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The title of this report is deliberately chosen to reflect the pattern of thought we must follow when considering technology use at Concordia College: our attention is typically drawn first to the technology itself, and to all the amazing capabilities it gives us, but ultimately our attention must rest on the question of how we use the technology to accomplish the mission of the College. In the following pages, the Technology Planning Committee and the Curriculum Resources Committee set forth a long-term plan that is grounded in an ideal vision of our mission, identifying many specific recommendations to help us move towards that ideal through the use of technology.

This is not the first long-range plan for the use of technology on campus. In 1993-94 the college created a task force to address the daunting issue of bringing the college into the technology revolution in a real yet cost-effective way. The college engaged the services of technology consultant Edward Barboni, who made two basic recommendations, one philosophical and one practical. Philosophically, he urged us to “Let philosophy drive technology”—in other words, we must use technology to accomplish our mission rather than investing in technology for its own sake. Practically, Barboni advised us that “a well-planned, fully accessible campus-wide network will meet your needs.”

In response to this advice, the newly created Technology Planning Committee issued a document in April 1995, titled “Planning for Information: Technology at Concordia College,” which constituted the college’s first five-year plan for the acquisition and use of technology. The committee followed Barboni’s resounding charge to address the College’s educational mission first and foremost, beginning with the expectation that “improvements in IT [instructional technology] will enhance the attainment of educational goals”; in particular, they believed, technology “will open a whole new world of information and information services”. This expectation was linked to a further goal: the report stated that “IT will result in enhanced critical thinking by all members of the community”. The speed of information retrieval would leave more time for critical analysis, the committee believed, and the volume of material made available through technology would make critical thinking a necessity. These benefits would help us achieve some of the goals for student academic achievement outlined in An Agenda for Concordia’s Academic Life. In particular, the report expected that widely accessible technology

• would “facilitate a commitment to excellence, as students and faculty may obtain the best available resources”
• would “enhance one’s breadth and depth of knowledge through ready access to experts and resources located throughout the world and improvements in the individual’s critical evaluation of material”
• could “contribute to a growth in thinking skills as students develop standards that they must apply to master the sheer volume of information”
• could help students “grow in independent thinking while students discover their abilities to make new connections, to pursue a topic in greater depth tha[n] covered in class, to do research, and to pose and defend ideas,” and
• could “engender a life-long love of learning as access to information becomes more than a luxury of one’s college years, but a welcome necessity of day-to-day life.”

In the ensuing five years, Concordia made great strides in accumulating the infrastructure and equipment needed to create a “fully accessible, campus-wide network”; this campus technology backbone serves as a memorial to the work of Dave Myhre, who did much to put it in place. In addition, virtually every faculty member was given a desktop computer; Computers On Wheels (COWs) were distributed for use on every floor of classroom buildings; general and specialized computer labs were created; and several “technology classrooms” were developed that contain full complements of equipment for use in teaching and learning. Susan Gammill and then Keith Landa did much to help faculty learn about how to use technology in their teaching, facilitating the whole campus’s development in many areas of technology use. The Library continued to provide leadership in the use of technology to access information resources, expanding those resources as better access across campus became possible. Several generations of software were purchased, distributed, and then upgraded. Submission of grades over the campus network is now a reality, an online system for checking students’ academic progress is being perfected, and we are working on a system for online registration in courses.

We have accomplished most of the physical goals outlined in the first five-year plan, and in some areas we have gone considerably beyond what was envisioned. As the 1995 report anticipated, many technological advances occurred in the five-year period, and more options are available now than when the first plan was written. We also have much greater experience with the use of technology in teaching, research, and administrative work and are thus wiser about the benefits and drawbacks of relying on technology in our work. Yet the monetary costs of using technology do not decrease, nor do the requests for the support of new technology initiatives by various departments across campus. Further, some unanticipated issues surfaced and have yet to be resolved, especially the extent we would need to provide extensive technical support to faculty, staff, and students as they use technology.

For these reasons, it was time to re-examine what we expected to do with all our purchases and to gauge how well those expectations match our academic goals and other needs of the College. The Technology Planning Committee was charged with the task of developing a second long-range plan for technology use on campus; that Committee and its oversight committee, the Curriculum Resources Committee, have spent many hours discussing this plan. This report, which was largely authored by Keith Landa, Director of Academic Computing and Instructional Technology, is the product of their deliberations. In preparing it, we have examined several different sources of information:

• consultant Edward J. Barboni’s 1994 report, “Supporting a Mission with Information: A Report to Concordia College”;
• the first five-year plan for technology use, “Planning for Information Technology at Concordia College,” issued by the Technology Planning Committee April 4, 1995;
• our experiences with technology since 1995;
• reports composed by the first two Curriculum Review teams;
• the results of a Curriculum Resources Needs Assessment survey conducted by the Curriculum Resources Committee;
• the expertise of faculty and administrators who regularly work with technology on campus; and
• the thoughts and advice of several nationally known experts on technology use in colleges and universities, especially Steve Gilbert, who visited campus in 1998; Gilbert runs the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable, which is associated with the American Association for Higher Education.

However, despite an abundance of thoughtful discussion about our college’s mission, and with no lack of information about technology, it was extremely difficult to know where to begin our assessment. On a practical level, it was clear to us that a five-year blueprint had no possible hope of being useful after one or perhaps two years had elapsed—it is simply impossible to predict what options technology might open up for us beyond a fairly short time. But even more fundamentally, we needed to link our academic and other ideals to our decisions about technology use with much greater precision: in 1995 we were rightly preoccupied with following Barboni’s recommendation to create a full campus network, but such a network could support the missions of many different types of academic (and other) institutions. Now we needed more precise guidelines to help us think carefully about how purchasing any specific item would or would not help us meet specific academic or other institutional goals.

To accomplish that task, we adopted a two-step approach that combines a broad long-term vision with specific short-term recommendations. In each of several areas, we created a set of general principles, which we expect will remain largely unchanged for quite some time: these principles describe our vision of the ideal situation for that aspect of our use of technology. Closely following each set of principles we have made a series of short-term recommendations, outlining changes that will help us move towards the ideals envisioned in the general principles. We plan to re-examine and revise these initial recommendations on a regular basis. In this way we hope to articulate a balanced relationship between our fairly constant sense of mission and the very dynamic environment of technology development.

Our report addresses the following areas:

• Technology and the Development of Learning Communities at Concordia
• Administrative Computing Needs
• Technology Training and Professional Development
• Technology Support Needs
• Campus Technology Infrastructure
• Computing Policies
• Planning and Funding the Use of Technology

The committees jointly welcome your thoughts and questions about our vision for using technology to sustain the mission of Concordia College.

Technology Planning Committee	Curriculum Resources Committee
Current members: James Postema, Co-Chair Clyde Allen, Co-Chair Arday Ardayfio Erik Erickson Steve Frank Roy Hammerling Mark Gealy Keith Landa Erik Ramstad Betty Raum Carole Stalheim Bill Todt Darin Ulness Previous members: Dave Myhre Andy Afdahl Ron Balko Reid Froiland Ryan Tofteland	Current members: Bryan Bishop, Chair Theresa Borchert Dawn Duncan Richard Gilmore Keith Landa Kris Nelson Dale Owens James Postema Betty Raum Ryan Vossen Previous members: Jon Clark, Chair 1999-2001 Rusty Casselton Lisa Peterson Matt Peterson Sarah Halvorson Kiaja Morgenthaler Karla Smart

General principles

Technology has the potential to revolutionize the teaching and learning process. The past few decades have seen rapid advances in technology, many of which have applications for instruction. In particular, new technologies have radically changed the way we communicate, find and disseminate information, carry out research and pursue other scholarly activities. The pace of technological change promises to quicken in the future. In order to ensure that our development and use of technology is appropriate and meets the instructional needs of our faculty and students, we lay out the following principles:

• Teaching/learning priorities and information needs should drive our development of instructional technology resources, not vice versa. We need always to view technology as a tool to facilitate teaching and learning, not as a goal in and of itself. Ideal uses of instructional technology should be unobtrusive, 'quietly' working in the background to support teaching and learning activities. Within this framework, however, we will strive to make the most up-to-date technology tools available to support instruction.
• Instructional technology should facilitate new pedagogical approaches on the part of faculty or enhance the effectiveness of existing pedagogies. For example, technology can make available new resources to support scholarship, make possible classroom activities that were unavailable in the past, and in general create new learning environments. Ideally, instructional technology will foster active learning on the part of students. Students learn in diverse ways, and technology should support multiple modes of learning on the part of students.
• Technology should break down the barriers between classroom and non-classroom teaching and learning opportunities, and support instruction in a seamless fashion wherever it takes place. Given Concordia's emphasis on international education and other off-campus educational experiences, our instructional technology and information environment must be able to support faculty and students in diverse locations.
• The library is and should remain the central gateway to information resources for the campus.
• Technology should provide the opportunity for Concordia to meet the needs of an expanded and increasingly diverse learner population, consistent with the college mission. Newly served audiences could include alumni, members of our local community seeking non-degree study opportunities, corporate partners, and distance learners.
• Continued scholarship by faculty in their field promotes their professional development and contributes to the quality of teaching on campus. Technology resources should provide enhanced opportunities for research and scholarship by our faculty.

Recommendations

Concordia has made significant advances in the development of instructional technology over the past several years, but more remains to be done. For the next several years, we recommend that the college concentrate on the following areas of instructional technology development:

Technology classrooms. Many classrooms on campus still provide environments that are not conducive to the use of instructional technology in classroom activities. Additional technology-enhanced classrooms need to be developed to augment the existing suite of technology classrooms and portable instruction stations. Existing classrooms should continue to be upgraded for technology use, with candidate rooms selected on the basis of departmental teaching needs, the existing distribution of technology enhanced classrooms around campus and the need for tech classrooms to serve a variety of class sizes. In addition, all classrooms in the new campus center should be designed with appropriate instructional technology installed from the start, rather than having to retrofit the classrooms later.

The design of new technology classrooms should involve feedback from users of existing technology classrooms, to unsure that the technology resources being made available fit instructional goals and are easy to use. Given the rapid changes in technology, technology classrooms should be designed to be flexible, with the ability to adapt to new technologies, as they become available. There should be continued investigation into potential new instructional technologies to install in classrooms (e.g. SmartBoards, videoconferencing, student response/polling systems, decision-support systems, virtual reality presentations, etc). Examination of non-technology issues (physical renovation of existing classrooms, appropriate furniture and layout of the room) may be needed to maximize the utility of our technology classrooms.

Department-specific initiatives. The college has so far concentrated on developing a common, general set of technology resources on campus (i.e., the campus network, computers in faculty and staff offices, and a general set of standard software). Faculty and academic departments should now be encouraged and supported to identify, adopt and/or develop discipline specific applications of instructional technology, that will foster their specific curricular goals. For example, this could include the development of specialized computer labs (such as the graphic design lab) or the adoption and acquisition of discipline specific software (such as the use of Mathematica by the Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics departments).

Library databases and electronic resources. The library should be encouraged and supported to increase the number of information databases available for scholarship and instruction, along with mechanisms to ensure easy access to these databases by Concordia faculty, students and staff. The library should be encouraged and supported to develop other needed electronic services. By 2005 the Library is switching from WebPALS to ALEPH to provide catalog services. This migration is crucial to Library operations, and should receive adequate institutional support to ensure a smooth and successful transition.

Course management systems. The college should adopt a high-end course management system, which would allow the easy development of online course environments faculty could use to support their on-campus courses, international education experiences and off-campus courses for new clientele. Any course management system adopted should provide secure access, ability for the instructor to post a variety of course-related materials, communication tools such as discussion forums and chat rooms, secure gradebook reporting, collaborative workspace for students, among other features. Any new course management environment should be compatible with library electronic reserves, and should interface with administrative data systems so that the development of course environments each term can be automated.

Electronic curriculum resource banks. Departments should be encouraged and supported to convert existing departmental curricular resources (maps, slides, images, etc) into electronic format, for use in technology classrooms and/or online course environments. Mechanisms need to be established for sharing this converted material and any new electronic resources among departments (within the limits of copyright), including the ability to catalog and search the resources available among departments. Any such electronic resource banks developed should be compatible with library electronic resources.

These recommendations for instructional technology development have a number of implications for other areas of long range technology planning. 1. Faculty will need opportunities not only to learn how to use instructional technology effectively, but also opportunities to evaluate what instructional technology approaches are appropriate to meet specific teaching/learning goals. [See the Technology training and professional development section.] 2. The availability of trained technology assistants, either from a college-wide unit or located within the individual academic department would greatly facilitate the development of departmental electronic curriculum resources. [See the Technology support needs section.] 3. Our campus infrastructure will need further development to provide effective access to an increasing array of instructional resources. [See the Campus technology infrastructure section.]

General principles

In order to support the educational mission of the college, administrative units need efficient and cost-effective tools to manage mission-critical information. Our ideal information management environment should include the following characteristics and functions.

• Institutional databases and other electronic sources of college information should only have to be developed once. Developing multiple, separate copies of college data wastes the time and effort of our administrative personnel, makes updating information resources more difficult, and can lead to problems when the multiple copies of a set of information do not agree.
• There should be mechanisms that allow college data to be developed by those who are 'closest' to the original sources. Those who are directly involved in developing the original sources of information are in the best position to be able to validate the content that is being included, and can maintain the information more effectively and in a more timely manner. Mechanisms supporting this distributed development of college data should be easy to use and unobtrusive (i.e., fit into the regular activities of those developing the information). The databases themselves may be on central servers or individual workstations as appropriate, as long as there is suitable access to enter information by those responsible for developing the information.
• College data should be easily and directly available to those with legitimate needs for the information, without having to go through third parties to have special reports generated. Access to 'live' information resources means that college decision-making can be based on the most up-to-date information without having the process delayed by waits for reports to be generated. Access to college data should be worked out between those developing the information and those requesting access, with the ultimate decisions about access determined by the vice president(s) of the areas involved. Availability or non-availability of information to various audiences must also comply with federal laws, regulations and guidelines.
• Conversely, our college data should be secure against access by those who are not legitimate users. Access to information therefore needs to involve an authentication process that identifies known users, and that determines the appropriate level of access (e.g., no access, ability to view information, ability to modify information) to each specific type of college data.
• There needs to be campus-wide communication among producers and consumers of college data to publicize the types of information available across campus to support decision-making processes, and to identify unmet needs for administrative information.
• Technology tools adopted to manage our institutional databases and other information should work to increase efficiency of college personnel. Administrative tasks should be accomplished more effectively though increased access to critical information, and the ability to automate repetitive tasks should allow staff to concentrate their efforts on higher-level activities.
• As much as possible, information management tools should be selected that function seamlessly across our mixed computing environment, so that all campus users have unimpeded access to the information they need and are authorized to access. Applications that make information available using open standards (e.g., html, xml, etc.) can facilitate access to information and information management functions across our mixed environment, and should be favored over applications that are restricted to specific proprietary formats that are not available to all.
• Given the value of our institutional data to the college and the distributed nature of information envisioned in this ideal case, we need efficient safeguard mechanisms that include not only professional backup of centralized databases but also easy and automatic backup of documents generated by individual users across campus. Mission critical backups should be kept in physically secure locations.

Recommendations

A number of projects have already been developed to modernize information management at Concordia. For example, the faculty login page available on the Registrar website permits faculty to access class lists, submit grades electronically, and view lists of advisees. Other examples would include the Concordia Navigator degree auditing application, online room scheduling requests, campus calendar submissions, and work certification forms. This process of modernizing our information management should continue over the next 3 to 5 years, and be placed into a unified framework.

Information server architecture. One stumbling block to modernizing our information management systems is that critical institutional data remain on the Unisys system, which has limited ability to provide live, secure access to databases through open-standards, cross-platform protocols. Completing the migration of our institutional data to Microsoft SQL server databases running on Windows servers should be given high priority, to allow more flexible development of our institutional data systems and save on Unisys licensing costs.

Online registration. Registration for classes is a key area for modernization. This is a high-visibility process that affects the activities of students, faculty advisors and numerous administrative staff. Providing online registration has the potential to improve satisfaction among students and provide significant time savings for faculty advisors and administrative staff. The Degree Navigator program that provides online degree audits has modules that can be added to handle online registration. The relative advantages and costs of purchasing online registration capabilities through Degree Navigator add-ons vs. developing an online registration in-house should be evaluated this year, and a case developed for proceeding with one or the other as soon as migration off the Unisys allows.

Budget accounts. Departments currently receive monthly printouts on their accounts, for tracking current expenditures. This process consumes significant amounts of staff time (to produce and distribute the printouts) and physical resources (paper, toner, etc.) In addition, the monthly interval for generating and distributing the reports represents an information bottleneck that can impede efficient planning of future departmental expenditures. As a first step to making this process more efficient and less resource intensive, monthly budget reports should be distributed electronically. This should be followed in the future by developing a mechanism for secure online access to department budget account information, as well as electronic submission of the initial budget requests. Other accounts, such as faculty professional development allotments, could also be made available through a comparable system.

Planning for future administrative computing developments. There are many additional areas of administrative computing that will need to be developed in the future. For example, the student information system, payroll and accounting will need to be rewritten in the next three to five years, or new third-party software to support these functions purchased. Electronic submission of time cards, human resources forms, direct payment voucher forms, etc can increase can increase efficiency and reduce chances for data transcription errors. All of these areas need to be evaluated as to their relative priority, the advantages and costs of developing the systems in-house vs. purchasing third-party applications, and when they should be scheduled in the sequence of projects.

MyConcordia - development of Concordia portal services. As described above, there are potentially many different kinds of institutional data that could be made available online to authorized users, for viewing and possibly updating. A portal system could provide a unified framework for controlling access to these different sets of institutional data, through a single authentication process. Also, a portal system should allow each validated user to customize the presentation of the information that s/he is authorized to access. Available portal systems should be evaluated this year, to determine how they may (or may not) work with our planned projects to update administrative computing systems.

General principles

Technology-enhanced learning and administrative environments will be effective only if faculty, students and staff have the necessary training to take advantage of the technology. Two types of technology competency are required. First, members of the campus community need to know why to use these tools. What options for technology tools are available and appropriate for the goals at hand? How can faculty and staff use technology wisely to further their goals within their academic programs and administrative units? Second, they need a working knowledge of how to use these tools, including an understanding of operating systems, networks, computer operations, use of specific applications, and use of databases necessary to carry out the tasks they need to accomplish. To effectively meet these goals, our training and development programs should in general be user-centric, focussed on the needs of the different groups of users on campus. In particular:

• Training needs must be identified and programs developed in coordination with particular academic departments and/or disciplines. Programs should not be taught in a vacuum, but as they directly relate to the teaching/learning enterprise. Therefore, the development of training programs, the selection of instructors, and the funding of these programs must be a function of coordination between the various constituencies.
• Training and development programs should promote independence and self-reliance on the part of faculty, staff and students. Training and development should not only teach individuals how to use a specific program, but should also contribute to their confidence with and general understanding of technology applications so that they can acquire further skills as needed independently in the future. This is not only good for the professional development of the person receiving the training, it also reduces the burden on the training program.
• Not everyone learns in the same fashion, at the same time. A variety of training and development opportunities should be available, offering different formats, venues, times, learning strategies, etc. In addition to individual training/development opportunities, programs should be available to allow academic departments and administrative units to identify training/development needs specific to their department/unit and request appropriate programs be made available.
• Time is critical for adopting new technologies, in a number of ways. Learning new technology can be a time-consuming process. Training/development opportunities need to be scheduled at times that are convenient for users' schedules, or the opportunities will not be taken. Conversely, there must be mechanisms to allow flexibility in the schedules of faculty and staff, simply to make time for the training/development opportunities. In addition, our programs should address 'just-in-time' training needs in addition to formally scheduled opportunities, because often times training delayed is no longer useful.
• Training and development programs should facilitate the exploration by individuals of new technology tools, because that is where innovation comes from. Some of this exploration can be done by trainers, who can then demonstrate the new technology to interested members of the campus community at large. There should also be support for individual faculty and administrative staff to preview new technology tools, as they are in the best position to evaluate the appropriateness of such new tools to support their individual goals.
• Training and development programs should also communicate success stories and best-practices examples to other members of the campus community, so that knowledge of what works can be shared across campus.
• Student technology development should be addressed as an integral part of the curriculum. In order to be successful in their future professional careers, students in many academic programs need to acquire expertise in discipline-related technology applications, in addition to basic technology literacy. These programs should explicitly address how this technology development will occur across the courses making up the curriculum.

Recommendations

Current technology training opportunities include the faculty/staff technology workshop series, the Faculty Summer Technology Worksops, Outlook training sessions by PC Support, online help materials, technology tutoring and workshops for students from the Academic Enhancement Center, and informal peer mentoring. The specific areas that should be added over the short term include:

Teaching with Technology Center. Most faculty members require significant support to know how to incorporate technology into their pedagogy in a meaningful way. Although various programs to support faculty technology development already exist on campus, these should be expanded and organized into a central Teaching with Technology Center. Development of such a center could be a component of the Center for Faculty/Staff Excellence and Innovation that is envisioned by the new Strategic Plan. The Teaching with Technology Center would provide a variety of workshops, informal discussions, individualized training opportunities, etc, that cover both how to use technology in teaching and why. A Teaching with Technology Center could also include student technology assistants, who would work with faculty on specific teaching/learning/technology development projects. The current self-study for Instructional Media Services should examine the ability of IMS to develop into a Teaching with Technology Center.

Technology fair. Many faculty and staff at Concordia are using technology in innovative ways to improve instruction and operations of the campus. Information about these innovative uses of technology is often not disseminated to others on campus who would benefit from using the same innovations. Concordia should host an annual technology fair to publicize innovative uses of technology. A technology fair could be held in association with the Fall Opening Workshop, or as part of the Celebration of Excellence in the spring.

Discipline-specific training. Academic and administrative departments have specialized technology needs that require training opportunities focused on the specific departmental technology implementation. Often the specialized training needs involve specific software applications that are not generally used across campus. Even in the case of generalized productivity tools, however, the ways in which these tools will be used and the projects they will be used on will vary across departments. Workshops, consultations, and other training opportunities should be offered on a departmental level. Also, departments should be encouraged to develop their own plans for technology and faculty/staff development plans.

New training materials & opportunities. A number of needs fall under this umbrella. As new tools become available across campus, new technology literacy workshops will need to be developed to train faculty and staff in their use. FrontPage, Outlook, CCAngel are all recent examples. Also as faculty and staff become proficient at basic use of existing tools, there is increasing opportunity to develop workshops that cover more specialized uses of these tools. In addition to a more complete workshop schedule, there is unmet need for self-paced help materials, whether in the form of books available for checkout, hardcopy quick-start guides or a wider range of online help materials. The question of whether any campus technology training needs should be outsourced in some fashion should be examined.

General principles

As technology applications become increasingly important to and increasingly integrated into our operations as faculty and staff, the reliable functioning of the hardware that makes those applications available becomes increasingly critical. Computers and related technology resources are now key productivity tools, and when they go down productive activities can grind to a halt. We need to develop technology support mechanisms that minimize the impact of scheduled upgrades and unscheduled maintenance needs on end-user productivity.

• First and foremost, technology support must be user-centric, and operate from a customer service framework. Technology is not an end in and of itself, merely a tool. Similarly, tech support succeeds to the extent that it facilitates the ability of faculty and staff to carry out their daily activities in support of the college mission. Tech support processes should minimize user downtime, either through rapid turnaround time or the ability to provide replacement equipment. Tech support processes should also be easy for the end-user, to encourage users to seek assistance when they need it. This should include an easy to follow mechanism for requesting assistance, perhaps through a centralized help-desk, and a minimum of bureaucracy experienced by the end-user. In addition, support mechanisms must be able to implement campus-wide upgrades in a timely fashion.
• Given that, tech support must be given adequate resources - personnel, workspace, replacement hardware, software applications, etc - in order to provide the necessary level of service to the campus. Staff development opportunities should be available so that tech support staff can effectively use state-of-the-art management tools and systems to maintain and upgrade the college's technology resources.
• Levels of support and areas of responsibility need to be clearly defined (e.g. for office computers, for specialized department hardware, for student computers on campus, for faculty and staff home computers) and generally known to the campus community. Tech support policies and processes should avoid fostering dependency on the part of end-users to the extent possible. The more self-reliant end-users can be made, the more they can maintain their hardware in a timely fashion and the more tech support resources can be allocated to work on serious problems.
• Tech support mechanisms should include tools that allow support staff to track college assets, equipment downtime, support needs and other factors, so that this information is available for the planning process.

Ensuring that our technology resources are up and running is only part of the technical support needed. Faculty and staff also need support to enable them to take advantage of the technology resources available. New technologies provide new opportunities, but can also be time intensive, especially during the development of new materials. Appropriate technology support staff should be available to faculty and staff in order to cover some of the more time-intensive tasks of implementing the new technologies (e.g. scanning images, developing specific web pages, etc.). This would allow faculty and staff to concentrate on using the new technologies to enhance teaching and administration of the college.

Recommendations

As is the case at many (most?) institutions, tech support at Concordia is too often a source of frustration, for both those needing the support and those providing it. In order to develop tech support systems that better meet staff and faculty needs, we recommend the following:

Technology support planning. As part of a self-study of technology support on campus, the Technology Planning Committee should arrange visits to other Minnesota Private College institutions to survey how technical support is managed and delivered at comparable institutions. These visits should examine what services technology support units at the different institutions offer, how the tech support units are organized, and what levels of staffing are used. Once the self-study is completed, the Technology Planning Committee should develop an appropriate enrichment request to help implement whatever staffing and organization changes are needed to ensure delivery of high-quality technology support at Concordia.

Campus Helpdesk. A unified and streamlined technology support environment should be developed, organized through a campus Help Desk. The Help Desk should provide access to a variety of help and instructional materials, as well as basic troubleshooting advice for faculty, staff and students, offered through phone, email and walk-in service. For technical problems that can't be solved through basic troubleshooting, the Help Desk would be responsible for arranging service by PC Support, Network Services, Instructional Media, Television Center, or Physical Plant staff as needed. The Help Desk would act as a 'front end' for all of these services, but be distinct from them. Substantial staffing for the Help Desk would likely consist of trained Student Technical Assistants, but there should be permanent supervisory staff to train and manage the STAs.

Service procedures. PC Support should develop mechanisms to allow greater in-office servicing of hardware/software problems of office computers. When equipment does need to go in for service, support mechanisms should provide for that equipment to be picked up by tech support staff and loaner equipment to be made available.

Campus-wide upgrades. Upgrades to campus-supported software should be made available on a central server. To the extent possible, end users should handle routine upgrades, either by following directions on how to do the upgrade or by running a batch file or script to automate the upgrade. When upgrades by end-users are not possible, support staff should use remote management tools to remotely install the upgrades. Effective use of such network distribution will speed campus-wide upgrades, facilitate maintenance of individual computers, and reduce the downtime for users. Providing greater latitude to allow end users to be self-supporting will also aid in their technology development.

Campus events setup. Instructional Media Services should increase its ability to provide set-up assistance for the use of IMS equipment at official campus events.

General principles

All of the college's technology initiatives, academic and administrative, are tied together and supported by a campus-wide technology infrastructure. This technology infrastructure is essential for communication, collaboration and access to resources, and allows us to leverage the college's investment in individual pieces of technology into a much more powerful, integrated system. Developing our campus-wide technology infrastructure should be seen as a fundamental responsibility of the college, on par with providing other basic facilities resources. Without such a technology infrastructure, most of the activities we need to accomplish to carry out the mission of the college would become more difficult and some would be impossible. Ideally, our technology infrastructure should have the following characteristics:

• It should be able to accommodate and integrate a variety of functionalities, including for example voice, data, and video distribution. It should provide support to all the different administrative and academic technologies in use on campus, in a seamless manner.
• It should provide sufficient bandwidth both on campus and in our connection to the wider Internet, in order to support academic and administrative needs. It should be flexible and able to grow and adapt to cover new needs as they arise. It should also be able to incorporate new infrastructure technologies, as they become available.
• Networking infrastructure should be an integral part of planning for any new building construction or major renovation on campus.
• It should provide reliable access to resources by Concordia users across a variety of geographically separated locations: main campus; off-campus residences of faculty, students and staff; Concordia Language Villages; over-seas education and other off-campus educational experiences current and to be developed
• The infrastructure that ties together our campus technology and connects it to the outside world can also increase our exposure to risks. Our infrastructure should provide security against unauthorized use or damage to college assets by external groups or individuals. It should also be able to regulate internal use, to prevent unauthorized activities and promote network efficiency.

Recommendations

Our campus network has seen tremendous development in the past five years, but as with other institutions, growth in demand for network resources is straining the ability of the network to deliver services.

Network development. Continuing to upgrade Concordia's network backbone and connection to the Internet remains a top priority for infrastructure development. For the foreseeable future, the technology budget will need to include annual increases in our Internet bandwidth. The college should investigate participation in Internet 2. In addition, there are a number of segments of our campus wired network that need to be brought up to current standards, specifically the needed upgrades of Jones Science and Olin to category 5 wiring.

Wireless networking. We do not see wireless networking replacing wired networks on campus, but they will be an important complement to wired networks in providing flexible access in a variety of public and other spaces on campus. The college should begin trial implementations of wireless network access in public spaces, such as the Library, open areas in classroom buildings or residence hall lounges.

Authentication. There are currently a number of separate network authentication systems on campus. As new academic and administrative tools are developed, needs for authentication will likely increase. Work needs to be done to unify authentication processes across platforms and systems. This should also involve the redevelopment of the Windows domain structure on campus.

Off-campus connectivity. We should investigate the possibility for developing a Virtual Private Network to tie together the networks for main campus and the Concordia Language Villages. Such a Virtual Private Network could facilitate sharing of data sources between CLV and main campus and could support voice-over-IP communications.

Viruses. Computer Services should continue to evaluate mechanisms for dealing efficiently and effectively with computer viruses, including centralized network tools as well as desktop client applications.

Physical security of network assets. Currently much of the college's critical network equipment, including the main hub room, is located below-grade, and therefore susceptible to flooding. As building or renovation projects proceed and spaces are shifted around on campus, consideration should be given to moving our network equipment above grade.

General principles

Technology affects the activities of individuals and organizations across campus. Our computing policies should guide the decisions and actions of members of the Concordia community relating to technology, to provide a climate where all can benefit from these new technologies. Technology can promote professional development for faculty, staff and students, makes possible new avenues for personal growth, expression, interpersonal communication, and can lead to the development of new communities. We want the character of our computing policies to be enabling; ideally, our computing policies will facilitate and celebrate the opportunities described above, while at the same time taking into account the good of the Concordia community as a whole.

• Computing policies should ensure that members of the campus community use technology in an ethical manner, respecting the rights and properties of others.
• Sanctions for inappropriate behavior should be proportionate to the severity of the infraction, should follow campus due process rules, and should safeguard campus assets while working toward improving future actions on the part of those involved.
• Primary responsibility for developing computing policies for campus lies with three standing committees: Technology Planning, Curriculum Resources and Web Content. Development of computing policies by these committees should solicit input from the campus constituencies involved, and document the history of deliberations that led to the policies in order to facilitate later review. Once established, computing policies need to be clearly publicized to the campus community.
• Concordia College is committed to meeting the needs of all its students, and will make available assistive/adaptive technologies to meet special needs of students as required.

Current policies

• Access to Computers and Computer Software
• Computer Code Violation and Enforcement Policy
• Ethical Use of Computers at Concordia College
• Report of the Printing Subcommittee, Technology Planning Committee
• Use of the pepe and tweety network servers
• World Wide Web Policies and Guidelines
• Web Site Responsibilities
• Web Site Content Policies and Guidelines
• Technical Policies and Guidelines

Policies to be considered

Pay to print. Students and other users are currently not charged for printing in the computer labs. Printing continues to rise, consuming more resources and increasing costs (which are ultimately paid for by tuition dollars). Issues at hand include whether or not charging for printing would encourage stewardship of resources and promote equity/fairness (when heavy users pay for their own printing, rather than be subsidized by others' tuition dollars). If pay-to-print is instituted, should all students receive a baseline allotment of free printing before being charged?

Special-needs students. Areas that should be considered in meeting the needs of these students would includes issues such as ADA-compliant web pages, plans for upgrading special-needs computers.

Ergonomic standards. As faculty, staff and students (in college computer labs) spend more time in front of computers, do we need to set ergonomic standards to promote workplace health.

Sabbatical computers. Access to computers is usually critical to support faculty scholarship activities while on sabbatical. What is the role of the college in providing support in this area of sabbatical scholarship, given the constraint of also needing to provide computer access to sabbatical replacements?

Technology-classroom scheduling. Technology classrooms are still a limited resource on campus. Policies or guidelines may need to be developed, in consultation with the Registrar's office and department chairs, to ensure that these rooms are put to best use.

General principles

Given the importance of technology and the expense of installing it, it is critical that we make wise choices in allocating campus resources to technology and provide stable mechanisms for funding technology development.

• Technology planning and decision-making processes should be 'transparent'. There should be clearly described processes by which technology decisions are made. Information about these processes, opportunities to request technology resources, timing for such requests and other procedural matters should be widely publicized across campus, along with a description of the college committees involved in technology decision-making.
• The planning and budget process should foster equity of access and consideration among academic departments and administrative units.
• Feedback from the campus community at large should be sought out and taken into consideration when making decisions about campus-wide technology applications.
• Investment in technology is important, but should not come at the detriment of overall campus resource allocation. Investment in technology should be balanced among infrastructure, hardware, software, development & training, tech support and maintenance. Technology planning should also consider collateral costs, including necessary upgrades to physical space and staff time, in analyzing the total costs and benefits of specific technology projects.
• The timing of decisions about technology requests, major project requests, enrichment requests, capital equipment requests and other college resources should be set to allow coordinated planning across these different programs.
• The planning process should include mechanisms to continually preview new developments in technology, across the technology spectrum, for application to our instructional and administrative goals. In addition, planning and funding processes should be flexible enough to allow us to take advantage of unforeseen new technologies that may not have been included in specific budget decisions. An appropriate amount of technology and faculty/staff funds should be made available to support exploration of new technology tools by faculty and staff, in order to foster innovation.
• Hardware acquisition should be based on more than just up-front costs, but should include the cost of maintenance time, loss of user productivity, frustration and morale issues.
• There should be mechanisms in place to assess the utility and limitations of current technologies, in order to inform the decision-making process on new technology.

Recommendations

Education efforts. The primary need in the area of Planning and Funding is to increase campus understanding of how the process for planning/implementing technology works. We need to better publicize what can be asked for, whom to ask, when and how. Also, notification to the campus of what's been approved and what hasn't is necessary to inform the campus of technology developments.

Committee coordination. Technology Planning, Curriculum Resources and Major Projects should continue their efforts to coordinate decision-making dealing with the approval of new technology and associated campus renovations.