October 9, 2007
More Colleges Outsource Information-Technology Services
More colleges are outsourcing their information-technology functions, according to a report out today by Educause, a higher-education-technology group.
The report says that the percentage of institutions using external vendors to run various IT functions increased over the 2006 fiscal year, from 57 percent to nearly 62 percent, the third consecutive year there was a significant climb in this category.
The survey of 952 campuses measured campuses’ IT practices and policies for the 2006 fiscal year. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Tuesday October 9, 2007 | Permalink |Comments
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I wish I could see this as a loss. Unfortunately, it may be a gain. Since the early days of IT, many campus IT departments have evolved away from academic computing services and toward small, self-serving empires. One advantage of outsourcing is that the university can fire the vendor, whereas one’s own IT deadwood is nearly impossible to get rid of.
— David McCullough Oct 10, 08:43 AM #
Some schools may have IT management/leadedrship issues, but well run IT organizations increasingly outsource to enable themselves to more readily meet the needs of the faculty without having to hire additional staff, pay for disaster recovery or assume addtiional e-discovery burden (as examples). Outsourced services often provide additional benefits that small scale internal services are unlikely to duplicate. Outsourcing, even if more expensive, enables the IT staff to free itself from mature technology and provide greater assistance to those who need it. Outsourcing should never be used to make up for bad management or poor leadership.
— Larry Frederick Oct 10, 01:32 PM #