This article was published in CAUSE/EFFECT journal, Volume 21 Number 4 1998. The copyright is shared by EDUCAUSE and the author. See http://www.educause.edu/copyright for additional copyright information.
From the Editor
While the information technology staffing challenge is a major focus of this issue of CAUSE/EFFECT (see this issue's Special Section on the Information Technology Staff Crisis), a key solution to meeting that challenge--collaboration--is actually an underlying theme in two other articles that deal with very different issues.
Clifford Lynch provides an insightful and fundamental analysis of the issues surrounding the management of access to electronic resources, especially the authentication of individuals seeking that access. His article defines the problem, reviews some approaches that don't work, describes two emerging architectures for access management, identifies policy issues, and proposes some short-term solutions. While all of this is very valuable information, perhaps even more valuable is Lynch's recognition of the need for and advocacy of a critical collaboration that must take place--between librarians and information technologists--for effective and balanced solutions to be deployed. These professionals, who come from different perspectives on access management, must create a dialog now, Lynch says, to ensure that any solutions put forth are not narrowly focused but "honor the complete set of campus community requirements."
Collaboration is a necessary component, as well, in the development of what Carole Barone calls "a pedagogy that nurtures the learning process" among an increasingly diverse and distributed student body. The collaborators in this challenge include the faculty who bring their research and discipline expertise to the table along with information technologists, information specialists, and instructional systems designers, all of whom can help to "test the assumptions and expectations surrounding the transformational power of technology."
Barone's article focuses on the "mega" issues at the national level being addressed by the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII), an EDUCAUSE program working to develop systemic solutions for all of higher education. But a similar set of collaborators is forming on many individual campuses to address technology support challenges as faculty embrace the use of technology in teaching, learning, and course delivery. When our Readers Respond question asked about partnerships between information technologists and institutional faculty development/excellence programs on campus, we received so many responses that we weren't able to include them all in print. The full set of responses can be found online at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem/cem98/cem984e.html.
Not so different from our colleagues overseas
Over the past few years, we have heard from many U. S. colleges and universities about their reorganizations to support changing information technology needs, but we have less often had the opportunity to publish case studies from international colleagues. We are pleased to share an article in this issue about the reengineering of information services at Yuan Ze University in Taiwan, a project that brought about not only an integrated approach to the delivery of information services but also the integration of the university's computing and library organizations. YZU's experience is strikingly similar to those of American colleges and universities that have undertaken such consolidations, and their key lesson learned is also much the same-obstacles to the change process were not technological, but organizational.
Honoring outstanding work
EDUCAUSE annually recognizes excellence in campus network practices as well as best practices in applications, professional development, and services. This issue's campus profile section features Wake Forest University and Northwestern University, both of which received honorable mentions in the 1998 CAUSE Awards for Excellence in Campus Networking. (Winner Duke University was profiled earlier this year in Volume 21, Number 1, 1998.) The awards recognize not only outstanding network infrastructure, but also "well-planned, appropriately executed, and pervasive utilization of campus networking in support of the institution's mission."
Lisa Harcourt Black and her colleagues at the University of Virginia have received the 1998 CAUSE Award for Best Practices in Professional Development for their Computing Survival Skills program. Her Good Ideas article (page 49) describes this innovative program, which is helping U.Va. address the ongoing technology training needs of departmental staff throughout the university.
Indiana University's Expanded Grade Context Record system received the 1998 CAUSE Award for Best Practices in Applications. Mark McConahay and Roland Cot� have described this innovative application in their Good Ideas article. The system generates a student record that includes elements from a traditional transcript as well as other elements that place the grade into a broader context (for example, grade distribution, class GPA, percent of majors in the class).
Last, but certainly not least, congratulations are in order for Martin Ringle and Daniel Updegrove for winning the 1998 CAUSE/EFFECT Contribution of the Year Award for their article "Is Strategic Planning for Information Technology an Oxymoron?" which appeared in Volume 21, Number 1, 1998 (see http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem/cem98/cem9814.html).
Julia A. Rudy, CAUSE/EFFECT Editor