May, 2007

The Edutech Report - May, 2007 - Full Issue PDF
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Inside the Information Technology Staff
By Thomas Warger
There is a gap between IT service levels and user expectations. Much of the difficulty lies in staff-provided services. Poor communication, project delays, problems that repeat, and confusion in guidance and rules are all too common. Technical skills tend to outweigh communications, organization, and management talent when hires are made. IT job specialization tends to fragment the workforce. The user community still needs more help than the IT community seems to acknowledge. Most of the remedies are non-technological: a more disciplined approach to management, closer connection to the clientele, and willingness to learn and change as service providers.

Quotes of the Month
Teaching the net generation; IT leadership and the Spellings report

Newsbriefs
ECAR Publishes Study on IT and Business Continuity; UNC At Chapel Hill's Blackboard Course Extractor Available

Phase 2 for Administrative Systems
By Linda Fleit
Ask a typical college president today what the number one technology issue is on his or her campus, and you will hear the answer “Cost.” Higher education has hurtled with alarming speed from no budget for technology to millions of dollars, even on the smallest campuses. But costs would not be quite so difficult an issue if the benefits of technology could be clearly articulated and demonstrated. And while costs are high in almost all aspects of technology, nowhere are they higher than in the acquisition, implementation, and maintenance of administrative systems—and nowhere is it more difficult to figure out whether it has been “worth” it.

Edutech Responds
Enforcing IT standards; hiring and retaining student workers; staffing impacts of an open-source learning management system