The first of two briefing papers prepared by Dr Joe Nicholls (and myself) as we started our journey of discovery into how we envisaged change occurring in the "brave new world" of emerging web technologies - what was to become "the cloud".

1. Disruptive technology and its implications for University Information Services –
Part 1: The issues discussed
Dr Joe Nicholls (Principal Consultant, Universities Future Group) & David Harrison
(Assistant Director, Strategy & Enablement) – Information Services, Cardiff University.
Overview
This paper explores the phenomenon of 'disruptive technology' and the implications it has for
University Information Services. The nature of technology initiated disruption is explored,
identifying some of its causes and effects and the implications for service provision. This will lead
in a second paper to the suggestion that a modified approach to service provision and management
must be adopted in order to alleviate the potentially disruptive consequences of technology and
capitalise upon its benefits. Fundamental to achieving this will be adopting a philosophy of
enablement through partnership at all levels of the organisation to harness better ways of staying
abreast of and responsive to the potential value of emerging technologies. Central to achieving this
will be adopting new ways of communicating and working with staff, students and the wider
organisation, with the aim being that the University is confident about the degree of control,
ownership and responsibility (the governance) that is in place.
Key to this is that questions such as …
What threats and opportunities does 'disruptive technology' hold for Higher Education and
Information Services?
Is the pace of change outstripping Information Services’ ability to cope with its impact on
staff and students and the organisation?
What can/should Information Services do to better manage the disruption caused and take
advantage of the opportunities new technology presents?
… must be addressed, answered and accommodated.
Causes and Effects?
New technologies always have been and always will be disruptive because they create opportunities
and provoke new ways of thinking and doing. Disruption is a catalytic consequence of exposure to
new capabilities. The mere availability of a novel function or feature acts as a stimulus prompting
people to experiment and change the way they work. Disruption increases when these forces for
change are not harnessed and managed appropriately. This results in feelings of loss of control and
a sense of continually reacting to causes (i.e. the technology) rather than recognising and
understanding its potential benefit and application to meet needs and innovate.
Disruption is not only experienced at an individual level, but it’s cumulative and knock-on effect is
sensed at all levels throughout the organisation. In many respects, Information Services is caught in
the middle, required not only to respond to the consequences experienced by students and staff, but
challenged at the same time to address its impact at an organisation level and grapple with its
implications for their own staff and working practices.
In recent times our awareness of technology’s disruptive influence has become more heightened
because of the ever increasing rate at which people are being exposed to new capabilities. The
period of time from technological concept to product, availability and use by the public is ever
shortening. The result is wider adoption and ownership of highly sophisticated (some would argue
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2. overly feature rich and complex) tools. This is well illustrated by the current rapid progress being
made with web applications and services collectively termed Web 2.0 and the use of personalised
portals or aggregators such as Facebook.
The ‘double whammy’ for University Information Services is that not only are new technologies
emerging within the traditional bounds of HE institutions, but more significantly, students and staff
are being exposed to them at an even faster rate in non-academic areas of their lives, outside the
control of the institution. Today, for the majority of learners their initial encounter with new
technology will be motivated for social and entertainment reasons, and the same is likely for the
more adventurous and inquisitive teacher/researcher. In the not too distant past it used to be the
other way around, with new technologies being experienced and used in Colleges and Universities
first. This loss of ownership and control is at the root of the disruptive experience brought about by
technology.
In an ideal world, exposure to new tools should be liberating and empowering for students and staff
alike, but with the sheer variety and rate of development of the tools and with them not being used
simultaneously for both work and social purposes, the experience is becoming increasingly
disjointed and confused. This has profound implications for the University and for the way
Information Services enables the use of technology for academic purposes.
Because students and staff are often encountering new technology, fundamental changes in working
practices are required in order to succeed and thrive, as modern 21st
capabilities in a
social/entertainment context creates a disconnection and tension when similar types of task/activity
are not enabled for learning and work purposes. The result is that the more resourceful and
adventurous people acquire and manage their own toolkit of non-University, non-supported tools
and services, which they then use to do their academic work. Students and staff start to use email
accounts, collaboration and social networking tools, storage and applications freely or cheaply
provided by third parties. The knock-on impact on University services is obvious.
Ideally, learners and staff should be presented with the opportunity to use new technologies in the
circumstances of their everyday academic work. Teachers would have the opportunity to not only
be trained in the basic skills to use the interface of new tools/services but also given the opportunity
to consider from a pedagogical perspective how it could be used to facilitate learning in their
subject/discipline. Similarly for researchers, the circumstances and opportunities should be created
for context appropriate training and development – and through partnership and collaboration,
together identify what new tools and services could be designed. But in both circumstances the
choice of tools and the speed at which they change makes it ever more challenging for the
Information Services department to facilitate development of a cohesive institutional strategy.
The stimulus is coming from without the institution - the rate of change is being forced by factors
beyond its control. Indeed it challenges the very existence of the Information Services organisation
as it is seen to be incapable of handling such rapid change or accommodating external
developments into its portfolio of service offerings. The pressure is on constantly to evaluate,
reflect and consider implementation, and make recommendations – and this within an environment
that is more conservative than any other save the established churches and the NHS.
Signs and Symptoms
Younger generations prior to university
There is little doubt that technology is having a profound impact on the way our learners, teachers,
researchers, and other members of the University live, work and play. However, it’s not affecting
everyone uniformly or at the same rate. The effects are being experienced most dramatically by
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3. younger ‘Millennials’ or ‘Generation Y’ learners (Strauss & Howe, 2000), bringing about new
forms of IT related literacies. This is a prime example of something that is accentuating the gap
between the older ‘X’ and ‘Baby Boomer’ generations which constitute the majority of university
staff. Most significantly, novel technology based practices are emerging outside of academia first
and becoming established in everyday life. This is markedly at odds with what’s happening, or
rather not happening in Universities. The very same knowledge, skills and activities we expect of
researchers and learners are first being employed for non-academic purposes.
Many of the types of technology commonly referred to as ‘Web 2.0’ are being used to perform tasks
we would normally expect to be performed for academic purposes, e.g. searching for and retrieving
information, authoring and disseminating/publishing thoughts and ideas, communicating and
networking with friends and colleagues, and participating in communities of common interest. Prior
to arrival at University the majority of students are now conversant with sending and receiving
email, using the web for commerce without a second thought, sharing their lives with others on
social networking sites, contributing to discussion lists or participating in shared communities such
as a wiki, creating their own blogs and recording their views, and publishing their own music and
videos.
Perhaps most significantly, technology is transforming publishing, content dissemination and all
forms of text based communication. Anyone with an internet connection now has the opportunity to
broadcast and engage a far wider audience, facilitate feedback and encourage contribution. Web 2.0
technologies are pushing the envelope further by joining up authoring and publishing tools with
technologies that enable simple and easy social networking and the formation of groups and
communities. Gone are the days when you had to attend a higher/further education institution to do
this! They are truly multi-literate and employ quite unconventional ways of formulating and
communicating thoughts/ideas/reasoning compared with traditional academic work.
New undergraduates and researchers rightly expect such tools and practices to be available,
exploited and developed further for learning and working at University. But our older generations
of University staff are not in a position to oblige, finding themselves too removed from the
technology flux and unable to keep pace with developments, let alone explore and establish
relevance and value for learning and research activities. What can/should Information Services do
to improve the situation?
Portals and SOA impact on HE at an organisational level and for the individual
The future impact of web services and service oriented architectures (SOA) on higher education is
set to be phenomenal, transforming the way HE organisations operate in quite fundamental and
transformative ways. There is wide spread belief that the combination of SOA and business process
re-engineering will bring major efficiency gains. Through inter-institutional collaboration and
cooperation there is the potential for major rationalisation of ‘commodity’ type services. Those
organisations that recognise and embrace this will set themselves head-and-shoulders above those
that do not.
Portal, CMS and Groupware offerings are continuing to evolve to provide extremely flexible and
versatile functionality and services. Through portlets, component web services enable people to
adopt a pick-and-mix and plug-and-play approach to assembling their own personalised online
working environment. The challenge for HE/FE is that currently it is the social and entertainment
world of people that is the main driving force motivating them to adopt and learn these tools. This
has yet to impact in the same way on academic life. It is this kind of development that is illustrative
of the growing gap between how people currently work and the promise of the future ways of
working.
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4. It is possible that a one-stop-shop that brings together all learning, work and social/entertainment
portlets together in one unified interface will be preferred by the institution. It would enable people
to engage and manage the various aspects of their lives in a much more integrated way. This should
be recognised by higher education initiatives when they are considering establishing and providing
bespoke portal environments for staff and students. However others (eg MyNewport) have taken the
opposite approach in serving their VLE into Facebook. Ultimately, it won’t be the portal framework
that matters; it will be the component services and web applications that can be easily plugged into
the person’s preferred portal environment.
HE organisations must stay abreast of technology developments and what’s more foresee where
things are going and be proactive in embracing and steering a course. How can it become more
sensitive and responsive to the opportunities afforded by technology? Universities need to explore
ways of becoming more embedded and integrated into local communities and wider society. These
relationships and channels of communications will be important for keeping a finger on the pulse of
technologies relevance and value.
Information Services and service provision – Central and Peripheral
With the continued evolution of web services, the interface between people and technology has
never been more important. Information Services sits right in the middle of this stage. In HE/FE
there is nobody better placed to work as intermediaries between users and the designers, developers
and implementers of these new tools and services. However, it would seem opportune and healthy
to reconsider whether the traditional model of ‘information service providers’ and ‘information
service provision’ is still valid and appropriate for education and research?
IT for core versus peripheral use
The conventional approach employed by most Universities has been to coerce/encourage staff and
students to use tools and services that are centrally provided and maintained. Information Services
has had the dual role of provisioning technologies and to deliver the training and education
necessary for them to be used effectively. The model has been one of predominantly centralised
provision with varying degrees of devolvement to faculty, schools and departments. At the same
time, Information Services has a key responsibility for and role in the design and implementation of
computing infrastructure and systems for central administrative and management services. It is
stretched to meet not only the peripheral requirements of the individual but also the core needs of
the organisation.
The value of Distributed IT Support
The world has changed, the paradigm has shifted. In the same way as we have argued that the new
student and new-researcher has a technology understanding that we find it hard to accommodate
within our somewhat rigid service-offerings, so we must grapple with the centric-view of IT
provision. In a Web 2.0 world, working with Schools and Divisions that have a clear view of their
requirements, we must work in partnership to deliver solutions. Change is required on both sides –
that is the very nature of partnership. The Information Services department must be seen to be more
than a re-active service provider, and the end-user department must be prepared to engage fully in
developing the business solution, not just passing the problem on. So the key word is partnership
and the joint delivery of benefit is the objective. The Information Services department must be
resourced so that it is capable of enabling this change and in return be prepared to work in
partnership with others to build different infrastructures than are currently present.
The benefit of SOA for core administrative processes
Web services and SOA will undoubtedly bring major benefits and savings through rationalisation of
core business processes. There are many administrative processes that touch upon all staff and
students, and much of the burden of routine and mundane tasks can be reduced through streamlining
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5. the flow of data and associated operations. From an organisation’s perspective there is probably
greater long term gain and benefit from harnessing new approaches for common administrative
processes. What’s more these processes are common to virtually all HE/FE organisations. We have
to review the capacity model and re-think how common jobs and activities are performed across the
University. We need to champion the re-engineering of the business processes to establish
workflows and link sequences events and tasks through portal-based working environment. This
exemplifies what a University can continue to do well for its staff and students. It also illustrates
what is not well provisioned or supported outside the College/University or HE/FE context. The
challenge is enabling people to do the tasks that are a chore as easily and effectively as possible
whilst at the same time providing them with a working environment that enables them to apply the
majority of their time and effort to activities considered core, and it is important to remember that
these will fall into the social/entertainment aspects of life as well as learning and work.
Institutionally shared services
Indeed the review and evaluation of our business processes – the way our institutions “do things” -
might for some instances lead to institutions choosing not to run their own service, but to share its
operation with another because it is a commodity and doesn’t give competitive advantage.
Tools and services for the individual
However, in comparison, the arguments may not be as strong for owning and provisioning many of
the tools/services commonly used by people for everyday work, such as communication tools like
email and instant messaging, and office applications such as word processors and presentation tools.
In this area, emphasis might be better placed on helping people recognise and understand
appropriate use and to help foster the circumstances for innovative use.
Managing the symptoms of disruptive technology
The need to keep in touch with what’s happening and responding rapidly to emerging
technologies
It will be imperative for any forward looking organisation to keep a close watching brief on
emerging technologies and future trends. They will need to be able to quickly pre-empt and
envision how they may enhance both the working practices of individual staff and students and
common core business processes. It is likely that rapid recognition and engagement to train and
educate staff and students would give a University a competitive edge.
Perhaps Universities would do better to position themselves so that they are able to quickly
recognise the relevance and potential of new technologies for staff and students, and then act
rapidly to raise awareness and educate people to acquire the necessary ‘literacy’ in order to use the
tools for their work. At the same time there would be a need to assess their value from an
organisational and strategic perspective. The challenge would be for Information Services to sustain
their watch on technology, keep themselves educated and stay ahead in vision of those they aim to
empower.
Is this really a job for Information Service providers? Where technology is concerned, the answer
most definitely is “yes it is”, but in close collaboration and partnership with other central service
providers, distributed IT support organisations and administrative groups. Information Services is
the obvious and logical place where this should be coordinated and managed. The challenge for
Information Services is to rethink working practices so that it becomes more sensitive and
responsive to the impact technology is having on staff and students in all areas of their lives. This
necessitates closer working relationships and partnerships in order to bridge the gap and develop the
communications and relationships.
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6. Emphasis on training and education
Whilst communication and partnership represent the essential foundation, training and education are
at the heart of a philosophy of enablement. The aim should be to help people acquire a
complementary range of ‘IT’ literacies. These would be generic and transferable knowledge and
skills. Opportunities should be created where staff and students can learn how to acquire, manage
and utilise portal components effectively for learning and research. In the future, employers will
expect graduates to have these capabilities and be able to apply them for new problems and tasks.
From the point-of-view of enabling better learning, teaching and research Information Services
needs assert greater control and management over raising awareness and understanding of what’s
possible, the training and education for what is achievable, and the process of finding out what is
wanted and needed.
Review of work-life boundaries
Perhaps the biggest challenge all of us face (not just Universities) is the need to respond to the
fundamental way that technology is changing the way people live and work, as well as learn. The
blurring of the boundary between work and life forces us to address the question of where the
boundaries now are, or indeed whether there need to be boundaries. What changes will be required
in the knowledge, skills and working practices of University staff? Do we need to establish new
principles of working? For some, the answers to these questions will be a serious challenge, for
others … handled well … they will be liberating. One of us recently posted on a blog …
“Something I’ve been pondering for a while now is how to redress the balance between
what I do in work, for work and what I do at home - again for work. What I ask myself do I
do for myself at work? Should I have a life in work, or should I strive to get the work out of
my life at home!
Now, I do know the answer - but it’s not the one either I, nor work, would wish. I actually
enjoy my work. It gives me huge satisfaction and when it’s going well - which is pretty
much most of the time - it gives me the sort of buzz that I don’t want to back-off from. But
still that niggle runs around my brain - what is it that I’m missing?
It is of course the social interaction with friends, colleagues and family that is increasingly
being squashed into “spare time”, which is itself getting really squeezed. So, how do I
redress this balance - I think you know the answer. The attitude towards using social
networking software, conducting personal business and generally using the work time and
resource for personal use must change. It’s only fair! At home, I’m paying for the electricity,
the broadband connection, possibly the computer and of course providing my time - to do
work!! The very least that work should allow me to do is to allow me to spend sometime
doing this sort of thing!”
So what is required by the University is Flexibility and Adaptability. This is not something that
large organizations find easy and the press reports of “cracking down” on use of social networking
are predictable from organizations that have not allowed “personal internet usage” and have
“screened for personal email”. There are valid reasons for all of these policies but organizations will
constantly find themselves in “catch-up” mode policing such policies if that’s there preferred way
of working. At least for Universities, and for their Information Services departments, this does not
need to be the case and a different strategy will be developed in Part 2 of this paper.
[Conceived November 2006, then continually “work-in-progess”, but first delivered to UKOLN
Workshop Exploiting the Potential of Blogs and Social Networks, 26th
November 2007. Part 2 –
The way forward is now “work in progress” as is this paper which will never be finished!]
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