Farmer School of Business Green IT in the IS Curriculum Can Generate Enrollment Increases ( SIGGreen Pre-ICIS Workshop ) Jeffrey W. Merhout, Ph.D., CPA (Inactive) Associate Professor of MIS Farmer School of Business Miami University, Oxford OH

Farmer School of Business Presentation Outline Introduction Possible MIS Minor in Sustainability in IS Engaging Students Leverage Resources from EDUCAUSE Future Green: Technology Implementation Ideas in Universities Future Work and Research Merhout

Farmer School of Business Introduction One opportunity that seems to hold promise for increasing student interest and, hopefully, enrollments in information systems programs is Green/Sustainable IT/IS. We can use the excitement that students tend to have for all things “green” as a way to attract more students to our majors and minors. By piquing student interest early on in their academic careers, we may have an opportunity to get more of them to make a commitment to our programs. Especially an opportunity in Business Schools Merhout

Farmer School of Business Possible MIS Minor in Sustainability in IS Required: MIS 235Core class3 hrs MIS 245Database mgt/BI3 hrs ENV 274 Environmental Principles 3 hrs Choose 2 from next three:6 hrs MIS 305 Governance, risk mgt, assurance MIS 387 SDLC MIS 495 Strategic use of IT One Elective3 hrs e.g., SCM, Decision Sciences (e.g., simulation), GIS Merhout

Farmer School of Business Engaging Students Develop activities as part of student organizations, such as student chapters of the Association for Information Systems. Research and projects with university IT functions because of the possibility for real-world projects right on campus. Research projects would also require faculty engagement as mentors and coordinators, which could lead to scholarship productivity and/or ideas for the classroom. Partner with environmental student groups, such as Green Oxford and Greenhawks Media at Miami University Merhout

Farmer School of Business EDUCAUSE Resources Case Studies - Use in classroom for conceptual info and as a discussion piece? e.g., “BCNET: Collaboratively Building a Multi- Institutional Shared Green Data Center” by Albrecht and Pirani “Adelphi University: Implementing a Holistic Green IT Strategy to Create Institutional Engagement” by Pirani and Albrecht White Papers, e.g., “The Role of IT in Campus Sustainability Efforts” by Carie Page (Lead Author) Merhout

Farmer School of Business Current Practices ProblemSolutionsDetails Miami UniversityHigh energy consumption; data center growing too large for its current environment Cut energy consumption; find a way to reduce number of units needed to meet increasing demands Miami began virtualizing servers, so fewer physical units are needed; Miami also began initiatives encouraging employees to turn off/use sleep mode on their computers when out of their office, and by creating a printing initiative that encourages the use of shared, more economically friendly duplex printers Adapted from Iacobelli, Olson & Merhout in AMCIS 2010 Proceedings

Farmer School of Business Future Green: Technology Implementation Five Steps formulated to help an organization’s IS/IT department to “Go Green” 1.Understanding the organization’s current footprint 2.Virtualization of servers 3.Power Management: look to improve/decrease watch you currently are using 4.New Technologies: explore options such as SaaS 5.Challenge your industry to go green: e.g., each of our universities Adapted from Iacobelli, Olson & Merhout in AMCIS 2010 Proceedings

Farmer School of Business Future Green Technology Cont. Understand the Current Footprint: By realizing the current patterns of energy usage and waste creation, an organization can then set meaningful goals for improvement Virtualization of Servers: Another idea is to convert an organization’s servers from physical to virtual models Virtual Servers helps to reduce data center space requirements, slash staffing and power costs, and provide support during a natural disaster or hardware malfunction Per Iacobelli, Olson & Merhout in AMCIS 2010 Proceedings

Farmer School of Business Future Green Technology Cont. Power Management: e.g., Miami University Using SaaS to Go Green: Software as a Service to hep go paperless and/or to reduce the amount of hardware required; e.g., see 44/ProvisioningAboveCampusITServi/ Challenge Your Industry to Go Green: Academics have a natural opportunity to help lead Campus Sustainability efforts. Adapted from Iacobelli, Olson & Merhout in AMCIS 2010 Proceedings

Farmer School of Business Future Research We call on other IT educators to share ideas of what they are doing or planning to do at their schools Please contact us if you have questions, comments, want to collaborate, etc. Jeff Merhout –