Documents Contributed by ECAR, Advanced Networking, and Roadmaps

This ECAR roadmap synthesizes the important issues and recommended actions drawn from the 2008 study, Higher Education IT and Cyberinfrastructure: Integrating Technologies for Scholarship , by Mark C. Sheehan. The ECAR research study explores higher education’s involvement in five areas of research-related information technologies: high-performance computing resources, cyberinfrastructure applications and tools, data storage and management resources, advanced network infrastructure resources, and resources for collaboration within virtual communities. The report, which is based on results of a quantitative survey of 369 U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities and consultation with cyberinfrastructure experts and 12 university executives and technical staff members, discusses who uses, who provides, and who funds cyberinfrastructure resources as well as how important each technology is and will be to research and teaching.

This ECAR roadmap synthesizes the important issues and recommended actions drawn from the 2008 study, IT Engagement in Research: A View of Medical School Practice, by Mark R. Nelson. This ECAR research study was designed in collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges to analyze the practices and perspectives of IT organizations that support the academic research enterprise in medical schools and colleges. As the potential of biotechnology, proteomics, informatics, computational genomics, and other IT-intensive disciplines continue to offer breakthroughs in medicine, research in these fields requires greater and higher-level technology resources for infrastructure as well as IT support and services. The study is based on the results of a January 2007 web-based survey sent to 125 medical schools and colleges in the United States, as well as qualitative interviews with leaders at 10 institutions.

This ECAR Roadmap explores the practices and perspectives of IT organizations that support the academic research enterprise. To collect, analyze, and distribute information across an expanding range academic disciplines and geographic locations, research efforts rely heavily on IT infrastructure, people, and a broad range of IT services. Ever-larger data sets are being collected and shared, simulations and visualization are becoming routine tools, and the co-evolution of science and computing increasingly requires scientists to have solid grounding in information management.

This ECAR roadmap is designed to illuminate a host of current network management practices related to IT in higher education; opportunities for connectivity to external networks; the institutional context of organization, leadership and management; current emerging technologies and converged networks; and the future of networking. The roadmap is based on five major research initiatives: a literature review, consultation with the EDUCAUSE Net@EDU Integrated Communications Solutions Working Group, survey responses from 517 chief information officers and network directors in higher education, qualitative interviews with 12 higher education leaders about their view of the future of IT networking in higher education, and three in-depth cases studies involving four U.S. institutions and SURF, a Dutch higher education and research partnership.