Decentralization Impedes Implementation of IT Reforms

Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 wanted to put a chicken in every pot, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) said in October that it wants to put a computer on every desk.

But just as taxpayers would not pick up the tab for Roosevelt's chickens, the prevailing winds of decentralization scattered the responsibility for this and other technology initiatives--making them nearly impossible to implement.

In its September report, the FAS Standing Committee on Information Technology set a goal of providing every member of the faculty and administrative staff a networked computer with World Wide Web (WWW) accessibility.

The report did not say how the initiative would be funded. Committee members later said they expected funds to come from professors' salaries and grant funds, from departmental budgets and from the central FAS budget--the myriad of sources that currently fund faculty and staff computers.

"We're not saying how to pay for it, we're just saying 'Let's get it done,'" said Paul C. Martin '51, chair of the FAS Committee on Information Technology and dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Just like funding and purchasing, academic computing is handled at Harvard by a complexity of decentralized units, departments, institutions and people, all of whom have some decision making responsibility.

"Some of the simplest conceptual things turn out to be embedded in process [at Harvard]," said Dean of Administration Nancy Maull. "There's nothing more to say: It's process."

Business School

While the FAS and other Harvard faculties struggle to bring technology to education, Harvard Business School (HBS) has become a worldwide leader, providing individualized Web pages with detailed course outlines, assignments, audio and visual presentation materials and interactive case studies for every class.

HBS professors are trained and required to update the pages for their classes.

"When we say that every faculty member works on their own Web page, people don't believe us, but it's true," said Professor of Business Administration Richard L. Nolan.

Every HBS student also has a personalized Web page with links to their classes, lists of daily assignments and notes from professors.

Members of the Faculty said that even if expense were no object, a highly coordinated system such as HBS's would not work well for the FAS because professors in the Arts and Sciences have more diverse needs and the overall organization is too decentralized.

At the HBS, "the Dean has much more control over funding and programs than is the case in the far more decentralized FAS," said Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68.

"It would be very hard in FAS for anyone to say that certain software shall not be used.... One size clearly does not fit all in our environment," he added.

Academic Computing

Providing hardware and software is one thing. Teaching professors how to use it is another, and unsurprisingly, decentralization is also the model around which FAS shapes its approach to developing academic computing.

Consequently, in the same school that McKay Professor of Applied Physics Eric Mazur uses hand-held computers to survey his class midlecture to ensure their understanding, other professors choose not to have e-mail addresses.

The FAS Standing Committee on Information Technology reaffirmed this decentralized approach in its September report while calling for greater "coordination."

In order for academic IT to be used more widely, strong communication channels need to exist for the Faculty to remain informed of how new projects can be begun. Decentralization forces faculty members to take the initiative themselves to use more technology.

Many professors said this approach disadvantages those in the humanities who have the least exposure to IT.

Humanities professors generally have to pay for computers out of their salaries while professors in the sciences and social sciences purchase technology using grant money. And technical knowledge--like how to create one's own Web page--is more highly concentrated in the sciences.

One solution has been to create IT "contacts" in every department to disseminate information and help implement projects, but faculty members complain that many contacts are too busy troubleshooting basic computer problems to undertake special projects.

Recognizing these problems, Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) is seeking to fill a newly created communication coordinator position who would help to keep the Faculty informed about new developments in IT, HASCS programs and where to get help.

HASCS also has a three-person staff known as the Instructional Computing Group, which assists professors in putting their classes on-line and in starting class newsgroups.