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Technology & the Community College
The Right Spend
2/1/2008
6) Improvise
Perhaps the best way for two-year colleges to stretch IT expenditures is for innovative technologists to get creative about the ways in which they implement particular tools on campus. In some cases, this might mean purchasing an older technology and tweaking it to serve new and exciting purposes. In other instances, it can mean using one technology to take the place of many and meet a variety of needs across a number of different disciplines.
Technologists at Northampton Community College (PA) learned this first-hand after signing up for web conferencing technology from Elluminate. The school originally purchased the vendor's Elluminate Live! product to provide a synchronous video component to existing distance education programs. But according to Kelvin Bentley, director of distance learning, the school quickly built a new online tutoring program around the technology, as well.
Bentley points out that if Northampton had purchased a separate product to power the online tutoring, it could have spent two or three times as much. Instead, he says, the school basically used the Elluminate product to "kill two birds with one stone." All told, after spending $21,000 for an unlimited seat license of the product in November 2006, college officials recently reupped by forking over $27,500 for use of the technology until September 2009.
"We bought [the product] hoping we could find a way to get the most out of the money we spent," says Bentley. "Today, considering that we're using one technology for two distinctly different purposes, I'd say we've managed to accomplish our goal pretty well."
::WEBEXTRAS ::
IT funding roundtable: Four
intrepid campus tech leaders share
how they balance dollars and
demand.
Learn how some community
college administrators are utilizing
technology to serve and retain their commuting students.
Matt Villano, senior contributing editor of this publication, is based in Healdsburg, CA.
Matt Villano is senior contributing editor of this publication.
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