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Interview
In Search of Good Governance
An interview with Jack McCredie
9/12/2007
Since his retirement in 2005, UC Berkeley's Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO Emeritus John W. (Jack) McCredie has devoted much of his professional energy to studying, writing about, and speaking about IT governance and leadership in higher education. Currently an ECAR senior fellow, he is leading Educause's study of IT governance to be released in early 2008. CT asked McCredie for his perspectives on IT governance issues.
In your career, you've had a strong emphasis on the study of IT governance. How did you become interested in IT governance? Large universities are usually highly decentralized organizations in which departments and individual faculty members have a great deal of autonomy. The same is true of many smaller colleges. At the University of California, Berkeley we observed that because of our highly decentralized structure, it was often difficult to develop and to implement important information technology policies and practices that would apply across the board—to every staff and faculty member and to all students. I noticed the same situation on several campuses where I had the privilege of serving as an outside consultant.
At Berkeley, we decided to conduct a thorough review of the way that we govern the IT enterprise and to develop a new model that would fit our current situation better than the one that has evolved over the past couple of decades.
Is there a difference between governance and management or administration? Management differs from governance in that its primary focus is on the implementation of decisions made through the governance process. When I speak of IT governance, I mean the process that clarifies strategic directions, identifies priorities, and exerts sufficient control to manage outcomes. More informally, governance describes who makes which decisions, who provides inputs and analyzes the issues, who sets priorities, who implements the results of the decisions, and who settles disputes when there is no clear consensus. Good governance processes will foster timely decisions, responsible actions, and alignment of an organization's IT strategy with its overall mission and goals.
How have IT organizations changed over the past few years in terms of governance? Many colleges and universities are currently examining their IT governance structures. My hypothesis is that many organizations have simply evolved to their current governance structure. They have never taken a disciplined look at how they should govern information technology with all the technological, economic, and political changes that have occurred over the past 40-50 years. Security, privacy, increased importance of IT in all disciplines, increased governmental reporting requirements, and more attention to IT budgets are all topics that signal that it is time for a fresh look at how the 21st century college or university governs its IT enterprise. The College of Southern Nevada (CSN), a community college in Las Vegas with 41,000 students, has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to support its online course offerings. In Spring 2008 CSN began evaluating alternatives to WebCT, which it currently runs, and made the decision to adopt Angel in the fall. In January 2009, CSN's 865 sections of online enrollment will be delivered using the Angel LMS. Toshiba has introduced a new USB docking station that incorporates DisplayLink--a technology that allows computers to connect to projectors and other types of displays through USB 2.0. Mitsubishi has begun shipping a new LCD-based SXGA+ projector aimed at higher education, specifically medical schools. The new MH2850U, according to Mitsubishi, is "specially engineered for projecting DICOM simulation images for use in medical education and training." Last month, ActiveState released Komodo IDE 5.0, the company's latest integrated development environment (IDE). Komodo supports multiple programming and markup languages, including HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, Java, Python, C++ and more. It does not support some .NET languages at present, such as ASP/ASP.NET, C# and VB.NET. IBM last week announced consulting services specifically designed to help organizations assess their options in using cloud computing technology. "Cloud computing" is a much argued term, but it typically refers to solutions delivered over the Internet, rather than via customer premises-installed software. Hollins University, among other higher ed institutions in Virginia, has implemented Omnilert's e2Campus emergency notification system (ENS) just ahead of a state-mandated deadline requiring them at every public institution of higher education by Jan. 1. Hollins itself isn't a public campus, but wished to implement an ENS before the end of the year, the school said in a company statement.
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