2018 Top 10 IT Issues Recommended Resources

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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.

  1. Information security: Developing a risk-based security strategy that keeps pace with security threats and challenges
  2. Student success: Managing the system implementations and integrations that support multiple student success initiatives
  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
  4. Data-enabled institutional culture: Using BI and analytics to inform the broad conversation and answer big questions
  5. Student-centered institution: Understanding and advancing technology's role in defining the student experience on campus (from applicants to alumni)
  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
  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
  8. (tie) Digital integrations: Ensuring system interoperability, scalability, and extensibility, as well as data integrity, standards, and governance, across multiple applications and platforms
  9. (tie) Data management and governance: Implementing effective institutional data governance practices
  10. 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

2. Student success: Managing the system implementations and integrations that support multiple student success initiatives

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

5. Student-centered institution: Understanding and advancing technology's role in defining the student experience on campus (from applicants to alumni)

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

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

8. (tie) Digital integrations: Ensuring system interoperability, scalability, and extensibility, as well as data integrity, standards, and governance, across multiple applications and platforms

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