Defining IT:Carleton University has published an infographic defining its core services, mission, and vital stats. Computing @ Carleton
New look:The University of Toronto's IT Services department web site has a new look. With a prominent search field, latest news bar, and system status button, the site is clean and efficient and makes Google look like a mere search engine. UofT IT Services
IT recycling games:Queen's IT Services, in conjunction with the University's Sustainability Office, is running its second annual Recycle IT Games. The Games feature events like laptop toss and cellphone accuracy throw, and provide a fun way for the Queen’s community to recycle its unwanted electronics. Last year’s games collected and disposed of nearly 3.5 tonnes of e-waste, including 2,179 kilograms of computer towers and 590 kilograms of monitors. That’s more than 10 percent of the e-waste that Queen’s recycled last year. Queens recycles IT
Top mobile app in Canada:The University of Saskatchewan’s mobile app iUsask was named the number one app for navigating Canadian universities according to Connected Rogers, a Canadian technology and lifestyle digital magazine. uSask mobile award
Active learning technology transformation:Several classrooms at Queen's are being re-designed to become active learning spaces. The classrooms are designed to encourage different types of learning by installing varying levels of technology. Each of the new classrooms will feature a different configuration. The attached link shows some of the technology in these new classrooms and how they were built. Classroom eLearning changes
Responses:
Last week this question was posed: "Has IT lost its relevance in higher education? In a recent IT conference several speakers expressed concern that the constantly declining budgets in higher ed IT are a sign of declining relevance to their institutions. Do you agree or disagree? If you agree, what would you do about it?"
Several responses were received:
I would suggest that it is a shifting relevance. Many of our IT organizations have evolved over the past several decades to become all things to all people. As a result, our ‘business model’ has become unsustainable in an era when government funding is being reduced and technologies are increasingly personalized, mobile and self-empowering. Cloud computing has certainly had an impact, too, as it changes the delivery and support models in fundamental ways.
Strong and flexible organizations focus on core competencies and let go of activities that have decreasing value. That is the challenge facing us in IT services. We need to migrate away from provision of commoditized IT services and shift focus to higher-level services such as data analytics, information services, systems integration, business analysis and project management. Those services are desperately needed by our organizations.We need to shift in this direction if we wish to remain relevant.
Dwight Fischer, CIO Dalhousie University
We are caught between traditional one-year budget and 5-year amortization administrative cycles on the one hand and technology flavour of the week/month on the other – so at best there is stress in the system.
I think though that the question is too broad – IT is too wide a scope. I think we need to look at the various levels of service we provide and recognize that they range from – commodity/consumer up through mandatory operations to systems that help us compete by differentiating us all the way to innovation. The commodity/consumer stuff of today was the innovation of yesterday – so IT needs to recognize that and “let it go” – in fact develop a process and a culture of “letting it go” so that we can focus more on the things that really make a difference (however fleetingly) for our universities.
Graham C. Mowbray, CIO Memorial University
If ‘IT’ is defined as a group of people who are good at configuring hardware and software. Then yes, IT is losing its relevance in higher education (and, so it should!). If the IT group views itself (and presents itself) as a back office function, it will increasingly be marginalised. Skills that used to be associated with an IT professional are drastically changing. The stereotype of the socially awkward technically savvy IT guru are giving way to a new paradigm – that of a highly focused and engaged person who is a strong communicator capable of translating complex business needs into viable enabling solutions.
If ‘IT’ is defined as a key business enabler advocating for the use of technology in appropriate contexts then I think that IT is gaining relevance rather than losing it. IT as an industry is so young that old paradigms were stages in the infancy of the profession. Thus the new label of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). When used strategically, ICT is emerging as a business transformation pillar. A highly relevant ICT service unit is one that is an expert in the ‘business’ that it supports. It is also one that sees itself as offering services in change management – helping people discover new ways of working towards achieving higher value. After all, if nothing else, our industry is about change.
Dave Lampron, Director Technology Enabled Learning MedIT, University of British Columbia
