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Julie Phillips, an online instructor for Globe Education Network, shares an extensive list of suggestions for faculty members hoping to incorporate service-learning into an online course. On-ground courses have long included service-learning components at colleges and universities across the country. Over the past decade online programs have grown drastically, but have left the challenge of offering service-learning courses to online learners. Phillips offers a variety of suggestions to assist a faculty member or administrator develop an online course including a service-learning assignment. Below is a list of Phillips' recommendations: - Select an appropriate course - Establish clear expectations - Respond to email/outreach from students and community partners within 24-48 hours - Volunteering should align with course objectives - Identify challenges upfront - Communicate, communicate, communicate - Encourage reflection throughout the course - Listen to student concerns and work through them - Enlist feedback from students and community partners - Allow students to share their experiences - Requirements should be realistic - Never underestimate the power that hands-on experience has on student learning - Incorporate various resources into class to help guide students - Not all community partners are created the same - Get excited!

This video archive presents a point/counterpoint debate of the challenges and opportunities afforded a campus CIO. Issues discussed include: the cost of and shrinking budgets for campus IT; service and support for students and faculty users; managing emerging technology, such as Second Life virtual worlds; and professional development for CIOs. Both panelists agree that a CIO needs to be both a strategist and a plumber, but this agreement is not reached until the conclusion. Value in this resource are the issues presented and frank and sometimes humorous discourse between the two CIOs. The debate occurred when campuses were battling increased use of technologies by all stakeholders and decreased budgets due to the global economic crisis. The viewpoints reflect that challenging time and serves as a basis for evaluation of CIO ability to manage effectively in a crisis when technology use cannot be curbed by budget cuts.

educause quarterly journal top ten IT challenges of 2000

The article serves two purposes for research on the topic of higher ed information technology: 1) the challenges associated with managing campus IT are universal; the issues are not found only in American higher education and 2) a case study for exploration of solutions for campus IT problems including cost, adoption and oversight, or management. The recency of the publication is important for context on current trends and issues as well as current management strategies. The sources is important because the authors are economics professors at universities in the UK who are working toward an openness in education agenda, an issue that is often met with resistance in the US even though it is commonly regarded as a possible solution for some IT problems. Openness in education has been widely debated in consideration of three key areas: cost, quality, and access. Open education resources (OER) includes free or low cost textbooks, lab manuals, learning objects and courseware. These options offer resources to educators and students at a lower cost than publisher materials and vendor software, however faculty and others question the quality of resources that are offered for free. The myth that "free" does not equal "good" in the eyes of academics prohibits widespread adoption of OER thus limits access to education resources for many. The case study in this paper goes much deeper, to examine the issues relating to creating an openness initiative at a major university and evaluate the strategies used to shift the campus mindset in regards to OER, change behavior for selecting campus and course resources, and open a dialog around OER, both using and creating from and for the OER community. Bonus: excellent lit review on the topic of openness in higher ed.

The New Media Consortium is an international research project developed by practitioners and educational technology visionaries, established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large influence over the next five years, both in education and globally. It is important to note that a previous Horizon Report (2009) has been frequently mentioned in other articles and websites related to current educational technology trends. In the 2012 report, the one year or less prediction focuses on mobile apps and tablet computing being the most prevalent, with increased utilization by college students. The two to three year forecast includes game-based learning and learning analytics, explaining that the ability to tailor educational activities as content becomes easier to manipulate with the benefit of education becoming more open to change. In four to five years, the authors emphasize gesture-based computing and the "internet of things" or objects producing their own information will both have a significant impact on education. The group expects that educational trends influenced by these technologies will be collaborative learning, working in teams, and a shift towards more challenge-based and active learning. This article provides a helpful summary reflecting the expected realities in higher education and in the larger society, acting as a guide for educators to follow technology trends, challenges, and relevance for teaching and learning.

Satish Patel, ICT coach at Umea University, describes the processes involved in designing net-based courses. Through this video, he provides a comprehensive break down of steps to take from rationale, to delivery. Patel is of the opinion that just as poorly written essays are the result of poor structural foundation or lack of understanding of teacher expectations, so are poorly taught courses the fall out of course design expertise. Course design should begin with the consideration of time and space requirements, along with learning goals. Course work can be delivered in numerous constructs of time and space, but planning should take into account the syllabus and any challenges associated therein. He recommends that teachers ask themselves what the rationales are for selecting certain tools such as wikki, blogs, etc., to determine if there may be roadblocks such as prior student preparation, and time. The next step is alighting on an ICT blend. Tools should be matched with tasks and intentions. Based on John Brigg's model of constructive alignment, Patel states that the challenge lies in figuring out how to get students to learn what teachers want them to learn. In other words matching intentions with activities, deciphering how learning objectives will be examined and related to students. Patel's preferred format for course design is a table that outlines objectives, assessment measures, practice opportunities, and presentation tools. He recommends incorporating verbs from Bloom's taxonomy into the table. The final step is conferring with an ICT specialist to recommend appropriate tools.

The author is a faculty member at the City University of New York. Through this article, she describes her interest in a question based on a study that was conducted with a college-wide committee of faculty, administrators, and staff in a survey method to discover the priorities of the faculty, in further development of excellence in teaching and learning. Of the 155 survey respondents, 22 selected a question, "In what ways do we weigh the political, ethical and economic implications of technological platforms against their pedagogical potential, and how can we model these kinds of complex decisions for our students?". Through this question, the author points out an existing challenge associated with the moral dilemmas emerging from the current increase of technological innovation, including the abuse of technology, as seen through revealing video postings, invasion of privacy, cyber-bullying, and identity theft. She continues to bring up that these challenges cause a harm to society and controversy among stakeholders. The author suggests that a new set of rules, laws, policies, and procedures should be created to guide and protect the rights of individuals in this new technological environment. The author recommends that higher education faculty and administration should take a leadership role in the study of applications of ethics in higher education. The author introduces two previously proposed bills, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, 2011) and Protect Intellectual Property (IP) Act of 2011, both of which were rejected by the American public because of the fear of censorship. According to the article, the 112th Congress postponed action on both bills. The conflict addressed by the two bills addresses financial accountability issues. Once settled, the bills will set the tone for how the next generation, of high school and college graduates will address copyright and intellectual property issues. The author proposes that administrators and faculty should guide the

In the 2014 top-ten list, EDUCAUSE panelists and members identified learning outcomes, IT leadership and staffing models, instruction technologies, IT funding, providing access, and risk management as the primary challenges in higher ed IT. These issues differ greatly from the topics identified by Gartner, Inc in their annual IT issues report for CIOs however because this list was created by EDUCAUSE members - all of whom are higher ed IT professionals - the list provides a context for understanding campus IT responses to trends identified by Gartner.

Since 2002, the New Media Consortium has partnered with experts in the field of educational technology, including the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI), to conduct a Delphi study and generate its annual Horizon Report on emerging trends in educational technology. The report, widely considered a respectable analysis of issues and a guide to addressing those issues, is disseminated with a Creative Commons open license for public distribution and consumption. Key themes in the NMC Horizon Report include: Infrastructure, leadership, organizational strategies, teaching and learning, curricular content, and assessment (pg. 4). The framework of the report includes sections on policy, leadership and practice (pg. 6). The report includes references for further reading on every issue presented. The references are evidence of the research conducted by the panelists involved in developing the annual report. Trends are also described as short term, mid term or long term trends, helping the reader estimate the impact of the trends on existing campus IT issues and initiatives. Some of the trends in the 2014 report support trends identified by EDUCAUSE and Gartner, while others are unique. Social media is an issue in the NMC report, but not the others, while assessment strategies using student data and technology are common among all three. The Horizon Report is unique in its daring presentation of topics that challenge conventional thought about higher education. The report predicts a significant threat to higher ed coming from online learning and emerging models of formal education. The report also highlights the power and impact of data - from learning analytics to predictive instructional models - that seem to transfer authority from professors to technology and technologists. There is a lot to consume in the Horizon Report. Analysis can be augmented with blogs and conference proceedings which review the report in part or in whole. Reading the report and supporting re

Edited by then president of EDUCAUSE, this book is a collection of case studies and reflections on practice from the field of higher education information technology management. Oblinger's objective was to provide evidence of impact in regards to adoption and successful implementation of campus technologies. The format allows campus leadership and IT professionals to examine the challenges and issues associated with higher ed IT through the lens of their peers at other institutions. The variety of cases shows similarities and differences among institutional types. Valuable as a snapshot of what was happening at the time of its publication for perspective and context as well as to question whether strategies are effective, or not, over time.

This blog post can be viewed as a supporting material to aid a reader in understanding the 2014 Horizon Report. Blog authors at Columbia's Center for New media Teaching and Learning review the Horizon Report and summarize its findings along with thoughts for application at Columbia. This summary of the report and insight from a prestigious university may aid a researcher in understanding perspectives on emerging technologies. The value here is in the author's perspective as an educational technology professional who manages campus technology and partners with faculty in adopting emerging tools and resources. He includes examples of past experience in technology adoption alongside thoughts about Columbia's opportunities to adopt new tools. For example, he describes the challenges associated with hybrid and flipped model teaching in response to the Horizon Report's concern for adoption and adaptation to emerging models and technology.

In this post, Voss revisits the history of the role of the CIO, with the earliest CIOs often being a faculty member who happened to like technology and then the wave of general IT workers who moved up the professional ladder to gain the position. Now the CIO has become a profession and because it is often equated with information technology and not academics, Voss argues that there are not enough CIOs-in-training that have academic backgrounds and poses a challenge to find ways to bring more academics into 'the CIO pipeline'. Voss is not explicit in his argument, but he hints as acceptance being the reason. He seems concerned that the CIO position is in danger as new similar positions are being created on the academic side of the house, effectively breaking off pieces of the CIO portfolio and relieving him/her of duties which enabled them to work closely with the president or chief academic officer. Voss argue s-a dn I completely agree - that the CIO must have the ear of the president and be part of the cabinet in order to be most effective.

In this article, Young compiles an overview of issues that challenge the status of a higher ed CIO. Interestingly, some of the comments on the article argue against the author's perspective, claiming they are seeing expansion in CIO responsibilities on their campuses. The author cautions that information services are viewed as operational and not a strategic driver for business which puts the CIO at risk. I disagree with the author and lean toward agreeing with the comments, however I am open to looking at this article and comparing to other perspectives at the time to try and understand why he chose this argument.

Jon Mott writes this article to advocate the adoption of an Open Learning Network (OLN) as a way to merge the best features of the Learning Management Systems (LMS) and the Personal Learning Environments (PLE). Even though the use of LMS is prevalent in higher education institutions, LMSs have been come under increasing criticism for being too teacher-centric, inflexible, and not fostering a communicative and sharing learning environment. Consequently many students turn to other social media and communicative tools. Educators have touted the PLE as a platform to operate alongside the LMS, in order to provide the student-centered component that is missing from the LMS. Some institutions, teachers and students have created their own PLNs to incorporate the portability, flexibility, adaptability and openness, which the LMNs do not provide. Mott however points out that the PLEs have security shortcomings, and the most provident solution is to combine the best of both platforms to create an Open Learning Network (OLN) that is flexible, can incorporate new technologies that were not in existence when LMSs became operational, and strikes a balance between the institutional goals and the essential components of the cloud by keeping private data as secure as possible, and storing the rest in the cloud. Mott provides an illustrated framework, showing how an OLN can be created successfully, and adds that Brigham Young University in Hawaii is in the process of creating one. Mott concludes that institutions and educators need not be conflicted over the dilemma of having to choose either an LMS or a PLE. The best course is to help students become digitally fluent and the OLN provides an ideal tool that rejects the "tyranny of OR" and prefers the "genius of AND". This article is most probably directed at educational communities experiencing challenges with their LMNs and seeking alternative programs.

This article covers the challenges faced by institutions who offer online courses and seek accreditation. The authors from American Public University System in West Virginia share a successful example of how their fully online institution addressed this issue by implementing an open source warehouse and semantic engine to analyze content and materials, while aligning learning activities to goals and objectives across all of the courses in their School of Business. The results shared by the authors indicate a detailed and accurate way of mapping the knowledge base to formed goals and objectives. The article demonstrates that using this technique allows for connections between goals and objectives and course content. For online colleges, this technique provides administrators the ability to quickly assess materials and effectively plan in advance for staffing and development needs. This article would be beneficial for administrators of online programs and faculty to assess learning outcomes as an automated process which might allow for more transparency within an institution.

In this article by Dan Carnevale, Michael Zastrocky, vice president for academic strategies at Garner Inc, talks about the impact of intellectual-property laws on digital archives, and the use of technological devices such as the iPhone for learning purposes in colleges. Even though proponents of digital libraries are wary of intellectual property laws and the propensity to present road blocks to building digital libraries, Zastrocky thinks the issue is complicated and still has a long way to go before it will be resolved. His stance on the use of devices like the iPhone for learning is also not optimistic. The challenge for IT leaders is in building frameworks that support personal tools that are constantly changed or up-graded. Zastrocky, whose company does technology research and information analysis, reveals that many educators are not enthusiastic about the drive to incorporate technologies into college course work. He states however, that learning whether in the virtual or traditional classroom, hinges on the instructor. This article was written in 2007, and was probably for the benefit of technology leaders in higher education wishing to gauge the educational communities response to technological trends.

This video was posted by Illinois worknet to acquaint education stakeholders with some of the technological advances being developed to address the challenges currently facing higher education. The short comings of what is available today include inability to support personalized learning; lack of educators skilled in the application of technological tools; constantly changing products; adaptability, appropriateness and validity issues; cost; and meeting sate standards. Technologies are now being designed and produced, to address those shortcomings by providing opportunities for personalized and student-centered learning experiences that are engaging, meet individual student needs, convenience, learning pace, and combine both online learning and face-to-face interaction. These hybrid models are being created in the short, mid and long-term horizon. Right now students have access to countless free applications. In two to three years, the article predicts that there will be an increase of learning analytics that collect and translate large amounts of data, as well as personalize the learning environment. In four to five years, it is expected that there will be gesture based computing and the Internet of things. The Learning Registry (LR) and the Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) are technologies being developed to provide effective learning tools that provide filters for finding, interpreting, organizing and retrieving data. While the LR is currently in use, the SLR is in its pilot phase, and was introduced to five schools in the United States. The ultimate goal of these technologies is to use learning analytics that use rich data streams to inform and create personalized learning experiences and pathways.