Often central IT organisations at Australian universities have adopted a very servile approach and haven’t necessarily provided strong strategic leadership with regard to teaching and learning with technology unlike the leadership and direction that they may offer with regard to administration systems. There are lots of reasons for this and I will blog about them if I can find a way of being diplomatic enough.
I guess what I am saying is that central IT services do what the university requests of them (even if many academic and other staff don’t believe this). I spoke to one academic who was flabbergasted when told that central IT did not select the LMS or any other edtech at the university.
So if there is rearranging of deck chairs then I suspect that other areas of universities are the ones responsible.

Obviously it is more complex than that, but generally I think folk – particularly folk from IT divisions – are re-arranging deck chairs. In my experience, many, surprising for they are intelligent folk, are not engaging with the potential paradigm changes that are coming by either not being aware of them or by not be allowed to consider them as they bring into question existing unspoken assumptions.

For example, during the selection of a new LMS the question of Web 2.0, PLEs and how these might influence the appropriateness of the LMS model where the institution must provide and manage all technology. It was rejected as “just an opinion” and this from an organisation that had a project on PLEs being externally funded for something well into 6 figures.