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Opinion
Campus IT Collaboration Evolves
6/21/2007
Interestingly, the survey defined four types of "collaboration" that, as a whole, go further in accepting an interaction as collaboration than I would have assumed. Oe of these definitions--"A single institution that elects to become a recipient of an essential IT resource from one or more institutions"--sure sounds like a "customer" to me.
Sixty-eight and a half percent of responding institutions were engaged in one form of IT collaboration or another. As you might expect, the public institutions were more likely to be involved in inter-institutional collaboration than the privates. Less than half of the latter were collaborating. The majority of non-collaborating institutions were bachelors or masters degree-granting institutions, which might indicate a connection between the research status of an institution and the willingness of its IT staff to collaborate. It could be, even, that being a research institution means having greater numbers of collaboratively minded and curious IT professionals on staff.
I was surprised to find that the No. 1 reason that non-collaborating institutions gave for not being involved in collaborations was self confidence: They simply felt that they had the capabilities and competence to do what they needed for themselves. Is that because they have lesser needs, or perhaps a parallel to what social scientists have found about people who think they know a lot really being among the most uninformed?
Hmm.
One thing I have much appreciated about the higher education collaborations I have been involved in or know the most about is the willingness of stronger, bigger, or better endowed partners to join in with others who are not likely to have as much to contribute. Like Ginger Rogers, you know, as the report starts out: "What do Fred and Ginger, Rogers and Hammerstein, and Abbott and Costello have in common?"
We all know that whatever Fred did, Ginger did backwards and in high heels. She was, in other words, "carrying" him and doing a greater part in that collaboration! I think that probably happens in higher education IT collaborations, too.
Terry Calhoun is a regular contributor to Campus Technology magazine. You can contact him through CT's IT Trends forum by clicking here.
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