2006 Current Issues Survey Choices

Table 3 Expanded

Administrative / ERP / information systems

• implementing and maintaining ERP systems
• maintaining and integrating legacy systems
• choosing an acquisition strategy
• choosing and managing consultants and consultant costs
• aligning needs with vendor choices in purchasing systems
• implementing content management systems
• integrating multiple systems (ERP, one-card, course management, etc.)
• training and educating systems users

Advanced networking

• planning for broadband capacity
• upgrading networks for advanced applications
• deciding to connect to high-speed networks
• educating campus constituencies about uses
• participating in nationwide fiber projects

Assessment / benchmarking

• measuring outcomes, not just inputs
• evaluating academic and administrative benefits of IT
• assessing the IT organizational model
• responding to accountability demands
• identifying effective metrics for benchmarking IT services
• adopting formal assessment methodologies
• assuring end-to-end/holistic service
• insuring thorough process review and management

Change management

• keeping up with technological change
• navigating internal and external politics
• overcoming cultural barriers to change
• managing expectations
• managing infrastructure and/or service changes without disruption

Collaboration / partnerships (See "Outsourcing" – new choice in 2006)

• exploring multi-institutional consortial initiatives and strategic alliances
• sharing infrastructure, expertise, and applications
• developing internal partnerships
• developing vendor relationships

Data administration

• providing decision-making data for business intelligence
• developing data warehouses and "digital dashboards"
• ensuring proper use of data, data integrity – internal auditing

Digital library / digital content challenges

• developing institutional repositories
• developing standards and comprehensive search capabilities
• resolving legal and policy issues
• dealing with preservation and migration challenges
• creating multi-campus, multi-university digital libraries

Digital records management

• managing digital records and documents
• developing information access and archiving policies
• internal auditing
• exploring imaging technologies

Disaster recovery / business continuity

• evaluating recovery priorities and assessing risk
• determining acceptable level of risk and right level of investment
• ensuring that a continuity/recovery plan is in place
• implementing testing plans

Distance education / virtual universities

• building off-campus delivery systems
• assessing the market
• organizing and governing distance education
• ensuring standards, addressing accreditation issues
• developing policies and procedures
• integrating library and learning resources

E-learning / distributed teaching and learning

• developing institutional information repositories
• promoting e-learning environments on campus
• assessing learning and course outcomes
• addressing faculty workload and tenure issues
• exploring the use of e-portfolios
• developing learning objects and standards

Electronic classrooms / technology buildings / commons facilities

• designing learning spaces that support new pedagogical models
• balancing physical space and cyberspace
• providing support services for such facilities
• creating campus master plan for technology enhanced classrooms

Emerging technologies

• assessing the impact of emerging technologies on infrastructure strategies
• deploying wireless communication technology
• evaluating the potential of voice-over-IP technology
• determining the role of hand-held and mobile computing
• supporting, appropriately, blogs, vlogs, wikis, and podcasting

End-to-end service assurance (New choice in 2006)

• managing projects and change collaboratively and holistically
• testing applications automatically
• monitoring services end-to-end
• handling incidents/alerts efficiently
• establishing/negotiating service level agreements (SLAs)

Faculty development, support, and training

• integrating technology effectively and appropriately with instruction
• developing scalable, funded, systemic support models
• working with teaching excellence centers to develop and train in IT
• educating faculty about potential advanced technology uses

Funding IT

• coordinating IT budgeting with institutional planning and budgeting process
• affording new technology implementations while maintaining infrastructure
• implementing life-cycle funding for technology refreshment
• controlling costs / calculating total cost of ownership
• developing sustainable funding models
• determining charging policies
• benchmarking IT staffing and spending levels

Governance, organization, and leadership

• determining IT organizational and reporting structure
• establishing advisory structures for IT
• choosing the right IT leadership model for your campus
• ensuring CIO participation on executive and campus committees
• developing IT leaders for the future
• coordinating with state-level governance structures
• planning for organizational impact of outsourcing

Infrastructure

• managing bandwidth
• routinely investing in network and wiring upgrades
• replacing technologies on established life-cycles
• upgrading software / negotiating licensing agreements
• upgrading for new technologies while maintaining current infrastructure
• managing e-mail systems and electronic communications
• standardizing hardware and software for economies of scale
• considering outsourcing or ASP arrangements to deliver services
• weighing leasing versus purchasing strategies
• managing storage capacity
• providing directory services
• enabling remote access

Instructional / course management systems

• choosing an acquisition strategy (proprietary systems versus open source)
• sharing CMS resources through consortia
• accommodating local environments and faculty needs
• integrating CMS with library and administrative systems
• dealing with the rising costs of commercial CMS products

Intellectual property and copyright management

• addressing illegal P2P file sharing and other copyright violations
• addressing faculty ownership of courseware
• developing copyright policy
• evaluating DMCA participation
• educating the community about copyright

Legislative compliance and policy development

• complying with state and federal regulations (ADA, CALEA, DMCA, FERPA, HIPAA, SEVIS, USA PATRIOT)
• developing campus policies to address electronic information challenges (privacy, e-mail, security, access, peer-to-peer file sharing, Acacia, etc.)
• remaining current with new legislation/partnering with government relations office
• planning effective campus communications about policy changes

Outsourcing (New choice in 2006)

• identifying "what" and the right balance
• determining whether in-house expertise is sufficient to retain a service/application
• weighing cost-benefit and in-house knowledge of institutional culture
• making business case
• assessing provider performance
• [see "Governance..." for organizational impact]
• [see "Collaboration / partnerships" for alliances]

Portfolio development and management (New choice in 2006)

• developing or selecting application
• prioritizing needs and designing/customizing functionality
• integrating with enterprise system
• determining management and update responsibility
• establishing access rules
• resolving privacy and official academic record issues

Portals

• justifying the need, articulating benefits
• determining an enterprise portal strategy
• outsourcing versus developing in-house
• resolving ownership and management issues
• evaluating campus Web content and structure
• implementing robust cross searching capabilities
• imbedding information management tools

Research support

• grid computing
• supercomputing
• managing servers and networks that support research
• developing collaborative partnerships for research and scholarship
• consulting with faculty
• assisting with grant writing

Security and identity management

• responding to and recovering from breaches/exposures
• building authentication and authorization policies and systems
• protecting confidential data
• eliminating SSN dependence
• making campus-wide security policy decisions regarding patches, firewalls, intrusion detection, filtering for spam, etc.
• developing middleware and security infrastructure
• providing directory services
• implementing public key infrastructure (PKI), digital certificates, tokens
• staffing for security
• implementing single sign-on

Staffing / HR management / training

• recruiting, retaining, and retraining IT staff
• managing IT staff morale when doing more with less
• revising IT job classifications and compensation
• aligning IT HR policies with institutional HR policies
• establishing IT competencies for non-IT staff campuswide and hiring accordingly
• ensuring that IT professionals keep up with technologies
• developing IT skills inventories, individualized learning plans

Strategic planning

• articulating a value framework for IT
• aligning IT planning and budgeting with institutional planning and budgeting
• aligning IT strategies with institutional mission and strategies
• engaging campus leaders and key stakeholders in IT planning

Student computing

• requiring students to own computers
• levying student technology fees
• establishing IT fluency / information literacy requirements
• supporting e-learners
• providing IT training to students
• managing expectations / serving the "new" student

Support services / service delivery models

• coordinating support to distributed units
• providing 24 x 7 help desk
• establishing service level agreements with internal clients
• centralizing versus distributing support
• developing standards for support services
• developing "smarter" support models (knowledge bases, self-help tools)
• managing customer relationships

Web systems and services

• developing Web-based business strategies
• integrating legacy and Web-based systems
• managing Web content development and currency
• developing Web policy regarding stewardship
• establishing content management processes and policies
• implementing Web services (standards and architectures)
• providing self-service applications with a consistent Web interface

Other

• none