From the Campus to the Future

EDUCAUSE, and partner organizations from Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK, undertook a visioning of the future of higher education which resulted in a white paper titled "The Future of Higher Education: Beyond the Campus." Just in case you don't want to read the entire white paper, "From the Campus to the Future," is an article in EDUCAUSE Review, in which Diana G. Oblinger undertakes a synopsis that stands alone as a good read and a valuable resource.

In looking at the drivers of change and the enablers of the future, several themes emerge. One is that many solutions will be found "above the campus." Although faculty, students, and staff are affiliated with a specific institution, the resources they access, the colleagues they interact with, and their frame of reference go well beyond the campus. Accessing a book may be more easily done online than physically. And the worldwide collections of resources (books, artifacts) far exceed what is available on any single campus. Computing cycles, storage, and specific applications are instantly accessible and scalable as a shared resource aggregated "above campus." As a result, higher education institutions need to focus less on ownership and more on access. Students do not need to own physical copies of books that can be accessed online. Applications such as e-mail can also be accessed in the cloud, and educational resources are often located in freely accessible repositories whose material is owned by no one — yet by everyone.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA