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educause quarterly journal top ten IT challenges of 2000

Steven Kolowich, a technology reporter for Inside Higher Education, describes the online support initiative supporting online programs at Northern Virginia Community College. The intended audience for the article is higher education officials, including institutions expanding into online education. Kolowich highlights NOVA's experience with online education and how the College turned a mediocre program into a successful one.   When NOVA began an online program in the mid-2000's, the vice president for instruction and information technology, Steven Sachs, dedicated a few IT employees to help online students with small, instructional issues. After some research, Sachs realized for-profit colleges were spending more than half of their budgets on support services for students, such as financial aid counseling, job placement assistance, and academic advising. Shortly after this realization, Sachs implemented the "Next Level Initiative," spending more than $2 million to offer support to online students. The Next Level Initiative was extremely effective on all six of NOVA's campuses. Over the next four years, online programs grew four times faster than on-campus programs. Additionally, the difference in completion between online and on-ground students fell from 16% to 8%. Kolowich uses NOVA as an example to express how imperative support services are for online students.

Since the year 2000, the higher education information technology (IT) organization EDUCAUSE has published a top ten list of issues identified by a selected panel of higher education IT professionals. The 2014 report is different because, for the first time, members of the organization were invited to rank the issues in a survey conducted after panelists had assembled lists themselves. Because of this change, the resulting data sets can be evaluated across institutional types, as defined by Carnegie Classifications, and compared to determine what differences exist for IT issues across the institution types. This data set is important when investigating emerging technology trends and assessing research from various entities such as the New Media Consortium's annual Horizon Report.

Educause trends of top ten IT issues

The author is a professor of Information Systems Management at Duquesne University. This article seems to have an intended audience of future technology professionals in higher education. The article begins with an overview of how large technology organizations such as Dell, HP, ISM, Sun, Hitachi, and Fujitsu have introduced green and sustainable initiatives. The author explains the difference between "green" and "sustainable". He differentiates that "green" is generally understood to mean friendly to the environment and energy efficient, while sustainable implies planning and in¬vesting in a technology infrastructure that serves the needs of today and the future, while conserving resources and saving money. These steps are stated in general terms throughout the article and could be considered as a guide for administrators looking to move their institution to "green IT." The recommended steps include the following: identify and prioritize the goals of a green IT initiative, assess the current situation relative to high¬ priority goals, find and execute "quick wins", and craft and communicate an action plan. The author also discusses energy efficiency improvement measures, which can range from a series of simple and inexpensive ac¬tions to much more expensive infrastructure upgrades. The author also discusses potential challenges, such as significant increases in power consumption in data centers since 2000. The article also identifies several areas of opportunity for improved energy efficiency, and encourages future leaders of higher education to demonstrate a sense of commitment to these practices through their actions. He argues that building a strong sense of awareness of green and sustainable practices may produce innovative ideas for conservation of energy and preserving the environment.