Managing Information Technology in Student Affairs
A Report on Policies, Practices, Staffing and
Technology
Will
Barratt
Indiana State University
Posted: May, 11, 2001 Student
Affairs Online, 2 (Spring)
Executive Summary
- Information Technology in Student Affairs is an accidental
success.
- Information Technology in Student Affairs is not yet used to
full advantage or full potential.
- The traditional management functions of planning, budgeting,
staffing and evaluation are only beginning to be applied to
Information Technology in Student Affairs.
- Integrated Student Affairs technology plans are beginning to
be developed on a few campuses.
- Student Affairs professionals are not yet engaged in campus
wide Information Technology planning and decision making.
- There are remarkable similarities and remarkable differences
in the use of Information Technology between campuses.
- There are dramatic exceptions to all of the above.
The Problem
As we hear more about interesting Information
Technology (IT) practices in Student Affairs I had wondered how the
four management functions of planning, budgeting, staffing and
evaluating were being used in IT. I was curious to discover our
common ground, our benchmarks, and our common practices against which
we can measure exemplary programs and best practice in the use of IT
in Student Affairs.
Methodology
This paper reports a pilot study using a sample of
convenience. I chose nearby campuses and used an informal interview
format, so I did not get precisely the same data at each campus. I
was only seeking informal baseline information and stories about how
IT was being used.
In the fall semester of 2000, I visited Vincennes
University, The University of Southern Indiana, Indiana State
University, Butler University and Eastern Illinois University. I am
very thankful for the support of my Student Affairs colleagues on
those campuses who were generous with their time and patient with my
questions. Each visit lasted about half a day, with interviews
ranging from the Vice President, professionals from the Career
Center, from Student Activities and technical support staff if
possible. Several campus interviews involved more offices, but none
involved fewer. With only limited resources at my disposal more
extensive interviews were not possible. After each campus visit I
compiled notes and observations, and spent some time examining the
campus web site again using the perspective of my visit.
After all the visits were completed I began to
make sense of what I had learned. During the time I was visiting
campuses, I had written an article for Student Affairs Online
(Barratt, 2000) that contained a
conceptual model for analyzing IT in Student Affairs, and I decided
to use that model as an analytical tool. It worked extremely well in
identifying themes, highlighting problems, and locating solution
strategies.
This model posits four areas if IT arrayed in a
diamond. I am grateful to Daniel Salter, Editor of SAO for
creating the graphic used in the Journal, and used here.
While I tried to fit the material into the
traditional management model of planning, budgeting, staffing and
evaluation; I found that the model above was better suited to the
unique features of IT in Student Affairs, which enabled me to put
each campus' IT activities in Student Affairs into perspective and to
make comparisons between campuses.
Policies and Planning
Policies are the basic rules of management and
standards of practice. Planning makes our specific and general
desired outcomes explicit.
IT Policies
IT policies reflect little variety on campuses.
Existing policies about harassment, use of university equipment,
telephone services, free speech limitations, theft and privacy have
been reported to be adequate to meet the demands of student
misconduct.
Policies have been added to regulate student
computer use in residence halls, to make e-mail privacy policies
explicit to all members of the university community. Campus IT staff
have created policies to regulate hacking. Student, faculty and staff
misconduct has a new outlet, but existing policies seem to apply well
on most campuses.
IT Planning
Integrated IT plans for Student Affairs are only
emerging as a reality on campuses. Such a plan would identify
significant Student Affairs IT problems, propose solutions for these
problems, identify budget recourses and staffing, and include an
evaluation component. Typically IT plans identify increases in
efficiency as a problem to be solved by technology. An additional
component in plans should be the ability to do things never before
possible. Significant problems vary from campus to campus, but
certain elements occur on every campus, such as hardware and software
upgrades. Maintaining the Student Affairs web site and integration
with campus IT committees and infrastructure are other examples of
problems.
Dramatic changes begin small, and many student
services are beginning to be transformed through the use of IT.
Services for distance education students, such as Financial Aid,
Career Services, Advising, and Technological Assistance are emerging
as new departments on campuses. Some campuses are experimenting with
student development transcripts and portfolios using a web interface,
which was never before possible.
Currently, IT planning in Student Affairs occurs
in one of two ways on the campuses that I visited: either in people's
heads or at the department level. Career Centers, for example, tend
to have technology plans. However, there are few articulated
division-wide Student Affairs plans for using IT to promote student
development and learning or to increase efficiencies of current
practice. This lack of overall planning is most likely caused by the
emergent nature of IT into Student Affairs and the consequent lack of
knowledge and resources. While IT is recognized as important, few
people grasp it in depth or breadth. The consequence of lack of
planning results in lack of services to students, lack of resources,
lack of coordination, and lack of developmental opportunities for
students.
Institutional IT plans typically focus on running
the classroom and the institution, typically omitting Student
Affairs, student development and student learning. (I am engaged in
an evaluation of IT Services on my campus and have reviewed many
institutional IT plans, so I can assert this with confidence.) A
general weakness of institutional plans is their myopic focus on
technology and on the software used for running the institution;
omitting concepts like development, learning and community. The
omission of Student Affairs may be the result of our lack of
participation in the campus planning process. I am confident that
Student Affairs professionals can add richness to these plans and
represent student development and learning in important ways.
Elements Impacting Policies and Planning
Attitudes toward Change
Both individual and organizational attitudes
toward change profoundly affect how IT is being used on campus and
in Student Affairs. Michael Kirton's research suggests that
attitude toward change is a personality trait arrayed on a single
dimension. On one end of the dimension is the individual who
believes in incremental slow change always confirming the current
paradigm. At the other end of the dimension is the individual who
believes in managing change by shifting the prevailing paradigm.
In times of rapid change paradigm shifters are more able to adjust
and manage the enterprise, but at the risk of too rapid change. In
times of dynamic change paradigm confirmers are more likely to
resist change, preventing organizations from adjusting
appropriately (Kirton, 1989).
Attitudes toward IT
run from the paradigm confirming:
I wish they would stop changing software so much
and make a decision.
To the more typical middle of the road:
Lets make the best of this, but lets not move too
fast.
To the paradigm shifting:
This is the greatest opportunity that education has
ever had since movable type, and we need to take advantage of
it now.
Metaphors for Computer Use
A "mainframe mentality" is a leftover from the
old days of large central computers and is reflected in policies
and practices of standardization, strong central control, and
limitations on entrepreneurial innovation on campus. This attitude
can seriously limit opportunities to acquire and exploit new
technologies appropriately for student learning and
development.
A "typewriter, paper and ink mentality" is
applied to IT as a holdover from paper based office practices.
Many people see IT as a way to produce paper efficiently, and not
as a way to conduct business differently.
Centralization
Centralization is the degree to which power is
differentially distributed within an organization (Hall,
1982, pp. 114-115). Centralization is a blessing and a curse.
It allows the efficiency of standardization but inhibits the
entrepreneurial spirit of IT practices. Central planning does not
work, but neither does unplanned chaos.
One of the most significant sources of
restrictions on IT in Student Affairs is the central management
and control of IT on the campus. While some Student Affairs
offices can create their own servers, others must use existing
campus infrastructures of hardware and software. This can
seriously restrict the kinds of IT activities that may be
done.
Student Affairs is successful with students by
encouraging experimentation within acceptable limits, but the
limits placed on IT on some campuses restricts all but basic
activity.
Evaluation
Systematic evaluation of IT is a rare event.
There is little or no effort devoted to developing campus needs
assessment, to collecting IT policies, to comparing campus
practices, staffing and technology, to stakeholder identification
and the assessment of user satisfaction, to formative or summative
evaluation. At the very least, we should be attending to the ways
that students use IT and we should use these ways to create
developmental and learning based interventions. Our lack of
evaluation reflects a general trend in education and business not
to evaluate IT.
Costs
Direct costs for IT have increased, and we have
adjusted campus budgets to provide technology. Most campuses have
replacement schedules for hardware and upgrade schedules for
software. Indirect costs for IT are an emerging budget nightmare.
Staffing, staff time and staff development are becoming
significant costs. The need for technologically oriented Student
Affairs staff is growing, but hiring these new staff members may
be difficult. Integrating technical staff who do not have a
Student Affairs perspective into the Student Affairs culture may
be equally difficult. Budgeting for the salaries of anyone with
technical skills may become impossible.
Opportunities and Recommendations
- Student Affairs is isolated from campus wide planning and
policy making. Representation on key campus IT committees will
move Student Affairs concerns into the mainstream and contribute
to the campus community.
- Planning in Student Affairs does not take advantage of the
potential brought through new technologies. Achieving a dialog
between those advocating stability and those advocating change
will move our practices forward in Student Affairs.
- Too many IT opportunities can be disruptive, and too few IT
opportunities can stifle student growth. Create a planned balance
between standardization and innovation by using the dynamic nature
of IT within Student Affairs.
- Policies affect all levels of Student Affairs, but are
generally developed by few individuals at the upper levels.
Engaging staff at all levels within Student Affairs is becoming
crucial.
Practices
Practices are "what we do", how we use IT in our
daily work. What work we do and how we do it reflects our values. We
spend time on what we believe is important. Choosing between working
with students and reorganizing our work practices using IT is a clear
choice for most of us. In the long run, using IT to reorganize our
work practices will give us more time to work with students, and
using IT we may be able to work with student in new ways.
Paper Practices at Computer Speed
Paper and pencil practices have been moved to
computer technology. Record keeping, copying, content delivery and
data base management - all current tasks - have been moved to digital
platforms without changes in processes and without using the
technology to increase efficiency of work processes. IT is often used
as an add-on to current practices.
Does this sound familiar? Lists of student
organizations are entered onto paper forms, keyed into the computer
(a slight improvement over typing), and printed out onto paper. IT
allows direct web-based entry of data into a database, which is
accessed from a web page. This raises an interesting question: Should
the official list be electronic or paper? Old technologies and
practices persist in spite of new technology. With upgrades in
computer platforms and capabilities, last year's computer practices
(often based on paper practices) have been moved to new computer
platforms, never taking advantage of emerging IT capabilities.
Efficiency Practices
Increases in efficiency using IT are either
gradual or radical. Obvious increases in the speed of document
preparation and printing are a fine example, but it still takes
forever to get a new brochure printed centrally. Some offices
increased productivity with a small staff, and other offices have
saved thousands on paper and mailing. The efficiencies of technology
change staff and budgeting. The burden of data entry is being shifted
from central processing (Registrars, Purchasing etc.) to the student
and the enduser, without examining the real gains in efficiency. IT
is designed to increase efficiency, but always allows us to do things
never before possible.
There is a growing effort to modify work processes
to take advantage of today's technology, and this has resulted in
more staff time being available to work with students. Less time
spent on mundane task means more time interacting with students.
This slow increase in efficiency resulting from
computer use has been occurring for fifteen years, and has been
driving fundamental changes in Student Affairs practice and roles.
All brochures have clip art, and each office has a clip art
specialist among the staff. There has been a subtle expansion of the
roles of activities of professionals, resulting in additional work
expanding our professional range.
Innovative Practices
While information technologies are designed to
increase the efficiency of current work processes, they enable us to
do things never before possible. We are only beginning to shift our
paradigm and exploit the potential of IT in Student Affairs. For
example, it is now easy to have students keep an up-to-date Student
Affairs transcript using web-based technology and active server
pages, but I haven't heard of anyone doing it yet. The virtual
counseling center is an increase in the efficiency of delivering
brochures and content, and individual counseling centers are
beginning to use chat and e-mail as a communication method.
E-mail Practices
MS Outlook has become the standard Student Affairs
e-mail tool on campuses, with a few exceptions. Documents are
attached to e-mail rather than mailed. Most of the advanced features
of Outlook are unused, such as shared calendaring, shared document
creation, shared file space and document libraries.
Students use a variety of e-mail platforms from
Pine to Campus Pipeline. On campuses with poor e-mail systems (e.g.,
Telnet based systems, systems using shareware like Pegasus), students
use Hotmail, Yahoo or similar e-mail vendors. On campuses with good
e-mail students use the campus system.
If we are trying to build community, and students
daily go 'outside' the community for basic e-mail communication, we
have fewer opportunities to affect these students. On campuses with
good student e-mail systems the potential for community building is
strong. E-mail may become the preferred way to send official notices
to students with the potential to become students "permanent
address".
Productivity Software Practices
Windows, MS Word, and Excel are the standard
software suite on most campuses, for reasons of availability rather
than features. Productivity software is rarely selected for features,
and most of the features are rarely used. This may reflect the
"typewriter, paper and ink" metaphor for IT.
Campus Software Practices
The software that runs today's institution does
not meet the needs of Student Affairs professionals. While SCT
Corporation's BANNER
and PeopleSoft can manage our
finances and register our students, they have limited capability to
increase the efficiencies of our work. The advent of portals linked
to these software packages, for example Campus Pipeline and BANNER,
does make the campus software system more user friendly. Student
Affairs professionals are seldom engaged in working with the
implementation of these portals. But even good campus portals may not
draw students away from Yahoo! and Hotmail.
Courseware, such as BlackBoard's,
CourseInfo or WebCT,
are only occasionally used for student organizations or student
government. In my experience courseware is not designed to meet the
needs of student organizations, however if students are using
software in that fashion, then we should pay attention.
The Leading IT Department Practices in Student Affairs
Career Centers
Career centers, in the limited sample of this
study, are the leaders in using information technology. I suspect
this leadership role is the result of their function as
information brokers, working with students to create resumes and
with employers to create information summaries about employment
opportunities. Matching these sets of information is facilitated
with technology. Unfortunately, there is a large commercial
market, and a great deal of money to be made in connecting people
and jobs. Non-college based organizations like monster.com
are quickly outperforming campus-based career centers.
Admissions
Admissions offices depend on technology. As
with career centers, non-campus based organizations such as
collegemomadvice.com,
and xap.com and are out performing
campus-based programs. States are entering into contracts with
private companies such as xap.com that act as a statewide portal
for recruiting students. Many professional organizations, like
ACPA
Commission XII, are providing information directly to students
about specific training programs.
Security and Confidentiality Practices
Information security is a paper and ink, lock and
key event, and confidential computer files are kept on disks or on an
office machine without appropriate security protection. Of more
concern are confidential files kept on a central machine with
username and password access. While password access is a basic
security measure, like a key, it does not guarantee confidentiality
in this era of hacking. An often quoted number attributed to the FBI
is that 80% of all hacking comes from someone inside the network who
has a password.
On many campuses, usernames and passwords are used
as digital signatures. On my campus, access to the BANNER system
requires both, and any data I enter are tagged with my user name.
Quite often, an e-mail coming from a faculty member or staff member
is assumed to be authentic (a pseudo digital signature) if it comes
from their account. However, on my campus about one third of the lab
machines are left in a logged-in state, and open offices with
unattended machines are common.
I found no other uses of digital signatures in
Student Affairs, or on campuses. Very few Student Affairs
professionals have even heard of digital signatures, certservers and
PGP. The US government now recognizes digital signatures as legal,
but the specifics have yet to be worked out.
Cable TV Practices
Cable TV sometimes is and sometimes isn't under
the management of the same campus information technology
infrastructure. Using cable as a learning tool is an old technology,
and providing residence halls with movies to stimulate discussion
facilitated by hall staff is a regular occurrence. Partnerships
between the campus and cable service providers can be very
profitable, given our student consumer base. Cable and Internet
connections are seen as a part of the residence hall entertainment
package, not as developmental and community building tools.
Third Party Vendor Practices
Third party vendors drive practices. There are
large numbers of commercial vendors providing IT services to Student
Affairs professionals. There is money to be made, and the economies
of scale help vendors to fill many small market niches. Conversations
between commercial vendors and Student Affairs practitioners are
beginning, which will increase software functionality. We are not yet
sure what we want or need, and vendors have been working hard to meet
what they perceive to be campus needs.
Vendors not specifically targeting students, like
monster.com, are growing in numbers
weekly and not engaging the Student Affairs community in any dialog.
Vendors specifically targeting students are growing at a slower rate,
but many of them take great care to work with Student Affairs
professionals. Many of the technology vendors at our conference
exhibit areas are attending programs focused on their areas and are
seeking partnerships with us.
Student Development, Learning and Community Building
Practices
Connections between student development and
learning and information technology in Student Affairs are limited.
The current literature and on-line education has now includes IT as a
topic, the core concept of learning and community is still
face-to-face. The Good Practices in Student Affairs statement
and the Blimling and Whitt (1999) statement
and book all but omit any mention of technology and its role in
student development, learning and community building.
Opportunities and Recommendations
- The IT environment is unprecedentedly dynamic. Working in IT
requires us to listen to students, to listen to software vendors,
to participate in campus-wide discussion to identify new
opportunities for practice.
- In the future, Information Technology will be different. Any
office that maintains current IT practices in this dynamic
environment will become irrelevant. Even IT professionals have
forsaken prediction and have begun a practice of exploring any and
all reasonable options.
- Third parties and commercial ventures are developing IT
practices for student populations. We need to partner with these
vendors to ensure that our core values are represented in their
practices.
Staffing
Staff members are the heart of Student Affairs
practice. As IT becomes more prevalent, staff jobs and staff roles
begin to shift. Staff development, always a Student Affairs strong
point, is becoming a regular source for IT training.
New Roles for Student Affairs in Staffing
IT is emerging as a new role within
Student Affairs, cutting across all areas and departments. The
appropriate staff IT knowledge base and skill set is not clear, but
it is clear that people are now using IT frequently in their work.
This role is emerging as the technology becomes more commonly
used.
Current Staff
Staffing patterns are remarkably similar between
campuses. The typical staffing pattern is to select someone from
within Student Affairs who has IT knowledge and skills and assign
them to a leadership role. These individuals are doing wonderful
things and are strongly supported by everyone. They work on specific
problems and projects, serve on appropriate committees and support
campus-wide initiatives, building bridges across the campus to
computer central and to technical support staff. Unfortunately, these
staff are entry-level or mid level professionals and do not actively
participate in the planning process which will fully integrate IT
into Student Affairs.
Typically there are two types of IT staff:
- IT staff who support practice are Student Affairs types
with computer interests who are doing great things, are typically
under 40 and have been developed and rewarded by their managers to
increase their knowledge and skill base.
- IT staff who support technology are typically from
technical backgrounds and have a difficult time understanding
mainstream Student Affairs culture.
IT staff development is not yet systematic in most
offices and responds to immediate need and not to long range plans.
Individual learning goals and staff development plans, common in
business settings, are still being developed in Student Affairs.
Support and secretarial staff are technically advanced with the
software they use on a regular basis, but are rarely seen as a staff
development resource.
Typical Web Development Scenario
- The Vice President directs the Associate Director, who has
some extra time, to "Please take care of the web pages."
- The Associate Director hires a student worker for minimum
wage, but the student worker leaves for a job in town doing the
same work for $45 per hour.
- The entry-level professional or graduate assistant, already
overworked, is given the responsibility because she knows
something about web pages.
- No plan is created, no training is provided and no web
strategy is developed.
- The new web pages contain material available on paper,
presented using Generation D aesthetics, and does not reflect
appropriate information architecture and does not share a
campus-wide look and feel.
Varieties of Staff Knowledge Base and Skill Set
Among Student Affairs staff there is a tremendous
variety in the depth and breadth of knowledge about IT on campus.
Some staff members are active users and have enhanced their own
knowledge base and skill set, and some staff members avoid IT at all
costs. CSAOs and Department/Division heads typically have some
familiarity with IT in Student Affairs and typically refer questions
about IT to staff members who are perceived to be technically
literate. This limited knowledge reduces the effectiveness of
management decisions. While it may lead to increases in efficiency,
it does not lead to new practices.
Vertical or horizontal integration within Student
Affairs and between Student Affairs and the general campus is only
beginning to emerge. Knowledge and practice is specialized and
compartmentalized along department and functional area lines. Career
centers know career IT stuff, counseling centers know counseling IT
stuff, etc. without much crossover in knowledge and skill.
Opportunities and Recommendations
- There are still very few Student Affairs staff with an
extensive IT knowledge base and skill set. Staff development
programs, and redefined roles can shift staff members into needed
areas.
- Campus IT staff are generally technically oriented and do not
understand Student Affairs. We have the opportunity to work with
campus IT technical staff and provide staff development programs
in our areas of expertise.
Technology
Technology is the stuff behind IT; wires, routers,
servers, PCs, printers, scanners, cameras, and the software that runs
all of this hardware.
OS Technology: Windows Wins
Windows, Windows everywhere, and not a Mac in
sight. Windows was chosen not because of the features, not because it
is integrated with the campus software system, but because it is
available. The rare Mac is in the hands of a dedicated Mac user,
often an IT-oriented person, but since the campus is Windows based,
the Mac users are always outsiders.
Campus Technology Wiring And Cable
Wiring, and now fiber optics, is continually being upgraded for
digital communication and cable. The wiring target is a "port per
pillow", but we are not yet sure how we can use it for student
development and learning. We feel a need to offer cable and Internet
connections because our competitors do, and so we can be among the
most wired, but we don't really have a plan to use this wire to
further our Student Affairs mission.
Presentation Technology
PowerPoint is slowly replacing acetate overheads,
but few offices are examining the expense of PowerPoint projectors
and computers to make presentations. The overhead projector came out
of bowling alleys, succeeding because it is robust and inexpensive
technology. PowerPoint and other presentation software is
neither.
Server Technology
Some campuses allow Student Affairs to have
servers and some don't. Some Student Affairs servers are coordinated
and integrated with the campus network, and some are not. Many
different server software packages are used to run servers. Server
technology in Student Affairs is a reflection of our lack of planning
and our integration within the campus at large.
Security And Confidentiality Technology
Security is a lawsuit waiting to happen. While
antivirus programs are common (not common enough though) data
security programs to protect sensitive data and desktop firewalls to
protect individual machines are rare. With noteworthy exceptions like
counseling centers and student discipline, data security is
nonexistent. Data security and encryption programs, available on-line
or at Sam's Club, offer easy to use and simple solutions, but no one
seems to be worried yet.
Digital Signature Technology
The use of a login ID and a PIN number or password
is taken as a digital signature on most campuses. Other forms of
digital signatures, such as PGP, are
not even being discussed. We require students to carry a campus ID
but we do not have the equivalent ID for electronic communication. As
e-mail becomes our preferred method of communicating among ourselves
and with students, the issue of electronic signatures will become
important. As student IDs are often part of the Student Affairs
enterprise, electronic signatures may become part of our
enterprise.
Campus Computing Systems
While central campus operations software like
BANNER
and PeopleSoft do not address
the IT needs in Student Affairs, don't blame the vendor. We have not
yet done a good job in describing what it needs from a campus wide
system. Integration of Student Affairs practices into the campus wide
system is an important issue.
Opportunities and Recommendations
- Homegrown programs are a great way to meet immediate needs,
but when staff leave they become difficult to maintain.
- Third party vendors may have hardware and software
requirements that are incompatible with all stakeholders. For
example, career center software that requires the use of cookies
may not work with some corporate clients.
- New ways to create and use web interfaces for data files (.asp
or Active Server Pages files) have become easy. This permits new
efficiencies in collecting and providing information.
Concluding Remarks
It may be that IT is a passing fad, and it may be
that none of us will actually go to a work place in a few years. My
suspicion is that IT will present us with a "yes, and" scenario. We
are already on the path to using IT, and now is the time to become
intentional in our activities. We have been successful so far because
of the dedication of a few people. We need to take the next step
along this path.
Learn
- Inventory your current campus IT reality to create
situational awareness.
- Learn about today's and tomorrow's practices, software and
hardware.
- Listen to students and watch how they use IT.
- Listen to IT users on your staff.
- Listen to software vendors.
- Look at the "Great Sites" like amazon.com.
Visualize
- How can IT increase the efficiency of your work?
- How can you enter data into the system only once and share
it electronically?
- How can IT transform your day-to-day operations?
- How can IT transform your work processes?
- What can you do now with computers and cable that you could
never before do?
Plan
- Develop a plan for practice, staffing and technology to
meet immediate needs immediately that is adaptable enough to
address emerging issues tomorrow.
- Cooperate in creating the campus-wide technology plan.
Connect
- Explicitly connect IT with your student development,
learning and community building goals.
- Actively participate in key campus IT committees.
- Become active in professional organization's IT
committees.
References
Barratt, W. (2000). Four
elements of information technology in student affairs, Student
Affairs Online, 1(Fall). Available at http://www.studentaffairs.com/ejournal/Fall_2000/art7.html
Blimling G. & Whitt, E.
(1999). Good Practice in student affairs. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass
Hall, R. H. (1982).
Organizations Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall
Kirton, M. (1989). Adaptors
and innovators: Styles of creativity and problem solving. London:
Routledge.
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