This article was published in CAUSE/EFFECT journal, Volume 22 Number 2 1999. Copyright EDUCAUSE. See http://www.educause.edu/copyright for additional copyright information.
From the Editor
More than a decade has passed since visionary educators and information technology (IT) leaders began to talk and write about the transformation that would take place in higher education through the expanded use of technology. What were in those early days considered radical scenarios seem far less revolutionary today as many colleges and universities strongly encourage faculty use of technology to enhance teaching and learning and explore the feasibility of developing or expanding distance learning programs.
Several challenges related to such transformation include:
(1) What are the implications of a transformed higher education delivery system for data systems and their administration?
(2) How can a college or university best support faculty in the process of rethinking courses and curricula to unleash the potential for technology to enhance learning?
(3) How can a campus planning process ensure that an increase in information technology investment is congruent with its institutional mission and vision and not a goal in and of itself?
The third challenge raises the related need to make sound judgments about investing in or experimenting with emerging technologies: how to separate the reality from the hype and determine the optimum time to embrace a revolutionary technology.
This quarter�s Current Issues articles address the first challenge. An executive summary of a report published by the National Center for Education Statistics explores the impact of technology on data definition and analytical conventions in a number of areas, from new institutional and programmatic configurations to the analysis of student participation patterns and revenue and expenditure streams. A second article discusses the need for information systems developers, records managers, librarians, and archivists to understand the importance of collaborating in the academic environment, where automated information systems often must also perform the functions of record-keeping systems, making the challenge of long-term access to such records an increasing concern.
Author Dorothy Frayer, associate academic vice president at Duquesne University, explores the second challenge through the presentation of four strategies employed by her university to foster a campus climate where faculty increasingly embrace the potential of technological tools to enable fundamental pedagogical changes. Through an effective collaboration between the university�s computer center and its faculty development center, which Frayer oversees, more than a dozen specific activities and approaches (described in the article) have been initiated over the past nine years. The secret to the success of Duquesne�s program is its focus on "teaching, learning, and scholarship, with technology being seen as a means of enhancing the accomplishment of these fundamental university goals, not an end in itself."
In his article about planning for information technology in the academy, Paul Kobulnicky elaborates on a similar theme -- ensuring that an increased adoption of information technology is a "strategy towards a larger institutional vision and not an objective in and of itself." He discusses the need for colleges and universities to plan for IT within an institution-wide academic planning process that is responsive to the challenges of leadership, sustainable funding, productivity, and faculty motivation. Kobulnicky concludes that the IT plans most likely to succeed are those that emerge from processes that help faculty to recognize how their programs can be strengthened through IT investments and how those investments can leverage their own time and effort.
Finally, if your campus has been wrestling with the decision of whether or when to implement IP (Internet protocol) telephony, Scott Street�s article and accompanying commentaries are a must read. His analysis of the pros and cons of adopting Voice over IP technology is not only thoughtful and thorough, it is highly entertaining. While agreeing with much of Street�s assessment, Dale Smith and Dave Barta point out in their commentary some very good applications of this new technology that can be employed today, and EDUCAUSE policy analyst Jim Williams makes a clever case for what he calls "Plain Old Internet Telephony."
Julia A. Rudy, Editor