NPOs: Move Your Office to the Web

Presented at the 2nd annual
Community Information Technology Workshop, State College, PA
August 16, 2006

Summary: Pain versus Pragmatism

The publishers of office application suites assume their buyers (or really, licensees) are trained in computer and network system adminstration. Are you, indeed?!? How crazy is that? What I hear from people managing the offices of their non-profit organizations is that maintaining computers, software and networks is a constant source of pain. Often, maintenance is done with inadequate or no funds, a shortage or absence of technically competent volunteers, and is accomplished only with much hope and prayer.

Recently a number of alternatives for desktop applications have become available on the Web, to everyone, and at no cost. Too good to be true? Nope. Online word processors, project management applications and task lists, calendars, email, and other applications normally considered a part of office suites are excellent substitutes for the office suites installed on your computers, and which cause so much pain.

What are you waiting for? Run, don't walk, to try these applications.

The Problems with Office Suites

Office suites defined: collection of applications typically required for office work such as word processors, e-mail, spreadsheets, databases. Microsoft Office is an example.

• Documents are locked onto your computer - No means to share work.
• Office suites and personal computers are not secure - Exposed to hacks.
• User often forgets to back up important documents - Vulnerable to hardware failures and hacks.
• Desktop office suites are expensive and require frequent maintenace and security upgrades
• Desktop office suites require newer hardware and operating systems
  

Online Office Applications

Many applications associated with desktop office suites are now available through the web. This is a sample of some online applications currently available. This list is not complete, and there are new applications being introduced frequently.

Pros

• Provide features of office suites, accessible by any reasonably modern browser. Still using Netscape 4.x? It's time for your FREE upgrade
  
• Easy to learn and use
  
• Provide robust security
• Allows collaboration and sharing with other users
• Can back up documents on your (local) machine
  
• Most services are free
  
• Web-based services can be used on older systems
  
• Possible access to your documents even if your system is damaged (e.g., hard disk failure)
  
• New, unique applications inspired by the internet environment (e.g., collaboration, content management systems)
  

Cons

• Legal guidelines for privacy unclear
• Currently lacking financial packages
• Some features of desktop applications not available (e.g., multicolumn layout for newsletters)
  
• Theoretically, greater privacy is gained by writing and storing on own systems, but security threats remove advantage
  

Applications

• Google Mail
• Writely (Example Writely document )
  
• Google Calendar

• Google Spreadsheets
• Flickr.com (Example photo album)

Open Education 2006

I'm here at the Open Education 2006 conference in Logan, Utah. The conference has some of the feel of a celebration about it as the sessions are reporting success with open courseware applications, observations of adoption and use at universities and colleges, and a wildly positive response from learners. In the universe of higher education, opencourseware has a small presence; nonetheless it is significant and growing.

Opencourseware is very different compared to the model of distance learning. Courses in opencourseware sites are free and open to anyone. That one fact alone would be sufficient to kill the idea in a business oriented mind, except that results of opening courses suggest that the model not only works, but makes business sense. Joseph Hardin made this point: the real added value of a degree program is the mentoring received by students. Opencourseware does not give students the mentoring experience, nor does it grant degrees or certification. It does, however, distribute knowledge, knowledge which can lift people up from circumstances that hold them back (like poverty, and who might eventually choose to get credit for their work - at Penn State;-).

What I am hearing is that:

1. Educators love it because they can aggregate and remix content from many sources to serve high quality content;
2. Institutions love it because it puts their best face forward to learners without giving away their most important assets, namely the student-mentor experience and their degrees and certification;
3. It is early in the movement towards open courseware, there are significant technological challenges, and significant cultural challenges.

Decision Point: Static or Dynamic Web Sites

The question really comes to this: Are dynamic sites critical to the mission of a college or university? Is a student's interactive and social experience while using the university's web resources (and one that may continue long after they become alumni) a compelling reason to support the complex infrastructure that is required?

During a recent meeting with system administrators of our university's network infrastructure, we discussed the problems and advantages of software applications to deliver dynamic web content. Our proposal was to deploy a system to enable blogging and portfolios for students, faculty and staff. They were, uh, sceptical. Having attended similar meetings in the past, I expected some criticism of the proposal - dynamic systems are resource hogs, they don't scale, security holes, a preference for storing resources on file systems, and one I didn't expect: performance enhancement techniques such as caching are "hacks".

As I write this I have to keep in mind that sysadmins have the toughest job in a stressful profession. Not only do they have to defy the odds and keep critical network systems running regardless of software and hardware failures, sabotage, and human error, but they have to manage the expectations of faculty and staff thinking about the next big thing. In the technology space, they are the conservatives, and they have come by that honestly. Hmmm... context.

So, it's not surprising they should be skeptical, nay, sometimes hostile, to a proposal to host content management services for web sites, blogs, wikis and other big things. They're entirely correct in pointing out that system overhead of dynamically building web pages is expensive in system resources relative to static sites on the file system. Caching solutions reduce those costs dramatically, but unquestionably, it's more trouble to run a dynamic site. So, why are so there so many dynamic web sites, and who are the morons that are paying for them?

Apparently, some people running businesses and critical systems think the cost of dynamic sites is worth the expense and trouble. Web sites hosting eCommerce services, social networking, portfolios, personalized content and aggregation, news services, portals, office productivity applications, and web-based email (email?), to name a few, have to be dynamic sites to provide value. And, yes, they have unique performance and security concerns.

Viewed within a larger context, dynamic web sites should reduce the total cost to deliver content at the same time that it can improve user experience. Reduced costs and ROI are the litmus by which institutions commit to content management systems. A CMS for web sites, blogs, and other resources makes access to the content easy; they use the talents of many people to create and maintain content with little or no training; they give editors control of quality if your mission so requires.

The question really comes to this: Are dynamic sites critical to the mission of a college or university? Is a student's interactive and social experience while using the university's web resources (and one that may continue long after they become alumni) a compelling reason to support the complex infrastructure that is required?

One last point: The sad evidence that most CMS projects fail is typically not a failure of software, of horrible performance, or any of the other objections of the sysadmins. It's a failure of strategy and implementation. Failure is often the result of trying to fix institutional problems with a CMS. But that's another, and very interesting, subject.


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