Endicott College EDL762

According to Patton, human resource departments tend to be one of the last areas within higher education to adopt new technologies. Over the past few years vendors have begun developing new products based on college and university needs, especially in the human resource area.  Most human resource departments have an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) or a Human Resource Information System (HRIS), which is used in conjunction with compatible, or sometimes not-compatible, vendor services. SunGard continues to offer more and more human resource services, including an effort certification system, which monitors and collects data on how many hours certain employees are spending on research, if their salary is paid through a grant. In the mid 2010s, SunGard and PeopleSoft partnered to create an applicant tracking system that offered three programs in one: a position description model, a performance management module, and an applicant-tracking model. While some improvements have been made, human resource departments need to embrace the new technologies, and utilize the offered services in the front of the office, as well as the back. Most of the examples within the article are large, state universities, such as Florida Atlantic University, Oklahoma City Community College, and the University of Utah. Duke University is mentioned, however, Duke is a large, elite university with more financial resources than most other private institutions. The question remaining is if the cost of human resource modules are justified at smaller institutions? Hopefully the future will bring options to colleges and universities with a few hundred employees, rather than a thousand. 

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.

Katrina Meyer voices growing concern about the ability of disruptive technology such as online education to produce the needed change in higher education. Disruptive innovation is a term coined by Clayton Christensen for innovations in technology that interfere with the current state of affairs. The term was originally coined to for the business realm, but began to be applied to education with the advent of innovations such as online learning, blogs, social media cloud computing and a host of others. While Meyer clearly states her belief in the potential of disruptive technology to encourage new thinking and learning approaches, she clarifies that she does not know how the change will occur. Higher education is grappling with declining governmental revenues, tuition increases and the call from stakeholders for more effective learning programs. On the other hand, enrollment in online programs has increased annually, and according to results released by the U.S Department of Education, students performed better online than in face to face learning with the largest gains achieved in courses that mixed both online and face-to-face instruction. . Meyer also adds that perhaps the inclusion of online components in college campus courses might be an indication that innovative disruption is finally making an entrance into campus based higher education. This article is targeted at higher education, and institutions are encouraged to incorporate online learning and other technologies into their repertoire in other to make learning more student-centered, motivating, choice enabling and providing connections to real life. Faculty must be willing to take risks and experiment with the knowledge that while some tools might be disruptive, not all of them are.

This four minute long video posted on the web by www.21stCenturyEducationalLeadership.com, is a visual comparison of twentieth century and twenty-first century education. The intent is to answer the questions put forth by educators about the most important differences between the two educational eras. Employing the use of metaphoric terms, the video refers to the previous era as "filling the vessel", and the latter as "kindling the fire". The video content showcases the evolution of education from a system characterized by time based, information and fact regurgitation, to discovery and outcome based method of learning where students acquire meaningful knowledge, connected to their talents, interests and experiences. In the 21st century, students have a great deal of freedom which rather than creates more disciplinary problems than the 20th century, results in fewer ones because the students are actively engaged in an environment where the teacher is no longer the judge and they can work collaboratively. This video is directed at students and they are asked to join the discussion by indicating which option they would choose.

Terry Anderson writes a synopsis of the book 'Managing Technology in Higher Education', written by Tony Bates. In his article, Anderson captures the essence of the textbook and provides a summary of the chapter contents. This article is suitable for students and faculty wishing to locate relevant resources related to incorporating technology into learning and pedagogy. Anderson notes that even though Bates has written five texts focused on the realm of technology in distance education, 'managing technological change' moves away from his usual focal point, to embrace every model of higher education. The book begins with a summary of the salient points for the benefit of college presidents who rely on the executive summary for the meat of the matter. Anderson's overview spans the nine chapters of the book. Chapter one provides an outline of technologies used n higher education, while the following two chapters deal with leadership and planning, along with models on course organization. The following two chapters focus on the all-important issues of cost versus student access to colleges, and effectively supporting faculty on incorporating technologies into their teaching processes. In chapter four, Bates cites specific cost figures to support the information provided, thereby offering a fresh change from generic and vague statements about the actual costs of creating or implementing certain technologies, including setting up a web course. The next chapter focuses on human resource support to education technology, and the decision to either centralize or decentralize that support. In other words, whether or not to provide the support from the ranks 'within' or call in outside and professional help. The last chapter is about the gains and losses of incorporating technology into the day-to-day operations of institutions. Anderson concludes by adding that the book will assist decision makers choose the technological models best suited to their institutions

Manoj Chacko, Steven Johnson, Munir Mandviwalla, Ilya Rogov and David Schuff, members of the department of management information systems, Fox School of Business, Temple University posted a video to reveal the rational behind their groundbreaking media site, mis.temple.edu. The purpose of the video is to illustrate educational changes from the last generation to the current one. The reality of the learning process is a shift from semi-structured, planned communication and sequential work, to extremely unplanned communication and multitasking. Technological input has also evolved from mere emails and web-based course management tools, to include social media tools. The authors believe that previous learning systems did not enable innovation and community building within a highly hierarchical college system where students had no access to their personal information. The challenge is therefore finding a system where courses and academic community can not only bridge the boundaries, but foster greater communication amongst the stakeholders. For that to be feasible, social networks, related data storage and communication tools must be created. Of course there are prerequisite factors such as an all inclusive and non-hierarchical culture, along with public and private access and individual control. The technological tools should also be uncomplicated and user friendly to achieve the desired end of collaboration and information sharing. This video is targeted at students, as an advertisement to enroll at Temple University.

This authorless opinion article from the Chronicle of Higher Education is a report on the technologies that enhance student-learning process in 16 Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT). The colleges employ the use of many advance technologies to foster student independence and the development of life-long skills. Rather than rely on just online course, these HCT's employ the use online learning tools and classroom technology to offer more than 3000 online courses, and other ICT applications such as online social networks, podcasts and management systems. The article furnishes a list of the major applications ranging from online learning tools and management systems, to anti-plagiarism and social book-marking applications. Classroom technologies include smart boards, virtual classroom applications, touchscreen computers, cameras and streaming servers. Strengthening the utilization of innovative technologies to strengthen teaching and learning are technology departments in each of the colleges. The intended audience of this article is the higher education community.

Gordon Friedman, president of the non-profit National Laboratory for Education Transformation, employs metaphoric prose to portray the relationship between technological advances and faculty inertia that has hindered the advancement of higher education into the twenty first century. He uses the term cloud to refer to the virtual, server-based world, and fog to depict the technological apathy and bureaucratic red taped nature of higher education that refuses to tap into the data mine available through technological systems. The cloud offers a transparent and cost effective way to systemize institutional operations. Friedman clarifies that what he advocates is not mindless extrapolation of data, but rather a shift to embrace the reality of twenty-first century students, who exist in a world where their personal data is captured by the various web applications they routinely patronize. Unlike these applications that use captured data to construct the essence of their customers, higher education remains an impersonal enterprise that does not utilize the existing data to design a more personal learning process. To Friedman, online courses, digital curricula components and apps are not sufficient, because unlike the cloud, information flow is one directional. This article is directed at higher education institutions. To lift the fog, Friedman states that colleges ought to adopt three principles of the cloud namely: identity formation and management whereby students develop a sense of ownership through the maintenance of their own identities; social networks and learning communities where learning is student centered and self paced; and data mining and assessment faculty collect and use student data to monitor the teaching and learning process.

This is a guest post by Dereck Bruff, and assistant director at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Vanderbilt University, Dwayne Harapnuik, director of faculty enrichment at Abilene Christian University, and Jim Julius, associate director at Instructional Technology Services, San Diego University. The post is a summary of an interactive session of a Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network conference to discuss the question of whether or not the technological revolution, characterized by social technologies and access to the web, can transcend the slow evolutional environment of Higher education institutions. 59 obstacles were identified as the culprits for hindering the advancement of higher education from the industrial model and teaching paradigm, to a learning paradigm. Six of the problems were named in the article are: faculty mistrust; lack of effective modeling; loss of faculty control during the shift to student centered learning; not enough emphasis placed on faculty development professionals; faculty closed off to being open to new technologies; and skepticism about the ability of technology to produce depth of learning. The authors and other POD members agreed that the solution would be to move from a faculty centered teaching mode to a student-centered one, and to encourage a culture of openness by encourage the sharing of effective uses of technology between faculty members. The article is directed at higher education institutions that wish to change their educational landscape.

This article was written by Gabriella Grosseck, from the West University of Timisoara to advocate the adoption of a new teaching pedagogy based on the application of web 2.0. Grosseck describes web 2.0 as various technological innovations, and presents theoretical frameworks and models of integration of web 2.0 into teaching and learning. She uses the works of O'Reilly, 2008; Siemens, 2008; Zimmer, 2007 & Alexander, 2006 to explain that web 2.0 is the social utilization of the web to collaborate, generate knowledge, and share information online. Blogging, micro-blogging, wikkis, photo, video and slide sharing, social bookmarking and networking are all examples of web 2.0 models. Grosseck also points out both the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating web 2.0 technologies. Amongst the advantages, the reduction of costs, flexibility, collaborative and sharing forums are perhaps the most salient. Some of the disadvantages include security issues, different types of browsers, speed and insufficient knowledge. The author argues for the use of web 2.0 technologies to foster student collaborations and promote creativity. She also states that the technologies should be relevant to student realities such as assisting graduates finding jobs. This article is directed at colleges and universities, and even though she advises caution and more research, Grosseck urges that higher education institutions adopt the use of web 2.0 technologies.

InCommon is a nonprofit group that offers software to colleges and universities with a shared standard allowing for secure single sign-on. Vendors collaborate with InCommon, allowing for seamless transmission of information from one college to a variety of vendors. Using InCommon allows institutions to streamline their different online services, simplifying the process for all users. The software is free, however, a $700 registration fee is required, in addition to an annual fee of $1,000 to $3,000 depending on the size of the institution. The real costs are associated with switching vendors compatible with InCommon and adding enough servers to back up the entire system. If a server goes down, all of the single sign-on services shut down as well, so reliable and back up servers are required. While InCommon certainly offers a useful product, colleges and universities have been reluctant to join. The initial cost of joining, switching vendors and updating servers can be very expensive. The University of Georgia, for example, has decided to use proprietary software, instead of InCommon, to save on cost. Other institutions are waiting until important vendors, such as Blackboard, join InCommon. Without key vendors on board, the costs cannot be justified. Even though InCommon has not been adapted on every college campus, the organization doubled its membership numbers every year between 2005 and 2010.