Top-Ten IT Issues, 2008

Educause has published its annual "Top-Ten IT Issues" of concern to technology leaders in higher education. It's not a surprise that the focus among CIOs these days is on bread and butter issues such as security, infrastructure, and identity/access management. And the ERP is the ERP and never goes away. 

The biggest surprise is what's absent from the list: Where is Analytics?

Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris in Competing on Analytics (it should be on the reading list of every senior leader) define analytics as: "the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions." In a seminal research paper and an Educause Review article ("Academic Analytics"), John Campbell and Diana Oblinger have called our attention to the potential of academic analytics to solve one of our most important challenges: "Student retention and graduation may be improved through the use of tools such as analytics, which goes beyond descriptive statistics to apply methods including predictive modeling. Already used to create a competitive edge for major corporations, analytics promises new insights and perhaps new breakthroughs in student success."

Is Analytics not on the list because our business users are getting the data they need and our organizations are building their competitive strategies around data-driven insights? We know that's not the case. Or is it that organizations simply do not have the capacity for Analytics as IT struggles to keep basic infrastructure services on track while also juggling the myriad of application balls? I believe that that's more likely the case.

We need to heed Campbell and Oblinger's call that "IT and institutional leaders need to begin to understand analytics -- as well as the changes that may be required in data standards, tools, processes, organizations, policies, and institutional culture." Let's hope that Analytics makes the Top-Ten IT Issues list for next year.

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2008

1. Security

2. Administrative/ERP/Information Systems

3. Funding IT

4. Infrastructure

5. Identity/Access Management

6. Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity

7. Governance, Organization, and Leadership

8. Change Management

9. E-Learning / Distributed Teaching and Learning

10. Staffing / HR Management / Training