Anybody else wants to weight in?

IMHO, this will be the single most important issue we face going forward. I also think the current fiscal crisis is just the warning shot across the bow for higher ed.

As I recall, you were in attendance at my talk at HighEdWEbDev 2007 on “Higher Education Web Development Gets Flattened” where I questioned if web development would become a commodity and the web functions of a college would be outsourced. For a variety of reasons, colleges and universities are going to be forced to look for ways to control costs and increase productivity. Higher ed is going to have to start behaving more like a business and pay attention to the bottom line.

The good news in all this is that I think in most cases the role the web plays on college campuses is undervalued. The inherent efficiencies of the web can greatly reduce the costs of marketing and communications. The challenge for us will be playing the role of web evangelist. We will need to be relentless with administrators on why the web provides great ROI.

Also, the great thing about most social media tools is that they are FREE. The whole approach to the web is going in this direction (See Chris Anderson’s upcoming book.) I like to share the story of the Ning site I built for our Undergraduate Academies. Total cost: $0.00. Total amount of my time: 2 hours. ROI: beyond our wildest expectations.

I’d be happy to talk further about the UB column. Take at the blog category highedwebflat on my site for lots of additional info on this topic.