IT in the Campus

Technology executives in colleges and universities lead by convincing, not commanding--and must balance security with academic freedom

Dr. Rainer Bockholt, Director, Computer Center, University of Bonn

Like their business counterparts, academic IT executives must provide ever--higher levels of services with steady or even shrinking budgets. They similarly struggle to prove that information technology deserves funding because it helps achieve strategic goals.

But they also face challenges unique to the academic environment. One is securing sensitive information without trampling the free flow of ideas so vital to the learning environment. And unlike their business counterparts, they must convince (rather than order) independent-minded deans and faculty to adopt new systems or change work processes. Finally, there's the challenge of giving campus systems the friendly look and feel students expect from their favorite Web social networking site.

Tech savvy students

Just as in the commercial world, the increasing use of email, Web-based applications, and other IT services has led to a surge in demands on academic information systems. At the University of Bonn, for example, the amount of storage its 35,000 users consume on the school's email servers has soared from 20 megabytes to one gigabyte per user in the last four years.

But unlike, say, a bank teller or credit analyst, "students have a consumer mindset when they use computers," says Tommy Hor, director of the computer centre at the National University of Singapore, which has more than 30,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff. "They go for trendy service and glitz," he says. Kevin Roberts, CIO of the 4,800-student Abilene Christian University in Texas, agrees. "My competitor (in attracting) students isn't the university down the street. It's Amazon.com, it's Disney, it's all of these private sector companies and their Web-based services."

To get adequate funding to meet these challenges, academic technology executives must show how they are helping meet their organization's strategic goals. But that's often difficult. At the University of Bonn, the IT staff was cut by 20 percent in the last several years because administrators tend to view IT more as a necessary but mundane utility (like electricity or water) rather than a vital contributor to the school's mission, says Dr. Rainer Bockholt, director of the university computer center.

To demonstrate the value of IT, NUS' Hor documents how IT helps, even indirectly, to meet the school's high-level objectives. For example, he shows the stakeholders and budget committees the amount of computing and storage resources used by various research projects. This helps researchers cut down turnaround time for computations, producing more accurate and faster results for research papers. That is useful because volume and quality of research are both "key performance indicators" on which the university is measured.

Convince, don't command

Academic technology executives must learn to work in a decentralized environment in which each department or school has far more independence than a division within a business. Unlike the private sector, where "there's a much clearer line of decision-making authority, your position and authority doesn't mean nearly as much in higher education," says Roberts. That means "it takes a significant amount of consensus building and discussion" to reach decisions.

The rounds of meetings and compromises "is sometimes maddening," he admits, but usually makes for better choices. For example, based on feedback from faculty, Roberts' team tweaked a Web-based course selection system to alert an advisor each time a freshman used the online system to change courses. That way, explains Roberts, the student can't "drop English Literature for 12 hours of racquetball."

Secure yet open

"Part of what makes us a place where education can take place is the ability to have a free flow of ideas and information moving back and forth," says Roberts. "But that opens your doors to dangerous things," ranging from students illegally downloading music to unwittingly infecting campus networks with malware.

Yet many colleges aren't countering such threats, in part because senior academic and administrative leaders don't know how much sensitive data they generate, says Steffani Burd, author of a 2006 report on academic security written for the U.S. Department of Justice. In addition to student financial and medical information, she says, many colleges and universities house the results of sensitive military, medical, and other research.