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Malcolm Read talks about the benefits of collaboration not just on higher education community, but on information and communications technology (ICT) community as well. He also highlights the role of the virtual environment in enhancing collaborative research, and the impact of cloud technology on research, teaching and learning, and higher education management. ICT infrastructure has benefitted from the growth of collaboration research, facilitated by the World Wide Web. The usage of the virtual environment for virtual research has not been without its challenges, one being that the technology tools and applications usually require specialist support, and has high overhead costs, which are usually borne by the researchers themselves. Read argues that it is time for a new profession of research technologists to emerge with the skills to support collaborative research, identify generic approaches within the field of research, provide the required training, and provide maintenance of related infrastructures. Another alternative would be to heighten the professionalization of personnel who service the e-learning environment. On cloud computing, Read believes that the wealth of information available through the cloud is a valuable resource to administrative computing in the sense that it offers a cheaper data storage option. Of course one of the most obvious benefits of the cloud, is that it offers access to web 2.0 operations such as blogs, wikki and of course emails. The way each institution uses cloud technology however, will differ according to their individual needs, a point that should be taken into consideration if an organization should opt to design processes in collaboration with other institutions. Read sees virtualization as a solution to the problem because it can be used on any single computer, to run different applications, making it shareable between institutions. One concern here however is that of data security and duration of service. The crux of th

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.

The author is Associate Provost and Executive Director of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown University. The author refers to Clayton Christensen's "disruptive innovation" term to refer to the recent changes in higher education. The author argues that a key source of disruption in higher education is coming not from the outside, but from internal practices. This administrator points to the increase in experiential modes of learning, how education is moving from "margin to center", which proves to be powerful in the quality and meaning of the undergraduate experience as well as the way business is conducted. The author refers to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and its publishing of a "high impact practice" list, strategies which are connected with high retention and persistence rates, such as undergraduate research, service/community-based learning, and global learning. These practices also have a significant influence because they increase (according to George Kuh) student behaviors that lead to meaningful learning outcomes. The author summarizes how technologies can play a key role as new digital, learning, and analytics tools make it possible to mimic some features of high impact activity inside classrooms, changing when and how students can engage in course content. Since the greatest impact on learning is in the innovative, integrative, and socially networked experiences, then the author argues that faculty and staff need to re-create dimensions of these experiences by bridging the classroom with life outside of it. He concludes that connections between integrative thinking, or experiential learning, and the social network should no longer be an afterthought, but the connection that should guide and reshape learning in higher education. This article would be most useful for administrators and faculty who inform decisions related to technology infrastructure and tools for teaching and learning.

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

This case study details the definition of an IT problem (too many projects backlogged) and the realization of a larger systemic problem (adopted technology not meeting needs of users) which led to a deep analysis of campus systems, stakeholders, and IT governance. The case is an example of a user community hungry for technology and hopeful that technology will solve their problems and an IT organization willing to support more technology use. The solution was IT governance, a process to more carefully evaluate user needs and proposed solutions and balance that with existing infrastructure and long term strategic planning. Value here is in the title: not often does higher education admit to failure and this is part of my thesis - that failure must be part of the culture in order to manage emerging technology effectively. CIOs and other campus leaders must be willing to acknowledge that something isn't working, admit failure or defeat, and move on. This must be done quickly - in an agile environment. The value here is that this case study illustrates my theory.

Ben Showers, the author, admits to keeping the projections optimistic, and avoiding the issues of privacy, protection, and data shadow.The article describes five changes to mobile technology that will influence higher education into the future. The first change is mobile devices as a platform for learning and courses. Currently, mobile applications are more of a stepping-stone to larger course-management sites. In the future, students will desire actual learning platforms on their mobile device. The second change focuses on mobile realities. Augmented reality on mobile devices now allows the digital world to overlap with the real, physical world. Higher education institutions are able to use these new augmented reality technologies to aid students in find resources and information on-campus. The third mobile technology to affect higher education is mobile form. In the future, mobile devices will become more personalized and much smaller. As devices are created within glasses, earpieces, and sensors, higher education will have to adapt to those changes. Mobile scales are the fourth change to mobile technology Showers highlights. Large universities will have the ability to personalize each student's experience, offering an educational concierge service never before imagined. Finally, mobile disconnectedness will influence higher education. As students' lives become infiltrated with information via mobile devices, using the Internet, campuses should offer wifi coldspots. Wifi coldspots will offer students and faculty an opportunity to detach from the online work, taking a break from the academic world. 

The chief privacy and security office at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Michael Corn, discusses the need for higher education to be less risk adverse. While the article is somewhat vague, anyone interested in general technology infrastructure for colleges and universities, has something to gain from reading it. Using his own experience to develop his theories, Corn explains faculty members and administrators need to re-evaluate their view on risk and how risk is accessed.  On most campuses, faculty members use third-party services without the knowledge or support of the institution. Using third-party vendors forces the faculty member to take on major personal and institutional risk, especially the security of data. Unfortunately, if the institution lacks updated technology, faculty members are put in a difficult situation. Colleges and universities are rather risk adverse. Corn argues colleges and universities need to re-access how risky some technologies truly are. The information technology department cannot transform the institution's culture on their own. All campus administrators, faculty, registrars must work together to be more transparent, accessible for students with special needs, thorough guidance for students, and increasingly accountable. When all members of the college community come together and work towards improved and "risky" technologies, the institution will benefit.

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.

This article is written by a staff reporter for a higher education technology blog. She shares information from the results of an annual survey on higher-education computing, The Campus Computing Project survey. This survey asked Information Technology administrators at 543 colleges and universities questions about mobile applications and investments in campus technology. The main topics covered in this article are: how campus information-technology officials face fewer budget cuts in their departments, their opinions of the competition for college and university business from learning-management-system companies, and the uncertain views of massive open online courses (referred to as MOOCs). A majority of campus information-technology officers agreed that MOOC's offer a capable model for the "effective delivery" of instruction online. This article also reports that the study revealed that more than two-thirds of those surveyed indicated they were uncertain about whether MOOC's offer a solid business model for campuses to "realize new revenues". The author shares how survey results pointed to the increasing competition between MOOC providers like Udacity and Coursera and that the market for companies that sell learning-management systems (LMS) is becoming more competitive as well. The number of survey respondents that use Blackboard's learning-management system had dropped from 71 percent (in 2006) to 45 percent (as of 2012). Other LMS companies, such as Desire2Learn, Moodle, Sakai, and Instructure's Canvas have been more successful as a result. The author shared that although budget cuts in technology departments are going down, 27 percent of survey respondents reported budget cuts this year, compared with 50 percent in 2009. However the author shared that public institutions may still remain at-risk for budget cuts. This information would be useful for higher education technology professionals, particularly those who are making decisions related to technol

Mobile learning (referred to as "m-learning" in the article) is considered as the next generation of e-learning using mobile technologies. Students' awareness of such technology is one of the key areas for it to be successful. This study aimed to investigate students' awareness and requirements of mobile learning services among Malaysian students in the higher education environment. The authors reviewed mobile learning services as a new vital platform for the higher education environment and the requirements for utilizing it. It provides information about the current state of students' awareness about mobile learning services. The article also covers possible mobile device limitations to consider, including: memory size, battery life, high line cost and small screen. These limitations can hinder using mobile technology widely in learning, but the authors point to Corlett et al. (2005) directions to extend the wireless network across the campus and to redesign software as well as hardware for mobile learning purposes. According to the authors, both the environment and the infrastructure in higher education is appropriate to incorporate mobile learning, as long as necessary adaptations are made. The results also demonstrate that students have adequate knowledge and awareness to use such technology in their education environment. The authors caution that the barriers and obstacles that could be faced during the actual use of mobile learning should be considered. This article would be most helpful for information technology professionals who are making decisions regarding mobile learning and technology implementation.