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Ocotillo Chairs Reading List
In our work we will be sharing useful articles and other materials with the ocotillo chairs. Paper copies will be sent via campus mail, and should you need another copy, send an email request to Tracy Price or call MCLI at 1-8300. See also: readings list from 1997-98.

  1. Is Strategic Planning for Technology and Oxymoron? by Martin D. Ringle and Daniel Updegrove, CAUSE/EFFECT, Vol 21, No 1, 1988.
    "We queried more than 150 technology officers in higher education around the country. The results were surprising. Roughly 10 percent of the respondents indicated that they simply don't do strategic technology planning at all, saying it is a frustrating, time-consuming endeavor that distracts from rather than contributes to the real work of building and maintaining an adequate technology infrastructure ...

    there are two distinct aspects of strategic technology planning. One is socioeconomic and the other is pragmatic/technical. The traditional focus on the creation of a planning document tends to merge these aspects and obscure the distinction, often leading to confusion and frustration. The differences between socioeconomic objectives -- which are essentially strategic -- and technical goals -- which are primarily operational -- are non-trivial: while the former need to be stable and comprehensive, the latter need to be agile and responsive to rapid changes in technology and in users' needs. We believe strategic planning for technology is not an oxymoron, yet a failure to appreciate the dual character of technology planning can make it seem that way. Many technology officers with whom we spoke intuitively recognize the essence of good planning and achieve impressive outcomes with a minimum of frustration. Our goal in this study is to bring these underlying practices and perspectives together into an explicit -- and relatively simple -- model of a good technology planning process. "
    http://www.cause.org/information-resources/ir-library/html/cem9814.html

  2. IT Financial Planning 101, Developing an Institutional Strategy for Financial Technology by Kenneth Green and Robin Jenkins, NACUBO Business Offices, March 1988.
    Green, author of the Campus Comuting Project that yearly reports on national trends for use of technology in higher education, highlights surprising and perhaps disturbing trends with regard to IT planning.

    "Less than a third (28.9 percent) of the campuses participating in the 1997 Campus Computing Survey reported having a working financial plan for technology, virtually unchanged from 1996 (28.1 percent). The vast majority of U.S. colleges and universities (70.1 percent) continue to fund most of their equipment, network, and software expenses with one-time budget allocations or special appropriations. Moreover, the majority of colleges and universities (51.6 percent) continue to operate without a strategic plan for information technology. Survey data suggest that a large proportion of technology spending is "opportunistic" -dependent on "budget dust," or year-end money, to underwrite upgraded labs, new computers for faculty, and other IT costs. "

    "The keys to developing an effective financing strategy-- IT Financial Planning 101-- are to understand market and demand trends in technology, identify and classify total technology costs, develop an effective life-cycle budgeting model for technology, and finally identify and match funding streams that efficiently cover the institution's total annual technology cost. "
    http://www.nacubo.org/website/members/bomag/9803/101.html

  3. What Chief Academic Officers Want to Know About ... Internet-Based Distant Learning?, League for Innovation's Alliance for Community College Innovation.
    a summary of an 8 item survey submitted to chief academic officers belonging to the Alliance for Community College Innovation. Results are based upon 129 total returned surveys.
    http://www.league.org/

  4. Technology Status Assessment, WestEd
    Part of WestEd's resources on "Policy, Planning and Evaluation", this section provides a useful "rubric" for gauging progress in different parts of a technology plan, ranging from "initial" to "full accomplished". Another document provides a template for listing the "next" steps needed in each area
    http://www.wested.org/tie/techplan/techasse.html

  5. Taking Instruction to Where It Will Be Used: Tutoring Faculty in Their Offices, CAUSE/EFFECT, by Eugene A. Engeldinger and Michael G. Love , Vol 21, number 2, 1998
    If college faculty are to keep pace with the rapid changes in the technology available for teaching and learning, academic support services departments must be prepared to provide training and faculty development opportunities. This article reports on the experience of one small, private college and the practical and philosophical considerations behind the decision to tutor faculty and staff in their offices.
    http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem982b.html

  6. What Do Information Technology Support Services Really Cost?, CAUSE/EFFECT, by Karen Leach and David Smallen, Vol 21, number 2, 1998
    Leaders of IT organizations are troubled by the lack of reliable benchmarks or comparative data on which to base decisions about support services. Presidents are mystified by total cost of ownership (TCO) studies that appear in the popular press and higher education publications. The numbers quoted in these studies don't seem realistic in light of actual expenditures on campus. Institutional trustees, concerned about rising annual costs for information technologies, are asking hard questions about the impact of services on the educational program and the value the institution is getting for its investment. The COSTS project aims to obtain consistent and reliable data, analyze it in meaningful ways, and develop benchmarks for IT services. This article describes the project's origins and work to date and reports initial results in three support services areas.
    http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem9829.html

  7. Campus Computing Project 1998 summary of the yearly report by K.C. Greene
    Yet across all sectors of the higher education landscape, institutions continue to striggle with the key aspects of IT planning and infrastructure: developing a strategic and financial plan for IT, planning curriculum integration, and porviding adequate user support... nore than a third of the survey respondents (33.3 percent) identified "assisting faculty integrate technology into instruction" as the single most important issue..."
    http://www.campuscomputing.net/

  8. Current Issues for Higher Education Information Resources Management CAUSE/EFFECT, Vol 20, number 4, Winter 1997-98
    The CAUSE Current Issues Committee is responsible for proposing a list of current or developing issues and trends that are important to the future of information resources management and use igher education. The following topics have been identified by the committee as key emerging or ongoing issues: Retaining, Retraining, and Recruiting Information Technology Staff; Identification, Authentication, and Authorization: Policy and Technical Issues; Growing Complexity and Cost of Enterprise Systems; Student Expectations for Technology Support and Services; Distributed Learning and Distance Education Challenges; Intellectual Property Issues in a Networked Environment; Managing Expectations in the Face of Rising Demand and Declining Budgets; Continuing Challenge of Information Technology Support; and Information Access Challenges on the Networked Campus
    http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem9742.html

  9. Cost-Benefit Analysis of Technology in Education On the Horizon, by Wallace Mannum, Vol 5, number 4, July/August 1997
    "Has technology really reduced the costs of providing education?.. Proponents underestimate the costs of technology by failing to include accurate costs of maintaining and replacing the technology as wella s costs for training and supporting the required staff... Opponents often underestimate the actual benefits of technology while overestimating the costs by looking at one-year costs rather than lifetime costs."
    http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/online/html/5/4/economic.asp

  10. several articles CAUSE/EFFECT, Vol 21, number 4, Winter 1998
    This issue of EDUCAUSE's publication features four articles as part fo a "Special Section on the Information Technology Staff Crisis".
    http://www.educause.edu/pub/ce/cem98/cem984.html

  11. IT Staffing: Will Higher Education Become a Preferred Destination? by Glen McCandless Syllabus, Vol 12, number 8, April 1999
    'An enormous challenge facing higher education is IT staffing-hiring, retaining, and training people required to serve the ever-growing demands for information technology. The IT staff crisis has been a hot topic of discussion in the education community, but the problem is not isolated in academia."
    http://www.syllabus.com/apr99_magfea3.html

  12. Is Online Learning Cost-Effective? by Burke Smith, Converge Magazine, April 1999
    'Every technological revolution, from the book to radio to television to the Internet, spawns a chorus of reformers predicting a change in education as we know it. Could the Internet be just another overblown educational silver bullet? The answer depends on what you compare.."
    http://www.convergemag.com/Publications/CNVGApr99/highered/highered.shtm