2016 Survey Reveal the Top 10 IT Issues in Education Today! vol 5, rel 9

Professor Snape, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Information technology in education, up to now, has not warranted top marks, one would almost say that is has been regarded as a “necessary evil”.  This treatment was primarily due to that fact that technology as a whole wasn’t really easy to manage.  With the offerings’ complexity ranging from difficult to impossible, many organizations chose to abstain rather than take on the challenge of not only ramping the requisite skill sets but cultivating a culture of adoption to the new technology to even begin to hope for effectiveness.

Many early adopters were disillusioned by the technology they did choose, for although

seasoned solutions, were too antiquated for the challenges of today.  With a myriad of hurdles, education has to begin to address, it was tough to add yet another in the realm of IT Continuity to it. 

Mr. Hand, Fast Times At Ridgemont High

It doesn’t require a Ph.D. to grasp the idea that Student and Faculty computing isn’t growing less sophisticated, in fact, with the advent of smartphones, the challenges in mobile computing alone could keep you busy two semesters and that’s just to appreciate the problem.

So with this new challenge and the questionable options to address them, what are the top 10 IT issues that Education executives have prioritized on?

Top 10 IT Issues, 2016


(1) Information Security: Developing a holistic, agile approach to information security to create a secure network, develop security policies, and reduce institutional exposure to information security threats

Ms. Krabbapel from The Simpsons

(2) Optimizing Educational Technology: Collaborating with faculty and academic leadership to understand and support innovations and changes in education and to optimize the use of technology in teaching and learning, including understanding the appropriate level of technology to use

(3) Student Success Technologies: Improving student outcomes through an institutional approach that strategically leverages technology

(4) IT Workforce Hiring and Retention: Ensuring adequate staffing capacity and staff retention as budgets shrink or remain flat and as external competition grows

(5) Institutional Data Management: Improving the management of institutional data through data standards, integration, protection, and governance

(6) IT Funding Models: Developing IT funding models that sustain core services, support innovation, and facilitate growth

(7) BI and Analytics: Developing effective methods for business intelligence, reporting, and analytics to ensure they are relevant to institutional priorities and decision making and can be easily accessed and used by administrators, faculty, and students

(8) Enterprise Application Integrations: Integrating enterprise applications and services to deliver systems, services, processes, and analytics that are scalable and constituent-centered

 (9) IT Organizational Development: Creating IT organizational structures, staff roles, and staff development strategies that are flexible enough to support innovation and accommodate ongoing changes in higher education, IT service delivery, technology, and analytics

Mr. Kotter from Welcome Back, Kotter

(10) E-Learning and Online Education: Providing scalable and well-resourced e-learning services, facilities, and staff to support increased access to and expansion of online education

The most interesting are the number one issue today… Information Security.  Yup, with all the trendy solutions in place:

• ·        96 percent of institutions have an institutional IT acceptable use policy.
• ·        92 percent of institutions have deployed malware protection technologies.
• ·        90 percent of institutions have deployed secure remote-access technologies.

Security remains to be the top priority among Education organizations.  The question one asks is why?

Even with these impressive numbers above, institutions still have much work to do to secure networks, systems, and applications; develop security policies (only 27% of U.S. institutions have an information security policy that is fully approved by leadership); educate campus IT users, and reduce institutional exposure to information security threats. Recent news reports of data breaches provide IT leaders with a springboard to launch discussions with institutional leaders about improving campus information security.

Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society 

Information security can be a daunting topic for IT departments with limited resources: managing security effectively is not free.  Hence, an enrollment program for executive level sponsorship must be in place to secure funding and create enforceable policies.

All institutional departments and all users of IT resources (students, faculty, and staff) must understand and promote good information security practices to protect institutional data.

Making modest institutional improvements in information security posture can give institutions and their IT departments the confidence to tackle the more challenging information security tasks that will inevitably arise as service-delivery approaches evolve.

"The expectations and needs of the user community at an institution of higher education are wide-ranging and fast-changing—agility in our delivery of technology-based solutions and services is key. But, without appropriate security measures, any open and agile solution lessen in value."

—    Michael Bourque, Vice President, Information Technology Services, Boston College

Advice

·     Create comprehensible and enforceable information security policies. Make sure that these policies are understandable and actionable by all community members, and post them conspicuously.

Mr. Garrison from South Park 

·   Develop a comprehensive approach that addresses the information security concerns of mobile, cloud, and digital resources. The changing nature of service delivery is inevitable, and institutional leaders must develop strategies for handling an environment in which institutional data and services are located on third-party resources and are accessed by computing devices not owned or controlled by the institution.

·     Develop a training framework for information security awareness to educate all members of the campus community about threats and how to take action to protect institutional data. The training framework should include initial training and ongoing educational opportunities.

·     Continue to engage in proactive information security activities that adopt a defense-in-depth approach. Use scanning tools to identify and respond to system vulnerabilities; actively and aggressively identify and block malicious activity; implement reliable identity-management technologies; perform penetration testing and act on the results; collect logs and monitor for suspicious or concerning events; and back up critical institutional data and make sure data can be restored from those backups. Do not rely on a single control.

Mr. Vargas, Ridgemont High

·   Participate in organizations that work together to improve higher education information security. Organizations such as EDUCAUSE, Internet2, and the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC) provide opportunities to improve understanding of information security practices in higher education, develop higher education information security professionals, and collectively respond to information security threats.

·    Provide the institution's governing board with an annual IT security risk update, which can greatly help board members as they assess and govern the institution's overall enterprise risk assessment.

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Source(s)

• http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/1/top-10-it-issues-2016
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuF58iFJwco

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So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

About Rick Ricker

An IT professional with over 23 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.

For more information, contact Rick at (800) 399-6085 x502

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Continuity Focus, Inc. (800) 399-6085 x502