8:30 am - I pull up to the University parking lot. What's that I see? Security cameras? I guess these are to help decrease the vandalism and to ensure better safety on campus. It's interesting how technology creeps into our lives whether we buy into it or not.
8:35 am - I slide in my key card to open the office door and punch in a code. No more fumbling for keys. All there is to know about me I carry around on this smart card. I can even use it to buy food in the cafeteria, take out library books, run the copier machine and make long distance phone calls. Very shortly all my health information will be placed on the card as well! No one will be able to hide anything from computers. It's a brave new world out there and universities are being caught up in the maelstrom.
8:40 am - I run past the new coffee machine. Let me see, what buttons shall I push this morning? Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, hot water, decaf, Colombian, big cup, small cup? Choices, choices - isn't technology amazing?
8:45 am - I sit down at my desk and open my e-mail. The electronic bulletin board greets me. The thought for the day: "Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way" appears on the screen. As a director working within a medium-to-large-size multi-university undergoing a transformation process, I find these words scary since any of three demands can be experienced within one day when one is dealing with technology.
I muse to myself - pressure is mounting from all quarters to transform universities. Industrial age thinking and operating still abound but the world is changing more rapidly than many care to believe. Information is a key player in these changes and that's the traditional business of universities. To create, maintain and disseminate information has been the purview of universities for centuries. But now, information is everywhere and many more have access to it. Some have found even better sources than the professors themselves, challenging the value of the traditional lecture.
The call for change is loud and clear. This can been seen in the demands students are placing on their universities for more accessible, accountable and customer-driven services. Students are showing up at our door expecting nothing less than easy and rapid access to a host of information sources including the WWW. As a result, many of the units on campus are churning away, trying to use the technology to achieve better, faster, cheaper and greener solutions to these rising demands.
So what does that mean to a change agent sitting there, alone against the world, hoping to manage and facilitate transformation across the campus and to bring people within the institution quickly along the path to technological salvation? Fear strikes . . . the stakes are high. The pressures mount as the day begins. Lead, follow, or get out of the way . . . throw the dice. Will it be success or failure today?
8:50 am - I open up an e-mail note from the library. A plea for help appears from our librarians who are working on the development of virtual libraries to stem the spiraling costs of journals and books. This a major initiative of all the universities in Western Canada. We are all facing the same problems. What can I do to assist? Maybe technology can help.
8:55 am - Another e-mail message: The Student Centre on campus is sending out a call for assistance to anyone interested in helping them develop an electronic job search tool to put students together with their first job. Sounds like the classifieds gone '90s. An interesting concept. Students will welcome any new method to help them find work. Will a virtual employment center create a backlash from those currently working at the Employment Centre to carry out this job in person? Tough choices will have to be made. Where will I stand?
9:00 am - I open a package delivered to my office. It's a new CD-ROM put out by our public affairs people who are reaching out to impress prospective students. It's an electronic view book. Exciting.
9:05 am - I pop the CD-ROM into my CD player attached to my Mac. Yes! It runs on both platforms. Impressive. I hate to think of the number of times we have forgotten our Mac friends as we rush to develop new applications on campus. I shudder to think about the number of times our computing services people have failed to recognize and support us renegades who don't conform to the university standard. I always thought that change agents were to be creative and to eschew the status quo. What frustration! That's one battle that I will continue to lead.
9:10 am - The telephone rings. Up pops the number of our media department on the electronic display. They ask me to check out new developments on our home page. University and college home pages on the Web are proliferating like mushrooms with bigger and better graphics explaining every detail about campus life. We must compete for students by putting our best virtual foot forward and displaying information in the most effective and friendly way possible. Where would we be without Java, Shockwave, Authorware and QuickTime? On the other hand, I worry about the costs and training to keep up with the never-ending improvements and upgrades. The demands are high . . . the funds are low.
9:15 am - I open an e-mail message from the university president. How interesting! We are all being invited to attend a debate about the creation and delivery of online courses and the new forms of distributed education. Many are caught up in the possibilities these new changes will bring. Some don't even know that this is happening. In certain circles, debates are raging about whether core competencies can be learned, and educational goals met, through new methods of electronic course delivery. I worry too.
I fire back a note to the president letting him know that I will be there. It's great having instant access to the Presidential Office. I remember the time when one had to wait days for access and even longer for a reply. Now I can get in there at the speed of light, get a decision, and get on with my job, but beware, there is no chance for sober second thoughts. Bad decisions, now capable of happening at the speed of light, are still bad decisions.
9:30 am - Several deans have responded to my e-mail about a faculty database, to aid in the evaluation and merit process. Whoops - I see some problems emerging here.
I realize that there are several classes of deans out there. There are the haves - those who are fairly convinced that technology is helping us evolve in academe and who are comfortable with computers and what they can do to assist in their work.
There are also the have-nots. These can range anywhere from those departments that do not have enough money to buy the basics or those who want to keep up with the latest or the sophisticated demands of their students and cannot because of budget constraints.
We are also blessed with the want-nots. This group does not want to have anything to do with technology. Many do not own, nor do they wish to own a computer and are extremely skeptical of its value. They are perfectly happy to continue, with chalk in hand, to do things the way in which they have always been done and will defend this way of life with their dying breath.
Tensions abound . . . no one ever said transformation was going to be easy. So much to win . . . so easy to lose.
With that dose of reality under my belt I ran off to my first face-to-face meeting of the day.
10:00 am - I am greeted by bleary-eyed technicians pouring out of the room jubilant and relieved that the demo scheduled for that day will finally work. Two months of harried preparation is finally culminating in a six-way, live conference delivered through a broadband multimedia communications link called Canarie. We're treated to an hour of online discussion about this new way to communicate. Don't try this without the aid of an expert, we're warned. But, not to worry! This high-powered demo with cameras and equipment galore will soon be as easy as a click of the mouse on the WWW. This stuff will be on the Web within six months. Did I hear someone trying to sell a bridge?! The Web will be able to do full motion video, real-time live conferences, remote visualization, distance telecoaching, telemedicine and so on and so on. Promises, promises, but think of where we were 12 months ago - could it happen? I think I will follow on this one.
After an hour we run out of things to say and I come away from the meeting with a sense that wiring us all together may be the first step, but we sure haven't spent a lot of time working on what it is we want to say to one another. . . . So many questions about the role of curriculum in this age of information. Can we deliver and support what students have come to expect from a university education?
If all the costly technical work is to bear fruit, it will be up to the faculty and curriculum specialists to develop the content through their research and scholarship activities. Will there be curriculum specialists any longer with the multitude of information sources now available? Will faculty's new role be to validate what is out there rather than disseminate information? So many questions, so little time.
11:30 am - On the run to visit our Faculty of Nursing. I am treated to a demo of an online senior year nursing course delivered entirely over the Web. Impressive! Six students have completed the course this term. It's available in September for anyone who logs on and applies to become an unclassified student at our university. I innocently ask if they had contacted the registrar's office to let him know that there was a possibility of some additional students for the fall. How many? Could be as many as 10,000, maybe more, I was told. Holy systems! We are not prepared for this. The registrar will faint. He will have to think more about mindspace and less about buttspace . . . .
I will have to tell the finance people about the possibilities of additional revenue, and the challenges of collecting money over the Web. Our institutional analysts will have to keep our databases from exploding. What a challenge! What an opportunity! What a change! I think I will get out of the way on this one and let our VP of finance wrangle with this brave new world.
12:00 pm - The six nursing graduates speak about the quality of the learning experience and communications. All agree. Two-way interaction with the instructor, any time of the day or night, and the ability to chat with the other students developed a sense of community among the class; possibly an even greater sense of support than from traditional on-campus classes. Okay. Now I have some ammunition when the want-nots claim this form of teaching is the death of all we hold dear.
1:00 pm - Lunch . . . a nuked pizza and quick online conference with some colleagues in the U.K. They are showing me some work they have completed on a virtual study or den. It's set up to look like a study or den in your home. You want to chat? Simply click on the picture of the person on your bulletin board, drop them into the chair, put yourself in the other chair and begin! You want to find or store a report? Click on a bookshelf or cabinet lining the wall. Nice to have friends on the cutting edge . . . maybe even over the edge. Is it useful? Who knows?
2:00 pm - Off I fly to my meeting with the editor of our calendar/catalogue. By this time the idea of virtual meetings is starting to sound like something I need to promote more openly. What pressures . . . what exhilaration!
The problem we face today is how to get the 700-page paper catalogue to shrink. No problem, I'm told, we'll put it onto CD-ROM and hot link it to our home page on the Web. Get the best of both worlds. The video, music, graphics, interactive maps, audio and video interviews, even the welcome from the president will be on the CD as a front end. Then it will hot link to the course descriptions and program information on the Web. The material will remain current and we won't have to wait a year to update and reprint like we do in our paper version. Allow the students to register online. Cut down the need for so many paper versions. Save trees and money too! A win-win situation for all. I need all the successes I can get. This is a parade I will choose to lead.
3:00 pm - Another meeting with the Technology Task Force. Strategies, policies and actions are needed . . . urgently . . . to make sure that there is sufficient access to technology and learning materials on electronic media to support the primary function of the university. We must find support for faculty who integrate technology into learning. Okay, great goals, but from where do we divert the funds? This is becoming a common theme. Got to make it happen, though. This is the key component of change. Without this support, transformation will never work. Tough sledding ahead.
Next agenda item . . . our Survey of Computer Usage reports that there is dissatisfaction with our dial-up services. Students, staff and faculty are finding it difficult to get connected from off-campus. Solution - we add 649 lines by the year 2001. That's the next century! I can see the need for major begging before the budget committee. Nose to the grindstone, prepare the case now, before it's too late.
4:00 pm - Back to my office. Mailing waiting . . . mail waiting . . . flashes across my screen. Another mountain of e-mail faces me. No time to reflect. It's relentless. Instant access demands instant replies. No time to muse and mull. Long after I leave the office for home, mail continues to pile up, technology marches on at a pace that is not for the faint of heart. What will I discover tomorrow? How can I help others to understand the rapidity of change? How can I make a difference? Lead, follow, or get out of the way? Success or failure? These are the challenges for the modern day change agent. It's time to go home and read a book.
Barbara Samuels is director of planning at the University of Calgary and a member of the knowledge@work project. bsamuels@acs.ucalgary.ca