CAUSE/EFFECT

Copyright 1998 EDUCAUSE. From CAUSE/EFFECT Volume 21, Number 2, 1998, pp. 3-5, 7. 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 EDUCAUSE copyright and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of EDUCAUSE. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact Jim Roche at EDUCAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: [email protected]

Charting a Course
by Brian L. Hawkins

On July 1, EDUCAUSE was officially launched, creating a single organization to represent the community of professionals interested in the management of information resources in higher education. It was born of the union between Educom and CAUSE, two highly respected and important professional associations which bring more than sixty years of combined service to the information technology community. The new organization was formed with the intention of

Over the past decade, virtually all of our campuses have experienced budget reductions, right-sizing, the elimination of duplicated efforts, attempts to create more leveraged resources, and efforts to create the greatest efficiencies possible. As higher education experiences unprecedented pressure for efficiency and accountability, our professional associations should not be exempt from similar efforts. While these pressures for efficiency were part of the rationale for the consolidation, equally important was the desire to leverage and strengthen the programs, advocacy, and single vision of a unified organization. I personally am humbled by the responsibility with which I have been charged to meet this challenge: capturing the opportunities and potential synergies that are before us is both exciting and daunting. In a period of unprecedented change in higher education, of extraordinary technological advances, and with unprecedented and insatiable expectations and demands of faculty, staff, and students on our campuses, the need to serve professionals in the broad area of information resource management has never been more important. In an attempt to meet some of those needs, a number of initial program directions have been identified.

Mission Statement

EDUCAUSE will continue an emphasis on professional development. Professional development will be an integral part of EDUCAUSE, and will offer members a variety of opportunities. Already plans are being discussed to enhance the set of offerings available in an institute format, but perhaps more importantly a variety of network-based alternatives are being explored. We have a special obligation to provide our membership with current, relevant, and accessible educational offerings, to foster transformational thinking, and to facilitate professional relationships. As an organization charged with fostering the campus use of new technologies, we are mindful of the implicit obligation to lead by example. We will be exploring and developing ways to support our members� professional development using a variety of approaches, from traditional to experimental.

EDUCAUSE will play an active role in the advocacy of key policy issues that affect IT professionals and higher education in general. A key role for EDUCAUSE will be to educate and influence leaders beyond the higher education community, including those in corporate and government sectors, who have a stake in the information resources transformation that is affecting our campuses. Legislatures at the federal and state levels will continue to develop policies that will affect the use of information technologies at all institutions, public and private. The impact of policy developments will be felt as well at the international level. EDUCAUSE will not only give members a voice with respect to decisions being made, but will keep members well informed on these issues, assisting them and their campuses in addressing these issues in a meaningful and appropriate fashion. To achieve these goals, EDUCAUSE will seek opportunities to collaborate with other organizations as well as act independently in serving an advocacy role, influencing these external constituencies. The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)--a significant collaboration between EDUCAUSE and the Association of Research Libraries--will continue its outstanding catalytic role in addressing networked information policy issues.

EDUCAUSE will keep members informed about IT developments that may affect their campuses. Our members who plan for, manage, and use information resources--information, technology, and services--are challenged to fully leverage the significant investment their campuses have made in them, supporting the growing information needs of staff, faculty, and students while positioning their institutions for the future. EDUCAUSE must keep these members informed of the innovations, structures, and strategies that will allow greater institutional effectiveness and efficiency. The association also needs to provide a forum for dialog between campus information resources managers and campus leaders at all levels, including presidents, provosts, and administrators. EDUCAUSE publications must have a strategy to assist not only the audience of IT professionals but also this broader academic community in understanding the challenges, tradeoffs, and opportunities that new technologies and services can afford a campus. To partially fulfill this need, EDUCAUSE has edited three books that will soon be in production, on IT and the new competition in higher education, on assessing the impact of IT on the campus and planning for the future, and on using technology to renew campus administration. These will be complemented by a monograph series that will deliver information on important and timely topics, including higher education IT policy issues. Finally, we will continue to use and expand the EDUCAUSE Web site as a primary communication/collaboration vehicle for sharing information through online publications and other information services.

EDUCAUSE will facilitate technology transfer through its programs and publications. Recognizing that our members represent a cross-section of the higher education information technology community, EDUCAUSE will make a special effort to meet the needs of the full spectrum of institutions in this organization. By tapping the resources of the institutions that represent the cutting edge of information technology and encouraging their involvement and leadership, we can ensure that the information and knowledge gathered from their experiences is passed along to all members. While such initiatives as the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) and the Networking and Telecommunications Task Force (NTTF) have historically been important to at least the small group of schools participating in them, EDUCAUSE must work hard to ensure that the developments and advances made in these leading edge efforts are translated and made pertinent to the entire membership of the association.

A recent NSF grant has been obtained by the Net@EDU organization (the merged NTTF and FARNET organizations). The grant will allow EDUCAUSE to hold a workshop and to develop follow-up strategies related to transferring the advances developed by Internet2 to community colleges, comprehensive colleges, state agencies, etc. This is all very much in line with the technology strategy that EDUCAUSE has defined for itself, and more of this will be seen in the future. The results of these efforts will then be shared through various EDUCAUSE conferences, publications, and Web information services.

EDUCAUSE will actively engage in projects and dialogs that encourage the appropriate use of technology in teaching and learning. NLII will continue to be an important forum for identifying and working on key issues that affect the meaningful and widespread usage of customized learning environments for students in today�s world. Already the important standards defined by the Instructional Management Systems (IMS) project have made a major impact, and EDUCAUSE will work diligently in ensuring that this and other efforts will continue to support the NLII mission to harness the power of information technology to improve the quality of teaching and learning, contain or reduce costs, and provide greater access. Early EDUCAUSE efforts will focus on measures to attain deeper penetration of the NLII message within and across institutions of higher education. EDUCAUSE will link the NLII to other EDUCAUSE programs, including professional development and Net@EDU, to raise the awareness of information technology professionals and higher education leaders about the new types of support services required to attain the NLII goals. The teaching and learning thread will be woven throughout the EDUCAUSE agenda.

EDUCAUSE will make information and data available to members to provide the basis for assessment and comparison of institutional practices. The CAUSE Institution Database survey and service is being revamped. Revitalizing this research program to capture and provide ready access to the information and data that members need to more effectively manage and plan for information resources is an important challenge for EDUCAUSE. Identification of the most pressing IT issues, and timely capture of and reporting on strategies and practices for addressing these issues, are key goals of the association�s research and development efforts. An important strategy will be to leverage the EDUCAUSE Web site to provide improved information services based on this restructured program.

EDUCAUSE will continue to foster professional interaction through conferences and focused meetings. Regional, national, and international conferences will continue to give information technology personnel from all disciplines the chance to share their knowledge, network with their peers, and interact directly with industry representatives. In the fall of 1999 there will be a single, comprehensive conference. The challenge we face together is to make that conference experience meaningful and personally rewarding to participants, even though it will be a large and complex event. Our plan is to create a variety of conferences within that conference--a smorgasbord of choices--to identify a variety of internal communities with whom attendees can connect. We will also offer a variety of smaller conferences throughout the year in different geographic locations to further serve our diverse communities. Important to this goal is the continued affiliation with EDUCAUSE of a number of very successful events, including the Snowmass Seminars on Academic Computing (SAC), the CUMREC annual conference, and the annual conference of the New England Regional Computing Program (NERCOMP).

Looking back and looking forward

EDUCAUSE has a proud past, but its two parents had different missions, different cultures, and different foci. We are working hard to ensure that the best of these two heritages is preserved, while recognizing that the new entity needs to be more than the sum of its parts. We still have lots to sort out in consolidating these two organizations into one, but the values of the two parent organizations have guided the thinking as to where we are going and how we will get there. All of this process is a bit ambiguous at the moment, but then so are the worlds of technology and higher education. Perhaps that is one reason we are so pleased with the new logo for EDUCAUSE.

What precisely does the �e� stand for? Is it EDUCAUSE? electronic? education? How about all of the above? The ambiguity of both the logo and, more importantly, the issues we encounter on a daily basis as professionals in the management of information technology, is a mainstay of the new reality. Our challenge is to work together to effectively address this professional challenge through our services and programs.

While the launch is now over, the navigation as to where the EDUCAUSE organization will cruise is still to be determined. The crew has now largely been defined, but the role of navigator has not and will not be filled by a single individual. This is a role shared by the EDUCAUSE staff, the board, our member committees, and most of all the members of this organization ... you!

In the months ahead we will be listening. We are planning a detailed survey of the readership of the Educom Review and of CAUSE/EFFECT this fall, trying to better understand how the membership can be served through the EDUCAUSE print and electronic publications. EDUCAUSE will continue the CAUSE tradition of having an active set of member committees who will be important in advising the management of our association. We look forward to the excellent advice we expect to receive from the EDUCAUSE�99 Program Committee. We will welcome your thoughts, as well, as we conduct a series of focus groups at EDUCOM�98 and CAUSE98 this fall about what you want to see in the EDUCAUSE�99 program. And, of course, your general feedback is always welcome. We invite you to send comments through any member of the staff or through the member committees, all of which are identified on the Web. You can also share your thoughts via e-mail or the Web, at [email protected] or http://www.educause.edu/asp/general/comments.asp?org=educause.

We have set out on a voyage together, but the final destination has not been fully determined. It is up to all of us to chart the course. I look forward to the opportunity of sailing together.

Brian L. Hawkins ([email protected]) became president of EDUCAUSE on July 1, 1998.

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