Contemplating an Unfortunate Model for Academic Computing

This past week I spent a lot of my time at EDUCAUSE 2011 talking about educational technology and ways it can best contribute toward institutional value on investment. Consider for a moment a question often asked by a president, provost, or pro-vice chancellor:

"We invest a lot in technology but does any of it contribute to our teaching and learning mission?"

For years, folks in academic computing (including myself) have struggled with this question and came up with answers, albeit often responding to the wrong question. Instead of approaching the question from a value perspective, we've twisted the question to one of return:

"We have X number of students using our learning management system."

"We have Y number of faculty using the media capabilities of our classrooms."

Both of these responses reflect return on investment, rather than value on investment. Connecting the dots between return and value is the point of my white paper that I won't belabor here as it is already in print form with an argument wrapped around it. Instead, when I was drafting the paper I started thinking more about the historical model of academic computing in higher education and how it seems to have contributed to what appears to be a growing trend of a disconnect between information technology investment and institutional mission and vision.

For the last 20+ years, I've been more or less immersed in academic computing and the model that has largely defined it over the last two decades. Now that I've spent a year out of the trenches, I've come to the conclusion that:

The model for academic computing is based on failure rather than success.

Now how in the world did I come to this conclusion? Think about the common funding approaches for academic technology initiatives on campus. Initiatives are generally funded in one of two ways, a one-time external grant or through discretionary funding that typically comes at the end of a budget year. The conversation for funding usually goes something like this:

Academic IT: "We have some faculty who are interested in trying X and it will cost Y. Can we launch a project to work on it?"

Budget Leader: "Well, we've got some funds left over this year. Go ahead and use the funds to work on project X because if it doesn't work, it won't be a big deal."

Academic IT: "Great. We'll let the faculty know. Thanks."

And there you have it -- the model of failure.

If this were a five-year phenomena, it wouldn't be a problem. But since this paradigm has existed for at least two decades, it has become embedded into institutional culture and is now a difficult concept change short of what I've observed as of late -- institutions opting to eliminate academic computing altogether. Academic computing couldn't be more closely aligned to the mission of a university, so the question I am faced with at the moment is how does one change the model because what I'm seeing just doesn't make sense.

The answer, at least to me, seems to be embedded in this concept of value on investment. More to think about...

Felix on Design

I’ve had the privilege to work with some great people over the years and Elliot Felix over at DEGW is one who stands out. In the spring of 2010, he put fingers to keys around the topic of “Closing the Design Gap.” Even though the frame of the paper is centered on architecture, the focus is really on design and how it should relate to human needs. His argument is something that those in academic technology need to always think about.

Or to put it another way, what people need isn’t always what they want. The trick is to achieve both, successfully.

Lessig on the Remix

Although the hook to this talk is the Republican/Democrat divide in the United States and where the divide sits in terms of copyright, that’s not what caught my attention. Lawrence Lessig’s exploration of copyright and remix from a political perspective happens to be a great vehicle for understanding the cyclical contemporary debate around fair use, licensing, and copyright. We think we understand the debate, but he skillfully guides us to a different place. Good stuff. Enjoy.

The engine that started Project Bamboo

In the mid-2000s, the idea of cyberinfrastructure was starting to take hold in the sciences and a number of people, myself included, started asking how we might be able to apply the concepts behind shared infrastructure for scholarship, research, and teaching to domains such as the humanities.

Click to read more ...

Where did the summer go and what happened?

No, I have not dropped off the face of the Earth and abandoned the whole WranglingACT project. Over the last few months things have been a bit crazy on campus, and that craziness has turned into a whole bunch of learning opportunities and points of reflection. With everything going on, I just haven’t had the bandwidth to write. In short, here’s what happened:

• I picked up a second role in addition to my current two and now I’m the senior director for Academic Technologies, co-director of Project Bamboo, and acting senior director for Client Relations within the central IT organization at the University of Chicago;
• the CIO left the university to take a position as a vice president at EDUCAUSE;
• the central IT organization is not under interim leadership, but reporting to the CFO;
• I’m filling two roles in an organization in flux;
• it is back-to-school time; and
• I had to quickly reorganize both senior directorates so that everything could keep moving forward.

Needless-to-say, this has been a very interesting time and will continue to be well through our change in leadership. My thoughts are turning to transition, change, and what’s important when things are in flux. More to come as the journey continues.