Technological Advances in Higher Education

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updated October 08, 1999

IMPROVING LEARNING AND TEACHING at Columbia University:

Instructional Reform Using Technology

What Do Information Technology Support Services Really Cost? (Karen Leach and David Smallen appeared in Educause)"Leaders of IT [Information Technology] organizations are troubled by the lack of reliable benchmarks or comparative data on which to base decisions about support services. Presidents are mystified by total cost of ownership (TCO) studies that appear in the popular press and higher education publications. The numbers quoted in these studies don't seem realistic in light of actual expenditures on campus. Institutional trustees, concerned about rising annual costs for information technologies, are asking hard questions about the impact of services on the educational program and the value the institution is getting for its investment. The COSTS project aims to obtain consistent and reliable data, analyze it in meaningful ways, and develop benchmarks for IT services. This article describes the project's origins and work to date and reports initial results in three support services areas." September 1998

Teaching Centers, Instructional Technology, and Course Development (Iola Peed-Neal appeared in The Technology Source) "The national movement toward using electronic technology in higher education affects our institutions in various ways, but it has a particularly strong impact on teachers, students, courses, and curricula. Teaching centers (also called faculty development or instructional development centers) have a responsibility to help instructors and their institutions cope with issues raised by the use of technology and to develop rational and effective applications of technology in teaching. Many academics are not familiar with how instructional consultants work with faculty on course design or how the process of course development might be affected by technological concerns. Based on the experience of our teaching center, I would like to outline a generic model for course development, to discuss the issues raised by technology at each stage of the process, and to suggest steps that would address important concerns." September 1998

Faculty, Instruction, and Information Technology (Barbara Horgan appeared in The Technology Source) "...How then does an institution develop a program or set of strategies that will enable faculty to use technology to enhance teaching and learning? While no silver bullet exists, a variety of approaches can facilitate integrating technology into the classroom. Any approaches used should take care to: Provide reliability, robustness, and ubiquity; Initiate training in both general-purpose and discipline-specific software; Start with pedagogy rather than technology; Use early adopters as champions and mentors; Think big: develop strategic and financial plans; Think small: templates, pilot projects, and incremental implementation." August 1998

Re-Focus on Learning and Teaching; Educational Uses of Information Technology for Everyone (Steven W. Gilbert appeared in The Technology Source) "Every institution needs a vision to focus the hopes and work of its members. Recent data indicate that use of applications of information technology in conjunction with teaching is spreading faster than any other form of curricular change. There is no longer any question about whether or not information technology will become an integral part of education. There are only questions about when and how." April 1997

Restructuring The University For Technological Change (Dr. A. W. Bates, The University of British Columbia) This paper argues that if the new information technologies are to play a central role in university teaching, each institution needs to develop a set of strategies for change which will amount to no less than restructuring the university. June 1997
Information Technology and the Academe Essays on the history and theory of informational technology.

Information Technology Initiatives in Higher Education Essays on the Initiatives undertaken at the university level as well as their impacts on learning & teaching.

STEPS: A Strategy for Technologically Enlightened Pedagogies: A Work in Progress (T. Batson, and J. Williamson) "The STEPs Program is a 5-semester program for faculty in higher education to make the transition from the traditional knowledge technologies to the new. The program takes faculty and their departments through a transition leading to institutionalized changes. The individual and departmental transition process is coordinated with the institution-wide process of transition around technology. STEPs is a program for mainstream faculty that takes into account differences between "early adopters" or "pioneers" and mainstream faculty. "

Centre For Educational Technology Steering Committee: A Vision Statement for Distributed Learning at UBC (M. Ellis and T. Bates at The University of British Columbia) Due to a change in the educational philosophy at UBC, the University has succeeded in meeting the changing student needs by coordinated use of electronic technology. September 1996

Ten Ways To Make Online Learning Groups Work (L. Kimball) This brief essay outlines the the means to achieve success when using virtual meetings or conferences. 1995

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