So what role will IT play in teaching and learning in 5 years?

So what role will IT play in teaching and learning in 5 years? Now that's an interesting question. I guess to even start address this question you have to take a big step back and look at who will higher education be serving in 5 years and in what will delivery systems be like.

Who will we be serving? Look at who we are serving now. At community colleges we serve working adults and younger students with specific career goals or a desire to transfer to four year schools. This number has always been large, but will get larger with a continued need to train and retrain for careers. The more traditonal 18-22 year old student bachelor's degree seeking is not going away. At many public colleges the applicant numbers are generally strong, although some surveys show declines particularly at four year private colleges. Students and parents feel that a bachelors degree is a necessity. At private four years colleges the applicant numbers are mixed with smaller less famous schools struggling a bit to fill their classes and more elite colleges doing well in this area. Graduate school enrollments are declining according to the New York Times . It probably safe to say that this will not improve a great deal in the next five years. What we will see is probably an environment where people want to go back to sschool, but they have more critical issues to address. Layoffs of part-time students, parents or spouses has something to do with the decline, but so does the general uncertainy about investing in anything. Even if you have a job, will you have one next week? Will this still be the case in five years? Maybe.

So what role will technology play down the road a bit? I think for the 18-22 year residential student, things will not change dramatically. This faculty in this space has totally embraced in-class technology, but sadly many just use PowerPoint. There are a few innovators, but these are the few exceptions. We will see more blended courses (mix of traditonal lecture and web content including audio/video) and some additonal flipped courses (pre-recorded lectures presented online before face to face classes). The college faculty of today, in this environment still seem resistent to new modes of teaching. Blended learning and flipped courses will do very well at community colleges where the students are often older and have jobs or family responsibilities. Tech assisted courses will be a major attrraction for these students who value flexibility. I am curious to see how MOOCs (massive open online courses) will do. I am expectng that these will not offer a challenge to more traditonal programs, but they will provide access to under served groups and will be profitable. I cannot imagine someone doing an entire degree using the MOOC option. I am VERY curious to see how companies like StraighterLine will do. Straighter line offers general education courses for a monthly membership fee of $99. They have a number of accredited colleges that will take their courses in transfer. This will have great appeeal to the adult learner who needs flexibility or wants to "catch up" enroute to a degree. When you start looking broadly at the global community of learners, you have to wonder how programs like the University Of The People will do. Free college degrees for the financially challenged? Wow.

Graduate education will change quite a bit. The costs have risen and most employers are not willing to subsidize it. Going full-time is hard because of the costs and graduate assistantships will be hard to get. If the country needs for advanced degrees in the science or technology ares, there will have to be more financial aid. The return on investment for a graduate degree is just not there. For those who do go to graduate school part-time online, there will be many options. There are many online degree programs and these are not nearly as unacceptable as they once were. Colleges that are not developing online graduate programs may find themselves with few or no students in the next few years.I think this will be particularly true of the non-research colleges that offer masters in education, the liberal arts, or business. Many of these programs will dissappear.

So as we look down the road a few years I think we will see few changes on the four year undergraduate college/university, although there may be a few less of them. Graduate education will move online for all but heavily research based degrees. Enrollments will generally continue to fall. The most interesting area will be the options open to part-time learners in the North America and the online options for potential learners in the third world. Degrees and advanced education for this group will soar, thanks to the internet and growing connectivity. The landscape will change pretty quickly as more education is needed in order to find the few "good jobs" out there, but cost and the lack of flexibility of traditonal models are major obstacles.

(Special thanks to Educause Live for some of the info about alternative higher education providers.)

Technology Issues for 2013 - My list

There are lots of lists on the web. Some recognize accomplishment. Some show the "worst of this or that". Some are just list of stuff that someone thinks are important. This is my list of things that I think most colleges an universities have not figured out yet. Maybe these are opportunties for smart entrepreneurs to tackle or maybe they are just destined to stay on the list. These are not in any special order. They are just issues or questions that have been on my mind for a long time.

Working with faculty to enhance teaching and learning with technology.


I have spent much of the last 15 years trying to gently introduce technology into teaching and learning. It started slow with the creation of a few "Smart Rooms" and creating an easy way to help faculty post syllabii and course materials on the college web site. We then added a learning managment system and supported it. Then clickers. Then plagerism protection software. Then Smart Boards. Then library databases. Then podcasts. Then two way interactive video connections to virtual guest speakers. Then lecture capture. All of this but we are almost 15 years down the road and I don't think we have established critical mass yet. The early faculty evangelists are still there blazing the trail. Retirements have brought in young faculty with energy and expectations for the latest tools. Adoption has grown and we are spending more and more money to maintain the hardware and software. We are spending much more money now in outfitting the classroom than ever before. Figure this into the rising costs of education. I have noticed two things along the way. Faculty adoption is totally a personal preference and most senior academic admnistrators have not taken a position on technology adoption or referred to it as strategic. So where does instructional technology fit? Its expensive. Most campuses have provided some technology in almost every classroom. Many colleges have staff dedicated to supporting technology use. Students seem to like some level of technology in their classes, although surveys suggest that they still value the personal touch. All of this and its not srategic. Its just a slowly growing set of tools that are made available. I think all of this is very nice, but as we look at the cost of education, I think we need to decide if its important. If its not, we should put most of it back in the box and save the money. "Are we in, or are we out" (to paraphrase Heidi Klum from Project Runaway).


Reporting

It has been 10 years since I help implement PeopleSoft on my last campus. It was a BIG deal, as it is on all campuses. The upside is that we now have web based services that are available 24x7. This is a big upside. We are collecting more data that ever before. We probably have what many would call Big Data. What most colleges don't have is a way to make use of the data. Every campus I have worked at or visited, or heard about struggles with reporting. Why is this? It seems odd that ERP companies like Oracle and Sunguard have created large and complex systems without "plug and play reporting tools". I know there are many third party products that, with much heavily lifting, can do reporting to some degree or another. Schools that have done this well generally have many people and dollars to throw at it. It just seems odd that ERP companies would not have provided this from the get go. I am even more surprised that 10 years later many schools still identify reporting as a major concern.

Sufficient bandwidth

Bandwidth is like a drug or so it seems. You just keep needing more and more to get the "feeling". As a CIO on two campuses we have added bandwidth at an average rate of 20% per year. Remember bandwidth was not an issue 15 years ago right before college costs started rising rapidly. Just one more thing that was that not a part of the mix back then. I am on a small/medium sized campus and our main internet circuit is about 300MB. I know you laugh at me large schools. I have to say that the difference in our bandwidth is probably proportional to the difference in our size and budgets. It is not uncommon for a smaller college to spend $100k to $200k per year on bandwidth. This does not count the routers and related security tools. Looking down the road, I see cable TV dissappearing. More audio and video in course web sites. More of the same from the colleges PR department. More video conferences and distance learning classes via video. Oh, and voice over IP. Look out 5 years and the average small college will need gigabit connection. We could be looking at $400-$500k per year. Very few existing services will go away. In the words of Tim Gunn we will have to -- "make it work".


Determining if technology plans are worth writing.

I think I have written 4-5 IT plans over the past many years. They seem to take forever to write, but I actually enjoy the "looking into the future part". You get to look at what is happening or might happen in IT down the road and develop a game plan. Actually, its part plan and part warning. You end end up trying to warn the powers that be about what is happening over the hill and letting them know how you think your campus should react. This can be dangerous territory since they may not share your view and almost never share your sense of urgency. I always like to circulate the plan for input, but truthfully its more to float the ideas and see what happens. The real value is within the IT unit. I find that my team likes to know where we are headed, even if we change course down the road. We almost always change course down the road for some reason. I think this is linked to the human desire to minimize uncertainty. So I am not totally sure if IT plans matter in the grand scheme of things. I like to think so. They do help me crystalize my general direction even if there is a big question about whether the college needs them. I guess I will keep writng and reading and looking over the hill in case someone want to know what's over there.

Other CIOs will have their own lists and I may also -- tomorrow.

College Student Technology Survey - Fall 2012

Over the past year I changed institutions. After many years as the CIO at Salisbury University in Maryland I moved the same position at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Both are great schools, but have a different feel. Salisbury has about 8,700 students (7,900 UG) and TCNJ is slightly smaller at about 7,400. There is a clear emphasis on the undergraduate (6,500 UG) experience at TCNJ although it has some graduate programs. Salisbury is more of a comprehensive with many more graduate programs. TCNJ is more selective and largely residential, but the schools come from the same “teachers college” roots.

I could not wait to survey the students at TCNJ. In December 2012, I sent out a web survey and was able to get 816 responses in three days. I did not do a follow-up request. In the past I have found that 800 students give you a pretty good sample to identify trends.

Here are the interesting observations for fall 2012 at TCNJ:

Of 816 students surveyed all but one student owns a computer. Computer ownership is no longer even a consideration at TCNJ. Virtually students own a laptop and about 25% also own a desktop computer. We also found that about 17% own tablets. Multiple computers have hit this campus. That said, TCNJ still operates many computer labs, as most campuses do. Teaching in a computer lab is desirable in many disciplines and many disciplines and students take advantage of institutionally purchased specialty software. Just for the record, 42% of the TCNJ students own MACs and about 60% work on PC laptops. This seems to be a growing trend, but is surprising at the over cost of higher education and the relative cost of a MAC over a PC.

Students still own portable music devices with 88% owning either an Apple iPod or an iPod touch. E-readers owned by 19% of the students and 47% own game consoles. TCNJ does not offer free printing in labs and the library so 67% of students own personal printers. BTW, 74% of students are TCNJ own televisions. I was a little surprised by that since I was starting to think that the video demand of Netflix and Hulu would start bringing this number down.

In the cell phone space 809 of 811 respondents own cell phones. Smart phones are owned by 77%. This has grown rapidly. When I asked the same question in 2008 at Salisbury smart phone ownership was at 5%. At TCNJ, 50% of the students own iPhones, 22% own Android phones and only 3% own blackberries. Windows Smart phones came in at only 1%.

TCNJ went with the Google free email and apps option for students a few years back. I was surprised to see that 87% of the students are using Google Apps. Where is Microsoft office – in the labs. The TCNJ students are pretty great at checking their email. The survey suggested that 95% check their email daily and 99% check it at least 2-3 times a week. This is quite a bit higher than I have seen in recent years. Many college administrators will tell you that students never check their email. This is not rue at TCNJ.

One last observation for this installment. Students are still the target of the RIAA and the MPAA for illegal downloading of music and films. At TCNJ 59% of students say they never illegally download entertainment content and only 11% say that they do it often. These may not seem like good numbers, but they are not bad at all.

Next time I will look at the “write in IT suggestions” of TCNJ students.

The Cloud and Colleges: Are we there yet?

Well Christmas is almost over and my holiday blog is so last month. Time to look ahead to 2013. I am thinking about mobile, BYOD, security, a decent reporting solution (that I can afford), and the cloud (not Saas).

I attended Educuase last month and made sure to see Casey Green's session on the Campus Computing Survey . I always enjoy seeing what Casey has come up and comparing it to the ECAR study produced by Educause. The Core Data Survey provides some pretty good metrics for comparion on all sorts of issues.

There are many things to look at this year, but I was struck by the low numbers associated with cloud computing in higher education. In late September I made my first trip to Oracle World in San Francisco and heard Larry Ellison talk almost totally about cloud computing and how his products (almost every product you can think of) will serve us in the cloud. Well he said "your cloud, the Oracle cloud or a cloud hybrid", not just the cloud. A cloud hybrid is a little of yours and a little of his. this was a new term for me. He must have heard that most of higher education and business is just not quite ready to give of their data and their customizations for a single cloud flavor of their ERP system.

For a moment try and imagine that you a CIO who is looking hard at the cloud as the future resting place for all computing. We can see the benefits of smaller or no data center; fewer database administrators, if any; and a disaster recovery plan that is clearly "Larry's problem". This is where we all want to be, but the message from most big providers is that all you have to do is run "vanilla". All customers use the same software and pretty much follow the same business practices. What a concept.

I do not intend to mock the cloud as a concept. It probably is where we will all go some day. In the real world we all have those things that make us just a little bit different. In higher education we generally think that these differences are not problems, but are part of our identity or features. Our way is in fact the right way and is a reflection of who we are. Obviously, this cannot be compromised and we need find a way to incorporate our uniqueness into the systems we run.

So, back to Larry's idea of "your cloud, the oracle cloud, and the hybrid cloud". I think he means that we could run part of our major systems (ERP) on the campus and part on his cloud at the same time. This is facinating, but hard to get your head around. Back to the Campus Computing Survey , in 2011 it showed that about 4% of colleges were putting their critical business systems in the cloud. In 2012 this jumped to 6%. This is a 50% increase in one year, but looks like a slow moving trend.

To date only email (75%) and and learning management systems (37%) are moving to the cloud (GRCC, blog on CCS 2012 results). On the email front most of this is student email with Google and Microsoft offering free products. Low risk, since its only student information. I have dipped my toe in the water with smaller systems like medical records, judicial records, and student job services. I am uncomfortable with all of these since I cannot help my users when they have issues. I also don't know where the data is or what happens if "company X" goes out of business. BTW, we are trying to move away from one cloud vendor and they want to charge us for our own data!

The Educause Top Ten Issues 2011 paper talks about cloud computing as a key strategic issue, but also provides questions about security and even the definition of cloud computing. So as we start 2013 maybe we can keep whacking away at the definiton of cloud computing; learning more about where the data is and how secure it is;and determining how we can maintain all that is important to our campuses business processes while being "vanilla" in the cloud. More work needs to be done and more questions answered before many colleges adopt cloud computing models.

My advice is to focus on what you can control and achieve in 2013. Go for some lower hanging fruit like deploying mobile applications, encouraging/supporting the use of teaching technologies, staying focuses on security, and keeping the wireless services "always on" and seemingly open. The cloud discussions will continue. I don't think we are there yet.

Christmas and the college student 2012

Time for the annual gifts for college students blog. This is the third year for this topic and I have to say that it appears that most college students have everything they need. Of course this is never totally true. The tech wizards would never let that happen. You can look at my blogs for the past two years on this topic for more ideas, but here are a few new options.

In the past year or two I have become aware that I am adding a few extra pounds. Imagine. I think this is a universal feeling that even college students share with the rest of us, even though they are often blessed with a great metabolism. Well I had a birthday last month and my resourceful daughter new about my recent weight concern and bought me a FitBit ($99). This is the coolest thing if you have a touch of OCD. You wear or carry this little electronic device around and it monitors your activity level from walking to climbing steps. On the fitbit web site you can also add workout information, if you are extra active. It doesn't stop there. You can enter in the foods you eat noting calories from an extensive drop down dictionary of foods -- even restaurant foods. All of this tracks toward your personal weight loss goal. Whatever it might be. Its all about calories burned and calories consumed. Oh, you can also track your sleep patterns. There is also a mobile app available on iTunes if you want to use your phone to track you activities and other data. Very cool for the compulsive geek who wants to lose a few pounds. It also has a social networking piece if you want to share your progress and encourage others.

The other cool thing I am looking at is the Kindle Fire HD. This came on the market last year, but there are two sizes now, 7" ($199) and 8.9" ($299) display. I am looking at the larger one that competes directly with the iPad3 ($499). There are a few things that make it more attractive than the iPad. The price; the dual stereo speakers; and the USB input. I like the iPad, but this is hard to pass up. Its a great extra device with great power for the mobile college student. BTW, I would only buy the wifi version. Going with a 3G version just adds more monthly data costs. You probably already know that 3G is pretty slow.

Have you thought about electronic stocking suffers? You can use an iTunes gift card for apps and for music. Here are a couple of articles with lots of app ideas for college students:

US News: Five Apps College Sudents use this year

GeekSugar - 10 great apps for the college student

There are many neat apps on these lists. I like free WiFi finder. This notes where you are and where you can find WiFi in your immediate area. I use this when I travel. I also like Notability for taking notes and evernote for organizing activities. You can Google Apps for College Students and get even more ideas. These are often either free or offered at just a few dollars. Again, the iTunes gift card can cover these.

One last cool idea. The backpack that also charges your devices. You carry backup power with you. The Powerbag lets you charge your backpack and you then have power all day. You can also carry other stuff. It lists at a pricey $139 at the company site, but I suggest looking at Amazon or Groupon. I have seen it as low as $59.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Rapid progress of MOOCs. When will the business model be discovered?

I have been wondering how long it would take for an accredited college/university to grant college credit for free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs. That was last month. Colorado State has started to do it! In the recent Chronicle of higher Education article, A First for Udacity: a U.S. University Will Accept Transfer Credit for One of Its Courses, Colorado State took the step. It is their course offered through Udacity, but the implications are interesting. Typcally. colleges and universities in the US will accept college credit transferred from regionally accredited colleges and universties. CSU fits this criteria.

This should mean that almost any school in the US will also grant credit for the course(s) when transferred from CSU, or will they? I would guess that over the courseof this academic year many college curriculum or admissions committees will have to decide how they want to handle this.

"Some 94,000 students worldwide took the course when it first came online early this year, and 98,000 more signed up for the second class, which started in April. "We have students from well over 100 countries, from 13-year-olds to 80-year-olds, sharing in the experience," Mr. Evans (course instructor from UVA)said of the class, one of a growing number of massive open online courses, or MOOC's, that have been attracting national attention this year."

Once colleges deal with the transfer issue, they will have to think about creating their own policies for granting credit for MOOC courses. According to the Chronicle article "in order to earn the three transfer credits toward their bachelor's degrees at Colorado State, students will need a "certificate of accomplishment" from Udacity showing they passed the course. Then they have to pass a proctored examination offered by Udacity through a secure testing center. The exam, administered by the Pearson VUE testing group, will cost $89."

So Pearson is already stepping in to provide testing and assessment services. How different is this from the College Board or the Educational Testing service providing verification of accomplishment tests for high school advanced placement students. Not very different.

Time to ask more questions:

Does this mean that with the proper assessment from a respected assessment vendor or college that other colleges will accept the courses in transfer and grant credit?

Will traditional colleges limit the amount of MOOC credit that they are willing to accept toward a degree? Many do this with transfer credit now.

What does this mean for the student and the cost of a college degree? If students take as many MOOC courses as they can transfer to the school of their choice, how will this reduce the total cost of their college degree?

Will "for profit" colleges start granting degrees totally on the basis of MOOC classes (for a modest processing fee?

When will someone find a business model that makes MOOC courses viable on a large scale. Let's see, if "College X" charged $25 for a MOOC class and $75 for the "verification of learning exam" with 98,000 students in the class -- a single class could generate $9,800,000. Most of these students could transfer the credit to the school of their choice and apply it toward a degree.

Most colleges are still shaking their collective heads and writing the whole MOOC thing off. I am glad to see the Gates Foundation funding some research on MOOC courses. This will be good information for the education community to consume and use for even further discussion. I feel more committee meetings being called.

What in the world is a MOOC and what does it mean to higher education?

A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course."A massive open online course (MOOC) is a category of online course where the participants are distributed and course materials also are dispersed across the web. MOOCs are a very recent variant of online education, which itself is a form of distance education." Wikipedia . MOOC's are free courses offered by some of the best schools in the world and by the best professors. If you have an internet connection, you can take a course. The technology used is available at reasonable prices to any college, not just the elite. Some are already using tools like learning management systems and class video technology with their own students, in regular courses. This content is most often strongly protected behind a userid and password.

This has been a topic of interest to those who think about the future of education and teaching, and the growth of advanced learning around the world. Stanford, Princeton, MIT, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania are some of the early players. They are providing free on-line courses to the world. Coursera, MITx and a few other organizations are the delivery systems.

You can Google and get lots of information about MOOC's. I visited the Coursera site last night and found that they offer 117 courses in 16 content areas, for free. This is a limited number of courses and it does not look like the courses lead towards a degree -- yet, but what an opportunity. When you look at this list of courses and the schools that are offering them you have to come back to other questions that are abuzz in higherd education these days:

Does a degree mean anything anymore?
What are college students learning in college?
Is a college degree worth all of that money?
Is the four year residential college seeing its last days?
Will this greatly empower those living in remote areas of the world and what does that mean?
Will the 3rd world leap over the west?
Will this find its way to K-12 and make home schooling the preferred method for many more families? (See the Kahn Academy, if you think this is far off.)
Will college students assemble a group of MOOC classes, a few regular on-line classes, and in person classes and earn a degree?

I might revisit these questions over the next few months, but more importantly I think all colleges and universities need to consider them themselves. We are always developing or refining strategic plans, planning for regional accreditation, or trying to think of how our campus can be "distinctive". With all due respect to my colleagues, most have their head in the sand over this topic. Many consider it to be just another game for the rich schools. I am pleased that the term "blended courses" has almost become mainstream on many campuses, but this is just the start. The cost of education and the market place will decide whether the product we have been providing for decades is still going to hold up. I am a great advocate of the traditonal baccalaureate experience, but its day may have come and gone. I urge every college president to learn what MOOC is and to start a discussion on their campus.

Will a degree from Western Governors University, the University of Phoenix, or the University of Maryland University College be as valuable as those from other schools? They already are!

BTW, last night I signed up for a course entitled "Information Security and Risk Management in Context" offered by the University of Washington.