This afternoon, TAG members sat in with IT staff on an EDUCAUSE webinar titled “What Do Newer Generation Faculty Want from IT Services?” The webinar featured two speakers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Bruce Maas, CIO (representing the IT perspective) and Michael Zimmer, assistant professor (representing the new faculty perspective). Both Bruce and Michael stressed the importance of communication between faculty and IT and acknowledged that official campus tools “often lag behind cloud and consumer services.” Bruce described new faculty as “impatient” and unlikely to ask permission before using unsupported tools, while Michael described the frustration of being a tech-savvy faculty member with high expectations for IT services. The discussion essentially came down to a single question: “How do we educate each other?”
If anyone’s interested, you can find a recording and transcript of the webinar, along with Bruce and Michael’s slides, here.
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