From the Editor

Copyright 1996 CAUSE. From CAUSE/EFFECT Volume 19, Number 2, Summer 1996, p. 2. 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: [email protected]

From the Editor

At its spring meeting, the CAUSE Board of Directors identified an emerging challenge for the information resources management profession: now that our campus communities have discovered and embraced the enabling capabilities of networked information technology, how can we meet the escalating demand for related support services?

Crisis in support

This challenge is directly reflected in two of the nine issues articulated by the CAUSE Current Issues Committee for pursuit in the coming year -- support for distributed computing and expectations rising faster than budgets. The latter issue, in particular, is prompting an examination of the prevailing institutional strategies for managing investments in information resources -- especially information technology. In an article published in the Spring CAUSE/EFFECT, author John Oberlin laid the groundwork for challenging what he calls the "financial mythology of information technology." In this journal issue, he proposes an entirely new game plan -- reforming conventional wisdom, abandoning legacy-based technical and economic assumptions, doing the right financial analysis, and developing new financial strategies.

But small colleges can't possibly afford the levels of investments in technology that Oberlin suggests are becoming common in top research universities, can they? Does this mean they can't be technology leaders? David Smallen and Martin Ringle, from liberal arts colleges known for their effective management of information resources, examine numerous areas in which small colleges can and do provide technology leadership. In some of these -- such as curricular applications, institutional efficiency, organizational innovation, and holistic planning -- their small size and structural simplicity are a great advantage, and in these areas they often can provide effective models for their colleagues at larger institutions.

At Central Michigan University, the crisis precipitated by rapid technological growth and consequent support demands was addressed through significant changes in the central technology organization. Through a strategic planning effort, CMU has implemented a matrix governance structure that authors Keith Nelson and Richard Davenport say "acknowledges the value of both distributed support and a strong central organization." The resulting Technology Planning Board is working toward establishing technology priorities and achieving the best return on technology investments, while the matrix organization is providing improved support services by coordinating the efforts of local and central service providers.

New roles for CIOs

A recurrent theme running through articles in this issue is the need for strategic leadership for information resources at the institutional level to ensure that investments in information, technology, and services are aligned with the institution's plans, creating "value chains" where they are most needed. Partnering with appropriate campus administrators and advisory bodies, chief information officers will also need to ensure that information policies are established and necessary support structures are in place to achieve widespread integration of technology in teaching and learning. The agenda for the CAUSE CIO constituent group meeting at CAUSE96 in San Francisco should be very full!

Business process change

Even as colleges and universities are searching for ways to afford perpetual investments in information resources, they continue to look for ways that technology can help them achieve efficiencies, especially in supporting restructured business processes. Two articles in this issue bear witness to the enabling capability of network technologies to streamline such processes.

Elazar Harel and Greg Partipilo share their experience in implementing an innovative system at UCLA that has eliminated all pre-approval processes and decentralized access controls. Their article (based on a paper that was a winner in the 1995 Society for Information Management Paper Award Competition) describes the "significant cost savings, faster turnarounds, dramatic cultural changes, and improved employee productivity" that have resulted from their reengineered post-audit process.

Similarly, according to author George Pipkin, a strategy at the University of Virginia to use electronic forms to downsize its data entry operation has led to the development of a prototype of an electronic forms system based on World Wide Web technology. Especially attractive about the system is its use of client software that is rapidly becoming a standard presence on every networked desktop computer.

As information systems and services continue to migrate to a network-centric environment, we can expect security issues to gain in prominence. See this issue's Readers Respond department to find out what some of your colleagues are already doing today to authenticate access.

Julia A. Rudy, Editor

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