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No-one’ s happy without good IT
ICT is more important than ever to the strategy and offering of tertiary institutions.
By Mark McCormack
Although major ICT issues are rare on university campuses these days, even minor inconveniences students or staff experience have the potential to make an impact on teaching and learning operations.
In an era when students are intrinsically dependent on computers and devices for researching, writing, collaborating and communicating, a student’ s digital experience is increasingly an integral part of university life.
Similarly, teaching and administrative staff are also dependent on stable ICT environments and efficient support. For this reason, providing a strong focus on improving support services is now a key component to any education institution’ s desire to achieve academic success and improved international standing.
If you were going to put your finger on the biggest single change in tertiary education over the last 20 years, it’ s a no brainer to identify the ubiquity of information and communications technology in use by students, academics and administrative staff.
Sure, there have also been revolutionary changes in curriculum delivery, funding models, sourcing of students and the role of research in overall operations but most of these have been driven by technology.
Anyone who has ever had to operate within the confines of institutional ICT knows that some technology departments deliver good service and others do not. Some provide systems, tools, processes and support that works and others do not. Some respond quickly, solve your issues with haste and make sure you are happy with the service provided, while others do not.
With the changing paradigm in education – and particularly in my domain which is tertiary education – the quality of ICT service delivery that clients – i. e. students, academics and admin staff – receive is now more important than ever.
Meanwhile, massive open online courses( MOOCs) have become an important reputational component of tertiary offerings. While cutting-edge research and development and intellectual property with commercial potential are also important elements in raising the profile and international standing of a university.
Each of these external influences means clients are demanding a much higher level of services right across the university and of course this applies to ICT as much as it does anywhere, perhaps even more.
Our clients need stable IT infrastructure, they need tools that meet their requirements and they need support to be available when they call on it, 24 / 7. Students want to be able to connect to us and the world on any device they choose at any time they choose.
But it gets harder. We are charged with delivering all of this additional service with fewer resources, which is why we have to rely on best-practice frameworks that allow us to design, develop, test, deploy and support efficient and cost-effective systems, software and service delivery.
Queensland University of Technology has already developed an international reputation as a centre of excellence for research and development in mechanical engineering and robotics. We already have significant industry and public sector support for our work in this area, including fully funded scholarships and project grants.
This area of academic endeavour fundamental to our broader strategic objectives of scholastic differentiation, tertiary education excellence and competing globally. We don’ t just want to compete against Australia’ s leading universities. We want to be a university of choice and to be compared to the best educational institutions in the world.
QUT’ s defined vision for the future includes“ providing outstanding learning environments and programs that prepare graduates for a diverse and complex world characterised by accelerating change”. In addition,“ conducting high-impact research and development in selected areas, at the highest international standards”, is a key focus, as is“ extending and strengthening strategic partnerships with professional and broader communities”.
QUT has a range of KPIs that help us measure our performance against these
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