Bacigalupe (2009) Harnessing Web 2.0 Technology for Department Chairs-Technologies That Enhance Collaborative and Effective Leadership

8/14/2019 Bacigalupe (2009) Harnessing Web 2.0 Technology for Department Chairs-Technologies That Enhance Collaborativ

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4 ACADEMIC LEADER

Technology

By Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD, MPH

Despite the availability of severalfree or very inexpensive tech-nologies, we faculty administra-

tors seem to be behind the curve inadopting useful technologies that mayhelp us in our complex work.

This article identifies dilemmas thatmay be more effectively tackled with the

use of Web 2.0 technologies than withtraditional methods. Web 2.0 technolo-gies encourage collaboration and partici-pation, provide a rich user experience,and have a friendly interface. I believethese technologies may aid chairpersonsin the various tasks of leading collabora-tively and effectively within theirdepartments.

To explore potential technologies, thefirst step is to accept that this can bescary and can make us feel inadequatecommon feelings in other dimensions ofthe chair role, anyway. We need to thinkless about what we do not know andmore about how to think effectivelyabout these evolving tools.

Our choices and preferences for par-ticular technology (hardware, software,etc.) are probably temporary. Like otherchair decisions, the products we chooseor have to live with are often driven byvariables beyond our control. However,because of the ubiquity and low or nocost of some of these technologies, weare able to set the tone and shapeimportant decisions about which tech-

nologies to use and how to use them toserve the departments leadership andadministrative needs.

Web 2.0 technologies allow users todo more than just store and retrieveinformation. The ability to access shareddata with Web- or browser-based soft-

ware has many advantages, includingthe ability to work across different oper-ating systems (PC or Mac) and versions

of software. Web 2.0 technologies areinnumerous. They could be categorizedinto productivity tools (writing, spread-sheets, file storage), show-and-tell (blog-ging, microblogging, links, wikis, web-sites), synchronous and asynchronouscommunication, learning managementsystems, social networking tools, andvirtual reality software. This categoriza-tion is fluid since the various tools can

serve various functions and can be inte-grated.Before I provide some examples of

Web 2.0 applications, I strongly recom-mend that you think of where yourinformation lives. Is your data (calen-dar, contacts, links, projects) stored inone physical place (desktop, externalhard drive, and/or personal device)?

What would it take to recover this dataif a virus infects all these devices? Whatdo you need to do to work across vari-ous computers and/or personal devices?

What happens if one of your main com-puters breaks?

Making your email, calendar, notes,and other data sync across variousdevices is a fairly seamless way of avoid-ing the loss of information and of hav-ing the data available at any place evenif a device is sporadically connected tothe Internet. For instance, you could usean iPod touch instead of an iPhone tosave you from paying more for continu-ous connectivity. If you have a personaldevice or a more sophisticated one(BlackBerry or iPhone), using the capa-

bilities to sync across all your connecteddevices is core.

Here are some suggestions for usingWeb 2.0 technologies for some commonadministrative tasks:

Report preparation: How do I commu-nicate and collaborate with my adminis-trative team in the preparation ofreports or in the updating of databases?

Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) is a terrific tool to work col-laboratively with shared documents. Areport that requires the contribution ofseveral members of the department canbe shared with the team. The team can

work directly on revising and editingthe document. The software allows forreviewing the authorship of any editing

work and allows the owner of the docu-

ment to go back to the originallyuploaded file. Moreover, the documentcan be shared publicly with a couple ofclicks. Having a live document onlinecan also be accompanied by actual inter-actions with those involved in the docu-ment using chat-messaging toolsembedded in Google Docs or phone

Web-based tools such as Skype(www.skype.com).

Scheduling and admission: The admis-sion of students and the scheduling ofcourses often require several stages andparticipants input. Google Docs allowsthe uploading or creation of spread-sheets, which aids in the process. In ourdepartment, we employ these spread-sheets to address the complexities of theadmission of new students as well as thescheduling of courses. One central doc-ument that is always up to date decreas-es miscommunication and email/phoneexchanges. This collaborative processalso helps during the time we assign stu-dents to advisees; anyone within thedepartment can quickly know who is

the students advisor. In both cases, newcolumns can be created to include datato analyze longitudinal data such asenrollment trends.

Alumni and external relations: Whatdo social networking technologies offerus to generate, maintain, and enhance

Harnessing Web 2.0 Technology for Department Chairs:Technologies That Enhance Collaborative and Effective

Leadership

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connections with students and alumni?Facebook (www.facebook.com), LinkedIn(www.linkedin.com), and Plaxo

(www.plaxo.com), are powerful network-ing tools that may replace the use ofemail lists or regular snail mail. Thesetools facilitate formal and informal con-nections among graduates, generating asense of community that otherwise isdifficult to maintain. For faculty, thereare tremendous advantages to usingsocial networking tools to maintain anddevelop relationships within and acrosstheir institution. The various research,academic, and professional networkingavailable today can help us in recruiting

faculty and students as well as connect-ing for the purpose of scholarship activi-ties. They are excellent sources to findpeer reviewers, research collaborators,and others. Besides the popular socialnetworking sites, there are specializedsocial networking tools created for facul-ty and researchers, for example

Academia.edu (www.academia.edu),BioCrowd (www.biocrowd.com),BiomedExperts(www.biomedexperts.com),ResearchGATE (www.researchgate.net),and Nature Network (http://network.nature.com).

Recruitment: Core to the health of thedepartment is a sizable number of quali-fied applicants. The Internet offersmany ways to inform and attract poten-tial applicants. However, everyone has apresence on the Internet, so we need togo more than brand visibility. TheOpenCourseWare Consortium(www.ocwconsortium.org) is a goodexample of a technology designed toshare knowledge beyond the walls of the

university that also positively impactsrecruitment efforts. The OCWConsortium is a site where faculty places

whole sets of materials from a course(syllabus, assignments, lesson plans, pre-sentations, even audio and videos of lec-tures) for free examination by anyonehaving access to the Internet. The OCWmovement offers not only high visibility,but also depth of knowledge; people

using the Internet for educational pur-poses are searching for reliable and goodcontent. It also serves the purpose of ele-vating the quality of the teaching as thematerial is open for public scrutiny.

Accreditation: What tools can helpdecrease and/or eliminate a paper trail

when sharing information with accredit-ing bodies, upper administration, and soforth? The tasks associated with a self-study accreditation report preparationprocess or the revision of a curriculumcan serve as good examples to discussthe various technologies available.Planning for a larger college revision ofthe curriculum provides a case exampleof how to employ wikis and to collabo-rate across departments. (For a compari-

son of wiki software, visitwww.wikimatrix.org. For an example ofa wiki used in my department visit, visithttp://familytherapyprogram.wikispaces.com.)Wikis alone or in combi-nation with other Web 2.0 technologiesare simple, easy to learn and use, andstable, allowing you to exhibit docu-ments, presentations, embedded movieclips, and sound. Like other documenta-tion-sharing tools, the organizer of the

wiki can view the work of collaboratorsand reviewers. Authorized viewers canannotate documents and add new infor-mation. They also provide an effectiveoutlet for presentations and governancediscussions. Imagine a website that doesnot require Web software expertise inspecial software but instead is continu-ously updated by authorized members.Moreover, wikis are a way of building anindividual portfolio (a promotionbinder), a shared or individualized stu-dent portfolio, or a quality-improve-ment initiative across an entire depart-ment.

Communication: News about studentorientations, program updates, and ahuge amount of departmental informa-tion need to reach students through dif-ferent modalities. Using email for thatpurpose may not be the most efficientsystem; students often change emailaddresses, may not use it, or may fill theinbox of faculty and students with irrel-evant email or spam. Email is, for a

group of students, becoming an annoy-ance, something they use with the samefrequency that some of us employ thefax machine (very little). Social network-ing tools and the sharing of informationusing other methodologies can be more

effective. For instance, placing the orien-tation information (a PowerPoint pres-entation) in a site like SlideShare(www.slideshare.net) that it is embeddedin the threaded discussion of yourdepartment Facebook group reachesmore students and allows for moreinterest than a memo emailed to stu-dents. An online invitation using Pingg(www.pingg.com) to students and facultyfor a departmental event may generatemore responses and accurate informa-tion about attendance than would a

flyer or a memo. These tools are morepersonalized and provide immediatedata to the host in helping plan theevent. Emerging technologies that couldbe used to message your team usingmobile devices and/or computers couldinclude the popular Twitter(www.twitter.com), a microbloggingtechnology that encourages instant mes-saging to a selected group of followers.

Teaching quality: Web 2.0 technologiesare ubiquitous in the learning environ-ment. Students live in this environment.Technologies driven by the growth ofonline distance education are impactingthe on-campus offerings and changingthe way faculty and students interact as

well as how materials are shared. Freelearning management systems are avail-able as are for-profit products, of whichBlackboard is the most well known. Inthe category of open source and freeproducts, Moodle (http://moodle.org) andGoogle Sites (http://sites.google.com) aregood examples of highly flexible andcustomizable technologies for sharing

course materials, interacting with stu-dents in discussions, and submittingassignments. There are short-termadvantages of using these products,including reducing the departmentalbudget for printed materials. Long-termconsequences include the ability for fac-ulty to generate a teaching portfolio that

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Leadership Roles

The Academic Leader as Conductor

By Jeffrey L. Buller, PhD

In a now famous presentation at the2008 TED (Technology,Entertainment, Design) conference

in Long Beach, California, BenjaminZander, the music director of theBoston Philharmonic Orchestra, spokeof the insights he gained into whatmakes a conductor great. Zander notedthat only after 20 years at the podiumdid he realize that the conductor is theonly person in the orchestra who does-

nt make a sound. He depends for hispower on his ability to make other peo-ple powerful. (Zander, 2009) In other

words, great conductors arent those whodemonstrate their creativity throughskill on an instrument or the beauty oftheir own performances. Rather, theyare judged by their ability to produce anenvironment in which the artistry ofothersmay emerge and the quality ofthat performance may be experienced.Certainly conductors should be finemusicians themselves. They have oftenstudied a wide variety of instruments,and many are virtuosi in their ownright. Nevertheless, we appreciate con-ductors as conductors, not on the basis ofthe music they create as individuals buton their skill in inspiring superb per-formances by others.

Academic administrators may be saidto occupy a similar position in theirinstitutions. They frequently have beenhighly successful as instructors,researchers, and academic citizens.Indeed, they often are encouraged topursue administrative careers precisely

because of their expertise in these areas.But once they become administrators,academic leaders are judged no longeron the quality of their own teaching,scholarship, and service, but on thequality of what their faculties produce.Presidents, provosts, deans, and chairsmay be rare members of their institu-tions in that they hold academic rank

but often teach no classes, write nogrant proposals, publish no books orarticles, and are elected to no commit-tees. Nevertheless, they play a vital rolein seeing that all these activities occur and occur at increasing levels ofquality.

How does it change the perspective ofadministrators when they begin to thinkof themselves as conductors? Zanderdescribes his sudden awareness of whothe conductor was as a life-alteringevent. When a performance was not

going well, he could no longer see it asthe fault primarily of the musicians.Rather, he began to ask what it was thathe was conveying, intentionally or not,that prevented the performers fromachieving all they were capable ofachieving. In a similar way, administra-tors who see themselves as conductorscan begin to ask new kinds of questions

when faculty members fall short of theirhigh aspirations. What is it that peoplemay be seeing in me that is failing tomotivate them as well as it should?

What might I be expressing that doesnot inspire the type of performance of

which we are all capable?Academic leaders who see themselves

as conductors tend to be administratorswho have intuited the truth of the 17thverse of the Tao Te Ching.

True leadersare hardly known to their followers.Next after them are the leadersthe people know and admire;after them, those they fear;after them, those they despise.

To give no trustis to get no trust.

When the works done right,With no fuss or boasting,Ordinary people say,Oh, we did it. [LaoTzu and Le Guin(1997) 24.]

People always support the ideas theygenerate themselves. The role of theadministrator is not to sell an idea orvision, but to create a fertile environ-ment where important ideas flourish.The best administrators lead withoutleading, guide without guiding, and rule

without ruling. They trust those aroundthem and inspire trust in themselves inreturn. In an orchestra, harmony can bedestroyed when the voice of the conduc-tor intrudes on the music of the per-formers. Similarly, in a college or uni-

versity, harmony is destroyed whenadministrators see their role as that ofvirtuoso soloists or even performers in asmall ensemble rather than as catalysts

who evoke great performances from oth-ers. Academic leaders who see them-selves as conductors of a magnificentorchestra become successful, not becauseof their own power but because of theirability to empower others.

ReferencesLao Tzu & Le Guin, U. (Trans.)

(1997). Tao te ching. Boston, MA:Shambala.

Zander, B. (2009). Classical musicwith shining eyes. Retrieved February24, 2009, from www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html.

Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of the Harriet L.Wilkes Honors College at Florida AtlanticUniversity. He is the author ofTheEssential Department Chair: APractical Guide to CollegeAdministration (2006), The Essential

Academic Dean: A Practical Guide toCollege Leadership (2007), andTheEssential College Professor: A PracticalGuide to an Academic Career (forth-coming). All are published by Jossey-Bass.M


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Scholarship

Imagining America Seeks Recognition forNontraditional Scholarship

By Rob Kelly

Some types of scholarship do notproduce artifacts that are the tra-ditional measure of academic

workjournal articles and books. As aresult, faculty who are engaged in non-traditional scholarly activity such aspublic scholarship run the risk of jeop-ardizing their careers due to a lack ofunderstanding and rewards for this typeof work. Imagining America is an

organization that seeks greater recogni-tion for public scholarship in the artsand humanities by promoting dialogueon the following two crucial questions:

What is pubic scholarship? How shouldpublic scholarship be rewarded?

Academic Leaderrecently spoke toTimothy Eatman, director of researchfor Imagining America, and JulieEllison, director emerita of Imagining

America, about the organization and itsrecent report Scholarship in Public:Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policyin the Engaged University.

Public scholarship is not new, but itsprevalence in certain fields is. A lot ofthe early engagement grew out of fieldslike public health and social work,

where there is survey research method-ology that makes it easy to use studentsin projects. This is also true where thereis a tradition of applied knowledge andproject-based research, and where itsnormal to collaborate with people out-side the academy on something for thepublic good. But it was very rare, par-ticularly in the humanities and in some

areas in the arts, Ellison says.Imaging Americas Tenure Project

compiled 450 pages of interview tran-scripts of a wide range of people at 85member institutions. One clear themethat emerged from these interviews isthat there is a lack of clarity on whatpublic scholarship is and how it shouldbe rewarded.

People are doing this work, no ques-tion about it. It emanates from theirfervor and passion and because they

want to weigh in on pressing issues,Eatman says. The mismatch betweenthe prevailing modes of evaluationmakes it such that many of these schol-ars are hiding their work and certainlynot seeing it as at all contributing tothe building of a dossier that passes fortraditional tenure work. Thats trou-bling for many reasons. The university

loses, the communities lose, studentslose, faculty lose.

Changing knowledgeproduction

The rationale behind and means ofproducing knowledge in higher educa-tion is changing, Ellison says. Peopleare producing knowledge in more proj-ect-based, collaborative, cross-discipli-nary, cross-organizational, and intercul-tural ways, for which we need new eval-uative strategies.

People in many universities werereally concerned about the disassocia-tion between their institution andnonacademic publics. I think people inmany institutionsespecially publiclyfunded institutionsreally wanted tobe able to say, We are really workingfor the good of the state and have someconcrete evidence for that. I think

America is changing. American societyis becoming much more diverse, muchmore global, much more translocal.Looking at Los Angeles, GeorgeSanchez [Imagining America board

chair] asked, How do you create aninstitution when people all over thesepublics have not had access to highereducation? How can we not become anantiquated island in the middle of Los

Angeles? How can we have a flow ofstudents and faculty and institutionalleaders who are from and also in dia-logue with and connected with a much

broader set of publics? The questionof publicness really emerges as some-thing critical and as something veryconcrete. It translates into a question offunding, but also translates into ques-tions of access to whatever the knowl-edge is.

Discussing the issueEatman and Ellison stress the need

for dialogue to find policies to suit thisemerging scholarship.

One of the recommendations in thereport is to encourage leadersindepartments, in centers, at a variety oflevelsto talk about the mission of theunit and where public scholarship fitsinto the essence of what the goals ofthat unit are. Its critical to begin byhaving that sort of clarifying collectivesense within the unit, Eatman says.

In addition to the discussions withinacademic units, there need to be discus-sions within institutions and within dis-ciplines as well. There needs to besocial learning. We need to learn fromeach other, and thats why networks ofassociations are important. Thats whyinternal networking in the university isso important. I think the key is internalorganization at the middle level, con-necting up with other institutions. Oneof the things that Imagining Americadoes is provide Critical ExchangeGrants so that two or more memberinstitutions can create exchange rela-tionships.

A supportive administration isimportant as well. Its a top-

down/bottom-up thing. Its very hardto change much if you dont have some-body in the top leadership in the insti-tution pushing it. And then you getgraduate students, faculty, assistant pro-fessors, [and] undergraduates reallypushing from low ranks of the academ-

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ment of learning-centeredness are neces-sary. Toward that end, we have devel-oped a mechanism for assessing the

degree of learner-centeredness in aunit/department using course syllabiand a rubric that we developed for thispurpose.

Right now, if asked about the state oflearner-centeredness in a department orunit, we can usually point to individualfaculty members who are making signif-icant changes in teaching practices andexperimenting with innovative strate-gies. We may also be able to point tonew technology or new policies that

show progress toward making the shift,but we rarely have data that clearlydelineates department/unitwide theareas of success or areas of need when itcomes to the distinctive features oflearner-centered pedagogy.

On May 7, 2009, Magna Publicationsis sponsoring an online seminar, UsingCourse Syllabi to Foster Learner-Centeredness, featuring an assessmentpractice we have developed that can beused to provide a clear indication of thedegree to which we have achieved ourgoal of learner-centeredness within adepartment or unit. Subsequently, thatinformation can be used to focus profes-sional development efforts in order tofoster needed change. The assessment

practice is very simple and requires noadditional work in terms of data collec-tion. The assessment is based upon ananalysis of course syllabi using a rubricthat we have designed to assess fordegree of learner-centeredness.

The results of the assessment provideclear and measurable data regarding spe-cific features of learner-centered practicethat can be used to guide professionaldevelopment. Repeating the assessmentover time can provide insight to theprogress being made in the unit.

More information about this onlineseminar is available at

www.magnapubs.com/calendar/310.html.M

ic hierarchy, Ellison says.Eatman, who is a junior faculty mem-

ber at Syracuse University, has partici-pated in these conversations on his cam-pus. Im a faculty member at SyracuseUniversity and serve on the academicaffairs committee of the senate. At thiscampuswide level they are really labor-

ing over the development of languagethat would be useful to departments as

they revisit their missions or as they talkabout the requirements for tenure anddrawing them up in appropriate ways sothat all forms of scholarship can be rec-ognized.

An important goal of ImaginingAmericas work is to provide a commonlanguage upon which to base this con-versation. People are so glad to have alanguage for this work. [One dean]

talked about how our report gave himthe arguments and a language, a ration-

ale, and set of evaluative strategies.For more information about

Imagining America, visitwww.imaginingamerica.org/. For links toImagining Americas publications, visitwww.imaginingamerica.org/reports.html.M

can be used for promotion and person-nel decisions. Recent developments invirtual reality technologies have madepossible the use of these sophisticatedtechnologies in a diverse set of disci-plines (languages, arts, the sciences, his-tory, etc.). Second Life is the most pop-ular of these technologies. Because thistechnology depends on fast computerprocessors and Internet connection,requires software installation, and is stillfairly unstable, it is presently limited inits use for large numbers of faculty andstudents. However, this technologypromises to revolutionize how we thinkabout the academic enterprise. For

instance, office hours may not require aphysical space at the university any-more.

Technology changes rapidly, thus anyrecommendations about what tools tochoose will change over time. Even ifone is an early adopter of technology,most of the colleagues with whom weneed to collaborate will not adopt tech-nologies until the majority does. It isonly a few years ago that a faculty mem-ber could choose not to have email.Dont all faculty now have email as partof their academic identity? Would yoube able to submit a paper for a nationalconference without accessing the Web?But neither of these were generalizedrequirements of faculty or administra-tors a decade ago. Adoption of Web 2.0technologies is accelerating, in particular

the ones that put faculty and adminis-trators in relation to studentsthe digi-tal natives.

Gonzalo Bacigalupe is an associate profes-sor and chair of counseling and school psy-chology at the University of MassachusettsBoston. He has no financial relationshipwith any of the companies mentioned inthis article. The intention of this article isnot to promote or endorse any specifictechnology. His views on technology prod-ucts are based on his own personal experi-ence, the experiences of other faculty andadministrators, and research when avail-able. Contact him [email protected]

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Bacigalupe (2009) Harnessing Web 2.0 Technology for Department Chairs-Technologies That Enhance Collaborative and Effective Leadership