INTRODUCTION:

It is clear that technology plays an increasingly important role in the life of the College of Charleston and in the ability of the College to accomplish its mission and meet its institutional goals. Like other colleges and universities nationwide, the College is investing more heavily in technology than ever before to address the demands of its various constituencies (e.g., students, faculty, staff, and, to a lesser extent, the general community). The challenge for the institution is how to efficiently and effectively assure access to and utilization of those technologies that best meet the College's mission, accomplish the College's institutional goals, and address the needs/demands of the College's constituencies. Thus, access and utilization are critically important issues for the College as it determines how to employ technology as a means to meet institutional mission/goals and address constituent needs/demands. The issues of Access and Utilization will be discussed below under four broad categories: first, who gets access to information; second, where do these users get access to this information; third, how do these users get access to this information; and fourth, what is the mechanism for paying for the costs of this access and utilization.

OBSERVATIONS:

1) The number of information technology users, that is the "Who", is increasing at a dramatic rate. Faculty, students, and staff have traditionally had access to at least a segment of information generated by or available to the institution. Additionally, with the introduction of the Internet, other users are increasingly seeking access to the College's information (e.g., potential students learning about and applying to the College via our website). As information technology becomes even more widely employed to support teaching and research, faculty and student demand for increased and improved access to information has grown and will continue to grow exponentially. Similarly, because of the relative ease of access made possible by existing technologies, it is clear that the demand for access to certain institutional information by non-traditional users, ranging from casual observers to time-bound or place-bound students, has the potential to also significantly increase the number of users. Finally, increased student usage will be driven by the fact that for our students to be competitive in the workforce of the 21st Century, they must have adequate understanding of and proficiency with certain basic information technologies.

Observation #1:

To the extent that technology can assist the College in better meeting its mission and accomplishing its institutional goals, the College should be prepared to provide a technology infrastructure that can accommodate the increased demand for expanded access to information and information technology.

2) The "Where" is likewise expanding. Increasingly, technology allows for and the College's primary constituents (i.e., faculty and students) seek expanded access to information without the historical boundaries of time and place. This concept of ubiquitous access is likely to become the normal expectation of most users, whether it is in the traditional scheduled on-campus classroom setting or instead falls within the non-traditional (from the College's perspective) concept of "distance learning." As technology is utilized more often in teaching and research, the primary participants (faculty and students) in these activities, seek convenient access to this information both on and off campus. Technology, therefore, facilitates the expansion of access by increasing the time and place and, thus, the amount of learning opportunities for existing constituents. Additionally, to the extent the College elects to increase off campus access (and enrollments), this same technology will allow the institution to reach new constituents who are currently time or place bound.

Observation #2:

To the extent that the College elects to meet the increasing demand for expanded access, the College should be prepared to provide a technology infrastructure that can accommodate ubiquitous access to information, particularly for College faculty and students.

3) The "How" will become the centerpiece of technology planning for the College. There are currently several major obstacles to accomplishing this goal of expanded, ubiquitous access. The College lacks adequate and/or systematic provision of the requisite computer software and hardware (e.g., laptop computers). Also, the College's facilities are not currently capable of meeting this goal. This is due to the lack of adequate number of "smart" classrooms (i.e., classrooms with a projector, large screen, computer, and internet connection); the lack of an adequate number of computer classrooms; the lack of "wired" classrooms and other sites on campus where faculty and students can use portable computing capabilities; and the absence of Internet connections in the student residence hall rooms. Further, the College's media retrieval system (Synergy), that delivers audio and video media to the classroom from a central location over installed equipment is not available to all classroom buildings on campus (e.g., the Science Building, the Bell Building, and the Simons Center).

Additionally, the College's current computer network and internet connection is not adequate to meet the expanded number of users and the increased type of usage envisioned in a ubiquitous information technology environment. Finally, the College currently lacks a structure that is capable of supporting existing users and training new users, which in turn acts as a disincentive for both old and new users to access and utilize the College's information technology.

Observation #3:

To accomplish the goal of expanded and ubiquitous access, the College should be prepared to provide the necessary software and hardware to its faculty, staff, and, where appropriate, students; the facilities capable of supporting this technology; a computer network and internet connection with sufficient speed and reliability; and a training and support structure that will both meet the current demand for and encourage the future use of information technology.

4) The final issue is what mechanism is available to fund this expanded access to and utilization of information technology. Clearly, if the College elects to provide expanded information technology to a larger pool of users, it will result in increased costs to the institution. This is particularly problematic, since the College currently lacks any systematic approach to funding technology beyond the annual budgeting process. The current process focuses largely on departmental rather than institutional needs and is dependent upon the ability of individual technology support areas to secure adequate resources during this annual budgeting process to meet these departmental needs. This annual budgeting process is ill equipped to address the high costs of expanded information technology, much of which involves recurring and/or capital expenditures. Typically, annual operating budgets are insufficient to meet the acquisition costs of these "big ticket" items, unless these large expenditures are either planned for well in advance or the institution experiences an unanticipated surplus of unallocated, non-recurring funds.

Observation #4:

To meet the increased costs of information technology at the College there must be a mechanism to provide funds for the potentially high cost of periodic capital expenditures necessary to support information technology systems on campus; funds to support the annual technology costs must be secured on a recurring basis; and funds available on a recurring basis to renew and replenish the existing information technology infrastructure.

Technology funding requires careful planning, but ultimately its success depends upon the institution's ability to identify adequate revenue pools. After utilization of existing operating budgets, the standard mechanism for funding technology has been through the use of student technology fees. For a public institution like the College of Charleston, this is not likely to be a funding panacea, since the S.C. General Assembly is increasingly concerned about the rising costs of tuition and fees, as evidenced by the current cap that limits tuition and fee increases to no more than the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI). Because of this limit on tuition and fee increases, in order for technology expenditures to obtain a portion of the limited, available funds, technology needs must exceed other institutional needs. Given other demands (e.g., faculty lines and competitive faculty and staff salaries), the ability of technology to assume a primary priority position is problematic. This reality necessitates that the institution look beyond technology fees as a solution. The most common alternative funding sources are private grants and state or institutional capital improvement bonds. Unfortunately, because the bulk of private technology grants are earmarked for technical or research institutions, rather than liberal arts or comprehensive institutions like the College of Charleston, capital improvement bonds will assume a greater role in the technology funding mix.

Observation #5:

A combination of existing operating budget funds and small to moderate technology fee increases can likely meet the recurring technology costs incurred by the College; while periodic capital improvement bonds (funded by either the institution or the state), supplemented by a limited amount of private grant monies, can best address the problem of high cost, non-recurring technology expenditures for the College.