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Weighing In
The Next Phase for Academic Computing
7/16/2008
We are now, historically, at a very different point in the evolution of technology on campus than even just 2 or 3 years ago. Campus computing strategy should no longer start and end with central computing, albeit with gestures of recognition toward educational uses of technology. Such traditional thinking would now miss the real action and also miss some real needs for strategizing.Academia Is About Innovation and Risk
How do you institutionalize innovation and risk? Academia has always done so through projects, often through funded projects. At its core, academia as an enterprise is all about innovation and risk, and this must include innovation and risk regarding information technology for learning. Yet, a troubling fact is that top administrators can no longer reliably look to the traditional computing administrators for direction. "Keeping things running" and "innovation in learning around technology" are now separated by such a cultural and existential gap that there is little common ground.
Innovation in learning around technology, therefore, needs a separate administrative support structure and a top-level advocate who reports in parallel to central computing. We are in another of the de-centralizing phases on campus, such as when the PC was deployed, or the network segmented, or projects set up their own servers. But this new Web 2.0 de-centralizing phase involves going off campus. It's a paradigm shift that campuses must recognize and organize around.
Trent Batson, Ph.D. has served as an English professor, director of academic computing, and has been an IT leader since the mid-1980s. He is currently Co-Lead for the Web2ePortfolio Initiatve (W2eP), a Senior Associate with the TLT Group, and Editor of Campus Technology's Web 2.0 e-newsletter. batsontr@mit.edu
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