2018 Top 10 IT Issues Recommended Resources
The items below have been selected to provide further information on the 2018 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.
- Information security: Developing a risk-based security strategy that keeps pace with security threats and challenges
- Student success: Managing the system implementations and integrations that support multiple student success initiatives
- Institution-wide IT strategy: Repositioning or reinforcing the role of IT leadership as an integral strategic partner of institutional leadership in achieving institutional missions
- Data-enabled institutional culture: Using BI and analytics to inform the broad conversation and answer big questions
- Student-centered institution: Understanding and advancing technology's role in defining the student experience on campus (from applicants to alumni)
- Higher education affordability: Balancing and rightsizing IT priorities and budget to support IT-enabled institutional efficiencies and innovations in the context of institutional funding realities
- IT staffing and organizational models: Ensuring adequate staffing capacity and staff retention in the face of retirements, new sourcing models, growing external competition, rising salaries, and the demands of technology initiatives on both IT and non-IT staff
- (tie) Digital integrations: Ensuring system interoperability, scalability, and extensibility, as well as data integrity, standards, and governance, across multiple applications and platforms
- (tie) Data management and governance: Implementing effective institutional data governance practices
- Change leadership: Helping institutional constituents (including the IT staff) adapt to the increasing pace of technology change
1. Information security: Developing a risk-based security strategy that keeps pace with security threats and challenges
- Cybersecurity Program. The Cybersecurity Program supports higher education institutions as they improve information security governance, compliance, data protection, and privacy programs.
- Information Security Guide: Effective Practices and Solutions for Higher Education is a compendium of information providing guidance on effective approaches to the application of information security at institutions of higher education.
- Information Security Program Assessment Tool. Updated September 2017. This self-assessment tool was created to evaluate the maturity of higher education information security programs using as a framework the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27002:2013, "Information Technology Security Techniques. Code of Practice for Information Security Management."
- Higher Education Cloud Vendor Assessment Tool. Updated October 2017. This tool was created to evaluate the security of third-party vendor and cloud solutions. It helps higher education institutions ensure that cloud services are appropriately assessed for security and privacy needs, including some that are unique to higher education.
- IT Risk Register. This register was created to help institutional IT departments get their strategic IT risk management programs off the ground.
- NIST SP 800-171 Compliance Template. September 2016. This compliance template will help institutions map the NIST SP 800-171 requirements to other common security standards used in higher education and provides suggested responses to controls listed in NIST SP 800-171.
- 2017 Information Security Almanac This two-page, easy-to-scan almanac shares the most important EDUCAUSE data regarding the state of information security in higher education.
- The Third Time's the Charm? Information Security at the Top of the List Again? EDUCAUSE Review, January 2018. Leaders of the Higher Education Information Security Council share their thoughts on information security as a top IT issue.
- Cyber Liability Insurance FAQ. October 2017. This resource is designed to assist organizations that are considering purchasing cyber liability insurance.
- 2017 Trends and Technologies: Security, Identity, Privacy and GRC. April 2017. This report covers the 20 technologies and 9 trends included in the security, identity, privacy, and GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) domain in the 2017 Strategic Technologies research.
- Digital Capabilities in Higher Education, 2016: Information Security. November 2017. Maturity indices measure the capability to deliver IT services and applications in a given area. Deployment indices measure stages of deployment for specific technologies and services, which are aggregated to track progress by area.
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2. Student success: Managing the system implementations and integrations that support multiple student success initiatives
- Redesigning Austin Community College: Transformation Through Integrated Technology. EDUCAUSE Review, October 2017. In 2011, funding from an Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) grant allowed Austin Community College to begin the work needed to revamp and improve the student experience. This article describes that journey.
- The Role of Higher Education in the Changing World of Work. EDUCAUSE Review, October 2017. By implementing technological, curricular, and organizational enhancements, colleges and universities can prepare graduates for future success in the ever-evolving world of work.
- 7 Recommendations for Student Success Initiatives . EDUCAUSE Review, October 2017. Read about the takeaways from an online event hosted by the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative that explored student success initiatives, particularly those that involve technology-enabled advising.
- Integrating Data and Systems to Support Next Generation Enterprise IT. EDUCAUSE Review, June 2017. This set of case studies describes efforts by three institutions as they adopt next generation IT principles by integrating data and systems in support of institutional mission and goals.
- Transforming Higher Education: The Guided Pathways Approach, EDUCAUSE Review, June 2017. Community colleges must move from a model that promotes access to enrollment to one that supports access to completion. Leveraging technological resources can be a key to instituting transformative change. STAR was the Guided Pathways technology needed to provide a deep transformational shift across the University of Hawaii system, community colleges included.
- Modeling an IT Strategy for Student Success. EDUCAUSE Review, November 14, 2016. For institutions to fully benefit from their investments in student success and to position themselves for continued improvement, IT leadership must get engaged and develop an IT strategy that supports student success and can evolve with the institution's needs.
- Digital Capabilities in Higher Education, 2016: Analytics. September 2017. Maturity indices measure the capability to deliver IT services and applications in a given area. Deployment indices measure stages of deployment for specific technologies and services, which are aggregated to track progress by area.
- Planning Transformational Change for Student Success within Higher Education. EDUCAUSE Review, October 2016. To determine how to plan for transformational change across campus, Rio Salado College used a strategic planning effort and sought expertise from higher education leaders. In the process, RSC developed a replicable and executable roadmap to plan change.
- Predictive Analytics: Nudging, Shoving, and Smacking Behaviors in Higher Education. EDUCAUSE Review, August 2016. With predictive analytics, colleges and universities are able to "nudge" individuals toward making better decisions and exercising rational behavior to enhance their probabilities of success.
- The Predictive Learning Analytics Revolution: Leveraging Learning Data for Student Success. October 6, 2015. This paper aims to enable institutional leaders and practitioners to educate themselves about the emerging field of predictive learning analytics and understand how it will impact the higher education landscape.
- 7 Things You Should Know About Degree-Planning Tools. June 11, 2015. Degree-planning tools provide personalized guidance to students about navigating higher education. Using institutional information and data about students, these tools aim to help students make better choices for course selection. In some cases, the tools are designed to keep students on track and decrease time to completion.
- Integrating Data and Systems to Support Next Generation Enterprise IT. June 19, 2017. This set of case studies describes efforts by three institutions as they adopt next generation IT principles by integrating data and systems in support of institutional mission and goals.
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3. Institution-wide IT strategy: Repositioning or reinforcing the role of IT leadership as an integral strategic partner of institutional leadership in achieving institutional missions
- Building Institutional Technology Alignment through IT Governance. June 2017. Loyola University Chicago includes several campuses with different academic programs, complicating institutional efforts to align technology planning and investment across the various programs.
- Communicating the Business Value of Enterprise IT. EDUCAUSE Review, March 2017. For effective communication, IT must understand the needs of the community, communicate in ways that show an understanding of those needs, and demonstrate the value of IT as it relates to institutional mission and goals.
- Modeling an IT Strategy for Student Success. EDUCAUSE Review, November 2016. For institutions to fully benefit from their investments in student success and to position themselves for continued improvement, IT leadership must get engaged and develop an IT strategy that supports student success and can evolve with the institution's needs.
- Culture Change and IT Leadership. EDUCAUSE Review, October 2016. A vice chancellor of information technology for 25 years looks back to review some of the areas that any central IT organization—and its leader—must address in order to succeed more frequently and become more trusted.
- Enabling Transformative Change. EDUCAUSE Review, October 2016. Building effective leadership teams, for both the institution and the IT organization, can enable transformative change in higher education.
- Building a Common Technology Vision. EDUCAUSE Review, July 2016. The most effective IT leaders solve institutional problems, not simply IT problems. Their success relies on a shared understanding with institutional leaders on how technology can advance the institutional mission.
- New Approaches to Higher Education IT Strategic Planning. This paper looks at causes for the shift in how institutions are approaching IT strategic planning and how IT strategic planning relates to overall institutional planning. In addition, new models and trends in IT strategic planning are identified to help guide IT organizations as they are considering their own strategic planning approach.
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4. Data-enabled institutional culture: Using BI and analytics to inform the broad conversation and answer big questions
- EDUCAUSE Enterprise IT Program
- Supporting Analytics Through Data Integration and Governance. EDUCAUSE Review, December 2017. The case studies presented in this article describes efforts by three institutions to use governance best practices to support institutional analytics initiatives.
- Digital Capabilities in Higher Education, 2016: Analytics. September 2017. Analytics, which we define as the use of data, statistical analysis, and explanatory and predictive models to gain insight into and act on complex issues, is an issue of relevance and enduring strategic importance to higher education.
- Why Effective Analytics Requires Partnerships. EDUCAUSE Review, May 8, 2017. The authors explain why a partnership between the chief business officer and chief information officer is foundational to analytics.
- Making Analytics Accessible, Understandable, and Actionable. EDUCAUSE Review, October 3, 2016. Higher education data professionals work to take the complexity out of institutional data, making it easily understandable and actionable.
- Planting the Seeds of Analytics. EDUCAUSE Review, September 2016. The use of analytics across multiple industries has inspired higher education institutions like Valdosta State University to explore innovative uses of insights from data for both academic and operational functions.
- Moving the Red Queen Forward: Maturing Analytics Capabilities in Higher Education. EDUCAUSE Review, August 2016. This article is drawn from the recent research by ECAR and Gartner researchers on the state of analytics in higher education.
- Running a BI Shop: Part One, Strategic Planning. EDUCAUSE Review, 2016.
- Running a BI Shop: Part Two, Building the Organization. EDUCAUSE Review, 2016.
- Running a BI Shop: Part Three, Managing the Work. EDUCAUSE Review, 2016.
- Running a BI Shop: Part Four, Marketing Your Products. EDUCAUSE Review, 2016.
- Building Institutional Analytics Maturity: Report from the EDUCAUSE/NACUBO 2015 Administrative IT Summit. October 19, 2015. In this collaboration between EDUCAUSE and NACUBO members, key takeaways emerged as areas where institutions should focus their efforts as they build analytics maturity.
- Analytics in Higher Education, 2015. The 2015 hub includes the Current Landscape Report, October 2015.
- BI Reporting, Data Warehouse Systems, and Beyond. ECAR bulletin, April 23, 2014. This spotlight focuses on data from the 2013 Core Data Service to better understand how higher education institutions approach BI reporting and data warehouse systems.
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5. Student-centered institution: Understanding and advancing technology's role in defining the student experience on campus (from applicants to alumni)
- ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2017. October 2017. For the fourteenth year, ECAR has sought to map the contours of these changes and growth and to understand students' preferences and experiences through it all.
- The Role of Higher Education in the Changing World of Work. EDUCAUSE Review, October 2017. By implementing technological, curricular, and organizational enhancements, colleges and universities can prepare graduates for future success in the ever-evolving world of work.
- Academic Success and Educational Technology: Analysis of Student Needs and Expectations. December 2016. Lethbridge College reviewed and analyzed student survey feedback. Seven themes were generated in response to one question: "What can instructors do with technology to better facilitate and support the academic success of students?"
- Connecting Students with Co-Curricular Experiences: A Case Study from the University of Washington. March 2016. The UW Information Technology (UW-IT) Husky Experience Discovery Project team undertook a research project with the goal of understanding how online tools and systems can better enhance the student co-curricular experience and maximize development in the areas that the Husky Experience comprises.
- Engaging Students with a Mobile App. EDUCAUSE Review, March 2015. A mobile app that facilitates social engagement while letting administrators measure levels of use and track emotional trends and potential problems among the student body serves both communities.
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6. Higher education affordability: Balancing and rightsizing IT priorities and budget to support IT-enabled institutional efficiencies and innovations in the context of institutional funding realities
- The Power of a Higher Education Consortium. EDUCAUSE Review, August 2017. The future requires having a keen eye for truly differentiated needs and opportunities and the ability to move with agility in and out of those spaces. It means knowing that evolving digital workflows might require changes in governance, processes, or pedagogy, and the value of extensions to infrastructure.
- In Enterprise Technology Operations, Sometimes It's Not What We Buy but How We Buy It. EDUCAUSE Review, July 2017. Given the changes in today's educational marketplace, to succeed institutions need to collaborate and look deeper into not only where technology dollars are spent but how they are spent.
- 2016 EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) Benchmarking Report. April 2017. The 2016 Core Data Service Benchmarking Report summarizes key findings from the CDS 2016 survey, provides a glimpse into the breadth of CDS data, and ultimately provides you with an opportunity to conduct your own benchmarking assessment.
- 2017 ACUTA/ACUHO-I State of ResNet Report. March 2017. This is the sixth installment of a comprehensive five-year tracking study to measure the pulse of ResNet practices and policies in higher education in order to provide year-over-year analysis and report on the evolution of certain trends.
- The Evolving Economics of Educational Materials and Open Educational Resources. January 2017. This is a chapter from the fourth edition of Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology.
- The Impact of Cloud Implementations on Budget Strategies. EDUCAUSE Review, September 2016. Moving technologies and services to the cloud has financial implications. The transition may include a shift from capital to operating expenses, changes in implementation and migration costs, new staffing requirements, and the urgent need to communicate changes across the enterprise.
- Aligning IT Funding Models to the Pace of Technology Change: Enabling Financial Flexibility for Core, Flexible, and Transformative Services. ECAR working group, December 2015. The EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research brought together a group of high-level IT and finance leaders from a wide range of institutions to work together to understand how to better align IT funding models to the pace of technology change. The results of this collaboration between technology and business officers provide guidance and suggestions to help institution.
- TCO for Cloud Services: A Framework. ECAR working group, April 2015. This framework enables more accurate identification of the cost to a specific department, as well as the cost to the institution as a whole.
- Advancing without New Resources. EDUCAUSE Review, July 2014. How can the IT organization address the increasing demands without new resources? By making a list of the top 10 things it wants to accomplish and a list of the top 10 ways it might find resources to accomplish those things.
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7. IT staffing and organizational models: Ensuring adequate staffing capacity and staff retention in the face of retirements, new sourcing models, growing external competition, rising salaries, and the demands of technology initiatives on both IT and non-IT staff
- Owning Your Professional Development: A Frye Class Reconnects, Reflects, and Forecasts. EDUCAUSE Review, September 2017. By connecting with other professionals, reflecting on your leadership journey, and forecasting your leadership legacy, you can become the owner of your professional destiny.
- Video: Cornell's IT Career Framework. EDUCAUSE Review, September 2017. Cornell University wanted to figure out what IT skills will be most needed in the coming years, and give their staff a chance to prepare for the future.
- The IT Workforce: A Journey of Continuous Change. EDUCAUSE Review, August 2017. Higher ed IT leaders must commit to a journey of continuous change and improvement.
- Hiring for Success: Best Practices. EDUCAUSE Review, August 2017. Following a set of guidelines for hiring can produce a more diverse pool of candidates and increase the likelihood of making good hires.
- The IT Workforce in Higher Education, 2016. ECAR Research Hub, March 2016. This research focuses on the evolving IT workforce needed to support contemporary models of IT service delivery and the emerging world of analytics.
- 2016 EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) Benchmarking Report. April 2017. The 2016 Core Data Service Benchmarking Report summarizes key findings from the CDS 2016 survey, provides a glimpse into the breadth of CDS data, and ultimately provides you with an opportunity to conduct your own benchmarking assessment.
- Technology in Higher Education: Guiding Aspiring Leaders. February 2016. In May 2015 EDUCAUSE and Jisc convened a new working group of 10 UK and US IT leaders and challenged them to explore the question, "How do we best prepare the next generation to lead?"
- The Tech Talent Wars and #WomenInTech. EDUCAUSE Review, October 12, 2015. To win the war for top IT talent, college and university leaders need a strategy for coming out ahead in one key battle: the paucity of women earning degrees in technology and pursuing related careers.
- Transforming the IT Organization. ECAR, August 2015. The third paper in the "Preparing the IT Organization for the Cloud" series addresses the impact that cloud computing is making in the evolution of the changing roles of IT staff in higher education.
- The Chief Information Officer in Higher Education, 2015 Reports. ECAR, July 20, 2015. This study provides information about higher education CIOs' attributes, education, experience, and effectiveness and about the technology professionals who are likely to replace these CIOs.
- Developing a Meaningful Labor Cost Estimate. EDUCAUSE Review, April 27, 2015. Because in-house labor expenses can consume more than half of the IT budget, it is essential for IT leaders to understand labor's cost, productivity, and impact.
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8. (tie) Digital integrations: Ensuring system interoperability, scalability, and extensibility, as well as data integrity, standards, and governance, across multiple applications and platforms
- EDUCAUSE Enterprise IT Program
- The 2016 Enterprise Application Market in Higher Education. December 2017. The 2016 Enterprise Application Market reports from the EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research use data from the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) to better understand how higher education institutions approach various information systems.
- Supporting Analytics Through Data Integration and Governance. EDUCAUSE Review, December 2017. The case studies presented in this article describes efforts by three institutions to use governance best practices to support institutional analytics initiatives.
- Trend Watch 2016: Which IT Trends Is Higher Education Responding To? ECAR, October 2017. EDUCAUSE is in its second year of identifying the influence of major trends on the IT strategy of colleges and universities.
- Helping Tie It All Together: Integration Platform as a Service as Part of the Next-Gen Enterprise. August 2017. Why would you consider integration platform as a service (iPaaS), and what can you look for in available options? This webinar will consider why iPaaS is an important addition to next-generation enterprise solutions.
- Integrating Data and Systems to Support Next-Generation Enterprise IT. EDUCAUSE Review, June 2017. This set of case studies describes efforts by three institutions as they adopt next-generation enterprise IT principles by integrating data and systems in support of institutional missions and goals.
- IT Leadership in Higher Education, 2016: The Enterprise Architect. ECAR, April 2017. This study sought to identify the characteristics and functions of EAs: what background and training these individuals possess, their scope of work and responsibilities, and the personal and professional characteristics that contribute to their success.
- Higher Education's Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2017. ECAR, January 2017. The technologies report provides a snapshot of the relatively new technological investments colleges and universities will be spending the most time implementing, planning, and tracking in 2017.
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8. (tie) Data management and governance: Implementing effective institutional data governance practices
- Learning Data Privacy Principles and Recommended Practices [webinar]. December 2016. The University of California's Educational Technology Leadership Committee drafted the UC Learning Data Privacy Principles and Recommended Practices to assist campuses and service providers gather, store, and protect this data using ethical and secure measures.
- Data Protection Primer for Higher Education: Environmental Considerations, Culture, and Practices. ECAR, June 2016. Data protection demands proactive consideration of numerous issues and cultural shifts, even as data protection tools and practices evolve. The variety and volume of institutional data are phenomenal, and data management is increasingly decentralized.
- Addressing Information Security and Privacy in Postsecondary Education Data Systems. EDUCAUSE Review, May 2016. Any national postsecondary education data system will contain a large collection of data that can provide useful and reliable information about postsecondary student success and outcomes. The security and privacy of that data are paramount concerns.
- Establishing Data Stewardship Models. ECAR, December 2015. This paper provides guidance on establishing a data stewardship program for administrative data. It clarifies the different types of data stewards and managers and their roles and responsibilities, where they reside in an organization, how they work with colleagues to ensure that the data are maintained, and what special skills or training are needed to meet both university responsibilities and best practices.
- The Chief Data Officer in Higher Education. EDUCAUSE Review, June 2015. The role of chief data officer meets two urgent needs on campus: leading data administration efforts and building analytics capacity to drive decisions with data.
- The Compelling Case for Data Governance. ECAR, March 17, 2015. This paper is intended to serve as a conversation starter among stakeholders and executives about the importance of having well-planned data governance.
- Good BI Governance Is Just Good Business. EDUCAUSE Review, December 2013. Business intelligence success is contingent on three key concepts: the nature and drivers of BI, the quality of the BI governance model, and the operating culture in higher education. Good governance plays a critical role by ensuring a nimble BI enterprise that minimizes decision delays and leads to customer delight.
- Digital Capabilities in Higher Education, 2016: Analytics. ECAR, September 2017. Analytics, which we define as the use of data, statistical analysis, and explanatory and predictive models to gain insight into and act on complex issues, is an issue of relevance and enduring strategic importance to higher education. This report examines the status of analytics maturity and deployment in higher education.
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10. Change leadership: Helping institutional constituents (including the IT staff) adapt to the increasing pace of technology change
- Renewal and Progress: Strengthening Higher Education Leadership in a Time of Rapid Change. May 2017. The Aspen Institute brought together a group of 35 current college and university presidents across the four sectors of higher education—community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research universities, and regional public universities. This group examined what will be needed to strengthen the presidential role in the coming decades. They identified necessary leadership skills and qualities and discussed how they could be developed.
- Embracing Perpetual Innovation in Higher Education. EDUCAUSE Review, October 2017. Instead of seeing perpetual innovation as never-ending upheaval, Morgan State University embraced perpetual innovation as long-lasting transformation.
- Cross-Enterprise Partnerships: Serving and Succeeding Together. EDUCAUSE, June 2017. Leaders from higher education information technology (IT), business, and finance met in Phoenix in March 2017 to discuss how cross-enterprise relationships can address institutional challenges and what college and university leaders can do to foster those relationships.
- Are You a Change Leader or a Change Manager? EDUCAUSE Review, January 2017. As leaders, we are often called on to address change.
- 7 Things You Should Know About Change Management. ELI, October 2016. "Change management" refers to the business practices and procedures that address the human and cultural aspects of organizational change.
- 7 Things You Should Read About Change Management. ELI, November 2016. The pace and breadth of innovation require colleges and universities to take a thorough approach to modifying longstanding models and practices in higher education.
- A Shift in Focus: Preparing for a Service-Centric Future. EDUCAUSE, August 2016. Higher education thought leaders from information technology, business operations, and finance met in May 2016 to discuss the changing nature of higher education IT, the forces behind the changes, and how they can collaborate to prepare their colleges and universities for a future more focused on the provision of services than on the technology and applications behind those services.
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