2015 Top 10 IT Issues Resources

The items below have been selected to provide further information on the 2015 top 10 IT issues. These resources may include articles, conference presentation materials, blogs, feeds, webinar archives, and podcasts that you can access by browsing and searching particular issues and topics in the EDUCAUSE Library.

  1. Hiring and retaining qualified staff, and updating the knowledge and skills of existing technology staff
  2. Optimizing the use of technology in teaching and learning in collaboration with academic leadership, including understanding the appropriate level of technology to use
  3. Developing IT funding models that sustain core service, support innovation, and facilitate growth
  4. Improving student outcomes through an institutional approach that strategically leverages technology
  5. Demonstrating the business value of IT and how IT can help the institution achieve its goals
  6. Increasing the IT organization's capacity for managing change, despite differing community needs, priorities, and abilities
  7. Providing user support in the new normal—mobile, online education, cloud, and BYOD environment
  8. Developing security policies for mobile, cloud, and digital resources that work for most of the institutional community
  9. Developing an enterprise IT architecture that can respond to changing conditions and new opportunities
  10. Balancing agility, openness, and security

 

 1. Hiring and retaining qualified staff, and updating the knowledge and skills of existing technology staff

  • Retaining Your IT Staff: Insights from the ECAR Workforce Study for Higher Education CIOs and IT Managers, August 14, 2014. This research bulletin uses data from ECAR’s study on the higher education IT workforce to provide CIOs and managers with an understanding of the demographic makeup of today’s higher education IT staff; the professional activities and skills staff consider important to their success; factors that underlie staff retention; and recommendations for creating a better work environment, increasing staff motivation, and facilitating staff retention.
  • Today’s Higher Education IT Workforce, January 2014. This ECAR research incorporates results from a comprehensive survey on more than 2,000 IT professionals as well as focus groups to provide a description of the current state of today’s IT workforce, how it has changed in the past three years, and what changes may need to be implemented to retain and strengthen IT staff.
  • The 4Rs of Metric System Design, EDUCAUSE Review, September 2013. The four rights (4Rs) approach focuses on measuring the right things in the right way and taking the right actions at the right time.
  • 2013 CDS Executive Summary Report, February 2014. These annual reports summarize results from the annual EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) survey, which provide a detailed look at the most pertinent and interesting IT financial and staffing findings, with a high-level summary of the state of IT services.
  • IT Career Development of the Future, EDUCAUSE Review, May/June 2013. As colleges and universities move away from directly supporting services to outsourcing services, and as legacy technology skills fade, the author asks, what new opportunities will emerge? How do we build staff members' skills to make that transition and encourage self-development?
  • 7 Things You Should Know About ITIL, EDUCAUSE 7 Things brief, October 2010. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework for guiding the design and delivery of IT services.  

 

2. Optimizing the use of technology in teaching and learning in collaboration with academic leadership, including understanding the appropriate level of technology to use

  • ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2014, October 2014. Technology is embedded into students' lives, and students are generally inclined to use and to have favorable attitudes toward technology. However, technology has only a moderate influence on students' active involvement in particular courses or as a connector with other students and faculty.
  • Study of Faculty and Information Technology, 2014, August 2014. ECAR subscription required. The findings of this research into the faculty community reinforce the promise of technology for the academic community. The faculty see technology as a valuable tool in traditional classroom settings, in research labs, and across digital environments, reshaping delivery systems, instructional models, and expectations. They are motivated to use technology more effectively—most say they are open to professional  development to improve their knowledge about available technologies and, more importantly, about how to better integrate technology into their professional roles.
  • Layered Approaches to Educational Technology, EDUCAUSE Review online, September 2014. This case study provides a glimpse of the layered approaches to university-wide educational technology training and course development (including online and blended course development) instituted at Western Washington University.
  • Designing the Wheel: Built-in Instructional Technology, EDUCAUSE Review, September 2013. Many universities struggle to provide faculty with the support they need to incorporate sound use of instructional technologies in their courses, the Purdue University IMPACT program seeks to strengthen faculty knowledge in this area.
  • Engaging Faculty as Catalysts for Change: A Roadmap for Transforming Higher Education, EDUCAUSE Review, February 2013. The Faculty Fellowship Program at the University of Minnesota aims to implement effectively the thoughtful and innovative application of educational technologies.

 

3. Developing IT funding models that sustain core service, support innovation, and facilitate growth

4. Improving student outcomes through an institutional approach that strategically leverages technology

 

5.Demonstrating the business value of IT and how IT can help the institution achieve its goals

 

6.Increasing the IT organization's capacity for managing change, despite differing community needs, priorities, and abilities

 

  • The New Leadership Challenge, EDUCAUSE Review Online, December 2014. Today's IT leaders need a different set of skills than their predecessors to thrive in an era of commoditized and democratized technology. Collaboration, innovation, and strategic alignment with institutional goals are essential to their own success — and that of their institutions — particularly in a time of profound budgetary challenges.
  • The Unified IT Service Catalog: Your One-Stop Shop, EDUCAUSE Review Online, August 11, 2014. As IT becomes more pervasive in all aspects of higher education, IT's customers need a user-friendly way of learning about and requesting IT services.
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7.Providing user support in the new normal--mobile, online education, cloud, and BYOD environment

 

8. Developing security policies for mobile, cloud and digital resources that work for most of the institutional community

  • Cloud Strategy for Higher Education: Building a Common Solution, ECAR Bulletin, November 2014. This document presents a “cloud first” strategy for higher education IT that moves from a traditional data center model to one centered on the public cloud and cloud-based services.
  • Navigating the Clouds with an Enterprise IT Strategy, EDUCAUSE Review Online, December 6, 2013. Furman University, which is pursuing an aggressive move to cloud services, shares models of cloud services as well as the risks, opportunities, and ways other campuses can benefit from and plan for using cloud services successfully.
  • 7 Things You Should Know About Mobile Security, March 2011, An EDUCAUSE summary of the ways in which mobile computing amplifies some existing security concerns and introduces new ones, including issues surrounding user privacy.

 

9. Developing an enterprise IT architecture that can respond to changing conditions and new opportunities

  • IT Infrastructure Projects: A Framework for Analysis, ECAR bulletin, July 2014. This research bulletin develops a framework that can be used by IT management to assess the need for IT infrastructure projects, to analyze the issues and risks in implementing and maintaining IT infrastructure, and to engage other university officials in better understanding the impact of IT infrastructure projects.
  • The NACUBO/EDUCAUSE Working Group on Administrative Services and Systems, February 20, 2014. NACUBO and EDUCAUSE convened a joint working group to explore how best to maximize the cost-effectiveness of administrative services and systems. Over the course of the group’s work from September to December 2013, members determined that the value of administrative services and systems making. derives from the degree to which they improve operations (e.g., quality, speed, cost), legal and regulatory compliance, and decision.
  • Higher Education's Top-Ten Strategic Technologies in 2014, February 2014. The EDUCAUSE definition of a strategic technology is based on the time, active attention, and priority a technology has at a given time. Mature, fully deployed technologies may be among the most mission-critical technologies, but they are more likely to be receiving operational than strategic attention.
  • The Future of Administrative IT, EDUCAUSE Brief. December 2013. This executive briefing summarizes a panel’s findings and recommendations on the prospect of schools having to replace multimillion-dollar enterprise systems.   
  • Enterprise Application Projects in Higher Education, ECAR Research Study, August 2013. This ECAR study represents an initiative by EDUCAUSE to begin addressing some of those gaps in our knowledge. What emerges is a blend of incremental change in some areas and rapid shifts in others, with some common lessons across all, and perhaps the first systematic collection of cost data across system areas and institutional classifications.
  • Is Our Software Designed for Change? Successes and Challenges in Using Service Oriented Architecture, ECAR Research Bulletin, March 2013. In 2012, to find out how institutions are using SOA to prepare for changing software needs, members of the EDUCAUSE Enterprise, Business, and Technical Architects (ITANA) constituent group conducted a survey, receiving responses from 27 institutions. This research bulletin discusses the survey results and implications for higher education, for institutions, and for IT organizations.
  • Building a Modern Computing Infrastructure at Princeton University, EDUCAUSE Review, May 2013. Over the past 10 years Princeton University developed and implemented an institutional strategy to support research and administrative computing.   

10. Balancing agility, openness, and security