A challenge faced by most heads of academic departments around the world is to manage the adoption and use of appropriate learning technologies in order to support the department's learning offerings to students. Earlier research undertaken by the authors revealed that lecturers within the Department of Marketing and Retail Management at the…

Purpose: This paper seeks to examine the emerging role of the Senior Academic Technology Officer (SATO) in higher education. It aims to consider two existing templates for this professional role derived from mainstream information management and information technology: the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO).…

This paper analyses the change and innovation strategies that Charles Sturt University (CSU) used from 2007 to 2009 during the implementation and mainstreaming of an open source learning management system (LMS), Sakai, named locally as "CSU Interact". CSU was in January 2008 the first Australian University to implement an open source…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the availability and effectiveness of administrative support elements for online teaching faculty, and introduce a faculty validated Matrix for use as a guide in development of administrative support for online programs. When administrators make decisions about the infrastructure support needs of a current…

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems can represent one of the largest investments of human and financial resources by a higher education institution. They also bring a significant process reengineering aspect to the institution and the associated implementation project through the integration of compiled industry best practices into the…

Schools and districts should use a well-designed needs assessment to inform important decisions about a range of technology program areas. Presently, there is a lack of valid and reliable instruments available and accessible to schools to effectively assess their educational needs to better design and evaluate their projects and initiatives. The…

This article is the fourth in a series of articles published annually by "Computers in Libraries" surveying integrated library systems and services (ILSs). The purpose of the annual survey is to enable comparison of the ILSs that are available. ILS vendors are in constant pursuit of an ever-changing, consistently vague definition of what the…

The key aim of this paper is to introduce a standard-based model for adaptive e-learning platform for Mauritian academic institutions and to investigate the conditions and tools required to implement this model. The main forces of the system are that it allows collaborative learning, communication among user, and reduce considerable paper work.…

A month ago, a French court ruled that internet access is a basic human right. Gordon Brown has said it is as crucial for people as electricity and water. Yet, 17 million Britons are still excluded from digital technology and an estimated 13 per cent of the population--some six million people--are both socially and digitally excluded. There are…

Voice over IP (VoIP) has been infiltrating campus networks, but more like stray weeds in an unattended garden than like a well-planned crop. Trouble is, in most instances, moving directly from a PBX or Centrex service to VoIP represents a shift too costly and dramatic for many academic institutions to undertake. Instead, schools have been…

The opportunity to design a learning space does not come along often. Usually, it involves the construction of a new building or the complete remodel of an old one, and both of these require a lot of money. Smaller projects, such as renovation of a single room or a defined space, can be the best way to test ideas and establish a model for…

Uninterrupted, high-bandwidth network connectivity is crucial for higher education. Colleges and universities increasingly adopt gigabit wireless solutions because of their fiber-equivalent performance, quick implementation, and significant return on investment. For just those reasons, Rush University Medical Center switched from free space optics…

The Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) is a group of people interested in small college computing issues. It is a blend of people from all over the country who use computers in their teaching, academic support, and administrative support functions. ASCUE has a strong tradition of bringing its members together to pool their…

More stakeholders are turning to technology to advance the professional learning required to support new standards and evaluation systems. Yet how technology is used will determine its potential to influence educator practice and results for students. This brief outlines how technology can enhance professional learning, offers examples of how…

At Santa Clara University (SCU), Vice Provost for Information Services and CIO Ron Danielson led the design and construction of the campus's 194,251-square-foot Harrington Learning Commons, Sobrato Technology Center, and Orradre Library, a single building opened in March 2008. Danielson and his team were responsible for describing design goals,…