Research and Data Services for Higher Education Information Technology: Past, Present, and Future

Autor/in	Grajek, Susan
Titel	Research and Data Services for Higher Education Information Technology: Past, Present, and Future
Quelle	In: EDUCAUSE Review, 46 (2011) 6, S.46-48 (10 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1527-6619
Schlagwörter	Higher Education; Information Technology; Job Security; Costs; Models; Data; Research; Debt (Financial); Budgets; Benchmarking + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Informationstechnologie; Arbeitsplatzsicherheit; Cost; Kosten; Analogiemodell; Daten; Forschung; Finanzhaushalt
Abstract	Those in the higher education community live in interesting times. For decades, higher education has occupied a relatively stable, trusted position in society, as a place to invest the most precious resources: (1) youth; (2) minds; (3) future; and (4) values. Today, the purpose and value of higher education is under question and under transformation. What was once seen as requisite for completing the intellectual journey to maturity is now increasingly viewed as a necessity for employment and financial security. The value proposition is now more about economic security than self-actualization. But with rising costs and student debt, and shifts in enrollment patterns, the public is questioning the affordability of a college education at the same moment a college degree has begun to be viewed as a necessity for job security. With imperiled endowments, cuts in federal and state support, burgeoning costs of regulatory compliance, and the resulting institutional budget shortfalls, higher education leaders are hard-pressed to respond to calls for lowering the costs of higher education. The business model of higher education is broken. Within higher education, information technology is experiencing its own challenges. Enter data. Enter research. Enter analytics. Analytics, and the data and research that fuel it, offers the potential to identify broken models and promising practices, to explain them, and to propagate those practices. Information technology now supports and enables all aspects of higher education. Information technology is paradoxically--and rightly--viewed both as an added expense and as a source of potentially transformational efficiencies. The great challenge for IT leaders and managers is to successfully resolve this paradox for their institutions. To do so, they will require the external models and internal evidence that data and research can provide. Higher education IT data now needs to go beyond descriptive analysis--reports, queries, and drill-downs--to new ways of using data and research in order to align IT strategy with institutional strategy, plan new services and initiatives, manage existing services, and operate the IT organization on a daily basis. Higher education itself needs expanded access to high-quality data and analysis about information technology and its relationship to institutional efficiency, learning effectiveness, and college completion. (Contains 9 notes.) (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	EDUCAUSE. 4772 Walnut Street Suite 206, Boulder, CO 80301-2538. Tel: 303-449-4430; Fax: 303-440-0461; e-mail: info@educause.edu; Web site: http://www.educause.edu
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10