Paula’s E-Musings

As CIOs we are first and foremost administrators, and most of our time is spent planning, coordinating, negotiating, budgeting, etc.  Sometimes we are so focused on solving problems and putting out fires that we lose sight of the core of what we’re all about: enriching the education experience.  I was able to reaffirm that purpose earlier this week.

I was invited to attend the last class of the semester where students (Adolescence Education majors) in an English Language Arts Class presented their final projects. The instructor had participated in our Institute on Teaching Strategies last summer, and redesigned her class to be truly collaborative using Web 2.0 technologies.

The class developed a wiki and blog, and their final assignment was designed for students to research a contemporary societal issue and communicate through the electronic media and social networking applications. The instructor, who herself was just learning about new media and their applications in education, took a risk. The success of her class would partially depend on robust and reliable systems and strong technical support. The class required collaboration of many kinds: among students, between faculty and students, and also among the class (both instructor and students), librarians, and technologists.

For me, that is where the proverbial rubber hit the road, and where the distinctions between information itself and technology were forever blurred. Research, writing, and technology skills became parts of a greater whole. The advantages of our blended library/IT organization were never so apparent: the librarians and the technology trainer worked together and they engaged the support of our distributed computing and enterprise technologists, who made systems work and provided centralized storage for the data-intensive final projects.

The instructor will be giving a presentation about her experience in developing and teaching this class at the upcoming SUNY Conference on Instructional Technologies (CIT). You can check out the student projects at the following links:

Liberation in the Classroom

Free Tibet  

Find Your Musical Identity

America’s Sacred Oil 

Child Abuse:  A Call to Action

Are You at Risk?

Speaking for Those Who Can’t Speak for Themselves  

Anti-Semitism in Cortland  

South Otselic Town Website  

America’s Self-Image  

One Shot to Save a Life  

ELA and Technology: A Modern Approach to ELA Learning�

Spring is coming to Central New York. In our yards green grass has replaced dirty snow, green spikes are starting to emerge in our gardens, and there is the slightest hint of green buds on the trees. I noticed how spring-like green our surroundings are becoming as I drove to Albany last week to attend a Green IT Conference sponsored by the NYS Forum IT Greening Committee and the New York State Energy and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The New York Governor’s 15-15 initiative — to reduce energy by 15 percent by 2015 — is one of the most aggressive in the country. And as a member of the American Colleges and University Presidents Climate Commitment SUNY Cortland has also agreed to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent by 2014.

Last week’s Green IT Conference dealt with issues of global warming and the role of IT in finding solutions to reducing the carbon footprint. Plenary session speakers were from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Gartner Group. Information Technology has a responsibility to reduce its own energy consumption through energy savings both at the enterprise and distributed levels and through responsible recycling of electronics. IT can provide systems for monitoring energy and systematically managing power campus-wide and offer leadership as campuses invest in and adopt new energy saving technologies. Reduce, reuse, and recycle was the mantra.

I found out about many on-line resources devoted to Green IT. Some of the more useful include:

The Green Grid — a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems.

Simply Green: A Few Steps in the Right DirectionToward Integrating Sustainability into Public Sector IT — a Paper fromthe Center for Digital Government features best Green IT practices in state and local government

The Federal Electronics Challenges promotes initiatives to encourage the purchase of greener electronic projects, the reduction of energy during their use, and the management of obsolete electronics in an environmentally safe way.

Energy Cost Calculators — these Energy Cost Calculators at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Web site estimate the energy cost savings from buying more efficient products.

A Guide to Greener Electronics — a ranking by Greenpeace of electronics manufacturers based on their global policies and practices on eliminating harmful chemicals and on taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by consumers.

Lately there has been a lot of discussion about Library/IT collaboration. Just yesterday I participated in a Webcast on this topic. Eugene Spencer, previous CIO and current consultant to higher education and library groups, responded to questions and comments about merged organizations, the role of the CIO, and change management, among other issues. The transcript of the entire Webcast is available online.

The question of different cultures arises whenever the topic of blended organizations is discussed. Of course there are the distinct library and IT cultures, but there are also the administrative/enterprise and the academic cultures within IT to be considered, to say nothing of the media services culture, which is a hybrid of sorts. In actuality, there are probably more similarities than differences among the various cultures. In order to successfully meet the needs of the campus, a new culture with common values needs to exist. Everyone involved must be committed to working collaboratively, and must recognize the importance of new technologies to benefit students and faculty by enhancing the learning experience.

In Cortland’s blended organization, we recognize the unique characteristics of the four departments that comprise Information Resources. At the same time we work to create synergies among the departments. To this end, many of our IT initiatives such as Second Life and iTunesU are managed by cross-departmental teams, with each team member bringing distinct strengths and skills. We often include teaching faculty on our teams, since we need to understand their needs and specific teaching objectives. We recognize and respect organizational boundaries, but as we work together to be creative with emerging technologies, those boundaries have become less important.

The current Chronicle of Higher Education Tech Therapy podcast is all about Change, a phenomenon that we deal with constantly.  Warren Arbogast asserts that people must first feel pain in their status quo situations in order to be willing to change. That’s somewhat ironic, since change itself seems to be painful to so many. Change means having to give up comfortable ways of doing things and to begin new learning processes.

In the IT and library worlds change is constant and it is everywhere. First the Internet, then the Web, then Web 2.0, each requiring us to review our services and how we provide them and to revisit our organizations and their structures.  Change is an evolutionary process, influenced in large part by the the new information and communications technologies that are reshaping our lives at home and in the workplace.

A common adage states that if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. Before considering strategies for change and developing processes, we must understand what needs to change and why. In order for change to be effective we must carefully analyze our current situations and thoroughly understand what we do and how we do it. We need to review everything – our policies, services, organization, staffing patterns, facilities, and our technologies and how we use them. As a metaphor for this process, the Chronicle podcast uses the activity of clearing out old vines. We must first separate the vines and understand how they are growing before carefully pruning them so they can sustain a healthy growth.

 As we continue to face rapidly changing and often unpredictable environments, we must constantly assess and modify our operations. Our future successes depend on how well we manage and anticipate change at all levels of our organizations.

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article discussed combined Library/IT organizations, with a focus on Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and the story of Xavier’s experiences bringing the Library and IT departments under one CIO. As it happens I was the library director at Xavier University in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, when the Library and Computing Center, as they were called at that time, reported to different Vice Presidents. Having been at Xavier myself, I was particularly interested in the story of their merger, with its trials, tribulations, and successes.

Such merged organizations have been around for awhile. When I came to SUNY Cortland almost fifteen years ago to establish and lead this type of combined administrative unit, there were other such models in higher education, each with its unique structure and personality. In the late 1990’s SUNY Cortland participated in a research study on the topic which was conducted by Tara Lynn Fulton, then a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University. Her 2001 Ph.D. dissertation, “Integrating Academic Libraries and Computer Centers: A Phenomenological Study of Leader Sensemaking about Organizational Restructuring,” examined the experiences of seven CIOs who had created Information Services units that included libraries and IT departments.

The Chronicle article refers to “at least three dozen colleges” having merged their library and technology departments. The Campus Computing Project, which supports a continuing study of the role of information and technology in higher education, indicates that 11.3% of the 555 colleges and universities responding to their survey have a library that reports to a CIO position. The majority of libraries reporting to a CIO are in private four-year colleges (15.6%), followed by community colleges (13.3%) and public four-year colleges (10.2%). Although several high-profile research universities such as Columbia and Indiana University have merged organizations, only 2.7% of public and 5.9% of private research universities have libraries reporting to a CIO.  

Whatever the organizational structure and whatever it’s called, in order to be successful, IT and Library staff must work well together, providing seamless service to the campus. The focus must be to know what kind of services and resources our students and faculty need and to make them readily and easily available.

Educause Connect is a rich resource for the CIO or anyone looking for information about IT and libraries in higher education. Along with online articles, there are links to podcasts, blogs and wikis. Earlier today I listened to a podcast about IT Leadership and the Role of the CIO presented at EDUCAUSE 2007 by Michael Zastrocky of the Gartner Group, a leading IT consulting company.

The annual Gartner EDUCAUSE update focused on leadership traits of the successful CIO, especially the critical role of educating the campus about IT initiatives and marketing IT’s value to the success of the organization. The importance of aligning IT goals with institutional goals and the need for the campus to embrace and embed IT into its overall culture was also emphasized. As a CIO I have always considered advocacy as one of my primary responsibilities. The American Heritage Dictionary defines advocacy as “the act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy.”

Advocacy, education and marketing go hand-in-hand along with communication. The campus must understand how and why IT supports the tactical as well as strategic goals of the entire organization and each individual department and the CIO must take every opportunity to convey the message to individuals and groups.

Despite the fact that more than 90 percent of our students bring their own computers to campus, labs throughout campus are busier than ever.  Their use has not only increased but so have their numbers.  At SUNY Cortland the number of teaching labs has grown 42 percent in the past five years alone, from 28 (15 Windows and 13 Macintosh) to 37 (20 Windows and 17 Macintosh). In addition the number of smaller, special use labs has grown by 50 percent, from 22 to 33.  

A recent Educause Review article addresses the myth that because so many students bring their own computers to campus student labs are no longer needed. In fact at our campus the evolving curriculum incorporates more discipline-specific technologies and requires students to use sophisticated — and expensive — software applications. Since 2000 we have built eight new high-end media labs to support specific technology-intensive majors in Sports Management, New Communications Media, New Media, GIS and Professional Writing.  We have allocated separate funds to maintain these labs, which must be updated more frequently to reflect the ever-changing technologies.

Even though most of our students own computers, they are social beings and enjoy congregating in our late night labs — often IMing each other across the room. That’s not much different from my own college days when we dragged our heavy books from our dorm rooms to the library to engage in social interactions while we studied (or didn’t).

Today’s students are more likely to engage in group projects where they produce and present multimedia which they’ve developed collaboratively. What better place to assemble than in one of the labs that we’ve designed for flexibility and creativity? As the use of technology has become more sophisticated so have our labs. The need for labs is not likely to diminish; it will likely grow and continue to evolve.

I often feel like the pilot in this video clip who’s building his plane as he’s flying. Is it a coincidence that the video is an ad for a technology services company? I think not. A few weeks ago Warren Arbogast used the same metaphor in his Chronicle Tech Therapy Podcast where he spoke about the challenges of finding time to plan, work strategically,  and think globally while we all seem to be so busy putting out fires.  How do we remain proactive when we so often must react to many last minute requests from our constituents whose lack of IT planning becomes our 11th hour crisis?

I could especially relate to this podcast that addressed the need to plan and build “info”structure as important as building infrastructure. The podcast addressed the critical importance of effective PR and timely communications. Just recently I facilitated a meeting of IR leaders where we discussed these challenges that are affecting our organization. We’ve got so many great new initiatives and we’re offering innovative new services,  but how do we get the message out to faculty and students so they know what we’re doing?

 We all agreed that everyone gets bombarded with too many e-mails and is over-scheduled with meetings. Consequently our messages are unread and our open forums are unattended. Meawhile, the campus is surprised to learn that we have updated our classrooms and labs to Office 07 and they are unaware that we are webcasting campus lectures. We’re speaking but who is listening?

 There’s got to be more effective ways of communicating. Yes, less is more and images often speak louder than text. We know that just in time communication is needed and that we must use a variety of media to reach our diverse audiences.  We’ve agreed that we need to build our infostructure as carefully and strategically as we’ve built our infrastructure. Conversations have begun. So stay tuned as we develop a process to effectively convey just who we are and what we’re doing.

 PS The Tech Therapy podcasts are broadcast every other week and cover a wide array of timely and relevant topics. I highly recommend listening to them.

There is a renewed energy on campus as students and faculty arrive and a new school year begins. Classes start on Monday, but the prep work has been going on all summer. Throughout this week several of us participated in new faculty orientation programs and we have posted a checklist to help new faculty familiarize themselves with our services. Students are arriving on campus and are eager to establish their network connections. We have simplified the process for them by automating the Hallnet Service.

There’s lots new on the horizon this fall. We have reopened Sperry Learning Center with nine new state-of-the-art classrooms and two interactive video rooms. We have information about the hardware and software in each classroom available on the web. We also have a listing of hardware and software in each of the computer labs. We have upgraded all of our PC labs and classrooms to Office 2007, and are working to get advance notice out to everyone teaching in those spaces. Since many faculty desktop computers still have Office 2003 the challenge will be upgrading software for those requesting newer versions.

In Memorial Library the Learning Commons is fully functional. The camera loan program is more popular than ever and this year we are loaning out a variety of mobile technologies including iPods. Partnering with the New Communications Media Program, we will be offering students full support in media production. As part of a Millennial grant sponsored by the President’s Office, we now have a SUNY Cortland island on Second Life where classes will be taught. Mobile technologies and social computing are certainly influencing pedagogies on our campus.

Welcome to the 07-08 academic year. The adventure begins anew!

We have different titles, we report to different administrators, and our responsibilities vary from institution to institution, but as CIOs we all have responsibility for enterprise and distributed technology systems and we work with faculty, staff and senior administration to realize institutional goals through information and technology. In a 2004 EDUCAUSE Review article “Framework for the CIO Position” Brian Hawkins tells us that the first CIOs appeared in the late 1970’s when computing went beyond centralized mainframe applications and the advent of microcomputers began to give fuller control of computing applications to faculty and other end-users.

Not long ago there was a flurry of discussion on the EDUCAUSE Chief Information Constituent Group listserv about important CIO traits.  There was wide discussion about how important or not it is for CIOs to have a background in technology. There was clear consensus that the CIO does not need to be a technology practitioner,  but rather must be able to clearly understand technology and how it is used, and communicate about the major strategic issues related to information and technology. Vision, strong leadership and the ability to speak cogently to many constituencies about technology and its role in higher education were some of the characteristics that were identified as important in a successful CIO.

For me, with a background in libraries, my CIO position is an extension of my earlier roles in library administration. I must fully understand the technologies and be able to speak with and understand the technologists who are part of my organization.  It is critical that I recognize how technology can be used to realize the educational and administrative mission. I need to have the skills to work with others to develop strategic plans which must then be operationalized.

In some ways the role of the CIO has changed dramatically as technology has become so completely integrated into the educational experience and the use of a variety of new media is almost commonplace in the classroom. In other ways, it is very much the same: to provide leadership and manage and coordinate information and technology to meet the needs of the institution.