June 3, 2002—EDUCAUSE, the association for information technology (IT) in higher education, has published the results of its third annual Current Issues Survey. Security management emerged as a top-ten issue on three of the four survey measures: “strategic importance,” “potential to become much more significant,” and “demanding more time of campus IT leaders.” (The fourth measure is “issues demanding significant human and/or financial resources.”)
For all sizes and kinds of institutions, two issues rank in the top ten across all measures: administrative systems/enterprise resource planning (ERP) and faculty development, support, and training. Other top issues include IT funding strategies, IT strategic planning, maintaining network infrastructure, and distance education.
IT staffing/human resources management dropped off the top-ten list for all but one of the four measures (“issues demanding an IT leader’s time”), indicating that the IT staffing crisis in higher education has temporarily subsided.
Among issues whose rankings changed significantly from 2001 to 2002 are enterprise portals, which went from not appearing on any of the top-ten lists last year to placing fourth on the list of issues expected to increase significantly in importance, and ubiquitous computing/universal access, which last year was fourth on the list of issues expected to explode and this year did not make any of the overall top-ten lists.
