EDUCAUSE to Establish Center for Applied Research

Citation

Katz, R. (2001), "EDUCAUSE to Establish Center for Applied Research", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918aab.001

EDUCAUSE to Establish Center for Applied Research

Richard Katz

At their meeting on August 5, 2000, the EDUCAUSE Board of Directors enthusiastically approved establishing a new EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) under the leadership of Richard N. Katz, EDUCAUSE Vice President. According to EDUCAUSE President Brian L. Hawkins, the Center is being created to address a number of important observations made by the EDUCAUSE directors at their January 2000 planning meeting. "The directors of EDUCAUSE argued compellingly that EDUCAUSE must be future-oriented. New competition in higher education suggests a major role in identifying new models, processes, and frameworks that will foster institutional survival and prosperity," Hawkins said.

The ECAR concept also was developed, in part, on the basis of advice received from the many corporate members of EDUCAUSE at a 1999 forum organized by EDUCAUSE. Jill Kidwell, of PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "In a knowledge-driven era, higher education commands a position of central importance. Those of us committed to supporting new ways of delivering education via information technology will need the kind of information the EDUCAUSE Center is being designed to create. This is an important initiative."

ECAR will assemble leading scholars and researchers whose efforts have focused on issues related to the changes being brought about in higher education by the introduction of new information technologies. EDUCAUSE Board Chair Ronald Bleed of Maricopa Community College said, "We are in a period of rapid and potentially significant change. Leaders need high-quality and well-researched information on a just-in-time basis to support increasingly risky and consequential decisions." For this reason, higher education decision making will need to be supported by timely data and thoughtful analyses. While many higher education strategies for exchanging information about leading and effective practices such as participation in major conferences and seminars will be more important than ever, the complexity, cost, and impact of new alternatives will drive a need for more information to support decision making. Anecdotal information about what works or does not in institutional settings needs now to be complemented by rigorous analysis of trends and directions overall in higher education or in its key segments. These kinds of data, information, and analyses are at the heart of the evolving mission of ECAR.

Based on the annual strategic planning of the EDUCAUSE Board, on input from the presidential and sister associations with whom EDUCAUSE works, ECAR will develop a framework of grand challenges facing higher education as presented by emerging information technologies and by new forms of competition to traditional colleges and universities. Within these identified areas, suggested areas of research inquiry will be identified. This research will be carried out by a combination of campus-based faculty, EDUCAUSE staff and contractors, and leading research organizations with whom ECAR hopes to develop alliances. To this end, EDUCAUSE recently appointed Diana G. Oblinger as the first Senior Fellow of the Center to serve in a part-time consulting capacity to further this effort. Oblinger, the author of numerous books and articles on information technology and higher education, was formerly Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the University of North Carolina system.

Oblinger, who also served in numerous management and executive positions at IBM, is a well-known scholar-practitioner who has worked in various voluntary capacities with EDUCAUSE. Oblinger commented: "I am delighted and honored to be joining my EDUCAUSE colleagues in this new role. The center is an exciting idea that comes at the right time."

EDUCAUSE will also move quickly to create an advisory board to envision and shape the Center's annual research agenda and to support the work of identifying fellows who will conduct or direct specific research initiatives.

Richard N. Katz is Vice President of EDUCAUSE, Boulder, Colorado. rkatz@educause.edu