100 Best Places to Work in IT 2006

Temple University has just been ranked one of the top 100 places to work in IT. This year we were ranked number 72 on the list. The full list of companies can be viewed at Computerworld’s report on Best Places to Work in IT. This is the second consecutive year that Temple University has been ranked.

Here’s the brief snapshot of Temple University as obtained from Computerworld:

Total employees: 5,433
Total IT employees: 242
IT employee turnover in 2005: 4.5%
IT employee promotions in 2005: 5.0%
Training days offered per IT employee in 2005: 5
Training budget per IT employee in 2005: $1,500
Percentage of IT managers who are women: 33%
Percentage of IT managers who are minorities: 29%
Percentage of IT staff who are women: 29%
Percentage of IT staff who are minorities: 39%

What’s special

This Philadelphia university enrolls more than 34,000 students and has 17 schools and colleges. Recent technology initiatives include the development of identity management, data warehousing and disaster recovery systems as well as a tool for tracking research projects. IT workers also received enhanced training in Oracle, Linux and Microsoft software. Temple offers family tuition benefits, including full undergraduate tuition for dependent children, access to health club facilities and participation in a full range of university programs. The IT group has its own internal training department that provides courses to help individuals develop in their chosen areas of expertise. Recently, 14 IT staffers completed TCP/IP training and 40 completed project management training.

The Clueless Manifesto

I’ve been meaning to blog about ‘The Clueless Manifesto‘ but have been putting it off for a while. If you haven’t read the article I highly recommend it, not only for more tips on creating passionate users but also because of the humility you’ll experience. In one of my marketing classes I had written a paper about how an educational institution could create passionate alumni by changing the way students were treated while they were at the instituion. My paper highlighted elements such as customer satisfaction and customer relationship manament as key foundations for a more passionate alumni body. However, after reading The Clueless Manifesto I think I missed one of the most important elements. How do you identify the most passionate alums while he or she is still a student? Can every single student become a passionate alum?

The Clueless Manifesto talks about creating passionate users by encouraging the people who see things differently, the same people who are not fond of established rules and yet because of their power to change, their presence cannot be ignored. Kathy Sierra says, ‘Do not underestimate the clueless ones’, yet can this same thinking be applied in an educational environment to create passionate alumni?

20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have

Laura Turner has written an excellent article on technology skills that people should now have if they plan on working in the education industry. The article, 20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have, is a great read but realistically can you imagine the amount of resistance an educational institution would face when trying to implement a process to standardize or review technology skill sets? Furthermore, aside from technology skills, most people would probably argue that interpersonal and administrative skills should also be benchmarked and evaluated. One argument that supports the article is that most higher education institutions are graduating students with the same skills listed below, and so it makes logical sense to ensure that the people with whom the students interact with are at least exposed to the skills. Nevertheless, do you think that the 20 basic technology skills listed below are a good collection of what an educator should have?

1. Word Processing Skills
2. Spreadsheets Skills
3. Database Skills
4. Electronic Presentation Skills
5. Web Navigation Skills
6. Web Site Design Skills
7. E-Mail Management Skills
8. Digital Cameras
9. Computer Network Knowledge Applicable to your School System
10. File Management & Windows Explorer Skills
11. Downloading Software From the Web (Knowledge including eBooks)
12. Installing Computer Software onto a Computer System
13. WebCT or Blackboard Teaching Skills
14. Videoconferencing skills
15. Computer-Related Storage Devices (Knowledge: disks, CDs, USB drives, zip disks, DVDs, etc.)
16. Scanner Knowledge
17. Knowledge of PDAs
18. Deep Web Knowledge
19. Educational Copyright Knowledge
20. Computer Security Knowledge

Related Links:

T.H.E Journal (Technology Horizons in Education Journal)

Can you cancel my message?

Ever been in a situation where you’ve wanted to undo or cancel a message from being sent? According to the Crimson White, a newspaper serving the University of Alabama, a recent email was sent out to more than 21,000 students indicating that they were not eligible to take certain courses this semester. The message however was only meant to go out to 208 students. Can you imagine how many calls or emails the support staff at the University would have received regarding this errant message?

Related Links:

Errant E-mail Confuses Students

100 Best Places to Work in IT 2005

The annual Computer World survey of best places to work in IT has just been released. You may need to register to view the sorted listing of organizations, but topping the list is Quicken Loans Inc. based in Livonia, Michigan. One trend that I believe will gradually start to increase is the appearance of educational institutions on this list. Temple University, my employer, is one of the three that has made this years Top 100 Places to Work in IT. This is in addition to a ranking earlier last year as one of America’s Most Connected Campus. While rankings are subject to controversy, they do so much more to improve morale and will always continue to be a coveted prize by the marketing department.

Opera – Free for Educational Institutions

I tried Opera once when I was back in college and appreciated that there was another company (other than Netscape) devoted to creating an application solely for browsing on any hardware or software platform. It had a lot of the functionality but it lacked that true integrated feel with my primary OS of choice. Aside from that Opera’s price line was also a major obstacle.

Well, it appears that Opera must have picked up a slight hint at browser improvements from Microsoft and Mozilla and decided that it was time to up the fight by offering free site licenses to educational institutions. Currently it appears that the only catch is the creation of an Opera account and the benefits of large swarms of users demanding these browsers when entering the work force is probably the expected return on investment.

For more information visit the Opera Higher Education Program.

Apreso Classroom

Have you heard of Apreso? If you haven’t perhaps I might be able to shed some light on how this product is revolutionizing classroom education.

Apreso is a company that specializes in classroom education. They have two products, Apreso for PowerPoint and Apreso Online. In the former, the goal is to capture the audio/visual interaction of the professor alongwith the corresponding PowerPoint presentation that would typically be given in a class room setting. Once created, a student can view the presentation online and simultaneously listen and see the professor. With Apresso Online, the product captures the audio experience in the classroom alongwith all the actions that happen on the instructor’s computer .

While I may not be a fan of online education, the one hour demonstration on the product was a clear insight to how education is changing. For example, consider a statistic where in a single week during the Summer Session, the Fox School of Business was capturing over 2,000 minutes of classroom education.

Demonstrations of the product are available online.

Free Cisco Course Material

According to a CNET article, the Learning by Doing: CISCO Certified Network Administrator 3.0 (#640-607) Lab Manual is now available online as a free download courtesy of Matt Basham.

Download now from Matt Basham’s website

Download now from Lulu