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- A presentation given at CAUSE 95, November 29, 1995 -- Academic Computing Services:
MORE Than A Utility
Scott Bierman (sbierman@carleton.edu)
Associate Professor of Economics
Chair, Advisory Committee for Academic Computing
1993 - 1995
Cathy Smith (csmith@carleton.edu)
Director, Academic Computing and Networking Services
1993 - 1998
In 1993 a totally new academic computing service organization began operation at Carleton College. An earlier organization had proved not to be well suited to keeping pace with campus-wide faculty demand for support of information technology use, particularly in the curriculum. The essence of the approach of the new organization derives from a redefinition of "academic computing" as a campus-wide, collaborative endeavor in which satisfaction of faculty needs serves as the main arbiter of what support is available and whether "success" is achieved. This emphasis stems from an understanding that the primary mission of the college is to provide the best education to students that financial resources allow.Prior to 1993 the faculty support model at Carleton -- like that at many colleges and universities -- was built on the premise that limiting the number and range of available technologies and the activities of support staff was the best, if not only, way to provide technology support to faculty. The model's implementation was based on the twin pillars of technology standards and a help desk. As Carleton faculty increasingly attempted to integrate technology use into their teaching and research, they found this model to be an inadequate match for their needs which were typically discipline-specific and experimental in nature.
In the past two years a new, customer-centered support model has been implemented. The model's underlying premise is that embrace of the full diversity of discipline-based needs and tools and establishment of highly personalized and time-intensive relationships between faculty and support staff will profoundly alter the frequency, quality and impact of information technologies use in teaching and research. The fundamental task of the academic computing organization is to understand what it is that faculty would like to accomplish and then to work with the faculty to select and implement the appropriate information technologies that will increase their effectiveness. This requires that substantial academic computing staff time be devoted to understanding the objectives of individual faculty. Since the ebb and flow of dialogue between faculty and academic computing staff is the central characteristic of this model the organizational structure is designed to facilitate communication.
What two years of data have shown is that the new model has proven an unerring guide in the design of excellent faculty technology support. This experience is highly consistent with, and validation for, the "quality movement" underway in higher education. The Carleton experience is at the same time contrary to the recent trend toward central technology groups as "utility companies". We have demonstrated, in a remarkably short time, that services with tremendous value-added are eminently and effectively do-able by a central computing organization.
- Faculty Technology Use: Now vs. Then
- How We Got Here: The Process of Changing the Nature of Faculty Technology Support
- The New Academic Computing Cooperative in Action
- What Has Not Worked As Well as it Could or Should?
- Are There Things to be Learned from Carleton's Experience?
- Download the Macintosh PowerPoint file or a Windows PowerPoint file of the original presentation slides.
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