With the exception of a plague of locusts, it seems as if the past five years have thrown every imaginable challenge at IT--from the incredible shrinking budget to BYOD and now the MOOC monster. For those of a superstitious bent, these were probably just appetizers to the crises that will inevitably accompany a year featuring the number 13 (cue…

When it comes to project management, the IT department is typically its own worst enemy. When project requests are pushed through the budgeting process by different departments, it's up to IT to make them all work. The staff is required to be "heroic" to get the project load done. People get to work over weekends and postpone their vacations. The…

Colleges and universities have got a big problem: how to bake a wireless network as good as Mom's. The problem is that enterprise wireless networks "tend to be a little more finicky" than the home ones. While the home devices are plug-and-play, enterprise networks force IT departments to manage client issues such as drivers and settings. It's a…

Information technology can be a game changer in higher education, as it has been in other sectors. Information technology has brought about much of the economic growth of the past century, accelerating globalization and fostering democracy. This chapter explores many ways that information technology can be a game changer. Some are as simple as…

The economic crisis has caused districts throughout the United States to cut resources and limit spending, particularly with regard to staff. However, the requirements for maintaining safe, efficiently functioning schools and for remaining in compliance with state and federal regulations have not decreased; in many cases, those responsibilities…

Knowledge exchange between employees is an essential feature of recent commercial organisations on the competitive market. Based on the data gathered by various information technology (IT) systems, social links can be extracted and exploited in knowledge exchange systems of a new kind. Users of such a system ask their queries and the system…

In the library context, they depend on sophisticated business applications specifically designed to support their work. This infrastructure consists of such components as integrated library systems, their associated online catalogs or discovery services, and self-check equipment, as well as a Web site and the various online tools and services…

This column explores the world of Gene, a composite CIO who leads a sizable IT organization for a top 100 university somewhere in America. The author's goal is to help him navigate the tough times ahead of higher education IT. The author peeks into Gene's daily goings-on, investigates his problems, and helps him to not only survive, but prosper.

Significant responsibility for the transition from paper to online can be traced to the college admissions office. By instituting online applications, admissions offices fundamentally altered the way in which college admissions works. Always on the forefront of developing and implementing new technology for the benefit of faculty and students,…

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…

In 2011, "EDUCAUSE" appointed a research panel of IT leaders from nineteen representative member institutions to both identify and prioritize the top IT issues facing their institutions. In two focus group sessions in September and October 2011, the panel members were asked the question: "What is the single-biggest IT-related issue currently…

With information technologies' pervasive use within all departments and by all staff, libraries and library staff get their fair share of mandated projects. Knowing how to successfully operate in this kind of environment is important to the overall success of the library as a whole. What is meant by mandated project? A mandated project is a…

Healthcare has become a rapidly changing field. With the introduction of value-based purchasing to determine reimbursement of Medicare providers based on the quality of care in addition to outcomes in treatment, the environment is becoming ever more competitive. Saint Philip's Hospital is among the largest non-profit hospitals in the nation…

In April, Asia officially ran out of Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 addresses--the computer equivalent of running out of telephone numbers. Over the next couple of years, the rest of the world will also run dry. Yet, unlike the Y2K bug that had some people convinced the sky would fall, this particular problem is generating little more than tired…

How can organizations avoid the negative, sometimes chaotic, effects of multiple, poorly coordinated performance improvement interventions? How can we avoid punishing our external clients or staff with the side effects of solutions that might benefit our bottom line or internal efficiency at the expense of the value received or perceived by…