When it comes to the convergence of painful budget troubles and promising technology innovations, it is decidedly the best and worst of times. As leaders facing high-tech challenges in these low-budget times, it is more important than ever for us to ask the right questions about technology's true value within our institutions. John O'Brien connects us to these important questions in February's must-read Leadership Abstracts.
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TECHNOLOGY IN TOUGH TIMES
John O'Brien
You would think things couldn't get any worse-and then they just do. The weak economy and a host of other factors have left most colleges facing certain cuts. The National Association of State Budget Officers observes that 37 states reduced their Fiscal Year 2003 budgets by $12.6 billion, more states and more money cut than in any given prior year. It's likely that there will be plenty of suffering to go around, but there is particular reason to worry that previous investments in technology innovation may be notably vulnerable-especially if the national scene is any indication of things to come. Even while the Department of Education enjoys an overall increase in proposed funds, Secretary Paige hopes to cut $144 million from technology-specific programs.
While campus leaders sharpen their pencils and brace for hard and then harder times, it is crucial to reconsider how we understand the costs and the value of technology and innovation-and what we intend to do about it. If technology is considered a largely operational cost, perhaps it should be cut across the board in a nonstrategic but equitable way, along with the rest of the operation. If, however, technology is better understood as a strategic value, maybe it shouldn't be cut at all.
The best way higher education leaders can begin to approach the issue is to start asking questions. But which ones?
CAN TECHNOLOGY SAVE US MONEY?
The most urgent question is whether technology can contribute to the budget fix by saving money. It's true that in some specific cases, technology can result in clearly quantifiable savings. Savings in staff time result from Web registration, data card readers, or other related applications of technology. In addition, resource management software can maximize efficiencies of space, which generates revenue directly, as can electronic transcripting. In still other cases, technologies like Voice Over IP can generate significant savings by reducing telephone service costs. Nevertheless, few would argue that technology comes close to paying for itself when considered in a dollar-for-dollar context across a campus, and fewer still would argue that this is the purpose of technology implementations in the first place. Asking how technology saves money is, for the most part, both incomplete and impossible.
Truth be told, maybe we deserve this a little. Between Y2K and junk-bond king Michael Milken's threat to eat higher education's lunch, early conversations about e-learning technology were all about market share, profitability, and the mysteriously tempting allure of new markets. And campus conversations frequently saw distance education as the solution to any variety of budget challenges: E-learning will save us from building buildings! E-learning will save us from parking shortages! E-learning will raise money! Given the early hype that animated the first wave of technology funding on campuses, it's a fair question whether technology can save money, especially in times like these.
On the other hand, this question doesn't really invite the kinds of answers that are needed. Other questions might prove more useful.
HOW CAN WE BETTER UNDERSTAND THE COSTS OF TECHNOLOGY BEFORE WE CONSIDER BUDGET CHANGES?
This question moves in several directions at once. For one thing, trying to comprehend the actual costs of technology will invite heightened awareness of the damaging consequences of one-time funding for ongoing technology initiatives. Real costs must include ongoing maintenance costs over time, as well as anticipated price increases, upgrades, replacement cycles, training, and staffing and support needs. While these costs are hardly hidden from the campus technology staff responsible for managing their attenuated budgets, such realities don't always make it to the table at which the big budget decisions are made. When budgets are flat, these costs amount to automatic cuts.
Hidden costs are a problem, but hidden savings are also easily missed. For example, when Minnesota State Colleges and Universities invested in a partnership with the University of Minnesota to give campuses Internet2 access, it seemed to be a simple cost, one that could be balanced against the benefit to students of faster speeds and access to advanced applications. Looking deeper, what seemed to be a cost was actually not so simple. It turns out that the minute Internet2 routes were lit up, Internet2 traffic that was previously going out on the commodity Internet was diverted, resulting in both better service and $3,000 a month in added bandwidth value. Accountants searching for easy savings through technology cuts will miss the opportunities that lie beneath the surface of the most frequently asked questions about technology expenses.
HOW CAN WE BETTER UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF TECHNOLOGY BEFORE WE CONSIDER BUDGET CHANGES?
If costs can get tricky, understanding the value of technology is often utterly elusive. Technology can certainly provide tangible savings through enhanced efficiencies and boosts in productivity, though colleges lack widely accepted metrics for measuring these gains. Truth is, the most compelling arguments for technology investments are the least tangible:
* The Value of Innovation. It is intuitively understood but hard to measure the way that investments in new technology can make possible creative approaches to teaching and learning that make a concrete difference in the classroom. These investments can range from providing one faculty member the software to integrate Flash animation in a course to providing an entire geography department a site license to GIS software. Technology investments are a crucial way that colleges express visibly their commitment to cutting-edge innovation, and this value can't be understated.
* The Value of Competitiveness. It's hard to measure how much technology improves a college's recruitment and retention efforts, but very few are thrilled about learning the hard way. Research data gathered by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system shows that current students as far back as 1999 picked "up-to-date computers and technology" as a top draw (ranked 4.3/5); in fact, these surveyed students ranked their college's access to technology resources on the same level as the ability of graduates to "get good jobs in their fields." Anyone who doubts that something like bandwidth is a contributing factor in a campus's competitiveness hasn't watched an 18-year-old clicking through Web pages at the speed of light and simply moving on if a page doesn't load fast enough.
* The Value of Avoiding Risk. Scaling back certain types of technology investments can be extremely risky. Cutting security budgets, for example, at a time when colleges are being sued for data privacy breaches is inviting trouble. College computing networks are vulnerable thanks to the relatively open environment faculty and students expect for a learning organization, and colleges are at risk of being sued for damages resulting from their computers or computer network being used as a launching point for Internet attacks. In addition to adequate staffing, aggressive training to create a culture around security standards is both critical and costly. Before trimming security training budgets, campus leaders may want to check some random workstations to see how many passwords can be found on Post-its stuck on monitors or under keyboards.
The accounting tools typically used to make budget decisions are usually too blunt to analyze precisely. What is truly required to comprehend technology costs more fully would be a systematically rigorous effort to identify both the hidden costs and the hidden value. The actual cost to deliver several sections of the same Math 101 course might vary tremendously once the actual costs of the technology support are taken into account. One section might be delivered traditionally, another in a computer lab, and a third in a completely online environment. Determining the cost of these Math 101 sections as traditionally handled (the difference between faculty salaries and credit-based revenue) misses the considerable differences in real costs when one section depends heavily on campus buildings, classrooms, infrastructure, and labs and another section is a Web-based course that consumes an entirely different set of resources.
WHAT OTHER QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ASKED?
HOW DOES TECHNOLOGY PROMOTE THE INSTITUTIONAL MISSION? When institutions are forced to contract, decision-making must look to statements of mission and vision that, with any luck, were formed before budget problems were looming. If an institutional vision stresses access to curriculum and flexible delivery, reductions in technology budgets will be undermining. In addition, spending on technology that is not tied to the larger campus mission is equally unwise, as Stephen Ehrmann suggests when he points out that "if you're headed in the wrong direction, technology won't help you get to the right place." One of the distinctly positive results that can emerge from budget troubles is a renewed sense of mission and purpose, as well as a reinvigorated alignment of resources behind them. If, for example, course management systems are seen as mission critical, then technology budgets will simply have to accommodate these costs, difficult as that may be.
HOW DOES TECHNOLOGY SERVE STUDENTS? During these difficult times, one Minnesota Chief Information Officer meets with students on a weekly basis to stay tuned to the needs and perspectives of the students whom we frequently insist are our raison d'être. It is critical to understand how students use and depend on technology before decisions are made about cuts. Will more technology serve students better? Will less technology impact their success? It is perhaps never more urgent that the value of technology to students should be discerned. Secretary Paige is blunt when he explains the federal cuts by pointing out, "In these times of tight budgets and accountability, we can no longer continue to fund programs that simply are not helping students achieve." The federal implication appears to be that technology is not seen as critical to student achievement; however, many campuses may experience technology use differently.
HOW CAN PARTNERSHIPS AND SHARED SERVICES REDUCE COSTS? Most colleges have already sought out partnerships and other arrangements to leverage limited resources, but now the imperative is greater than ever. Before technology budgets are cut outright, due diligence should be given to opportunities for pooled purchases or leveraging discounted prices through multi-institutional, regional, or national consortia (MICTA, for example - https://www.mictaservice.com/). Minnesota is an active participant in the Midwestern Higher Education Commission, https://www.mhec.org/ and this organization has, for example, created an opportunity for aggregated purchases of Novell products, providing discounts to participating campuses as well as building regional cooperation. In addition, the opportunity for sharing technology services with other institutions should also be explored thoroughly to avoid losing services entirely.
When it comes to the convergence of painful budget troubles and promising technology innovations, it is decidedly the best and worst of times. Those who have promoted technology as a way to enhance teaching and learning and meet the dynamically changing needs of students have always been ready to justify the investments needed. Now, however, the stakes are higher, since continuing technology spending may be mutually exclusive with other important investments. Leadership will require the ability to better understand the value and the costs of technology and their relative importance to the long-term vitality of the organization. Leadership will demand the ability to build for the future-with less-and with student success driving every decision.
REFERENCES
"Budget Shortfalls: Strategies for Closing Spending and Revenue Gaps."
December 2002,
https://www.nasbo.org/Publications/PDFs/shortfallstrategies-3rd.pdf
"Bush 2004 Budget Calls for $53 Billion for ED, but $144.5 Million in Cuts
for Ed Tech." eSchool News Online, February 4, 2003.
https://www.eschoolnews.com/news/current.cfm
Ehrmann, Stephen. "Asking the Right Question: What Does Research Tell Us
About Technology and Higher Learning?" Annenberg/CPC.
https://www.learner.org/edtech/rscheval/rightquestion.html
John O'Brien mailto:john.obrien@so.mnscu.edu is Associate Vice Chancellor
for Instructional Technology and Deputy Chief Information Officer for the
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. https://www.mnscu.edu/
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Dr. Susan Salvador
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02/18/2003 |