While universities offer different programs
to attract students, the technology infrastructure necessary to deliver them is
often the same. That led Colorado State University, Indiana University, the
University of Florida, and the University of Michigan to join forces.
The schools created a consortium called
Unizin to negotiate contracts with technology vendors for products and services
they purchase individually. Schools are currently paying millions to build and
buy systems for storing and managing digital content, but Unizin is designed to
allow its members to purchase a set of services in an effort to create a common
infrastructure.
“Right now, that stuff is going into
digital shoeboxes, one campus at a time,” Bradley C. Wheeler, vice president
for information technology at Indiana, told The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The goal of Unizin is to allow member
institutions to share data and learning materials through the common
infrastructure without losing control of student data or intellectual property.
The effort follows a 2013 position paper from the Committee on Institutional Cooperation that suggested institutions
needed a better way to make smart technology decisions.
“It’s
not about owning everything,” Wheeler said. “It’s about owning the rights to
make choices that are in the interest of universities.”