Emerging Technologies Consulting

In teaching this semester, I’ve been put in the role of user of technology, rather than the person who makes the technology work or fixes it when it doesn’t.  It’s been an interesting experience, one I haven’t had in a long time.  Back when I taught at Arkansas in the late 90s, putting up web pages for classes and using e-mail lists and newsgroups was the Wild West.  The IT people gave you space and enough leeway to do stuff without doing any real damage.  You didn’t get any help, but you could do whatever you were capable of.  Technology used in teaching was gravy.  More recently, the previous times I’ve taught at Bryn Mawr, I was still also working in the IT department, so I had access privileges to many applications and proximity to people who could help.  Now that I no longer work in IT, I must rely on the help desk and other resources just like everyone else.  Plus, IT no longer functions like the Wild West and increasingly, students and faculty view technology as a key component in a class.  There are security and support issues aplenty.

But I think that everyone who works in IT should be on the user side every once in a while.  Even though I am quite familiar with the day-to-day work and life of a faculty member, there’s been something eye-opening about having to be one in this environment.  Just today, I went to scan a book chapter for my class and three scanners I tried all failed.  One failed after I’d already gone through the whole scanning process and then the document disappeared into the ether.  I spent 45 minutes for nothing.  It was lost time.  Working on the blog site for the course also presented problems.  At the beginning of the semester, I had access to the “innards” of the site and could upload plugins and themes as we were trying to get the site right for the course.  But later, I lost this access (and really probably shouldn’t have had it to begin with), so we could no longer make dramatic changes without getting an IT person to do it for us.  So we didn’t ask for anything.

As an IT staff member, I know I complained about faculty’s last-minute requests for help with technology, but I’m beginning to understand more about why that happens and why there’s not a whole lot you can do about it.  Any responsive faculty member who wants to use technology effectively isn’t going to have their technology perfectly functional on day one of the class.  They might get to class and find that there are more or fewer students than they thought.  After the first assignment to post on the blog or in the wiki or on the discussion board, they find they need to make some changes to make that process work better for the students.  The students might suggest an RSS feed from the New York Times.  A class is shaped as much as possible before the class begins, but most faculty allow the class to take shape as it goes along, and therefore, the technology needs to be shaped and reshaped as well.  Sometimes, systems are put into place that allow a great deal of flexibility and are easy enough that the faculty member can do some of the work herself, but sometimes they’re not, and sometimes IT people don’t realize the problems they’re creating when they use such systems.

One thing I’ve somewhat come to relutctantly realize is that sometimes using what’s readily available online as opposed to what the school provides is easier.  As a faculty member, one certainly has more control and access to a web space or blog or wiki that one has signed up for personally (and decided on for oneself) than campus-based applications.  I think this is especially true if you’re tech savvy and want that kind of control.  For other faculty, a campus application like Blackboard, that offers some flexibility, but not a lot of customization, might be just fine. There are in-between faculty, though, that I think lose out the most.  They don’t always know enough about the technoology to go off on their own, but they’re disappointed with the standard CMS.  For them, a campus-supported blog or wiki or other application would be useful.  But they might bump into the kinds of problems I did.  What if none of the themes are appealing?  What if they need some added functionality? In some IT departments, they might have to put in a requisition weeks in advance.  By then, the class is over and the customization that would have enhanced it never got done.

Two things, I think, can solve this problem.  One, training and education about off-site appications.  That way, faculty know what their options are and they know how to use them.  Two, install the applications on-site and provide support for it.  These may not be the only options, but these seem like viable ones.  In all likelihood, most places will do some combination of these.  Schools wanting to capitilze on the work faculty are doing on the web (presuming it’s in the open), might want to go for option 2, so that it’s easier to aggregate that work.  Schools who have fewer support staff might opt for option 1.

What other problems are out there? What other solutions?  How do you allow faculty flexibility and space to be innovative and maintain whatever security you need to?