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Who's Out Front with Technology Innovation on Campus?
6/4/2008
The Web 2.0 wave on campus may have left academic computing units in its wake. Is anyone in charge of technology innovation?At the Point of No Return
The Oxford English Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica will not be published in print form again. At home, I alternate between nostalgically reading the New York Times in print one morning and online the next (see "New York Times API Coming": http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/automattic_series_b_new_york_times.php). We throw out one or two boxes of books a week, painfully parting with old print friends we never talk with anymore.
Shakeup at the Core
And, on campus, the ancien regime of technology administration mutates. Central computing keeps the technology utilities running, networking and telecom is enmeshed in the national communications grid, and academic computing -- the stepchild -- has become, well, what?
Who is in charge of technology innovation for education? Would that be academic computing on your campus? If not, where is systematic technology innovation occurring?
One answer: Technology Innovation is Distributed
Part of the answer may be that just about every academic department is involved in technology innovation in its own knowledge domain. Departments may have a faculty or staff position, or part of a position, that has been dedicated to technology support for Web site maintenance, lab spaces and technology, administrative functions in the department, tech support, and education technology innovation for the department.
Web 2.0 technologies, functioning through your browser as the "client" software, offer new adventures to this emerging distributed technology constituency on campus -- these new positions and their colleagues. They check out the latest buzz-worthy sites and savor these possibilities:
- Set up a new Web site for the department in minutes.
- Add to your collaborative capabilities.
- Offer incentives for people to visit your Web site.
- Build a community for your department.
And, if you want tips on which sites to explore, check with your library.
As has become apparent in the last couple of years, technology innovation has escaped the cage and is proliferating on campus.
Who's Steering?
A few paragraphs back, the question was "where is systematic technology innovation occurring?" Who is testing, piloting, examining the value propositions, strategizing about sustainability, and assessing impact? Is anyone looking for duplication, triplication, quadruplication of effort on campus? Who is helping to institutionalize the support for popular Web 2.0 gadgets, widgets, and sites?
Web 2.0 is inviting enough that a majority of academics can and will be drawn to using some aspect of Web 2.0 for an educational purpose and therein, of course, lies the rub for academic computing units.
Recommended Reading
- Georgia Tech Helps Develop Web-based Tool To Improve Blood Supply
The Georgia Tech College of Computing, working in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has developed a Web-based tool for tracking blood safety. The program is expected to help developing countries improve the adequacy and safety of their national blood supplies through better monitoring and evaluation.
- Mississippi State Implements Reflex Virtual Management Center
Mississippi State University has implemented Reflex VMC (Virtual Management Center) from Reflex Systems. The application allows IT administrators to monitor a virtual infrastructure and enforce business and IT policies.
- Stanford Law School Launches IP Litigation Clearinghouse
The Law, Science & Technology Program at Stanford Law School has launched the Intellectual Property Litigation Clearinghouse (IPLC), an online database that offers comprehensive information about intellectual property (IP) disputes within the United States.
- Texas A&M Health Science Center Adopts Banner Administrative Management
The Texas A&M Health Science Center has selected the Banner Unified Digital Campus (UDC) from Sungard Higher Education to help unify its geographically-dispersed community and to enhance and expand services and communications to its growing student enrollment.
- NCCC: Data Cleansing Key To Managing Growth
Community colleges are in a good spot in some ways during the economic downturn, as tight family budgets drive up the appeal of the community college option. But along with the rest of higher education, most community colleges also face shrinking IT budgets and tighter resources. That makes it that much harder to handle the growing enrollment numbers that some community colleges are seeing.
- Finjan: Layoffs Could Drive IT People To Become Cyber-Criminals
Security vendor Finjan predicts that the current economic downturn could herald a sharp rise in cybercrime during 2009--driven by the rise in the number of IT people being laid off. According to a report from the company's Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC), more unemployed IT personnel will be tempted to seek "new and easy income by purchasing and using crimeware toolkits that are sold by professional hackers."
