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New Educause Survey Finds That Administrative-Computing Systems Are Top Concern

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG The Chronicle of Higher Education June 8, 2001 Campus-technology officials say they worry more about administrative-computing systems than about anything else related to their jobs, according to a new survey by Educause, the academic-technology consortium.

The Web-based survey is now in its second year. It asks information-technology administrators to rank which issues, from a list of 40, are most important to "strategic success," which ones have the "greatest potential to explode in the future," which they spend the most time on, and which they devote the most resources to. This year, 567 officials participated.

For the most part, this year's answers are similar to last year's results. Just like last year, distance education topped the list of potentially explosive issues, for instance.

Among the changes over the past 12 months:

  • More campus-computing officials identified administrative systems as a key issue this year than last year. The survey report argues that the results could suggest that computing officials now view administrative systems -- the databases that handle such logistics as registration and payroll -- as more of a strategic concern than they did in the past. However, the report notes that a change in the survey's wording might have accounted for some of the increase.
  • Fewer administrators cited "advanced networking" as a pressing issue this year. "One possible explanation," according to the report, "may be that connection speeds have increased to the point that for most common applications (e.g., e-mail and Web browsing), the differences are incremental and it's only the high-end users who have pressing needs for high-speed connectivity."
  • E-commerce, which made the top 10 in two categories last year, dropped substantially in the rankings. Roberta L. Lembke, who coordinated the survey, says that one explanation is that more administrators have developed e-commerce strategies and may now view the issue as less pressing.

For Ms. Lembke, who is director of information and instructional technologies at St. Olaf College, the biggest surprise is how uniform this year's responses were across all types of institutions. For the most part, she says, computing officials at small colleges identified the same issues as their counterparts at large public institutions.

Even though big-picture issues aren't changing rapidly, Ms. Lembke says that campus-computing administrators must remain flexible. In fact, she points out, "change management" was identified as the sixth-most-pressing issue that computer administrators spend time dealing with. (The issue was not on the list of possible choices last year.)

"For me, [change management] is continually assessing how should this organization be shaped and organized, given what technologies are out there," she says. "What we were six months ago probably won't be sufficient to meet the needs today."