When it comes to research and development of more efficient administrative systems, higher ed often takes its lead from corporate. Like corporate, higher ed is wondering whether or not we can continue to afford the high costs of a history of fragmented decision making. Corporate and higher ed have seen efficiency and productivity improve on the administrative side. When properly used, the Lotus Notes product does improve productivity. For more than 10 years the training side of corporate, government and the military, along with select universities and colleges, has been struggling with this same issue - how to improve productivity on the learning side of the house.
Time is the new commodity.
I can do my grades faster with a pencil and paper. Get it together - and then we'll talk again, but don't waste my time. And we've been waiting. The beginnings of the answer are coming from corporate and the military, with a few universities like MIT and the University of California doing research and application on how it might work in specific content areas in higher education. And so we are starting to hear more and more about webbing and learning architectures and whole-system approaches to education.