Meanwhile, back at the farm

What follows is a paper that I prepared for my internship at BYU-Idaho.  I present it here as I feel the content is applicable to many of my visitors.  It is also available as PDF in the “Papers” section of my blog.

A Widening Gap

The Causes and Associated Risks of the Growing Divide Between Faculty and IT

I. Introduction
There is a widening gap between university information technology (IT) departments and the faculty departments[1]  that IT serves. That gap is manifested by the growing number of faculty that are implementing their own technologies in the classroom without involvement from IT.  Factors that are contributing to the growing gap include the consumerization of IT, complexity of enterprise systems, and students influencing faculty to be early adopters.  This gap poses significant risk both to the faculty and to IT in general.

This paper outlines the contributing factors that are growing the gap and some of the key risks to IT and faculty.  By identifying the driving forces behind the widening gap as well as the associated risks, IT departments will be better equipped to develop strategies for monitoring and managing the forces at play rather than implementing costly fixes that will result in an increase of the gap and potentially have a negative effect on IT reputation.

II. The widening gap
Historically, the enterprise (or place of employment) provided individuals with the latest and greatest technology primarily because of the associated cost.  This has also been true of the university environment where IT provided faculty with the infrastructure and software needed for the classroom.  During the last 10 years, however, more and more technology has been made available to faculty and control over that technology is now shifting away from IT. This trend, called the consumerization of IT by Gartner, is the key force widening the gap. “Falling prices and broadening distribution have made technology a commodity that is accessible and affordable to consumers, to the extent that they represent as large a global market as business users. As a result, providers… are starting to switch the focus of their innovation and product designs toward individual consumers.  …The rise of Web 2.0, wherein users are exploiting a broad array of options, opportunities, content and services in the form of mashups, has created an open market of capabilities available to all, and that is outside the control of the corporate IT function.” (Smith & Prentice, Key Issues for the Consumerization of IT, 2009).

A 2005 Gartner Press Release also states, “The growing practice of introducing new technologies into consumer markets prior to industrial markets will be the most significant trend affecting information technology (IT) during the next 10 years…” (Gartner, 2005).  Universities are not immune to this trend.  What follows is a brief description of some of the specific drivers and potential outcomes behind this trend as it pertains to the university setting.

Abundance of free or low cost learning tools
Any tool that can be adapted to help students learn more effectively is considered a learning tool generally speaking.  Perhaps the greatest adoption of learning tools has come from the plethora of online applications (referred to as Web 2.0 or mashups above) that can be used to enhance the learning experience. The classroom has moved beyond desks, chalkboards, and paper notebooks into the online world where students can interact with each other and with the teacher at virtually any time from any place.  Good examples of online applications that have crept into classrooms include YouTube, Google Apps, and iTunes-U[2].   These tools are not only easy to use, but they are either free to use or available at very low-cost.  As these tools are refined, faculty will desire to augment the classroom experience by using these tools to help engage students and increase learning.

Faculty have less need to rely on IT for technology
Historically, all technology used in the classroom has been owned and administered through IT.  This is no longer the case.  Aside from Internet access, most faculty rely on IT support only for specific systems they are required to use such as course registration systems and ERP[3]  portals.  The technology they want to use online comes with very low friction for its use.  Faculty no longer need to involve IT in integrating these tools in the classroom.  This is especially true when the friction for IT to setup the technology, with its accompanying approvals and timelines, is outweighed by setting it up themselves.

IT constraints focus resources on core systems
Running a campus-scale IT infrastructure is an enormous and costly challenge.  IT departments must ensure the campus has adequate Internet access, networking and cabling, ERP systems, administrative systems, inventory systems, human resources systems, etc.  These systems are critical for day-to-day function of the university.  Because of this, budgets and resources are constrained to operating and maintaining these systems.  In most cases, anything ancillary to these systems gets decreased attention or even rejected altogether.  The long-term result of this will be that specific faculty needs receive a justified low priority and will only be considered when resources can be acquired to meet their needs.

Discovery of solutions is moving out of IT
While IT has been primarily responsible for the discovery, acquisition, and implementation of technology in the past, the Internet (search engines especially) has greatly increased the availability and discovery of new technologies and tools that will fit specific faculty needs.  With some exception, these tools can be easily acquired leaving the implementation up to the faculty member to deploy as needed in their courses.  Vendor relationships, which accompany large systems implementations, are not needed to the same extent for smaller specialized tools as they are for their enterprise-class counterparts.  The combination of these two factors makes it very easy for faculty to perform the discovery of their solutions without any involvement from IT and will continue to play a large role in widening the gap.

Focus of IT on enterprise software
Because IT departments are primarily focused on large-scale system implementations, they are comfortable with the idea of implementing enterprise-class systems to solve faculty needs[4].  Because of the size and cost of enterprise systems, project approval and implementation require a great deal of analysis and discussion resulting in months, or even years, before the technology is implemented.  Such implementations are not only costly, but are usually deployed all at once giving faculty little opportunity to try or pilot the solution.  Satisfaction in the final result is difficult to achieve especially if it complicates or requires more time to do simple tasks they didn’t have to do before.

Other factors that can potentially widen the gap between IT and faculty as it pertains to enterprise solutions are at play as well.  First, finding a one-size-fits-all solution is next to impossible because of the varying skill levels that the solution must serve.  Second, enterprise software is rarely designed for a classroom, or university, implementation[5].   Much effort must be applied to modify out-of-the-box configurations to fit the classroom environment.  While trying to fit the needs of the entire faculty, enterprise systems can present a wide range of functionality and complexity that leads to improper use and end-user frustration.

Historical failures in adoption of IT systems
Many of the trends already stated lead to a failure in faculty adopting systems deployed by IT.  A series of these costly deployments will not only affect the reputation of IT with faculty, but will lead to administrative levels of the university becoming disenchanted with IT’s inability to gain their promised returns on investment.  Should this happen, the gap will widen as different departments within the university will actually encourage faculty and other users to search for solutions on their own.

Faculty autonomy
One unique characteristic of universities that most corporate enterprises don’t experience is the autonomy that is enjoyed by faculty.  Encouraged by their legal standing (Euben, 2001), faculty are naturally resistant to any outside force attempting to dictate the best tools to use in the classroom.  As options are made available to them outside of IT they will, and are encouraged to, adopt solutions that allow them to design their courses as they see fit. This autonomy especially widens the gap between dogmatic IT departments and self-governed faculty.

Innovative student’s influence on faculty
Students can play a large role in influencing which technologies faculty are adopting. Students are more inclined to be innovators and early adopters because they are consistently looking for good solutions to augment their learning.  As they find good solutions, they share those with classmates and faculty.  Faculty that are interested in improving the learning environment quickly learn from the students the techniques and tools that they are using.  This influence will continue to drive faculty to use solutions that are easily accessible and do not require any intervention from IT.

III. Risks associated with the gap
The common thread through the factors driving the widening gap between IT and faculty is the idea that faculty want quick and effective solutions to enhance the learning experience and the best place to look for those tools is online.  As the gap widens, however, there are an increasing number of risks that threaten not only the IT department, but the university and the classroom itself.  While the consumerization of IT is not new, little has been developed in identifying the key risks involved as well as strategies for dealing with those risks, especially as it pertains to the university environment.

With online technology being the primary source of risk for faculty, what follows is a description of identified risks that will come as a result of being passive about the gap as they pertain to the university setting.  This is not meant to be an all-inclusive list, but is presented as a basis for creating strategies to either close the gap between faculty and IT or help IT become more comfortable addressing the gap.

Obsolescence of online technology
When faculty adopt an online technology to use in the classroom, they run the risk that the technology will become obsolete before it can be fully implemented.  The online world is competitive in nature and trends come and go quickly.  Should a faculty member spend large amounts of time developing course material and learning activities based on an online technology that becomes obsolete, she will have to spend more time researching another tool to meet her needs.  The difficulty here is that rarely do newer tools act or work like the tools previously used.  Faculty will then be required to invest more time restructuring their curriculum to comply with the newer technology.  This process, could, if repeated often, result in the faculty member requesting more time and resources from IT to help find a more permanent solution.

Increased support costs
Although online software has a reputation of being easy to use and simple to implement, often the user (in this case a faculty member) quickly finds himself in over his head in trying to get the technology to act a certain way.   When this happens, faculty turn to the technology experts in the university, IT, for help.  If this were to happen once in a while it would not be so difficult to handle; however, with the widening gap, more and more faculty will be trying different solutions.  IT will be asked to support far more specialized applications than they have resources.

Damage to university reputation
As faculty move more and more content from IT systems to their online learning tools, more content is available for public consumption.  In addition, if faculty use online tools where students put their assignments and other content online that places that content where it is openly consumable and subject for a world-wide audience to review.  While this may be advantageous for learning, it can quickly lead to others reviewing that content with malicious intent.  Should a student or faculty publish information that may incriminate or criticize the university in any way it could quickly spread throughout the Internet and damage the reputation of the university or faculty.

Ownership disputes surrounding course content
Many online technologies encourage their users to place large amounts of content online.  Because that content no longer resides on university-owned servers, questions about the ownership arises.  Is the content owned by the university?  If not, does the content denote that it is generated from the university?  Should the faculty member move to another university does she have the right to take it with her?  These questions and more can lead to potentially contentious situations and litigation.

Perceived university endorsement
When faculty use an online technology which requires the students’ use, that technology can be perceived to be officially endorsed by the university and IT department.  This is particularly true if the faculty member attempts to “brand” the tool with university logos and colors.  Because of this perception, students and on-looking faculty may feel that it is the role of the university helpdesk or IT department to provide support for that product.  That perception may also lead to a general acceptance for all material on that site as being publicly available.  For example, if a faculty member begins using a Facebook group to communicate with students in a particular course, the students could potentially believe that the group is an officially-sponsored group by the university and invite their friends to join, exposing content and communication to an unintended audience.

Exposure to ads and indecent material
The primary source of funding for online technology are advertisements.  Most business models for strictly online entities are grounded in providing users with free use of the produce so long as they allow advertisements to be shown periodically and, in some cases, injected into their content.  This can be distracting to the learning experience and, in combination of the perception of university endorsement, lead students to believe that the advertisements are sanctioned by the university.  Ads are not the only risk of exposure.  Many sites, such as video sites and social networks, provide great learning material but also place the student within a few clicks of indecent material in the form of violence, drugs, or pornography.  While it could be argued that the student could access this material himself anyway while online, the fact that they were brought to these sites by the university places the blame on the university itself and not the student.

Susceptibility to malware, spyware, and other malicious software
During the discovery of potential learning tools, a faculty member may be accessing sites that download malicious software such as malware and spyware.  While these threats would seem obvious to experienced IT staff, faculty may be susceptible to online attacks.  This is especially dangerous if the faculty member invites students to participate in a learning activity online only to learn that all participants were affected by the malicious software.  IT resources would then be required to help clean the software from the users’ computers and attempt to recover any lost data.  In some cases, the malicious software could lead to stolen faculty and student identity information which could lead to expensive damage control and legal fees.

Inconsistency for students
Students generally adapt well to the technology requirements they face.  However, if students are using different tools in several different classes, they are expected to not only learn the course material, but the many different tools used in their classes.  When the students have difficulty learning or using an application, they will naturally desire support from the university to help them either through a helpdesk or a student technology center.  The additional cost to provide this support could pose a significant risk to IT budgets.

IV. Closing the gap
The current methodologies for managing consumer products in universities are only making the gap bigger.  Closing the gap will require new thinking and new strategies. “Enterprises need to acknowledge the changes that are occurring in IT ownership and use, and find ways to accommodate the expectations and aspirations of their workforce in their IT infrastructure and deployment. The consequences of ignoring these dynamics will be rising dissatisfaction among employees and a growing loss of competitive advantage” (Smith & Prentice, Consumerization Gains Momentum: The IT Civil War, 2007).

It’s important to note that the gap is not caused by the technologies themselves.  Policies focused on banning technologies will fail[6].  The methodologies and strategies developed must be focused on building relationships of trust between faculty and IT.  IT must be able to trust that faculty will use solutions that will not only provide better learning experiences but will allow IT to manage the risks associated with the solution.  Faculty must be able to feel support from IT in their decisions to use the technology they desire.
Closing the gap will require new risk management and IT governance strategies that are yet to be developed. In the meantime, IT departments can begin to embrace new technologies as they come and develop ways to monitor their use.  Planning should begin immediately to assess the course of action that IT will take to close the gap. A little governance and relationship building will go a long way to helping both faculty and IT feel comfortable with the gap allowing for collaborative efforts and actionable plans.

[1]To simplify the reading of this document faculty departments will be referred to as simply faculty and information technology (IT) departments will be referred to as IT. In addition, many universities have an Academic Technology group that functions as the go-between for faculty and IT. Because of the broad applications of these departments in different universities, they are not considered in this paper. Academic Technology departments generally take the side of either IT or faculty and as such don’t have a significant impact on the gap itself.
[2]As of this writing, there is a group of online users maintaining a list of collaboration tools that could be used in the classroom at http://www.mindmeister.com/12213323
[3]Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems as they pertain to the university setting vary in the scope of their implementation.  At their core, they provide student information services (SIS) which involves course enrollments, student transcripts, and other student information.
[4]The classic example of enterprise-class software for the classroom is a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Blackboard, Moodle, and Sakai.  For an analysis on a proposed architecture of an LMS that tries to close the gap talked about in this work see the following blog post by the author: http://michaelfarmer.info/blog/?tag=lms-proposal
[5]The enterprise software that immediately comes to mind are content or document management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint and its open source counterpart Alfresco.  These solutions work great in the corporate enterprise but require a great deal of development work to integrate them into a university environment.
[6]Many studies have been done by Gartner and other research groups that confirm this statement.  The research done by Gartner already included in the Works Cited section of this paper all allude to this outcome.

Works Cited
Euben, D. R. (2001, November 13). Who Grades Students? Some Legal Cases, Some Best Practices. (University of Michigan AAUP Chapter) Retrieved April 7, 2009, from http://www.umich.edu/~aaupum/Euben.html
Gartner. (2005, October 20). 2005 Press Releases. Retrieved March 25, 2009, from http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_138285_11.html
Smith, D. M., & Prentice, S. (2007). Consumerization Gains Momentum: The IT Civil War. Gartner .
Smith, D. M., & Prentice, S. (2009). Key Issues for the Consumerization of IT, 2009. Gartner .
Smith, D. M., & Prentice, S. (2008). To Deal With Consumerization, CIOs Should Ask ‘Why?’ Not Just Say ‘No’. Gartner .
Wallin, L.-O. (2007). A Framework for Assessing the Risks and Benefits of Using Consumer IT in Enterprises. Gartner .