5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 The Changing Face of Academic Information Services On Line Methods and Technologies in Teaching and Learning Chris Leowski Former Director of CHASS University of Toronto, Canada

EVOLUTION OF IT SERVICES IN ACADEMIA Early days: Mainframes... expensive cycles... expensive expertise... rigid organizational structures Minis, PCs & beyond... full flexibility, innovation and... chaos Towards the “corporate” model of ITS Beyond the corporate model of ITS 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015

Managing ITS - from bad to worse Splitting the ITS mandate Institutional (“corporate”) component The “academic” component ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES IN ACADEMIA 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015

Characteristics of the Corporate ITS model: 24/7 availability (3 shifts for some services) efficient stable hierarchical structure appropriate personnel allocation and rotation ability to scale up and down “post-mortem” of technical failures slow evolution without interruption of services IS THE “CORPORATE” INFORMATION SERVICES MODEL SUITABLE FOR ACADEMIA? 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015

Corporate ITS model suitable for: Institutional IT infrastructure: networks hardware basic software Administrative services: budget management institutional mail and calendar enrollment course administration other student services space management IS THE “CORPORATE” INFORMATION SERVICES MODEL SUITABLE FOR ACADEMIA? 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015

Characteristics of Academic I&ITS: developed on top of corporate ITS infrastructure highly flexible focused on teaching and learning resources focused on academic collaborative environments distant learning, remote collaboration, inter-university teaching and research initiatives uneven exposure to various departments, courses, and individual faculty ACADEMIC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015

IN PRAISE OF HYBRID MODELS “Split mandate” separate ITS groups Academic ITS component is “mission critical” Flexible and responsive academic I&IT teams Decentralization of academic I&ITS “Earn it - do not claim it” financing model 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015

ACADEMIC INSTRUCTIONAL & INFORMATION SERVICES Integral part of teaching, learning, and research “The medium is the message” - Marshall McLuhan (1964) Integral part of institutional strategic plans Integration with digital libraries Regional and global information “hubs” 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015

ON LINE TECHNOLOGIES AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE CURRICULUM 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 iWRITE - or how to write essays Data repositories, data mining and data analysis Learning Management Systems (LMSs) Coursera... and beyond Is blogging good for your health?

ON LINE TECHNOLOGIES MOOCs 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 Global MOOCs (e.g. Coursera; edX; Open2Study; FutureLearn) Single-institution MOOCs (e.g. Stanford Online; UPV) Country-specific MOOCs (e.g. Gacco; FUN) Industry-specific MOOCs (e.g. openSAP)

ON LINE TECHNOLOGIES COURSERA... AND BEYOND... 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May institutions from 25 countries, but only a handful of active courses Not representative for participating institutions Lack of standard global rules for course credits Why not a “regional Coursera” with interchangeable course credits?

ON LINE TECHNOLOGIES COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 in-course communication course-specific knowledge repository assignments; essays; grading privacy; security; controlled access add-on modules

ON LINE TECHNOLOGIES IS BLOGGING GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH? 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 BLOG AS A POWERFUL ON LINE TOOL TO TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO: express an opinion present one’s views in writing (and in a coherent and understandable form) respect opinions of others use arguments instead of demagogy avoid venting frustration and being offensive share interesting knowledge tidbits... and so on...

ON LINE TECHNOLOGIES IS BLOGGING GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH? 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 THE BEST ACADEMIC BLOGS:... are relatively narrow in scope... clearly state their objectives... have a moderator and a “code of conduct”... have a limited (but changing) number of participants... limit the number of individual postings per W/M

CONCLUSIONS 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC POLICY MAKERS: Academic I&ITS “mission critical” Maintain diversity, but... avoid chaos Focus on a few proven international methods and applications “Regionalize” on-line methods and content Strike a reasonable balance between costs and efficiency and the need to support a creative and versatile academic environment

Contact Information This presentation in PPT, PDF and Keynote formats, and the full transcript, can be downloaded from: THANK YOU! 5 th QS-Maple - Doha, Qatar, May 2015 Chris Leowski Former Director of CHASS University of Toronto, Canada