The Textbook Approach to Winning A Student Technology Fee Copyright 1994 CAUSE. From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 17, Number 4, Winter 1994. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact Julia Rudy at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: jrudy@CAUSE.colorado.edu GOOD IDEAS THE TEXTBOOK APPROACH TO WINNING A STUDENT TECHNOLOGY FEE by William H. Graves ABSTRACT: Many colleges and universities have found the introduction of student technology fees troublesome. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), however, both the students and the Board of Trustees responded positively to a carefully crafted "textbook approach" to justifying such a fee. Students in higher education have discovered the power and convenience of e-mail and other communication, information, and computation services, and as a result their expectations for information technology services are growing rapidly. For example, my university (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) established approximately 5,000 new e-mail accounts during the past academic year, and students accounted for at least 80 percent of these. Anticipating continuing growth in services until all members of the University community are online, we recently installed a new University-wide server for e-mail and for client-access tools at a cost of approximately $250,000. We also installed additional phone lines and communications devices to provide indirect connection to the University's network--sixty-four additional communications lines at a capital cost of approximately $100,000 and continuing annual costs of about $24,000. Such investments will continue for the near term and will trigger additional expenses for software licenses and for support and help-desk personnel. Similarly, student demand is increasing for training classes at an annual rate in excess of 20 percent, while help-desk calls are increasing at a rate in excess of 50 percent, with approximately 50 percent of that number from students. These are just a few examples of the rising demand that is increasing the cost of supporting information technology services for students at UNC-CH. Our approximately 23,000 students value the services that we deliver. The evidence for this lies in the $100 academic-year technology fee that they have endorsed and that they pay. Many colleges and universities have student technology fees, but many others have found the introduction of such fees troublesome. This article shares the rationale that was endorsed by the student leadership at UNC-CH. Their endorsement was based on a carefully crafted approach--that I call a "textbook approach"--to articulating what the fee buys. THE "TEXTBOOK APPROACH" TO A STUDENT TECHNOLOGY FEE Computers, laser printers, software, e-mail, and other computing and networking services, along with continuing maintenance and support for these, are becoming _de facto_ personal necessities of the educational process, just as textbooks, tablets, pens, and pencils already are. We expect students to pay for textbooks. (To qualify the expense for student aid, we require textbook purchases.) Similarly, some colleges and universities, or some academic units within, may be able to ask their students to purchase all or some of the information technologies and services cited above. Even public institutions should consider a long-term strategy of requiring every student to purchase a computer. This strategy will ensure that those students who must rely on student aid will have access to computers, just as their financially more independent counterparts already do. Of course, such a strategy should consider the overall indebtedness of students requiring financial aid. Most public institutions, nevertheless, cannot expect students to pay personally for a full suite of information technologies and related services, because doing so would erect barriers to democratic access to education. Many students currently would face extreme financial burdens if expected to buy a printer, software, e-mail service, other computing and networking services, and support and maintenance for these. For example, a student would pay at least $1,000 for a laser printer, and $360 per year for commercial e-mail service (plus the additional cost of communications software, a modem, and a telephone line). Averaged over four years, these costs thus would be at least $610 per year. Whether personally able to pay the market price or not, the individual student can spend much less each year for a rich array of information technologies and services by taking advantage of institutional networking infrastructure and institutional volume purchasing power. The primary purpose of the student technology fee is to provide such services collectively to the student body at a cost to the individual student far below the $610 calculated above as a minimum annual cost on the open market. But this requires every student to contribute to the collective cost. The fee delivers e-mail and a host of other services at a cost and of a quality not yet available through the open market--the quality of a direct Internet connection, for example. Thus, even those students who choose to own computers receive fair value from the fee. The fee does not pay for physical network or classroom infrastructure, which are viewed as necessary components of long-term institutional infrastructure. Instead, it pays for products and services that the institution could reasonably expect students to buy on their own were today's technology prices akin to textbook prices and not so inimical to educational access. For example, with the funds from such a fee, an institution _today_ might provide the following services: * Central and departmental microcomputing labs directly connected to the institution's network for access to a full set of productivity software, printing services, and e-mail and other information services. (Most students who own computers nevertheless use lab computers to access special software, laser printers, and network services. Still, the life of the computer lab is limited in the long term by space, by emerging mobile networking technologies, and by the decreasing cost of basic computers.) * Telephone lines and communication devices to allow any student to connect indirectly to the institution's network for e-mail and other services by using any computer, modem, and phone line to which the student has individual access. (Many students either live or work off campus.) * Central server(s) to provide e-mail and other communication and information services. * Training classes to help students use information technologies. * Maintenance for all of these technologies. * Personnel to provide help-desk support and management and technical support for labs and services. Exhibit 1 is a projection of the expenses associated with these services for the approximately 23,000 students at UNC- CH. Our $100 academic-year technology fee contributes substantially to paying these costs. [EXHIBIT I IS NOT AVAILABLE IN ASCII TEXT] Another purpose of the student technology fee is to provide technical support for special student services that otherwise would not be available, such as special advising services, job counseling and placement services, or student government services. For example, a very small portion of the fee at UNC-CH provides technical support to a student government publishing program. DISTRIBUTION OF THE FEE There are many possible ways to distribute and account for the proceeds of the fee. We (the office of the associate provost for information technology) distribute 40 percent of the proceeds to the University's various schools and colleges (the deans) each year. We do so after their plans for spending their share are submitted and reviewed by a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee for Information Technology--advisory to the associate provost. The review ensures that all investments fall within the categories outlined in Exhibit 1 and are consistent with the University's network plan, but the review does not pretend to make academic judgments. CONCLUSION It is arguable that public funding should provide for all student information technologies and services at public colleges and universities, but it is often a moot argument in these times of tight budgets. Students at public institutions can be persuaded by the "textbook approach" to support a technology fee in their own best interests, whether or not they perceive public funding as a more appropriate alternative. They understand the importance of information technologies and services to their education and their future. ************************************************************* William H. Graves is Associate Provost for Information Technology, Director of the Institute for Academic Technology, and Professor of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also chairs a planning committee for the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative under the aegis of Educom. ************************************************************* The Textbook Approach to Winning A Student Technology Fee 2PrefPRFS EPS PreviewMainMaiWord Work File D 1710TEXTMSTEXTMSWD«ú+BainMainMainMainMainMainMainPSWriteMainMainMain.XPrintýÿýûýûùúúùûüÿþûüúúúýýüüüüüýúüùùùûþúýüþþþþûüüüüüûûüýûûûûúýüüýûûüüûþ Jeff Hansen2®°¬ð2STR ¿ãÿÿ²cˆ