In 2002 the Council of the Great City Schools and its members set out to develop performance measures that could be used to improve business operations in urban public school districts. The Council launched the Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project to achieve these objectives. The purposes of the project were to: (1) Establish a common…

One of the most prevalent themes for managers in nearly all industries is the impact of Information Technology on the organization's value chain. Direct and indirect IT costs comprise a significant portion of operating expenses for most businesses and constitute an estimated 50% of all capital expenditures. Understanding whether and to what…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational research study was to examine the relationship between costs of operation and total return on profitability of outsourcing information technology technical support in a two-year period of outsourcing operations. United States of America list of Fortune 1000 companies' chief information officers…

Colleges and universities continue to face significant fiscal challenges in the current recession. A review of ongoing campus facilities planning projects, coupled with a review of more than 30 recent campus master planning requests for proposals and the relevant literature, indicates that colleges and universities are finding innovative ways to…

In 2006, when the author joined the staff at Dominican College (New York), he discovered that the network, computers, and IT contracts were in sorry shape. He also found that this kind of condition is common in small colleges. Such a state of affairs is usually brought about by the unrelenting demands placed on small IT staffs. IT staffers at…

Some schools, districts, and states are tackling the cost of hardware and network products by using E-rate money, which is tied to the number of students eligible for the school-lunch program, requires attention to several forms and deadlines, and makes filtering mandatory. Forming consortia with other districts to allow bulk purchasing is another…

In a first-of-its-kind survey, the Greaves Group queried more than 900 school administrators last year about technology needs. The result, America's Digital Schools 2006, is a comprehensive look at how schools are adapting to the new world their students inhabit--and how they're going to fund it. This article presents the key finding from the…

Better managerial control in terms of decision making and understanding the costs of a system/service result from allocating indirect costs. Allocation requires a three-step process: selecting cost objectives, pooling related overhead costs, and selecting costs bases to connect the objectives to the pooled costs. Argues that activity-based costing…

This author, in a Leadership column published earlier in EDUCAUSE Review (2002), urged institutional and IT leaders to "move beyond the rhetoric." The earlier article addressed the rapidly changing atmosphere in which higher education IT was evolving and the need to align the IT plan with the strategic direction of the institution in order to…

A study examined the cost of information-technology support services in higher education institutions. The report describes the project's origins and work to date and reports initial results in three areas: network services, desktop repair services, and administrative information systems, looking in each case at economies of scale, outsourcing…

This article begins with an introduction to recent developments in information technology, including investment activities related to the technology in Europe, Japan, and the United States. It then deals with the challenging issues of access to electronic information of the U.S. government, fee or free for electronic information in publicly…

Due to automation technology, financial restrictions, and resultant downsizing, library managers have increasingly relied on the services of contractors, rather than in-house staff, to accomplish different technical services operations. Contracted services may range from a small project for a selected group of materials to a large project for…

Maintenance and operations (M&O) requirements dominate the life-cycle cost of a school facility. Historically, facility managers have struggled to secure funding to meet these requirements. Many deferred-maintenance issues result directly from M&O underfunding. However, new approaches and technologies now enable facility managers to use…

The information that high school library media specialists in Georgia have about the Georgia Online Database (GOLD), interlibrary loan, and online access was investigated. This study also evaluated whether they have the funding for GOLD and related technology. A 45-item questionnaire was developed and sent to a stratified random sample of 128…