A report of the CNI Executive Roundtable Software as a Service and Cloud Based Applications, held at the CNI Spring 2014 Membership Meeting, is now available:
Background:
There has been a major shift in how some of the largest companies in the software industry are offering their products to the higher education community. Some companies are encouraging institutions to license their software in the cloud and others are providing no choice. The pressure to access software from a provider’s cloud service, rather than from a locally hosted service, is becoming intense. In addition to standard desktop applications software, many universities have moved enterprise level systems cloud-hosted services. On the surface, this change may appear to be merely one of efficiency, but the move to cloud services has the potential to disrupt the ways in which institutions are able to manage their information and the information of their community. There are important procedural and policy questions that must be aired in addition to the financial and control discussions that usually take place when moving operations to the cloud. Roundtable participants discussed their experiences with cloud services, the policies and procedures they have put into place, and the opportunities and risks that they perceive in this environment.
Held at CNI’s membership meetings, CNI Executive Roundtables bring together a group of campus partners, usually senior library and information technology leaders, to discuss a key digital information topic and its strategic implications. The events build on the theme of collaboration that is at the foundation of the Coalition; they serve as a forum for frank, unattributed intra and inter-institutional dialogue on digital information issues and their organizational and strategic implications. In addition, CNI uses roundtable discussions to inform our ongoing program planning process.
--
Diane Goldenberg-Hart
Communications Coordinator | CNI