Monday, October 29, 2001

A Fifth of Colleges Cut Their Information-Technology Budgets This Year, Survey Finds By JEFFREY R. YOUNG More college information-technology departments saw budget cuts this year than last, according to data scheduled to be released today by the Campus Computing Project. Eighteen percent of the colleges and universities that responded to the computing project's annual survey reported a decline in their academic-computing budgets for this academic year, compared with 11 percent in last year's survey. And 18 percent of the institutions reported cuts in their administrative-computing budgets, compared with 12 percent last year. Those figures could mean difficult times for some IT departments, says Kenneth C. Green, who is the founder and director of the project and a visiting scholar at the Claremont Graduate University. Students and administrators have come to expect high levels of computer services from colleges, he says. But many departments will have flat budgets, and some will see budgets that are "clearly down" from a year earlier, he adds, so maintaining high levels of service will be a challenge. Mr. Green says that until the past year or two, colleges had seen IT budgets rise consistently. "I think it's fair to say that the campus community has been living fairly well over the last nine years," he says. Results of this year's survey are scheduled to be released at the annual conference of Educause, an organization of colleges, universities, and companies interested in information-technology issues. The survey, which is in its 12th year, comprises responses from about 590 institutions, including four-year and two-year colleges, both private and public. Helping faculty members with technology was the top concern of computing administrators for the fourth year in a row. This year, 32 percent of institutions ranked it as their biggest worry, out of 10 possible issues. Last year, 41 percent saw the issue as the most important, although there were only eight issues for respondents to choose from in last year's survey. Wireless networks are booming on college campuses, according to the survey. A majority of institutions -- 56 percent -- have a strategic plan for wireless networks or are developing one. Fifty-one percent of institutions reported that they were already using wireless networks in some areas of their campuses, compared with 30 percent last year. And all types of colleges appear to be making wireless plans. Thirty percent of private two-year colleges and nearly 18 percent of public two-year colleges have plans for wireless networks, as do almost 35 percent of public universities and 27 percent of private universities. Prior surveys did not include comparable questions about plans for wireless networks. Mr. Green says the level of interest in wireless is surprising. He argues that so many colleges have such an interest for two reasons. For one thing, he says, a dominant technical standard has emerged over the past year or two, meaning that colleges no longer have to worry about which kind of wireless technology to buy. And second, wireless networks can be cheaper to install than traditional ones. This year's survey also indicated that the use of course-management tools, which help professors create Web pages for courses, is on the rise. Over all, institutions reported that about 20 percent of their courses use such tools, compared with 17 percent in last year's survey. In a new question this year, 42 percent of institutions said they had a strategic plan for deploying course-management tools, and another 22 percent said they were now preparing to use such tools. Printed results of the survey will be available December 10, and can be ordered through the Campus Computing Project's Web site for $39. The Educause presentation of the survey's findings is scheduled to be broadcast live online at 11:40 a.m., Eastern time, today. Background articles from The Chronicle: Campus Survey Finds That Adding Technology to Teaching Is a Top Issue ( 10/13/2000 ) Faculty Wariness of Technology Remains a Challenge, Computing Survey Finds (10/29/1999) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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