Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

After such an unusual year, EDUCAUSE has taken an unprecedented approach to naming next year’s highest-priority tech issues.

In a typical year, the EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues list would be exactly that: a list of the 10 most pressing issues expected to affect higher education over the course of the coming year.

But 2020 has not been a typical year — and 2021 seems likely to follow suit. So, when it came time to compile next year’s list, the EDUCAUSE IT Issues Panel had a much more complex undertaking than in years past. After all, how do you forecast a year’s worth of priorities when no one can reliably predict what tomorrow holds?

“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve all learned a different way to plan,” said Susan Grajek, vice president of partnerships, communities and research at EDUCAUSE, during the organization’s annual conference in October. “We’ve learned the futility of making long-term plans to mitigate a disease that’s still poorly understood. We’ve also learned about how useful scenarios can be when we’re faced with uncertainty. Scenarios can help us plan for alternative futures.”

Higher education, Grajek explained, is facing multiple possible futures and scenarios, each with its own complex challenges and priorities. Recognizing this, EDUCAUSE’s expert panel realized that one list of top IT issues would not suffice.

So, this year, they created three lists instead.

While maintaining a collaborative environment, IT leaders must take a leading role in helping to define the scope and requirements of major projects on their campuses—ensuring needs and wants are defined, understood and kept separate.

Recently a client came to me and asked for a new, very expensive laptop. They touted how light it was—only two and a half pounds! They talked up the fact that this laptop doubled as a tablet and would allow them to take really good notes during meetings. They then switched gears and started complaining about their current computer. It was an immovable desktop. It was old. It was slow.