Mark Smithers

Learning and Educational Technology in Higher Education

Posts Tagged ‘universities’

Direct from the Innovation Prevention Department

December 9th, 2009

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyberslayer/2535502341/sizes/l/ by Howard Gees

I was watching the Twitter stream for the ASCILITE 2009 conference this morning during the final keynote from @jamesclay with a certain amount of dismay as tweets regarding the ‘Innovation Prevention Department’ (IPD) started to appear. The reference was to IT Services organisations in tertiary education. Now I wasn’t at the conference so I don’t know the context of the IPD in James’s talk but I do feel the need to comment on this notion of innovation prevention by IT Departments [Edit: 10 December, 2009. Please see James's comments about context - in fact the notion of an IPD may be any organisational unit within a tertiary education institution]. Some of you may be aware that I am a senior IT Manager for one of Australia’s largest universities (70,000 headcount, 46,000 EFTSU). I normally only comment on general educational technology issues and not work related matters. I am going to make an exception this time.

I have worked with and for six universities in the UK and Australia over the last twenty years. The last eleven months have been my first in a central IT organisation. Previously I spent ten years as a lecturer and the rest of my time as a software developer/consultant/contractor/elearning manager. Prior to my current position it is fair to say that I have been reasonably critical of central IT organisations in tertiary education. It was a mutual dislike. A group that I once worked in was described as ‘rogue programmers’ by the university Director of IT. We, in turn, thought of them as being risk averse, conservative, slow and rigid.

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Posted in Educational Technology, Opinion

Tags: Edtech IT Support universities

Some Ways Universities Will Change Over Ten Years

August 3rd, 2009

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I am currently working on a roadmap for educational technology in my university over the next ten years. Of course when looking over such a period it becomes crucial to try and anticipate the changing roles and functions of universities over that period so that we can think about the effect on educational technology.

Many commentators have speculated that the next ten years will be one of fundamental change for universities. Comparisons are made with the record industry ten years ago and the publishing industry at the moment – both faced with the hugely disruptive changes being bought about by new ways of learning and sharing on the internet.

I thought I would put my head above the parapet and share some of the thoughts I am having about the way universities might change and some of my initial conclusions. I say initial because my thoughts are changing all the time as I try and rationalise the very wide range of factors that may come into play over the next few years.

Many of the ideas have come from the The Tower and the Cloud, The Edgeless University (PDF), Stephen Downes work on forecasting the future for higher education and numerous blog posts, particularly from those listed in the sidebar.

I’ll do this in a series of posts because to write them all down at once is just too hard at the moment. Today I’ll start with two of the most important; open content and assessment.

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Posted in Educational Technology, Opinion, Strategy

Tags: Strategy universities

Information Technology Leadership in Universities

July 16th, 2009

I’ve been re-reading the Tower and the Cloud over the last few weeks and was intrigued about the positions of the authors. It is interesting to note the number of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) that have contributed chapters to the book as well as prominent academics, consultants and higher education writers. Perhaps even more interesting is the number of CIOs who are also members of the academy. This seems to be a more common occurrence in US Universities than elsewhere. I guess it is reinforced for me by the fact that in many of the universities that I am familiar with the position of CIO does not exist at all at Vice President or equivalent level. Often Directors of IT are located in a resources portfolio along with other non academic service areas.
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