Report Highlights
There are 18 service units at UO providing technological, pedagogical, and program support. These range from central units with a campus-wide service base, to units dedicated to the needs of a particular school or college, to small units providing a narrow range of specialized or vendor services. Each service provider has an individual intake process, including 9 help desks offering varying measures of “just in time” support for UO instructional staff.
Referral clients sought help from InTRO when they were unsure about where to find support. A significant portion of our referrals were made both to technology providers and other related services. Eleven of the InTRO projects (39%) required referrals to multiple service providers. A single point of entry into the campus instructional technology service environment may prove valuable.
There are a number of excellent grassroots initiatives happening at UO. Increased support could publicize and replicate these initiatives, improving their capacity to serve wider audiences across campus.
A lack of shared vocabulary and agreed upon definitions results in unintentional overlap in instructional technology services and limits our ability to provide consistent customer service. Clearly articulating the roles and responsibilities of each service provider would lessen the burden on staff and provide a clearer vision of gaps in service.
UO faculty participated in the EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research’s annual Study of Faculty and Information Technology for this first time this year (AY 2014-15).
Conference calls with four peer universities generated a wealth of information about program development, cultural change, and budget models. These institutions are exemplary models of universities that have coordinated digital education within a distributed environment–to varying degrees–of technical, pedagogical, and programmatic support.
The University of Illinois and the University of Michigan, in particular, present models of strategically-driven faculty and administrative cooperation for institutional approaches to digital education.
Significant national, professional perspectives and analysis on digital education have been collected for further review in Useful External Reports (scroll down after clicking to view).
If you’d like to read more, use the menus above to navigate to report chapters or resources, or download the Executive Summary [PDF] of this project.
