Living with Disruption: News from the Frontlines

Universities today find themselves confronted by a variety of disruptive forces that challenge traditional models of education and scholarly inquiry. At the heart of that disruption are the information and communication technologies that we deploy. Enabled by those technologies, the nostalgic image of the lone scholar toiling away in isolation is gradually giving way to the reality of teams of globally connected scientists and scholars working collaboratively on massive data sets with shared technologies. Despite their importance to the changing fabric of inquiry, information and communication technologies are typically viewed as “utility” expenses with little thought to their strategic value. In this session, we will review some of the disruptive forces at play in higher education and examine information and communication technologies through the lens of strategic alignment.