T. Philip Nichols and Alexander Monea explore the spread of data-driven surveillance (i.e., dataveillance) technologies in schools, which are increasingly used as a strategy for mitigating safety risks. They argue that the sense of security schools derive from these technologies often comes at the cost of students' actual well-being and privacy.…

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) gained a foothold in higher education during the first decade of the 21st century. College and university governing board members came to their board service with the perspective and experience of having served on corporate boards and in corporate leadership positions where ERM was in active use. Trustees asked…

Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) issues are increasingly pervading the IT space, with these concepts transcending silos such as central and distributed IT units, information security, and service management. As campus investment in information technology and campus reliance on information systems have grown, so has the need for reliable…

Contemporary health educators in schools are responsible for promoting the health of individual students, as well as a healthy school environment. The ongoing push for increasing device use in schools, which is underpinned by the information and communications technology (ICT) capability requirements of the new Australian Curriculum, can…

Almost everyone uses social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Since Facebook is the most popular site in the history of the Internet, this article will focus on how one can protect his/her personal information and how that extends to protecting the private information of others.

On average, more than 90% of email is unwanted junk mail--spam. Many spam messages include annoying promotions for irrelevant products, but others include viruses and pornographic content, which can pose a severe legal issue for schools. Spam puts districts in a difficult situation as schools try to enhance learning in the classroom with advanced…

In 2013, compliance issues march, unceasingly, through every aspect of higher education. Yet the intricacies of privacy, information security, data governance, and IT policy as compliance and risk areas within the IT organization can reverberate and impact every other department within the higher education institution. The primary focus is always…

The sourcing of IT systems and services takes many shapes in higher education. Campus central IT organizations are increasingly responsible for the administration of enterprise systems and for the consolidation of operations into a single data center. Specialized academic and administrative systems may be run by local IT departments. In addition,…

Higher education today is facing its own financial challenge. Conditions are grim nationwide. The fiscal climate exacerbates the pressure on colleges and universities to provide more resources and services--with less funding. For information technology (IT) professionals, the economic downturn presents an opportunity to stop, reprioritize, and…

The role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), one of the newer positions in higher education senior leadership, continues to transform and evolve, often heading in surprising directions. Not only are the technologies changing at a dizzying pace, but it often feels as if the role itself, as well as what institutions need and expect from the CIO,…

School business administrators have long recognized the need for a workable data recovery plan regardless of cause. Yet many have not reassessed their current data backup and recovery capabilities, perhaps because they have not experienced a catastrophic failure. There are three reasons school business administrators may not realize or recognize…

Will that data breach be the end of a chief security officer (CSO)? Managing information security in higher education requires more than just technical expertise, especially when the heat is cranked up. This article takes a look at how two CSOs deal with hack attacks at their universities. When Purdue University Chief Information Security Officer…

Increasingly, IT organizations will move from providing IT services locally to becoming an integrator of IT services--some provided locally and others provided outside the institution. As a result, institutions must immediately begin to plan for shared services and must understand the essential role that identity management and trust services play…

The University of Washington (UW) adopted a dual-provider cloud-computing strategy, focusing initially on software as a service. The original project--to replace an obsolete alumni e-mail system--resulted in a cloud solution that soon grew to encompass the entire campus community. The policies and contract terms UW developed, focusing on…

As influenza activity throughout the United States continues its gradual rise, H1N1 in particular has been the risk-management topic of the season for most colleges and universities. Among the questions being asked: Can one continue operations in the event of a campus closure? What if a faculty member is too sick to teach? What if students refuse…