Documents Contributed by ECAR, Leadership, and Research Bulletins

This research bulletin describes guiding leadership principles for CIOs and suggests how metrics can be used to measure the impact they have on motivation, staff satisfaction, turnover rates, customer satisfaction, and the ability to execute.

This research bulletin examines the ways many research universities govern their IT activities, explores some inherent problems in these processes, identifies several good practices, and suggests changes that may improve the current state of the art. It draws on research conducted by MIT and ECAR on IT alignment and governance; information submitted to the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service survey; the results of an extensive review of IT governance at the University of California, Berkeley; a one-day governance workshop hosted by the Common Solutions Group; the work of a project team participating in the IT Leaders Project; and the observations and results of several external review committees on which the author has served.

This research bulletin is a personal account of the career of James Penrod, who served as chief information officer at four higher education institutions for over 25 years. Well known as an expert on leadership, Penrod discusses critical success factors for CIO leaders, from strategic planning to portfolio and policy development to knowing your personal strengths and limits.

This research bulletin explores a key finding of the 2004 ECAR study, Information Technology Leadership in Higher Education: The Condition of the Community, that indicates that mentoring makes a difference for successful IT leaders. To gain further perspective on this issue, ECAR conducted a case study of a University of Kansas Information Services mentoring program focused specifically on women in information systems management. This program and the principles that underlie it apply to other institutions of higher education.

As more IT leaders assume a cabinet-level role as chief information officer, colleges and universities with truly effective IT leaders have a strategic advantage. This bulletin analyzes the findings from 229 responses to a national survey of the highest level IT or information management staff at 867 higher education institutions. It describes critical success factors for effective CIO leadership: what CIOs must know, what they must be competent to do and facilitate, and which leadership styles yield positive outcomes.