June 2004

June 2004 full issue in PDF format

Managing the Appearance of Work
By Howard Strauss, Princeton University
Managers must understand how to measure the productivity of their workers and the quality of their work. But when managers do not understand these measures and do not know what the work they are managing really is, they often manage proxies for work instead of work itself. If these proxies do not correlate well with actual work, managers then manage the appearance of work only.

Newsbriefs
EDUCAUSE Updates Student Guide to Computing; Bill to Overhaul Supercomputing Programs; EDUCAUSE Publishes Top 10 IT Issues Survey Results

Six Snares for the Unwary
By Thomas Warger
Not all IT problems show up as breakdowns, outages, budget overruns, or other active signs of difficulty. Some even seem to be signs of success or good fortune but are instead traps for the unwary CIO.

Quotes of the Month
Why IT has not paid off as we'd hoped--yet.

Edutech Responds
How to convince a reluctant department to change systems, the best way to keep track of license and maintenance contracts, using service level agreements wisely.