The 2019 Campus Computing Survey
/The 30th National Survey of eLearning and
Information Technology in US Higher Education
Hiring and Retaining Campus IT Talent Are Challenges;
Many Campus Leaders Are Not Well-Informed About nor Engaged with Digital Issues
New data from the fall 2019 Campus Computing Survey highlight the challenges that IT leaders across all sectors of US higher education confront in hiring and retaining IT talent. More than three-fourths (77 percent) of the CIOs and senior campus officials participating 2019 survey cite “hiring and retaining IT talent” as a top institutional IT priority. Similarly, 78 percent point to uncompetitive campus salaries and benefits as a major problem in the quest to hire and retain IT talent. And reflecting the campus financial challenges that affect hiring and staff retention efforts, fully two-thirds (67 percent) agree/strongly agree that institutional IT funding “has not recovered from the budget cuts” experienced by colleges and universities across all sectors of higher education since the “Great Recession of 2008.”
“Personnel, not tech products, are the heart of the campus IT infrastructure,” says Kenneth C. Green, founding director of The Campus Computing Project. “We know that the demand for campus IT resources and services continues to grow. Concurrently, the continuing annual and mid-year campus IT budget cuts, as documented by the data from the annual Campus Computing Survey, affect IT hiring and personnel retention as well as institutional efforts to update technology and to enhance and expand campus IT resources and services.” Green adds that the hiring and retaining IT talent issues appear to apply across all sectors and geographies: “small colleges, large universities, community colleges, rural institutions and colleges in major metropolitan areas all appear to confront IT similar talent challenges.”
Are Campus Leaders Knowledgeable About and Engaged with Digital Learning and Digital Transformation?
The budget and personnel challenges that confront campus IT leaders, coupled with the continuing (indeed elevated) conversations on and off-campus about digital learning and digital transformation, raise interesting questions about the knowledge and engagement of senior campus officials on these issues.
The 2019 survey data suggest that significant numbers of presidents, provosts, and CFOs are neither well-informed nor very engaged with the digital learning and digital transformation issues that confront their institutions. Only two-fifths of the fall survey participants view their presidents, provosts/CAOs, and CFOs as “well-informed” on digital learning and digital transformation. And less than a third report their presidents and CFOs are “very engaged” in these initiatives at their institutions. In contrast, just over two-fifths report their CAOs/provosts are “very engaged” on these topics.
“Given the ubiquity of IT across almost anything and everything related to instruction, recruitment, campus services, analytics, and campus operations and management, it is increasingly important that senior campus officials – presidents, provosts, and CFOs – be both well-informed and very engaged,” says Green. He comments that these are issues which senior campus officials “cannot avoid or delegate.” For many campus IT leaders, one aspect of their unofficial job responsibilities may now include strategies to inform and engage their president, CAO, and CFO in the key IT planning and policy issues that confront the institution and concern students and faculty.
Outsourcing Instructional Services
The past year has seen much public discussion about the pros and cons of outsourcing instructional and related services for online programs. The 2019 survey data reveal that IT leaders are ambivalent, at best, about the outsourcing as a viable and effective strategy to launch/expand online programs. Moreover, IT leaders have real concerns about the actual profitability of outsourcing strategies and agreements.
Less than half of the 2019 survey participants view outsourcing as a viable and effective strategy” for online programs. The numbers vary by sector, but do not pass 50 percent in any one sector. Concurrently, less than a third of the survey participants believe that outsourcing is a profitable strategy for their institutions.
“These data help explain some of the recent push-back on third party OPMs – online program managers,” says Green. Although campus IT officers are typically not responsible for online academic programs, “they are often engaged in the planning process because of key IT infrastructure and support issues that are core to the success of online initiatives.” Too, campus tech leaders may be concerned about the often significant seat fees OPMs typically extract under outsourcing agreements. Moreover, IT leaders are presumably more protective of the institutional brand and reputation than contracted OPMs: IT officers know that it is the reputation of campus departments and institutions – not OPMs – that rise or fall based on the performance of online programs.
Continuing Organizational Churn in IT Units
The 2019 data again highlight the continuing “organization churn” in many campus IT units. Moreover, the 2019 data show more churn than just a year ago.
The percentage of institutions reporting a recent or anticipating an impending reorganization of central IT services are similar to 2018. Yet what is truly striking this year is the dramatic leap in the percentage of campuses that recently reorganized and also expect to do so again in the next 24 months – from 31 percent in 2018 to 55 percent in 2019.
The churn may be attributed to several factors such budget cuts (leading to the consolidation of various units) or major personnel changes in IT, or institutional leadership. But the big leap this past year signals rising IT organization turbulence at many colleges and universities.
Migration to the Cloud Remains Slow… and Cautious?
The fall 2019 data document the slow – some might say cautious – migration to the Cloud for key ERP applications. Although a large the majority IT officers at participating institutions have moved (or expect to move) to the Cloud by 2024 for LMS, CRM, and Alumni/Development applications, the migration to SaaS/Cloud-based financial and student information systems (SIS) remains slow: just half of the 2019 survey participants expect to be on Cloud-based financial and SIS platforms by 2024.
“The data on the slow migration of the most complex campus ERP applications to the Cloud may – or may not – be surprising,” says Green. The corporate experience with the Cloud would seem to bode well for higher ed. Moreover, other data from The Campus Computing Survey reveal that the overwhelming majority (93 percent) of campus IT leaders acknowledge that the “Cloud will play an increasingly important role” in their institution’s IT strategy. An almost three fifths (57 percent) report that migration to the Cloud is an important part of the institutional plan “to help reduce IT costs.” However, even as higher ed and its ERP providers have been talking about migration to the Cloud for almost a decade, the actual movement of major (and complex) ERP modules to the Cloud seems slow.
“The compelling merits of a Cloud strategy notwithstanding, higher ed is very risk aversive,” comments Green. His campus conversations suggest that many IT leaders feel their ERP providers have yet to provide a compelling case for moving to the Cloud. “Others,’ says Green, “view moving their key applications to the Cloud as a ‘journey of discovery’ and would prefer to watch their peers go first and learn from that experience.”
Student IT Fees
Student IT fees vary dramatically by sector. Among public institutions almost two-thirds (63 percent ) of universities and more than three-fourths of public BA/MA institutions report student IT fees. In contrast, just over a third (36 percent) of private universities report IT fees, while the number for private BA/MA campuses is 31 percent. About half of the community colleges participating in the 2019 survey also report student IT fees.
The interesting question about student IT fees is actually how campuses spend this money. Almost three-fourths add student fees to the core campus IT budget, while just over a fourth use student fees for to support new resources and services. Interestingly, fully half report using student IT fees for non-IT expenses.
Reflections on 30 Years of The Campus Computing Survey
Green notes that 2019 marks the 30th annual Campus Computing Survey, which was launched in 1990 as a way to provide benchmarking data about IT planning and policy issues to IT leaders and the larger higher education community. “What’s striking about the survey data in recent years is that the technologies that are common, indeed ubiquitous, both on- and off-campus have changed dramatically over three decades. However, the underlying planning and policy issues that confront IT leaders are strikingly similar to the critical issues that emerged from the early years of the survey: user training and support, financing IT resources and services, recognition and reward for faculty who view their technology as part of their scholarly portfolio, assessing the impact of IT investments in instruction, and managing user expectations resources and services institutions.”
The Campus Computing Survey
Launched in 1990, The Campus Computing Project is the largest continuing study of the role of computing, eLearning, and information technology in American higher education. The project’s national studies draw on qualitative and quantitative data to help inform campus IT leaders, college faculty and administrators, policy-makers, and others interested in a wide array of information technology planning and policy issues that affect colleges and universities.
The 2019 survey is based on data from CIOs and senior IT officers at 235 two- and four-year public and private colleges and universities across the United States.
The 2019 Campus Computing Survey was supported, in part, by the following project sponsors: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Blackboard, Campus Management, CampusWorks, D2L/Brightspace, Echo360, EduNav, Ellucian, Jenzabar,, Microsoft, Moran Technology Consulting, Oracle, and Unit4.
