To Cloud or Not to Cloud: That is the Question.

As university budgets shrink, IT budgets feel the pinch as well. Like many of their corporate equals, university and college IT divisions feel the pressure to do more with less but provide the same service level. In the past couple years, many institutions have looked to cloud computing to solve not only their budget issues, but manpower and equipment challenges. The reliance on a stable digital infrastructure by institutional communities is being challenged by the addition of services like course management systems, HD videoconferencing, video servers, and desktop conferencing systems like Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro or Elluminate, not to mention things that students use (illegally) on campus networks like Torrent sites and music file sharing sites. Outsourcing legacy systems like email and work flow collaboration to cloud computing resources is increasingly becoming the solution chosen by university information technology administrators.

In a January 2008 article, Dan Carnevale of The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that at that time, over 1,000 higher education schools had outsourced their email system to Google Gmail (Google Apps Education Edition) or Microsoft Live@edu. Some of the schools deployed the cloud email systems for students only and kept faculty and staff on their homegrown email systems because they had concerns about FERPA and other sensitive data issues. Those that made the switch reported savings ranging from $10,000 - $20,000 per year to $500,000; money that was put towards other systems or reallocated to student services.

In addition to the fiscal savings, the ability of cloud computing services to offer students 5 gigabytes of storage for their email versus a meager 100 mb (or less) that many schools support, meant that they don't have to maintain the servers hosting all that data storage. Many students enter institutions already using a Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, or Google Gmail account and expect to have the same storage levels and web-based access convenience. (or mobile access with smartphones) Some schools like Drexel University in Philadelphia are letting students dictate their email choice between Google's Gmail or Microsoft Live@edu instead of the institution picking the preferred service. When students graduate, their accounts get to go with them instead of creating a need to forward possibly hundreds of emails out of a university run system to Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo Mail.

In addition to Gmail, many schools have adopted Google Apps for Education to streamline the need to buy ultra expensive Microsoft Office licensing for faculty and staff and to offer a means to collaboration on documents and presentations. The reality is that many faculty, staff, and students were already using Google's public version of these Apps and by signing on to the Education version, institutions brought those users back into the authenticated conclave of university computing behind their own Acceptable Use policies. Not all institutions view Google as the generous giant looking to provide cloud services and convenience to academic institutions. Many see several pitfalls to using Google or other cloud-type services.

"Security is also always an issue when dealing with cloud computing. Not having to administer a cloud environment is convenient, but it also creates a level of separation between the company hosting the cloud and the organization using the cloud" (Ovadia, 2010). If an institution has a server problem or security breach, there is almost immediate response or responsibility, however will it become buyer beware come true when the cloud provider does not respond to fix an immediate and dire server problem or sensitive data has been hacked away. Some have advocated for open cloud standards so if a problem arises, institutions can seamlessly migrate data from one service to another. In the end, there will always be pitfalls to relying on someone else with a corporate bottom line to serve as gatekeeper for essential services like email and data storage. However, the financial benefits and the ability to support other essential services like a CMS or Enterprise Business System might trump the pitfalls keeping those services in-house.

* Ovadia, Steven (2010), 'Navigating the Challenges of the Cloud', Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, 29; 233 - 236.

The obligation of colleges to support a Course Management System

Information technology has certainly streamlined many processes, made campuses more "green" by eliminating paper forms, allowed instant communication for efficient business processes, and made it possible for those located far away from campus to participate in courses and entire degree programs. It has also ballooned a new line item in the budget to support these services. As college and universities depend more and more on a course management system for their online and hybrid courses (and programs), the digital infrastructure required to support this increased traffic on networks becomes the albatross around their proverbial neck in more ways than just one.

From a financial standpoint, unless an institution is already using on open source course management system (CMS) like Moodle or Sakai, paying for Blackboard or Desire2Learn licensing is enough to bust the budget, especially since Blackboard has purchased every competitor but Desire2Learn (D2L). Market competition is almost non-existent. True, those that are priced out of Blackboard can call up D2L and investigate the pricing options, however Blackboard has been so busy filing patent infringement lawsuits against D2L, pulling a good portion of D2L's profit into lawyers fees to defend the company, institutions should be worried about the company's viability and financial longevity.

But you cannot have a robust determination to put more courses and programs online without a course management system. At my institution, Michigan State University, the current CMS is Angel which was purchased by Blackboard in the spring of 2009. With an enrollment of well over 42,000 students, renewing a contract with Blackboard seems fiscally impossible. Where does that leave MSU and other institutions like it? Open source systems like Moodle or Sakai. So the choice becomes paying six-figure licensing fees to Blackboard or buying enough infrastructure (servers, storage) and hiring enough personal to implement an open source course management system. And re-train all support system personel. And provide training for faculty and graduate teaching assistants to migrate their courses over to a new system just as they have figured out the old system. Rock, meet hard place. However, in the current fiscal climate and considering the customer satisfaction one may or may not get with the giant course management system contract, dealing with those challenges and headaches might be the only path for colleges to meet their institutional obligation to support a course management system.

Digital Infrastructure

The new normal in higher education environments is the expectation to have access to the Internet 24/7. Whether for email access, surfing the web, library research, videoconferencing, or more intense activities like computer science computations for large grant projects, the reliance on a stable network on the higher education campus cannot be overstated. Gumport and Chun (2005) list three arenas in higher education that advancements in technology can potentially influence: (1) the nature of knowledge, (2) the process of teaching and learning and, (3) the social organization of teaching and learning. The new normal of always on connections means that there is a fourth arena of influence: digital infrastructure.

Digital infrastructure has redefined the role of the CIO, changed the way co-worker share documents, communicate and collaborate, thrust academic technology into the face-to-face classroom, and created virtual classrooms for asynchronous and synchronous distance education. The expectations for it have become like the campus bus system: continuous, and reliant. When the campus cruiser bus is late or doesn't show up, riders notice and are upset. When the network goes down or runs slow, users notice. The other 95% of the time, it is as transparent as the the buses.

Cyberinfrastructure is the network used to support high speed scientific computers, data mining, data acquisition, data integration, and other computing and information processing for scientific research. It is often associated with the Internet2 project and high level computing and research in STEM fields. Digital infrastructure is the basic backbone of the everyday functions of the higher education campus. Information technologists on campus talk about how big the campus "pipe" is to control the flow of information in and out of the network. Like the PC that is out-of-date five years after it is purchased, continuous updates to the network "pipe" are needed to support the vast amounts of data traveling across campus and out to the world wide web. Digital infrastructure is essential to support institutionally adopted technologies including Enterprise Business Systems, Email, web portals (institutional and other web pages), and Course Management Systems. The capital investment in these systems, in particular the Course Management System, makes it imperative that the network delivers the content.

Guidry and BrckaLoren (2010) report that students and faculty use Course Management Systems much more frequently than any other technology. More than blogs, videos, games, voice or videoconferencing, and collaborative editing tools. (i.e. Google docs) As constraints on budgets continue to reign on campus, what is the obligation of institutions to expand the infrastructure for systems running outside of the institutionally invested and supported line-up? Perhaps it doesn't matter as long as the intent and purpose of the system is to serve the institutional goals of teaching and learning. Or it does matter and centralization of servers and services trumps just-in-time individualized service at the departmental level to streamline the growth of the network pipe.

Blogging

In the world of digital literacy, blogging is the new norm for communication. While static web sites are certainly still the majority resource for information gathering, blogs, or at least blog-like features, are increasingly becoming the norm in mainstream media, institutional communication, and personal learning networks. The most common feature is the comment option, which leaves the author open to both positive and negative feedback. Go to any major news organization's web site and each article will resemble this very blog post.

After reading "Why I Blog" by Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic magazine, I pondered his thoughts from Matt Drudge that a blog is a broadcast, not a publication; how the hyperlink "transforms the experience." If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it matter? If a blog is authored and nobody reads it, does it really matter? The answer is no, only to the author. However, once the hyperlink is shared, followed, and tracked back by other authors, the contents of the blog become visible for all to see. Those that work in mainstream media expect this as part of their new journalistic existence. Academics may not anticipate to get the same exposure.

Authenticated course management systems offer a security blanket of ideas and resources for faculty members and course instructors in the online educational environment. Exposure is limited to students enrolled in their course and possibly a graduate student. Trending upward recently is the use of blogs for course management and communication. Like many resources that are a part of the open resources movement, a good percentage of academic course blogs are not hidden behind authentication. As Andrew Sullivan comments, blogging is about getting as much out as quickly as possible without waiting for the editor and copywriters to scour the facts and figures. In the haste to post today and not tomorrow, what does the "now!" exposure bring to the ideas of academic freedom in higher education teaching and learning.? I suspect that the generation of Millennials in the K-12 system now and those that are in their first years of college are used to the less formal, instantaneous communication of blogs and are willing to give a faculty member some slack for fact checking and bold statements in such a public forum. They are comfortable with posting something "Now!" on Facebook or Twitter and thinking about it later. However in peer review, are blogs protected under academic freedom? In a few cases that have made the media, the answer has been no.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Banished-For-Blogging/1893/

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/University-Sacks-Prof-for-P/756/