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Central IT organizations are the scapegoat

Faculty, administrators, and students have followed our lead by incorporating information technologies into their daily work. We provided extensive personal support to enable faculty pioneers to enhance instruction through technology. Now they have demonstrated what they have been able to do, and they are not about to return to the industrial model of scholarly work. In most institutions, these customers have no idea of the impact of their consumption on the support organization; they mainly know that their own needs are no longer being met. Also, many have no idea of the cost of the services they want because we have set up economic systems that hide that information from them. Under the conditions we have created, it is likely that they will conclude that we are not doing our jobs.

Given the now inappropriate but historically based perception-reinforced at great cost by our central technology organizations-that we are the authorities on all aspects of information technology management, it should not surprise us that we are being given full responsibility for the current problems. In addition to this first-level effect, some other factors are contributing to what appears to be a rash of scapegoating of our central organizations.

Central organization/budget is a big, easy target

When problems occur, human beings seem to need to fix blame, even if, as in this case, the causes are diffuse. Over the past decade, the central IT organization has made itself very visible with its requests for huge levels of new funds and its promises of wonderful new solutions. Those funds, staff, and promises make IT organizations a natural target of criticism. Even the very most progressive such organizations in the most prestigious institutions are periodically subject to loud and angry calls for major change from the user community.

Computing has become truly distributed

Almost everyone today understands that, technically, the information environment is distributed. It is more difficult to grasp that the distribution extends to the authority over, and the responsibility for, that environment. The contemporary information environment is too complex and too interconnected for any individual or unit (departmental or central) to wholly conceive, manage, and maintain. It is not the job of the academic departments to do this. We cannot expect them to understand the complexities of the environment (that, after all, is our job), but we can expect them to hold us accountable if the environment does not work.

Technology and content are more integrated

New types of information products cannot be separated from their underlying technology framework. In the days of data processing, computers performed functions that were simply enhancements to manual operations. Not so today. For instance, a network-based hypermedia "textbook" does not exist if we remove the technology. The integration between form and content means that availability and performance of the technology is fundamental to the existence of the academic content. No wonder those who have spent their lives developing content are becoming less inclined to give complete control over the technology to the technology organization.

New users want authority, but lack expertise to make decisions

Users who have only experienced information systems through a Windows, Macintosh, or Web interface may be inclined to believe that "all it takes is a click" to achieve the power and magic they experience every day. These users do not understand the mechanisms underlying this magic and the complexity required to make it all happen. Technology staff work with tools that most staff, faculty, and administrators do not understand. Nonetheless, these users and administrators assume that they do, and that their decisions are as valid, or more so, than those of the technology professional with twenty years of experience.

Expectations exceed resources

Most information technology organizations in higher education experienced significant increases in funding during the mid- to late-1980s, but not during the rapid growth phase of the past few years. We contributed to expanded expectations during the 1980s, anticipating that resources would continue to grow. We did not communicate about how technology dollars were being spent, so neither users nor administrators were able to anticipate the current crisis in technology support. The economic and political climate for higher education is very different in the mid-1990s, and we are not in a good position to respond.

User involvement in IT decisions is insufficient

One of the best ways to secure broad "ownership" of a decision is to have those affected involved in making the decision. For very understandable reasons, many of our institutions have been less inclusive than they might have been. In some cases, those outside our business were ill prepared to deal with the technical side of the decisions. In others, users were not interested. In still others, the administrative style of our institutions did not fully support collaborative decision-making. There may even have been a little jealous guarding of our own prerogatives. Whatever the reasons, we have missed many opportunities to educate our constituencies in ways that might have allowed them to be more constructive in their assessment of the current crisis.

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