The University of Delaware is featured in an EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research case study produced by the Washington, D.C., and Boulder, Colo., based organization, which promotes the intelligent use of information technology. The publication focuses on how UD integrates information technology into the everyday life of the University.

UD is considered a leader in the field of information technology. The institution received the EDUCAUSE Award for excellence in campus networking in 1994 and is a member of the prestigious Common Solutions Group, a consortium of elite universities working to advance web technology. In 2003, UD President David P. Roselle, long an advocate for intelligent use of technology and co-author of a book on its ability to transform university administration, was a keynote speaker at a national conference concerning the online learning program, WebCT. He is the recipient of the 1989 CAUSE Award for Institutional Leadership and also has been an invited speaker several times to higher education consortia in the United Kingdom.

The publication notes that, while many institutions have formal written information technology plans, UD has achieved advances through an informal, flexible and personal approach that empowers IT professional staff through constant engagement with senior administrators and the campus community as a whole, including faculty. As a result, technology is embedded throughout the University culture, creating what Middle States Commission on Higher Education reviewers described as "a national model for the integration of information technology in every aspect of University life: teaching and learning, research and service, academic support, and campus administration."

Following are highlights of the publication:

Office of Information Technologies

Information technology is both a centralized and a decentralized function at the University of Delaware. "There is not a lot of departmental autonomy," Susan Foster, vice president for information technologies, says. "Most local IT activities are related to dedicated classroom facilities with specialized software, to research and to local area network administration. General instructional as well as administrative computing is centrally focused."

On the other hand, an IT manager points to the importance of decentralization, saying, "At the top, there are very strong leaders who are not afraid to take chances, but the people with the expertise at the project level are allowed to prioritize projects and make decisions. It is a campus culture that allows a personal relationship to have some sway."

The issue of centralization and decentralization may appear to be a contradiction but actually reveals an important characteristic of UD. While there are significant informal, decentralized communication channels, the authority resides centrally.

Building a technically embedded institution

UD's transformation into a technically embedded institution was achieved over the last 15 years with the appointment of officers who worked within the University culture to guide IT's efforts to build a technologically rich learning environment and to facilitate the strong interaction between IT and the campus community.

UD President David P. Roselle plays a crucial role and his leadership style complements UD's informal, highly personal culture. Posing the question, "What have you done recently for students?" and using input from discussions resulting from that question, Roselle formulated and published institutional goals that he synthesized into four straightforward, strategic priorities that focus on faculty, students and staff, and on building a University environment that supports the success of their endeavors.

The priorities are:

Providing competitive compensation for faculty and staff;

Providing greater access to the University for all students through increased amounts of financial aid;

Promoting a student-centered campus; and

Providing state-of-the-art teaching, research and learning facilities.

In working toward creation of a student-centered campus, UD transformed its academic environment, introducing problem-based learning and technology in instruction. The institution has spent more than $700 million for physical plant construction and maintenance, eliminating virtually all of its deferred maintenance, and all centrally scheduled classrooms, except some of the smallest ones, can be classified as "smart."

Building a technical support structure

For Foster, the announcement of UD's four strategic initiatives was "like handing a mandate to IT. President Roselle wanted to exploit technology as much as possible to serve the institution's priorities. It was that simple," she says. Today, UD is noted for its extensively wired campus and its online services and prides itself on technology support for students.

Like the University in general, IT retooled its organization to address strategic priorities. Foster used the budgetary downturn in the early 1990s to advance cultural change in the IT organization, encouraging a cooperative environment to ensure survival of the organization. "It took a while for the different departments to understand that their money was gone, and they were going to have to start to talk to each other," she says. "The interesting thing was that all along the departments wanted to talk to each other, but they just didn't know how." After building a cooperative environment internally, Foster focused her attentions externally--helping the IT staff understand their clients and build better relations with them.

UD also reexamined technology's role in light of the strategic priorities. "We determined what the bottom line for technology was," David Hollowell, executive vice president and treasurer through whom the IT organization reports, says. "It is a tool, a utility. We wanted to have good technology wherever it was needed for robust computational support and connectivity. IT provides a structure or framework--like the UD strategic goals--to create an environment where faculty can do good work and students can conduct the business of being students and excel in their studies and research."

IT's first step was to build the needed infrastructure, to wire the campus, to set up access and to create online services. The second, overlapping phase began when a growing IT capacity and availability enabled faculty members to be innovative, especially with regard to instructional uses of technology. During this period, two organizations emerged as particular catalysts, the Center for Teaching Effectiveness (CTE) and the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education (ITUE).

Founded in 1975, CTE offers services to faculty, teaching assistants and other teaching staff through teaching effectiveness workshops, individual and group consultations and instructional resources and grants. Of particular note is CTE's grant program that encourages faculty members to try different instructional tools and methodologies.

Founded in 1997 by two UD faculty members, George Watson and Barbara Duch, ITUE fostered the faculty's grassroots adoption of problem-based learning. Because of its interactive focus, the typical problem-based learning class provides new opportunities for faculty members to infuse technology into their teaching activities.

IT has worked with the campus community throughout this instructional evolution to create an innovative learning environment. Lonnie Hearn, director of University Media Services, estimates that "today, most of UD's classrooms are electronically enhanced, and the rest will be soon." Additionally, Hearn estimates that "85 percent of the faculty use computers while teaching, not just for PowerPoint presentations but for web-enabled activities, as well." Also, the University of Delaware Library has moved increasingly to acquire electronic resources and cancels hard-copy subscriptions when access is available electronically.

The close and supportive relationship between IT and academic work is evident across the campus, both in the classroom and in research activities.

In the 1990s, faculty identified the need for local supercomputer access to perform proof-of-concept projects whose success would lead to external funding and better scientific research. A joint faculty and IT committee formed a consensus opinion and justification that persuaded the deans to approve IT funding of the purchase, and IT staff developed specialized programming courses for the researchers, who subsequently leveraged this knowledge in their own course development. IT also provided UD executives with justification to fund Internet2 membership and Abilene connectivity to support multisite research and data sharing. "These consulting relationships have often improved the quality of research projects and resulted in additional grant funding and publications," says Dick Sacher, manager of Research and Data Management Services and leader of the IT research collaborative.

Constant feedback builds a rolling planning process

Thas completed these accomplishments without a formal plan, as UD's informal culture tends to discourage structured planning processes. "Years ago, we used to create plans and reported on our plans, but it was make work," Daniel Grim, executive director of Network and System Services, says. "You had to show what you were doing more than do what you were trying to show."

Traditionalists may be disappointed in the lack of formal communication protocols at UD, but Foster says that while "we do not have a strategic plan, we don't wing it either. We know what is important, and we consistently follow that path."

Because technology permeates the institution, IT relies upon feedback from various organizational touch points--at the senior administration level and the various user constituencies--to guide its course of action. At the user level, informal or grassroots feedback dominates. IT does administer an annual survey of student computing practices, and formal advisory committees also exist.

Hearn cites IT's informal interaction with faculty as a key to advancement. "There might not be a formal meeting with the dean, but you might also see a faculty member in the hall," he says. "You discuss a problem and realize it is similar to something else. It leads to a grassroots movement across several departments because you observe the same problem cropping up in different places. Sometimes, if no one is willing or able to pick it up, IT acts as a broker to get funding or to justify needs."

The informal planning empowers IT department managers to prioritize and respond to feedback locally, with minimal intervention. Senior administrators will intervene as needed, providing what Carl Jacobson, director of Management Information Services, calls stop valves. "If I prioritize my projects and the user complains, he or she can go to the president, provost or executive vice president to escalate the cause," explains Jacobson. "Then, I have one chance to justify my priorities; they either agree with my decision or tell me to adjust my priorities."

The Middle States reviewers noted that, "As a result, all technology support personnel work together effectively, cross-functionally and cross-departmentally, regardless of their organization reporting structure."  

Lessons learned

The personalized alignment between UD and IT works. "We're an intimate institution in an intimate state; it is easier to do things here," Foster says, adding, "Many other institutions could not behave as we do." But, other institutions could apply some of these lessons:

Leadership: Procedures are well understood; goals are shared and enduring.

Flat organization: A flat organization can facilitate communication if it is supported by trust and by clear channels. IT staff members casually refer to their access to the president and vice presidents as part of normal procedures.

Encourage communications: The importance of communications cannot be overestimated. IT has had to actively work to create fellowship among IT staff and a customer-centric organization.

Break down the stove-pipe mentality: The informal culture, the high level of communication, the recognition and acceptance of the four priorities of the University and the strong community morale have led to an institution unmarked by stove-pipe patterns of thinking or action.

Top-down decisions: Communication at UD is not top-down, but informed decision-making is acceptably top-down. The pride in the institution and its functioning emerges from such statements that emphasize that the decisions are made only with adequate input and only in the genuine effort to improve the quality of the University.

Keep it simple: UD's four simple institutional statements make it easier for the University community to keep aligned with the institution's direction. They are easy to internalize and apply because they provide a simple framework, not an elaborate directive.

Cost savings are not the answer: Many institutions may look to instructional uses of technology as a means to reduce costs but UD officials warn them to be cautious about the attraction of cost savings. Instead, consider it a matter of shifting investments.

Centralized IT structure: A centralized IT structure can increase alignment in planning and implementation, as well as facilitate purchasing, security and homogeneity in hardware and software. However, informal communication and other elements in the culture provide input to the centralized structure that serves a large, diverse community. The issue is not to centralize or to decentralize service or decision-making but to create structures that empower the constituencies.

Expectations of partnership: IT leaders can substitute partnership for lines of reporting and layers of bureaucracy. At UD, informal partnerships between those in central IT and those within colleges and departments provide channels of communication for information, decision-making, initiatives and problem-solving.

Sustained goals: By enunciating simple goals that are acceptable in the culture and by sustaining them over the years, the community internalizes those goals and successfully tests new initiatives and budget adjustments against them.

Trust: High levels of trust across the institution support decision-making, necessary organizational structures, budget changes, revenue decisions and the host of factors that create the spirit of fulfillment for faculty, staff and administrators. The Middle States accreditation report says: "The review [of UD] was enormously impressed by the high level of morale that pervades the faculty, staff and students. Almost without exception, the people we spoke to take pride in being part of the University."

Future

UD plans to continue to apply its four strategic priorities. "We are a much stronger institution than even a decade ago," states UD Provost Dan Rich. "That means a step-level jump. We now have a high platform, which gives us both a responsibility and an opportunity that is very different than even a decade ago. We need to keep our heads down and do our work to continue our improvement."

The University has launched a successful biotechnology program, and Roselle sees potential in material sciences and in UD's ability to exploit the unique opportunities that the state offers businesses.

Longer term, IT will continue to overlay and complement UD's functions and activities, weaving itself further into the University fabric and fueling the feedback effect. "As ideas proliferate," Foster says, "the challenge is how to coordinate and support them without overwhelming the system."

As Rich notes, "We were lucky that we had the opportunity to transform to what we all call 'the new University of Delaware' at a time when the information technology revolution was under way. We can and will continue to integrate information technology, as we are nowhere near the end of our transformation."

Foster suggests the foreseeable future of IT at UD will be characterized not by dramatic change but by "incremental quality improvement." The University is well-positioned for just such change.