Tag: IT

#3Wedu, Conference, wine, women, WomenWhoWine.edu

The #3Wedu Podcast No. 11: Women Advancing the Future of IT in Higher Ed

Laura Pasquini

Every individual has a responsibility in an organization to enhance the understanding of the value of women leading, create structures to help women overcome gender barriers they may experience, and identify strategies to support women’s progress along their leadership path. Women bring heterogeneity that can benefit the workplace. To avoid groupthink and bring more diversity to our organizations, we need to consider putting more women into leadership roles to improve performance and productivity. Each of our higher education institutions has an organization culture that can empower or limit women’s ability to lead at various levels. These cultures consist of assumptions and values (see Schein’s model of organizational culture) that are sometimes decades old. Many times organizational structures have been developed by men and their actions potentially inhibiting women leading in various ways.

3wedu_no11_unl

The #3Wedu: Women Who Wine in Education will be trying a new format and location as we join host our podcast and keynote panel today (November 7th) from 3:25-4:55 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln IT Leadership Conference. In an effort to share our panel discussion we hope to stream this session via YouTube LIVE and, of course, we will do our best to keep the Twitter backchannel banter going here: #3wedu.

Opportunity that Scales:

WOMEN ADVANCING THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY  IN HIGHER EDUCATION

women_it_highered

Tune in LIVE between 3:25-4:55 pm CT as we will stream our keynote panel TODAY, November 7, 2016 here:

Through changing our behaviors, activities, communication, and environments, we can potentially alter the culture with these micro level modifications. Implementing practices to facilitate the growth of women leaders while creating an embracing culture that is pertinent for leadership development. Let’s talk about it. This isn’t a women’s issue; this is everyone’s issue.

A version of this blog post is cross-posted at The #3Wedu Podcast website.

MOOC, Web Design

#EDUSprint 3 – Creating the IT Architecture for the Connected Age

Laura Pasquini

Here’s the recap for the last EDUCAUSE webinar of the EDU Sprint series: #EDUSprint 3 – Creating the IT Architecture for the Connected Age. Today’s session talked about the role of IT on campus, technology planning, and the infrastructure of IT services for digital learning.

#EDUsprint 3 - Is IT Creating a New, Connected Age?

The session discussed the processes, management strategies, and governance structures from the following higher education leaders on the panel:

  • Tracy Futhey, Vice President, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Duke University
  • Tracy Schroeder, Vice President, Information Services and Technology, Boston University
  • Ethan Benatan, Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Strategy Officer, Marylhurst University

Many spoke about how their IT unit is thinking deeper about services to connect to learning and the needs on their campus in a holistic manner. Tracy Futhey shared her ideas around IT services, and how we not only need to consider location within the organization, but more about the delivery and methods for our IT units.

IT Services

Although there was talk about campus-wide strategy, I rarely heard much about bringing others around the table for this discussion. Much of higher education still operates in silos, so the full potential of connectedness and planning technology in learning cannot just occur in an IT unit, academic department or business solutions. I think that more administrative leaders need to bring faculty, staff, graduate students, undergraduate students, IT developers, and external shareholders together for these strategy meetings. in higher education. As our campus environments change, so does the IT needs and services to support learning and engagement.

I did appreciate when Tracy Schoeder shared about the Digital Learning Initiative and Technology Planning at Boston University. Although emerging technological trends evolve, I think that planning and assessment need to be part of the regular planning cycle.

Strategic IT Planning - The BU Example #edusprint I also appreciated that BU puts a focus on the human aspect of their planning, and not just the IT solution. Organizational structures should be assessed and reviewed for the IT architecture, to meet the needs and understand the institutional goals for learning.

Human Architecture for Digital Learning @ BU

Finally Ethan Benatan, started with a few predictions on how IT will change, be challenged, and move in the future – which is always a difficult task. I did appreciate that he shared a design process… and that it was just that – A PROCESS. There will not be a single solution to each campus environment, and it takes some agility and insight to move your higher education institution in the right IT direction and continue to assess your needs.

Here are some new links & reads from the session in no particular order:

Did you miss the last of the 3-day #EDUsprint? No worries. Here are a few resources for you:

You’re very welcome. Happy learning!