Integrated Communications Technology Survey

Integrated Communications Technology Survey

A first look at the upcoming survey report from the ACTI Communication, Collaboration, and Mobility Working Group

The Integrated Communications Technology Survey, from EDUCAUSE’s Advanced Core Technologies Initiative (ACTI) Communication, Collaboration, and Mobility (CCM) Working Group, aimed to better understand what peer institutions are doing when it comes to universal communication (UC) in order to identify UC trends that can be used as a barometer for other institutions who are working in this area. The survey was conducted in late 2011, and initial results were shared with ACTI members during the January 2012 ACTI Member Meeting.

The short survey had questions in three main areas:

1. Voice Platforms and Services
2. Voice Integration with Related Platforms
3. Your Opinions

The below includes some highlights from section one of the survey, as well as shares more information about the areas covered in sections two and three. The full report from this survey will be available shortly.

The survey received 260 responses; 229 (88.1%) of those were from U.S. institutions, while the remaining 29 (11.2%) came from Australia (5, or 1.9%), Canada (13, or 5.0%), and nine other countries. In addition, we received Carnegie Classifications for nearly all the U.S. respondents (228 or 87.7%). They are as follows:

Finally, 245 (94.2%) institutions identified themselves as private, public, or for-profit. The majority were public (135, or 51.9%), though nearly as many were private (108, or 41.5%), while only two were for-profit (0.8%).

The first question aimed to understand how local or centralized IT services are at the surveyed institutions. Survey respondents were asked to rate their response on a five-point scale, from “Very Local” to “Very Centralized.” Overwhelmingly, most respondents indicated that their IT services are overall centralized or very centralized (202, or 80.8%) versus local or very local (27, or 10.8%).

How local or centralized are IT services provided at your institution?

The survey then aimed to gather information to give a snapshot of the current and expected short-term status of various voice systems on campuses. Respondents were asked to share information on their deployment of these systems, ranging from two or more years ago to two or more years from now. The first system that was asked about was VoIP hard endpoints, and their availability at employee desks, in residence hall rooms, and campus hotel rooms. The survey asked about other aspects of VoIP, including how VoIP is being used beyond typical phone applications.

The survey also looked to find out about how widespread the use of separate voice services VLAN for hard endpoints is on campuses. Seventy-eight (30%) of respondents had deployed VLAN two or more years ago, with a handful (12, or 4.6%) having done so in the past year. Another quarter (65, or 25%) were in the process of doing so currently, while 45 (17.3%) expected to do so in the next year or two. However, nearly 51 respondents (19.6%) have no plans to deploy a separate voice services VLAN.

In addition to wanting to know the current status of communications on campuses, the survey aimed to understand more about some of the challenges to adopting new technologies—in this case, softphones and mobile clients. Three situations asked about impediments to providing access to softphone clients; three focused on impediments to using softphones to replace hard endpoints; one asked about softphone deployment; and three looked at impediments to providing access of mobile clients.

The three potential impediments to providing access to softphone clients that were specifically asked about were: licensing costs, end-user support, and security. It is particularly interesting to note that respondents only once indicated a “neutral” position—when they answered about whether they felt if licensing costs were an impediment to softphones. In this case, the answers were fairly evenly spread: of the 257 who responded, 110 (42.8%) agreed that licensing costs posed a problem, 81 (31.5%) disagreed, and 66 (25.7%) were neutral. However, when asking about whether end-user support was an impediment, the majority agreed. Of the 178 who answered, 110 thought that it was (61.8%), while 68 disagreed (38.2% -- and of those, only 11, or 6.2%, strongly disagreed). Whereas when security was asked about, the results indicate that it is largely not as significant a concern, with about two-thirds of the 161 who replied disagreeing that it is an impediment (104, or 64.6%), compared to about one-third who see it as a problem (57, or 35.4%).

Impediments to Providing Access to Softphones

The final question in section one asked respondents to share about what mobile softphone platforms they have currently implemented or plan to use – if they planned to use any. The results show that iPhone and Android are clearly the most popular platforms, though vendor-supported and third-party applications and web browser toolbars for call control aren’t far behind.

The second section of the survey turned to look at how core voice services are being integrated into related communication and collaboration platforms. Respondents were asked to rate the level of importance to the integration of voice with a number of platforms, ranging from native unified messaging to integration with LMS and more. Questions in this section also gathered information on open-source PBX and converged technologies, as well as looked at how institutions are providing staff support and identifying what components are considered part of the communications infrastructure on a campus.

The survey’s third and final section aimed more at gathering opinions from survey respondents on future directions, including cloud services, outsourcing services, next-generation applications, and content repositories.