3. University of California, Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, Calif.)
Chief Information Officer Jake Hornsby:
“I started my role in May last year, and at that time the campus did not even have an LMS. Now, with the help of my excellent staff, we have not only the basic tools, e.g. Blackboard, echo360, Adobe Connect, and single sign-on, but [in February, we launched] our first online course, with more in the pipeline—an impossible rate of change for a law school.
“These initiatives started after May 2012, to give a perspective on how quickly employees had to adapt. Even worse, this is after a downsizing effort which removed 15 percent or so of the IT workforce.
“I recently moved to the UC system from the University of Cambridge (UK) as the head of IT there, and thus I come from a ‘build’ and not a ‘buy’ world. However, things have changed, especially in financially-strapped schools like UC. We must continue to find strategies for reducing administrative overhead, while … pushing toward what matters the most: teaching, learning, and research. Nothing else in a school is as important as those things, but all functions are still needed to achieve excellence in those areas. It is so easy be caught up (as a CIO) in endless discussions concerning finance and other such systems, and we can lose site of what we do any of this for.”
- Adaptive learning helps personalize instruction for students - March 29, 2013
- New software aims to improve course evaluation process - March 27, 2013
- Disability Resource Center empowers students to unlock their full potential - March 25, 2013