Naturally, forces both within as well as outside higher education affect the degree of commitment of the university community to trying new technologies in their teaching and research. While institutions of higher learning cannot determine market forces driving software development and distribution, they can become involved in national efforts which focus the attention of hardware and software vendors on issues of direct importance to education. Thus, educational institutions in general, and academic computing services in particular, should strongly support regional and national efforts to focus attention on issues concerning the development and availability of instructional computing tools. There is no easy answer. Some schools have a stated policy of strong institutional support for instructional computing, while others leave the appropriate use of computing technology up to the individual disciplines without any encouragement or help.
Budgetary factors can and do play a significant role in the support of instructional computing.
That being said, however, institutions of higher learning must come to grips with key issues relating to academic computing. In our mind, the faculty support issue will become even more critical over the next decade. While not understating the need for increased student access to computing, the real educational gains in the use of computing in teaching and research depend essentially on the willingness of the teacher to use the new tools of technology in his or her teaching and research. The authors contend that colleges and universities must begin to center support structures for instructional computing on the teaching and research faculty. Thus, academic computing services must encourage this strategy by fostering cooperative computing efforts both at the institutional policy level and within academic disciplines themselves.