Academic Technologies
Guiding Principles
There are numerous ways to think about a support organization. For example, one can think about audience such as students, faculty and staff. Alternatively, one can concentrate on departments and services such as Audio Visual Services and the USITE Classrooms & Clusters. In viewing Academic Technologies in a holistic way, one can see numerous operational currents that weave in and out of the groups and serve to unify the organization. These currents can be condensed in a number of ways and in the case of Academic Technologies, they fall into five operational categories: structure, collaboration, trust, responsibility, and technology. Each category gives rise to a specific principle, for a total of five in all:
First Principle: Structure
The outcome is what matters, not the structure that leads to it.
Second Principle: Collaboration
By working collaboratively in dynamic teams, anything can be possible.
Third Principle: Trust
Staff will do the best they can to the best of their knowledge and ability.
Fourth Principle: Responsibility
Expertise will never be asked for without first informing people what can be done.
Fifth Principle: Technology
Use technologies we ask others to use.
These five principles provide a framework for change, but not a specific process. Each organization, each situation, and each program has different issues to address and as such, no single process can work in every instance. To impose a single solution would certainly lead to success in one area while leading to failure in another. Whether adopted by individual staff or implemented across the entire organization, the principles are merely tools to achieve change. It is important to remember that each principle is part of an overarching framework, and upon that framework other programs and initiatives can be built. As a framework, the principles guide action in a consistent manner across all of Academic Technologies.
Structure
Over the past decade, Academic Technologies has grown to encompass a large number of services that directly impact the academic life of faculty and students, and range from the Chalk Project to streaming media and the USITE computing clusters to the Digital Media Laboratory. Because the organization added most of these services over time rather than through acquisition and absorption, there is a connection among the senior staff with all units and services across Academic Technologies. As a result, a portion of the staff is able to "point people in the right direction" and guide individuals to appropriate services and resources within specific units and across organizational boundaries.
In general, the "pointing model" works in smaller organizations where cross-unit projects are the exception and everyone knows what the other person does, but it is less successful when integrated activities are the norm and experts are needed from across the organization. Because the services and resources of Academic Technologies are so vast, the technological sophistication of the users is rapidly expanding, and the desire among scholars and educators to bring together and integrate as many technologies as possible is becoming commonplace, does it make sense to continue to point people to services? Simply put, "no." There are too many options available and giving an individual a list of contact names is no longer a viable solution.
The alternative, then, is to turn the process of pointing into one of doing. What if staff came together to support the scholar from a single point-of-contact? What if services dynamically adapted themselves to the needs of the activity rather than the activity fragmenting to conform to the management structure of individual units? What if the standard assumption became that all projects and activities integrate services from across the organization, and a completed project is more important than just finishing the piece one worked on? This leads to the first principle:
The outcome is what matters, not the structure that leads to it.
Or to put it another way, as projects integrate more and more technologies and services from multiple units, staff must work together as a single group to meet project needs, and not let organizational structures hinder completion or progress because, in the end, successful activities and projects are far more important than what it takes to get there. A successful activity or project is a culmination of several smaller pieces and when one piece is done, the project does not magically become someone else's problem - everything must come together and that is everyone's problem.
Collaboration
There is an immense amount of specialized technology that is incorporated into the services of Academic Technologies. As a general rule, the organization tries to stay at least three years ahead of the technology curve of faculty and researchers. In other words, technologies that are deployed by select units of Academic Technologies today will become commonplace three years from now. By keeping a three-year window in mind, the staff both gain experience with and guide others to specific technologies that will be more affordable in time, thereby giving scholars and educators a head-start in knowing what is on the horizon, what could be possible, and how the technology might apply in teaching and research.
Although there are aspects of the organization that are about technology (Audio Visual Services is a prime example), real value is not found in the hardware and software, but in the staff who possess both specialized expertise and experience in applying technology to academic problems. It is the staff that makes the technology worthwhile as specialists help individuals look to the future and beyond what can be found in a user manual or tutorial. Access to a team of experts quickly leads to answers such as "yes" and "possibly," whereas a lack of expertise or one lone perspective can trigger a hasty "no." By applying broad expertise and looking into an issue, the challenge then, becomes a balancing act of time, resources, and commitment from an informed perspective. Projects and activities may fail to move forward because of an imbalance, but there may be alternatives that a quick "no" will never uncover.
The second principle comes from the fact that Academic Technologies is made up of staff experts who work together to guide individuals toward what can be done. In essence:
By working collaboratively in dynamic teams, anything can be possible.
Short of equipment reservations and simple tasks, all activities and projects should involve at least two people. The ideas and inspiration two specialists can provide is far greater than one person's single perspective, so teamwork and collaboration is critically important to look ahead and toward the future. To provide the best possible support to faculty and researchers, all ideas and opinions must be weighed and evaluated as part of the overall team effort, not dismissed without discussion and consideration. In addition, as project needs change, different people may be needed to participate and contribute. Teams should evolve as necessary and not become static and rigid. The elasticity of a team helps to ensure that "surprises" can be handled without triggering a crisis within the overall project.
Trust
No team ever succeeds without trust. Obviously, establishing trust is critical between the team and the scholar. At that level, trust stems from both individual experiences with staff specialists and the overall reputation of the organization. If either one fails, the whole system of trust is severely weakened and people become reluctant to seek assistance.
Beyond the obvious scholar/staff relationship is the internal trust network that needs to be built among team members. If a team is nothing more than a structural grouping of individuals, the group provides no benefit to the user. The individuals must trust one another and work as a team to move ahead with the activity and complete the project as one unit. The team is responsible for the project and as such, each member carries a portion of the responsibility, regardless of title or specialization, and reviews peer contribution and participation.
Obviously, there will be times where senior management authority is necessary and the rules of the team must be set aside. For example, if an activity violates a university policy, then senior staff should step out of their team roles and address matters accordingly. They have the authority to do so, and it is their responsibility to make sure activities occur in an appropriate matter.
As the adage goes, trust must be earned. By being staff within Academic Technologies, the organization trusts individuals to be specialists in their particular areas, and to actively contribute to the betterment of the organization and successful completion of projects. To this end, the third principle states that:
Staff will do the best they can to the best of their knowledge and ability.
With the third principle comes individual responsibility. Academic Technologies is an organization of specialists and as such, each has in-depth knowledge within their area of expertise but may lack knowledge in other areas. As a result, staff must be willing to realize their own limits, accept the input of others, and ask for assistance as necessary. Failure to seek assistance or accept input tends to work against oneself as it generally indicates a lack of trust in one's peers. A lack of trust breaks down the team and ultimately erodes the reputation of the entire organization.
Responsibility
As stated numerous times, every individual within Academic Technologies is an expert. From providing services to using specific technologies, each staff member develops a portfolio of skills and knowledge that is tuned to their particular sphere of expertise. For example, there may be ways of explaining a particular task to a user that is unique to the staff specialist, and may take hours off of training or project time. Alternatively, seemingly daunting tasks to those "outside" may be quite simple and take no time at all for the experienced specialist. Because staff are often organized into tree-like management hierarchies, applying staff expertise on projects tends to follow a "push" model where management delegates or assigns tasks to individuals through a chain-of-command. Specialists wait to be told what to do, and fall into a reactive mode not unlike that of a firefighter; they wait for the call and then spring into action.
Now rather than waiting for things to happen, what if staff shifted to a proactive "pull" model? Or to put it another way, what if staff members became mini-departments onto themselves, requesting additional projects, seeking out new collaborative opportunities, developing events and training programs, and creating promotional materials for their particular areas of specialization? In essence, each specialist would become a pseudo-entrepreneur.
Clearly, the potential for organizational anarchy and chaos in such a model is enormous. Therefore, some kind of structure would be needed to triage and assign projects to teams, to provide checks and balances to ensure projects are completed on time and have appropriate team members, etc. In addition, requests to undertake new projects should clear through a single source rather than promoting further perceived support fragmentation by having multiple points of contact. There would still need to be some type of management oversight, but the overall spirit should move toward the fourth principle:
Expertise will never be asked for without first informing people what can be done.
Basically, this principle is quite simple, but often overlooked. One can be a specialist, but if people don't know about the specialization, how can anyone make use of the skills?
Technology
It is fairly common to find information technology staff using technologies that are different from those used by the people they support. Quite often this is done in order to explore alternatives to existing resources or test new services under development. However, when the use of a specific technology is primarily a negative reaction to what is deployed, that begs the question, "why ask others to use something you refuse to use?"
Since Academic Technologies is an organization that is about what one does with technology rather than purely being about technology for technology's sake, knowing what is possible with available resources is critically important in understanding what we can and cannot do. A technology double-standard where we use tools and technologies that are different from our users creates an environment in which we are unable to fully understand what others experience. It is not enough to know whether or not we have a specific technology; it is important that we experience the technology in action just as the people we support. This leads to the fifth principle:
Use technologies we ask others to use.
In other words, we should strive to experience technologies we provide from the perspective of the users we support.
Last updated: 11/15/07