a service to provide online music and movies, an increase of 50% over last year.
• More than 90% of all institutions reported providing a course management system for all or nearly all courses, with fewer than 1% not using or planning to use a CMS.
• There was an increase among all respondents in offering many kinds of support to faculty in the use of IT in teaching and learning, with “faculty training on request” the most employed support mechanism, reported by more than 94% of respondents.

Information Systems Implementations

• The percentage of institutions that have completed an ERP (enterprise information system) implementation increased significantly, from about 50% to 54%.
• Purchasing a commercial product and customizing it is the most common system acquisition strategy, with about 77% of all institutions reporting this strategy.
• About 91% of all responding institutions have implemented a Web portal or have such an implementation in process or planned.

“IT benchmarks,” said EDUCAUSE President Brian Hawkins, “too often come down to keeping up with the Joneses, leading ultimately to a dysfunctional inflationary pressure. Rather than engaging in an arms race, we need to focus on doing the best job with the fewest resources, with an eye toward understanding the environment and practices that make this possible.” The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS), now in its fifth year, was created to provide a context for just this kind of assessment in higher education.

In 2002, the task force of IT leaders from a variety of institutions that developed the CDS had to meet the challenge of designing a survey that would be meaningful and manageable for institutions ranging from community colleges through baccalaureate schools and doctoral universities. Roughly 55 questions are grouped under five categories: IT Organization, Staffing, and Planning; IT Financing and Management; Faculty and Student Computing; Network and Security; and Information Systems. This year’s survey captured data for the 2006 fiscal year.

The centerpiece of the CDS is a Web-enabled database with powerful sort and selection tools. Launched in May 2003 with 2002 data and updated annually each May, the database is accessible only to campuses that complete the survey. Before gaining access, CDS participants agree not to share any of the information retrieved from the database beyond planning teams on their individual campuses. The service allows for the creation of customized aggregations (including peer groups of like campuses), on-the-fly generation of data summaries for each question, viewing of raw data identifiable by institution, a trend analysis tool, and a set of commonly sought ratios for benchmarking.

Hundreds of participants have commented on the value of the CDS program, including Garth McCormick, director of application and data resources at the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, who said, “I just accessed the core database for the first time, and I'm really impressed with the service. I was able to create a peer group and find the data I was looking for quickly.”

The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2006 Summary Reportis available at no charge in PDF format at http://www.educause.edu/apps/coredata/reports/2006/. Print copies may be ordered for $10 each. General information about the Core Data Service may be found at http://www.educause.edu/apps/coredata.  

About EDUCAUSE

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The current membership comprises more than 2,200 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 250 corporations, with 17,000 active members. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at www.educause.edu.