EDUCAUSE President Brian Hawkins
offered six steps that college administrators should consider when making decisions on information technology.

The presentation by EDUCAUSE President Brian L. Hawkins drew heavily on research that EDUCAUSE has conducted about ways to better utilize information technology. He listed six steps that campus administrators must keep in mind when making IT decisions:

   1) Align decision-making and structure. “It takes the involvement of top leadership
of an institution to invest wisely in information technology,” Hawkins said, noting that many campus executives have had the attitude that “information technology is not my job.” The fact is, he said, “coping with the transformational change resulting from the IT revolution is an institutional issue, not an individual responsibility; IT is the mutual responsibility of the entire executive team.”

   2) Define the strategy. “What are the outcomes you desire? How can they be measured? What is the purpose of the investment—to save money? Increase competitiveness? Enhance core functions? Is there a strategic plan that places IT in the context of what the institution seeks to achieve? What is the cost of doing nothing?” Hawkins said administrators should be skeptical of “saving money” as the purpose of an IT investment. “Investing in IT without investing in process redesign rarely yields any savings.” Similarly, while “lagging behind in IT efforts can make a campus less competitive, being on the cutting edge is expensive and the competitive advantage is fleeting—you must make IT choices carefully,” Hawkins said, cautioning CAOs and CFOs to “know who your competitors are, what the options are for improving competitiveness, and the role of IT in
helping close the gap.”

   3) Understand the budget. “Know your operating and capital needs; establish replacement cycles for hardware, software, and the network, and build them into the base budget; assure that you have balance in funding between hardware and support personnel; and assure that all relevant senior officers understand and accept the premises.” Hawkins also urged CAOs and CFOs to push harder to find successful cost-containment and revenue-enhancement strategies. Consortia and shared purchases offer good cost containment strategies, but he cautioned against outsourcing “because it locks you in and you lose control.” In addition, “creating new revenue sources is difficult—most institutions find that they have to go back to cost cutting to find the necessary resources.”

   4) Develop realistic options. “Be prepared to change processes as you design and implement an IT plan—if you don’t have the expertise in house, hire more experts. Redesign before starting the project. Don’t go it alone—depend on each other and create new organizations to gain more leverage and avoid mistakes,” Hawkins said, adding that administrators should “establish reserve capacity and budget for the unanticipated—viruses, worms, cyber security.”

   5) Define the business case. IT business case components include an implementation budget, quality benefits, life cycle costs, funding strategy, potential cost savings, analysis of alternatives, and potential revenue. “There are IT investment decisions that defy arithmetic—most senior executives on campus are not technologically savvy; university IT budgets are fixed, while demand for IT services is growing; and ‘return on investment’ is impossible to reliably calculate, compare, or claim,” Hawkins said. “You need to have a functional partnership based on a common view of the project; full and early articulation of the project by forcing all major questions and issues early; and creation of a common IT lexicon for everyone involved.”

   6) Develop an assessment plan. IT assessment utilizes satisfaction surveys, data collection, and self assessment. “People have the idea that the more we spend on IT, the better the system is. But we need to understand what we’re spending—and we need to measure outputs. The sustainability of IT investments should be planned for at inception; the IT funding model should be periodically reviewed; and IT commitments should be reallocated to reflect priorities,” Hawkins said.