Adapt Governance to Align Educational Technology With Faculty Needs

Effective use of technology for pedagogy requires intentional collaboration.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight
IT must integrate with institutional bodies through governance to ensure success. Involve all relevant stakeholders who will be impacted by the outcomes of educational technology including institutional leadership, faculty, local IT, and students.

Meeting the challenge of educational technology is a core priority of the IT department

Educational technology has become more central to IT’s mandate since the pandemic.

Faculty believe they will continue to rely on technology to deliver instruction through hybrid courses, although fewer believe technology resources will be expanded. This means IT must develop the capability to support the pedagogy.

Perception of faculty on the continuation of hybrid instruction

82%: Increased/continuation of courses offered hybrid/online
72%: Increased/continued faculty interest in teaching hybrid/online courses
56%: Expanded instructional technology resources

Source: “EDUCAUSE Quick Poll Results: Assessment and Learning Design,” EDUCAUSE, 2021

“The value of the technology should go directly to student learning as one of the main strategic outcomes of the College. Ideally, the CIO has their finger on the pulse of anything on the technology side that can enhance student learning, as well as an understanding of when systems can get in the way.”
–Kristen Eshleman,
VP Library/IT/Data & Analytics,
Trinity College Hartford

The transformation of learning spaces is bringing IT closer to the instructional priorities of the institution

Learning space redesign is involving IT in the education mandate of the institution

In a survey of 154 higher education IT professionals, 47% reported that spaces were being modified to support online or hybrid learning. This activity in learning-space redesign is bringing IT into greater involvement with the instruction of the students and thus into greater involvement with a top priority of every institution of education.

Source: “EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: Learning Spaces Transformation,” EDUCAUSE, 2022

Variation in terminology used for technology-enabled learning can lead to confusion

The terminology for different modes of instruction often focuses on the different implications of instructional design and the pedagogy of the course. Below is a list of common terms. IT should be aware that if the classroom technology is designed with flexibility in mind, a single learning space may facilitate multiple pedagogical approaches.

Here are a few common terms:

• Online courses are designed to be delivered solely through a virtual environment.
• Remote/distance learning uses technology to virtually deliver instruction that was designed for in-person pedagogy.
• Hybrid learning incorporates both in-person and virtual modes of instruction.
• HyFlex instruction is designed so that either the instructor or the student can attend the class virtually or in person.

Sources: Beatty, 2019; Ramirez et al., EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2022

Regardless of the terminology, IT’s focus in learning space transformation is to introduce technology to promote flexibility in instruction.

The success of learning space transformation hinges on strategic alignment and leadership support

Identify what factors are essential for the success of a learning space transformation effort.

• As with any major institutional initiative, the transformation of learning spaces is a costly undertaking that involves stakeholders from across the institution.
• The list of factors in the chart was presented to IT professionals undertaking learning space transformation. They identified their top three enablers that support the initiative and the top three factors they were lacking which impeded the initiative’s progress.
• Financial resources, leadership support, and strategic alignment were the most important factors as both enablers and barriers.
• An updated room reservation system was also a strong enabler. Such a system would support selection of rooms by categorizing them according to the technology design.

Source: “EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: Learning Spaces Transformation,” EDUCAUSE, 2022; N=72 higher education IT professionals

The educational technology ecosystem spans a range of technologies and services

An IT department perspective

IT usually views the educational technology ecosystem according to its capabilities.

Learning platform service
Support for the learning management system and the third-party tools that integrate with it.

Classroom technology
Provides support for instructional and presentation technology for classrooms, labs, and seminar and conference spaces.

Media equipment
Offers a check-out service for equipment, as well as training and development services for instructional content and delivery.

Content management and website-hosting services*
A capability that is developed for the delivery of courses that are designed to be delivered online.

* This capability is often developed for dedicated online courses.

A faculty-facing perspective

This model reorganizes IT’s instructional technology services to facilitate faculty engagement.

Faculty are concerned with how the services and tools can benefit their pedagogy:

• Interaction support to enable students and faculty to collaborate more effectively.
• Content support to help faculty source and create materials for their courses.
• Assessment services and tools for both the creation and proctoring of tests and examinations.
• Course management to assist faculty with matters of scheduling, attendance, and gradebook records and their submission.

Consider how the ecosystem is presented to faculty

There are two considerations for the constituent perspective:

• A single tool or service may appear in more than one category, but this duplication is acceptable.
• Tools are organized by support and access level. Some tools are supported by the vendor, others by the department; some tools are available to specific departments while others are available to all faculty and students.

Source: McGill University

The learning ecosystem must overcome structural challenges to align with instructional objectives

See, for example, “Governance Structure of Dalhousie University,” Dalhousie University.

This simplified model of bicameral, higher education governance shows certain fundamental challenges to effective implementation of educational technology.

• Technology and pedagogy are siloed because the reporting structure for IT and faculty are largely independent of each other. This means that collaboration between the two parties is not supported by design.
• Enterprise IT is also at odds with local IT which often reports to their respective deans and may have an independent mandate to provide instructional technology.
• Other, unicameral models of governance suffer the same challenges despite their stronger executive. (Bowles, “Boards: Who’s Really in Charge?”)

Info-Tech Insight
Siloed operations tend to thwart effective provision of instructional technologies and undermine the educational mandate of the institution.

Involve multiple stakeholders in governance for educational technology

See, for example, “Governance | Learning Technology Hub,” University of British Columbia.

To overcome the siloed structure of higher education, IT should create a committee structure that involves key stakeholders in the appropriate level of engagement:

• An IT Steering Committee should be informed of developments in educational technology at the institution to ensure that IT resources are supporting key initiatives.
• An IT Advisory Committee for Educational Technology involves faculty leadership (ideally the provost and deans of key departments) as well as the head of the CTL.
• A Working Group for Educational Technology will involve stakeholders who have functional use of the technology in instructional settings including instructional faculty, IT operations, and students.

Info-Tech Insight
Larger institutions may create one working group for operations and one for pedagogy. Smaller institutions may find a single advisory committee sufficient.

Identify the responsibilities of the IT committees for educational technology

1. With your IT leadership team and local IT leadership, review the typical responsibilities of the educational technology committees on the following slide.
2. Identify which responsibilities you believe the educational technology committees should have, brainstorm any additional responsibilities, and document their reasoning.
3. As a group, consider the responsibilities and whether you can reasonably implement those in one year, or if any will need to wait until year two of the educational committees’ operation.
4. Modify the list of responsibilities in Info-Tech’s charter templates by deleting the responsibilities you don’t need and adding any that you identified in the process.

Download the IT Advisory Committee for Educational Technology Charter Template

Download the IT Working Group for Educational Technology Charter Template