InformationWeek Stories by Keith Fowlkes

InformationWeek Stories by Keith Fowlkeshttp://www.informationweek.comInformationWeeken-usCopyright 2012, UBM LLC.2013-05-23T09:06:00ZWhy Young IT Pros Should Consider Higher EdIn the battle for tech talent, small colleges and universities have a lot to offer Gen Xers and Millennials.http://www.informationweek.com/education/leadership/why-young-it-pros-should-consider-higher/240155407?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors <div class="inlineStoryImage inlineStoryImageRight"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/education/online-learning/inside-eight-game-changing-moocs/240152508"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/976/MOOC_canvas_01_tn.jpg" alt=" 8 MOOCs Transforming Education" title="8 MOOCs Transforming Education" class="img175" /></a> <div class="storyImageTitle">8 MOOCs Transforming Education</div>(click image for larger view and for slideshow)</div>  While high unemployment continues nationwide, small colleges and universities face a chronic shortage of tech professionals. As if that challenge weren't daunting enough for CIOs like myself, now I'm told we must understand how the different generations think in order to better attract and retain them. Let me explain. Recently, I heard a great talk about generational differences, adapted from the book <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vNd7i309frkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Managing+the+Multi-Generational+Workforce&ots=CJSpwkNL_v&sig=NrKRsFKZ0ONFrLthH_h04OwRkRo">Managing the Multi-Generational Workforce</a> (DelCampo, Haggerty, Haney and Knippel, 2011). For the sake of this column, let's look at the two most recent generations in the IT job market -- Generation Xers and Millennials -- and connect some of their traits (as defined in the book) to higher education career opportunities. Generation Xers (born between 1965 and 1980) are said to have a personal philosophy of working hard, saving money and having fun with their money. Among their core values: They tend to be independent, focused on learning, less formal than prior generations, enjoy the outdoors and seek a healthy work-life balance. They also tend to question authority, to give respect only when it's earned. The Millennials (born between 1981 and 1994) are said to be self-confident, idealistic and also informal, as well as team- and community-oriented. They're multi-taskers and need to know why they're doing what they're doing. They also tend to have children later in life than previous generations, and they tend to focus on their friends as well as recreational activities (sometimes earlier in the workweek than they should). [ Looking for a new job? Read <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/careers/5-linkedin-tools-job-hunters-must-use/240152212?itc=edit_in_body_cross">5 LinkedIn Tools Job Hunters Must Use</a>. ] Research suggests that many Millennials have a serious need for supervision, either because they're young or, as some suggest, their educations preconditioned them not to think critically and abstractly. Be careful not to make sweeping generalizations on this point, however, as I've found this trait to be very true in some Millennials and very untrue in others. What Do We Have To Offer? So let's relate these generational philosophies and core values to the Gen X and Millennial tech professional's needs. These generations are noted to question authority and be fiercely independent. Two other traits are that they build "portable" and "parallel" careers, perhaps because they distrust traditional organizations. In my experience, IT organizations in small colleges and universities focus more than most other IT orgs on efficiency, communications and personal relationships. Small colleges tend to employ tech pros who must be all things to all people, a major challenge but one of the reasons I've stayed in small college IT administration for 20-plus years. Wonderful variety is the spice of life, most of the time. Small colleges and universities are wonderful places for families and friends. Generally speaking, work is self-paced, structured between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and flexible. There are definitely seasons when longer hours are necessary, but these are short-lived with few surprises. It's not easy work -- myriad different obstacles get thrown at you from many different disciplines of study. However, at least with the institutions I've been a part of over the past 20-plus years, creativity and hard work are celebrated and the opportunities to develop the "general mind" are numerous. Remember the trust issues that these generations trend toward? Colleges and universities must find new ways to build mutual trust with their tech pros (as they should for the entire campus community). Earn these generations' respect by showing them that their investment of time, energy and care mean something special to the community and society at large. This is exactly what happened with me in my early years. The "General Mind" So what is this "general mind" that I referred to earlier, and why is it important? To quote Thomas Jefferson: "To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education." When I finished undergraduate school, I thought my education was complete. I had done my time in school and I was ready for the world. After my first year out, I started my career in higher education at a small college in Southern Indiana. There I found wonderful people who challenged me to learn more about life than computing. My friends on the staff and faculty invited me to attend lectures and speeches in many different fields, from economics to philosophy. That environment awakened my general mind. With this engagement, I was inspired to go to graduate school (twice) and feed a broader life of the mind. My family and I have had the opportunity to live a good life within three college communities filled with cultural events, community-service projects and students who became our family members over the years. I feel like we've invested our time and energy in making the world a better place. Many of the traits of Gen Xers and Millennials are perfect fits for small college communities: team-oriented, family-oriented, independent and learning-focused. Tech pros interested in knowing the whys in life and not just the hows may need mentors, as I did, and they may want to explore their interests beyond technology in art, music, science or philosophy. If small colleges and universities can communicate these attributes effectively to those two generations, I believe they could have their pick of the best and brightest tech pros. Nearly 25 years after I started my career at that small college in Indiana, I recently decided to return to another small liberal arts college with the same love for students, love for campus community and passion for developing the general mind. My move wasn't for money or position. It was for peace of mind and a love for the learning environment that I left so many years ago. If you're a young IT pro, I strongly recommend that you consider small colleges as a career option. If you're at one now, I challenge you to remind yourself what you have that your colleagues in the business world don't.2013-03-13T10:45:00ZCan Colleges Tame The Bandwidth Monster?Not likely. But OpenFlow and other new networking technologies provide some hope.http://www.informationweek.com/education/campus-infrastructure/can-colleges-tame-the-bandwidth-monster/240150686?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_AuthorsImagine that you're starting college today. Your dorm room -- excuse me, residence hall suite -- has a cable TV jack and an Ethernet jack in the wall. But you didn't think to bring a TV or a device that even has an Ethernet connection. The college has wireless access, but it's far too slow to stream your regular TV programming to your tablet computer. Your roommate has a laptop that can use that Ethernet jack, but he says it's even slower than your wireless connection. You try your cell phone and you get two bars inside the room, at best. You need to download your textbooks for the semester, but more than 2,000 other students are doing the same thing at the same time. You want to call home to complain, so you have to run outside to get a cell signal because the wireless network isn't fast enough to Skype. You begin to panic, and then get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. You have been (dun dun dun) disconnected from the world! As a higher education CIO, I often try to put myself in the place of students, and this is the most dramatic scenario I've come up with so far. Unfortunately, for many college students this scenario isn't far off the mark. Welcome to college life in our digital society. Each year, I'm faced with the continual challenge of feeding the Internet bandwidth monster. It's a strange industry when higher ed CIOs are elated about the next big thing in technology while also terrified by the effect it may have on our already congested networks and Internet connections. [ Are printed textbooks on the way out? Read <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/education/instructional-it/e-textbook-pilot-puts-college-books-in-c/240150097">E-Textbook Pilot Puts College Books In Cloud</a>. ] Maryland-based State Educational Technology Directors Association recommends that a <a href="http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2012/10/17/01bandwidth.h06.html">national standard for bandwidth</a> be set for K-12: 1 Gbps per 1,000 students and faculty/staff members for Internet connections and 10 Gbps for LAN connections, all by the 2017-18 school year. If this is to be the standard for primary and secondary schools, what might the standards be for a small college or university? And what about our major research universities? 100 Gbps to the desktop? Terabit backbones? Higher? The nationwide costs could be staggering for the necessary wiring and hardware upgrades. Hang on -- I think I need to lie down a minute. How Long Can We Feed The Monster? Today, adequate Internet access is tied so directly to academic scholarship and research that we no longer ask ourselves whether adding more bandwidth is really worth the trouble and expense. For work or play, fat pipes are now just part of student expectations, like electric lights … and a campus coffee bar. I've tried to keep up since the early 1990s with all sorts of network solutions. First, we threw more bandwidth at the problem. Then we made "creative use" of filtering tables, then packet shapers, now bandwidth equalizers. But we never solved the problem for long as the newest "disruptive" technology clogs our pipes. With applications such as Skype, Netflix and Xbox, our bandwidth situation was bad enough, but now with cable and satellite content providers piling into the mix with their mobile apps, how do we keep up with demand? Even more disruption is coming with new augmented-reality applications and devices, so gear up! Can We Tame The Monster? If the monster is demand, my answer to the above question is, "No way." But I'm hopeful that technology innovations will keep us a step ahead of growing demand. WAN research through the Internet2 organization lights the way to the future. Rod Wilson, senior director of external research at Ciena Corp., wrote in <a href="https://blogs.internet2.edu/archives/123">a 2011 blog</a> that 100-Gbps long-haul transmission and switching have solved myriad "well-publicized problems" for providers of communications services to research institutions, "including bringing relief to saturated fiber plants suffering from nearly full links." Commodity ISPs are just starting to deploy these more-efficient, higher-speed technologies, promising higher-bandwidth services at lower cost. So much for the wide area. But how do we attack the head of the bandwidth monster, the constantly growing need for faster wired and wireless connections inside our college campuses? My good friend Jimmy Ray Purser, a network engineer with Cisco, says the major problem today with most campus networks isn't the amount of bandwidth but the optimization of that bandwidth. "About 40% of your traffic is overhead chatter," Purser says. "The trick is to have a good VLAN design and newer switches to capture as much benefit as possible with the latest compression algorithms. But the best features of bandwidth optimization tools are not being used in many colleges and universities today." Purser maintains that OpenFlow could be the answer to many of our campus bandwidth problems. OpenFlow is a vendor-agnostic standard that allows network switches to be controlled by a central network operating system. With OpenFlow, packet-forwarding instructions set up in the NOS make more efficient use of processing power and paths. This technology is now being tested in switch-to-server and switch-to-cloud (cloud bursting) applications, allowing for the next level of resource optimization and customization across the entire hardware infrastructure. Higher ed IT organizations will still continue to deal with the challenges we have come to know and hate: file-sharing software, illegal music/video downloading, gaming and streaming video services. But the solace is that OpenFlow and technologies like it will provide a leap forward in campus network bandwidth and management over the next five years. Will costs come down? I'm pessimistic. Where there's pent-up demand, there's always a higher price to be paid, even if carrier competition increases over the coming years. The key to the future is balancing bandwidth with new technology to slow the monster and keep it from swallowing us whole. Additional Questions I continue to have more questions on this topic than answers, and I'd like to get your ideas. Over time, will LTE and next-generation cellular transport technologies ease the strain on campus networks? Will bandwidth provision continue to be the responsibility of the institution only, or is it fair to ask students to augment college-supplied Internet service with their own data services? How would this shift from private campus networks to public cellular networks affect security? Please weigh in with a comment below. Can data analysis keep students on track and improve college retention rates? Also in the premiere all-digital <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/012813ed/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxt_os">Analytics' Big Test</a> issue of InformationWeek Education: Higher education is just as prone to tech-based disruption as other industries. (Free with registration.) 2013-02-05T11:22:00ZMOOCs: Valuable Innovation Or Grand Diversion?Massive open online courses can evolve into a phenomenal educational asset, but they're not the best educational method for most students coming out of high school.http://www.informationweek.com/education/online-learning/moocs-valuable-innovation-or-grand-diver/240147875?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_AuthorsMassive open online courses, more commonly known as MOOCs, are all the rage in higher education. Respected institutions from MIT to Stanford are jumping on the bandwagon, offering MOOCs to thousands of people across the world. But why? I have a theory. Just a couple of years ago, higher education was under a firestorm of criticism for the high cost and perceived low return of a college degree. Congressmen and governors across the nation were screaming about the rising cost of a four-year degree and looking into how the nation's youth were actually benefiting from this costly endeavor. I could argue that this outcry was a diversion from budgetary problems in government, but I digress. So what's the best way for higher educators to divert the firestorm of controversy away from them? Find a way to "give back" to society in a big way! MOOCs showcase an institution and its best faculty while giving the masses the opportunity to 'virtually attend" that institution for free, with a minimal amount of university investment. It's exciting and innovative! If my little conspiracy theory is true, the scheme is brilliant. The subject of the rising cost of higher education has been reduced to a whisper, while positive press about MOOCs is everywhere. Thousands of people are "enrolling" in these courses," taking everything from English literature to circuits and electronics, and online platform providers such as Coursera and Udacity are attracting millions of dollars in venture capital. Is This All Bad? So aside from my little theory about societal manipulation, are MOOCs all bad? Absolutely not. I subscribe to the notion that all educational media are positive for society. Thousands of people, young and old, are getting an intellectual benefit from these online courses, and it's a phenomenal service to society. We all need a bit more intellectual stimulation to spark our creativity and motivation to make positive world changes. On the provider side, any time that colleges and universities can share the knowledge, research and wisdom of some of the best minds, we're all better for it. It's the classic win-win for faculty and students, and it is great PR for institutions of higher learning. But (you knew a "but" was coming), MOOCs will not bring down higher education as we know it. They will not replace brick-and-mortar colleges and universities. Will I be telling my children in a few years to get on their computers and get to work on their bachelor's degrees? For those who really want a full and rich education, my answer is a definitive NO. Traditional higher education is more than going to class, listening to a professor, doing homework and taking tests. It's about building learning relationships with faculty and other students. It's sometimes about learning to live independently, without a parent to protect and guide the individual every step of the way. Traditional higher education is about taking required courses that you may never have taken otherwise and discovering things about yourself and the world in life-changing ways. A statement made by Susan Holmes, a statistics professor at Stanford, hits a nerve. "I don't think you can get <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/collegeprose/2013/01/28/moocs-a-college-education-online/">a Stanford education online</a>, just as I don't think that Facebook gives you a social life." Higher education involves much more than the knowledge you learn in class. It's about the development of the whole person: emotionally, socially, intellectually and academically. The exchange, textual discussion and regurgitation of knowledge simply demonstrate that you generally know a subject. The full college experience prepares students to communicate, collaborate, contemplate and, sometimes, negotiate topics on many different levels, both in writing and orally. (Obviously, my traditional education has also prepared me to group words together that end in "a-t-e.")MOOCs may be valuable as a supplement to classroom study, as well as a source for continuing education. But it's not the best educational method for most students coming out of high school. Online learning may become a solid option for students who don't have the financial means to attend a traditional college or university. And accredited online programs may be a good fit for students prepared for graduate work -- those with developed writing, public speaking and time management skills. These programs may also be a good option for working people who need more flexibility in their schedules. No question, many online graduate programs are acclaimed for their quality. Hurdles To Acceptance One monumental hurdle is for these MOOCs to get accreditation so that students can apply their credits toward degrees. Accreditation agencies such as the Higher Education Commission and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools are tightening up their requirements for all college and university online programs and courses. Issues we're dealing with at my institution include new guidelines for 24/7 student technical support and new policies for test proctoring and student assessment. Are the major institutions ready and willing to go through the expense and pain of accreditation for courses with hundreds of thousands of faceless students? Are these automated courses with thousands of students, assessed based on multiple-choice and short-answer tests, as rigorous as what students get in a traditional classroom? Would I grade the thousands of online tests by hand to make the program better? My answer is no to all of these questions. The last one might have an expletive somewhere in my answer. Some theorists say MOOC providers may try to sidestep traditional academic accreditation altogether, choosing to give "certificates of completion" instead. I see two damaging effects to our nation's educational system if we go down that path. The first is a meandering sense of educational standards, an extension of what we have now with some of the non-accredited, for-profit online degree programs. I'm comfortable with the high academic standards required by our national accreditation agencies and feel comfortable with the high bar they've set. But I'm not familiar with the standards set forth independently by Muddy Fork Online College & Taxidermy Institute -- hopefully a fictitious for-profit school. You get the idea. The second issue is how the perceived or real differences in the educations delivered by brick-and-mortar institutions, online schools and future MOOC certifications will affect our society. There are already "haves" and "have-nots" when it comes to higher education, but will this differential get exacerbated when a graduate from an accredited and established college or university competes with the graduate of an online program for graduate school admissions or a job? I fear that introducing MOOC certifications to the mix will only create another level in a growing national educational caste system. Will MOOCs Stick? Peter J. Stokes of Northeastern's College of Professional Studies has said: "<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/The-False-Promise-of-the/136305/">The whole MOOC thing is mass psychosis</a>. [It's] just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks." If MOOCs do stick, I think this "demo period" of free education for the masses will end and prices from MOOC providers will start to rise. MOOCs are a grand experiment -- the question is whether they evolve into a phenomenal educational asset or just become a terrible diversion.2013-01-09T12:21:00ZWhy Tablets Will Kill Smart Boards In ClassroomsTablet computing opens a whole new world to faculty and students, a world that's within reach financially.http://www.informationweek.com/education/mobility/why-tablets-will-kill-smart-boards-in-cl/240145886?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors <div class="inlineStoryImage inlineStoryImageRight"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/news/big-data-analytics/20-top-masters-degrees-for-big-data-analytics-professionals/240145673"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/934/IntroImage_tn.jpg" alt=" Big Data Analytics Masters Degrees: 20 Top Programs" title=" Big Data Analytics Masters Degrees: 20 Top Programs" class="img175" /></a> <div class="storyImageTitle"> Big Data Analytics Masters Degrees: 20 Top Programs</div> (click image for larger view and for slideshow)</div> When does smart give way to smarter? When smart is expensive and hard to support. I have used all sorts of "smart" classroom tools and devices. Electronic whiteboards, clickers, projection systems, video capture systems and classroom control systems are just some of the devices that have entered my classrooms and my IT repair benches over the years. As a CIO in higher education, my budgets have felt the strain of some of these devices. Some were good and some were bad and, all too often, the ROI was hard to show. But now, finally, classroom devices are becoming smarter with the advent of tablet computing. [ Read how iPad has spurred a whole new class of results for Apple: <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/apples-education-phenomenon-ipad/240145351?itc=edit_in_body_cross">Apple's Education Phenomenon: iPad</a>. ] In 1983, when Steve Jobs said that one day we would be carrying a small, fully functional and networked computer device around anywhere, I was both excited and skeptical. For many years, I've longed for a way to easily do research and develop teaching materials at home, in the office, on the airplane and in the classroom. In the 1990s, I was sure that notebook computers were the answer, only to be disappointed by their cost, their lag in processor speed, their longevity and their sometimes ridiculous weight. When netbooks were introduced, I was at first excited but later appalled by their lack of functionality. Now we have a device that can do much of what's needed for classroom teaching and is as compact as a folder or small notebook (the paper kind). I was an early tablet adopter in the hope that my dreams had come true. For the most part, they have, with some caveats. Tablets To The Rescue. In the 1990s, classroom devices were a nightmare for a small college’s bean counters, IT support staff and, especially, the teacher and students. Inconsistent performance, costly supplies and persnickety control systems were not only difficult for support staff but a drag on class time. Sharing files between one office computer and a classroom computer was time consuming and cumbersome. Projectors and smart boards were unreliable and easy to get out of calibration. Through the 2000s, they got much better, but anyone doing an ROI calculation was appalled by their lack of efficiency and the class time these devices consumed as teachers tried to get them to work in concert to actually teach students! Tablet computing opens a whole new world to faculty and students, a world that's within financial reach. Faculty members are now able to walk around with their work desks literally at their sides. Music, books, documents of all kinds, Internet access and much more are at the touch of a button. Faculty can take that tablet and connect it to a video projector, digital monitor/TV or Internet broadcast stream to draw, highlight and interact with whatever is on their screens without the aid of a smart board. With conferencing services and the newest wireless video systems, tablet users can share their screens with the instructor and the entire class in real time. This is finally the "smart" classroom we all envisioned for higher education so many years ago. Now it's possible for our students to access electronic textbooks and other literature, library systems, Internet resources, LMS systems and so much more and use them in a real-time discussion inside the classroom. I foresee the transition of IT funding from in-class PCs, smart boards and control systems (and the support involved) to tablets. The ROI will be evident as we spend less time on problems with PCs, "smart" devices (and their moving parts) and control systems and more on teaching our studentsNot Nirvana -- Yet Perfection is still a ways off, though. The industry must still develop a long list of tablet and cloud computing features for the higher education community. First, we need cloud services for applications that require a lot of processing power. Higher-level statistical software, high-end audio/video editing and graphic design applications are just a few services that come to mind. We need extensible apps that support multiple tablet operating systems, or adoption will not be possible in many academic disciplines. Costs must be reasonable for small and large institutions alike. Educators are nothing if not loyal to a vendor that understands that our budgets are shrinking. Mobility also comes at another price: size. If touch tablets are to accommodate everyday office applications, the industry must develop larger companion, touch-based monitor attachments. Like the laptop docks of today, the tablet attachments will have to accommodate those, like me, with failing eyesight. Another issue that must be addressed is standardization of wireless video connectivity for tablets. Apple and Microsoft just love open interoperability standards (wink, wink). What we need -- if not a device that supports multiple wireless video standards for the major tablet OSes -- is a Web conferencing service for classrooms using multiple types of tablet computers. We use FuzeBox.com for some of these needs, and it works, but more work should be put into developing a true application that will address the needs of the traditional classroom as well as distance education. The final issue isn't an easy one to solve: file systems. One of the most frequent questions I get from new tablet users is: Where are my files stored? My answer is usually: Heck if I know! As many tablet users know, user documents could be stored locally in any number of places depending on the app being used. There's typically no single file system. This setup tends to confuse new tablet users who wish to edit documents in multiple apps. Dropbox, Box.com, iCloud, Skydrive and Google Drive are just a few of the cloud storage services out there, but choosing among them is difficult and sometimes costly based on which apps people prefer to use. This is obviously one of those pesky training issues that will linger for a while, but it has significant institutional implications. Storing FERPA and/or HIPPA information offsite on storage services that could be hacked is a big problem in higher education. As a CIO, this is one of my biggest concerns of this new era. If tablet computing is to take off in our colleges and universities, we must address cloud-based storage security first and foremost. Making The Leap Are we ready for this transition? Are we prepared for courses where 40, 50, 100 or 400 people need to connect simultaneously to our wireless networks and stream video? Are we prepared to provide that level of bandwidth to the commodity Internet? What will we do with all of those "smart" boards that we purchased over the years? Are we prepared to purchase, set up, distribute, support and repair tablet devices that will be everywhere, from boardrooms to bathrooms? I'll stop here. I’m beginning to hyperventilate. The fact is that many of us aren't prepared for such a shift in campus computing. Then again, it's a momentous time in the history of computing, and as Virgil said: "Fortune favors the brave." Budget-wise, I think the shift will be a good one for all of our institutions in the long run. I'm optimistic that tablets will offer immeasurable benefits, both to bean counters' ROI and our faculty and students. We just have to take the plunge.