Emerging Tech Challenges

  • 11/01/08

What keeps higher ed technology leaders up at night?

At Campus Technology's 2008 Executive Summit held in Boston this past summer (sponsored by CDW-G), moderator John Camp used audience polling from Turning Technologies to survey 50 IT leaders from diverse institutions and gauge the impact of emerging technologies on their campuses and on their evolving roles.

Who's Pushing New Technologies?. Response to the question "Who do you think is primarily pushing new technologies in higher education?" revealed students as the drivers (44%), but additional polling showed that IT leaders focus on wider institutional priorities even as they react to student expectation and demand.

Trendspotter

Challenges What are the challenges surrounding the deployment of emerging technologies? Participants suggested their own categories, and as a group ranked the following, among other criteria (right): • Impact of technology on learning (30%) • Helping people (faculty, etc.) change (23%) • Keeping up with change (15%) • Changing criteria for evaluating scholarly teaching and learning (5%)

Trendspotter

Additional Challenges In a ranking of "additional" challenges, participants singled out planning for innovation (48%) as the most significant challenge.

BOTTOM LINE: What were participants' "top challenges" overall? The following were worth heading into afternoon workgroup sessions for, according to the polls:

  • Driving IT toward institutional goals
  • Mass customization of learning
  • Planning for innovation
  • Impact of technology on learning

Trendspotter

Featured

  • glowing blue AI sphere connected by fine light lines, positioned next to a red-orange shield with a checkmark

    Cloud Security Alliance Offers Playbook for Red Teaming Agentic AI Systems

    The Cloud Security Alliance has introduced a guide for red teaming Agentic AI systems, targeting the security and testing challenges posed by increasingly autonomous artificial intelligence.

  • server racks, a human head with a microchip, data pipes, cloud storage, and analytical symbols

    OpenAI, Oracle Expand AI Infrastructure Partnership

    OpenAI and Oracle have announced they will develop an additional 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity, expanding their artificial intelligence infrastructure partnership as part of the Stargate Project, a joint venture among OpenAI, Oracle, and Japan's SoftBank Group that aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of computing capacity over four years.

  • laptop displaying a red padlock icon sits on a wooden desk with a digital network interface background

    Reports Highlight Domain Controllers as Prime Ransomware Targets

    A recent report from Microsoft reinforces warnings about the critical role Active Directory (AD) domain controllers play in large-scale ransomware attacks, aligning with U.S. government advisories on the persistent threat of AD compromise.

  • Abstract AI circuit board pattern

    New Nonprofit to Work Toward Safer, Truthful AI

    Turing Award-winning AI researcher Yoshua Bengio has launched LawZero, a new nonprofit aimed at developing AI systems that prioritize safety and truthfulness over autonomy.