The Digital Campus
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Section B THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION APRIL 14, 2017 THE DIGITAL CAMPUS Big Data on Campus The Form That Is All Function ENROLLMENT BUSINESS ADDITIONAL MANAGEMENT ADMINISTRATION CAMPUS SOLUTIONS Admissions Accounts Payable Grant Administration Financial Aid Vendor Management Advancement Services Registrar Forms Processing Contract Management Athletics Academic Advising Procurement & Purchasing Faculty Administration Student Records Management Human Resources Information Technology Student Onboarding Facilities Management Communication Management To see scalable electronic forms and workflow automation solutions that help institutions increase efficiencies and cut costs, schedule a demo with us at: laserfiche.com/DigitalCampusForms © 2017 Laserfiche. Laserfiche®, Run Smarter®, and Compulink® are registered trademarks of Compulink Management Center, Inc. All rights reserved. THE DIGITAL CAMPUS THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION April 14, 2017 BIG DATA ON CAMPUS OPINION Holding Off Hackers RELATED OPINIONS The Real Obstacle College networks are under constant High Hopes, to Innovation pressure to keep up with growing threats Few colleges are willing to give faculty to data security: B4 Scant Evidence members adequate time and support Mark Salisbury warns n 3 Types of Attacks Colleges Face: B5 for course redesign, says John Lynch: B16 of the limitations of big data: B14 Learning Analytics Improving Data Use Ignore E-Credentials Still a Work in Progress at Community Colleges At Your Peril Colleges are eager to use data to track Remember when bookstores wrote off Human beings must turn data into student success, but widespread adoption Amazon 20 years ago? Colleges meaningful information that can be is still to come: B8 can’t afford to make the same mistake, used to solve problems, say Brad C. Daniel T. Hickey argues: B18 How to Track Phillips and Jordan E. Horowitz: B20 80,000 Students The Job-Market Moment At Western Governors U., every student of Digital Humanities is a potential test subject: B9 Using computer technology in scholarship is more than a fad, says Leonard Cassuto: B21 FORUM Reading List TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM for a New World Order Coding ‘Boot Camps’ Growing Pains for Five scholars cite influential books on technology: B22 Link Up With Colleges Open-Textbook Movement Some private programs see the value Freely licensed materials save students of a more direct connection to money, but the work involved has made universities — and vice versa: B11 some faculty members wary: B12 EDITOR’S NOTE HIS SPECIAL REPORT on The Dig- But it also includes a caveat from several technical skills, and the latest develop- ital Campus looks at the promise data experts. All that data, they warn, is ments in the open-educational-resources T — and the limits — of big data. meaningless if colleges aren’t using it to movement, which is aimed at freely licens- Colleges have high expectations for big ask the right questions and to identify the ing textbooks and other learning materials data: They want to use it to better track most pressing problems — tasks that re- to reduce costs. students and help them succeed, to find quire human intervention. Thanks to the writers, editors, and de- out what works in the classroom, to shape Our coverage also examines the urgent signers who worked on The Digital Cam- their student bodies, and more. Our cov- threat to data security posed by hackers, pus. We hope you find it useful. erage features some of the efforts under- the growing collaboration between col- —CAROLYN MOONEY way to accomplish those goals. leges and private boot camps that offer SENIOR EDITOR, SPECIAL SECTIONS APRIL 14, 2017 THE DIGITAL CAMPUS • THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION B3 HEATHER PERRY FOR THE CHRONICLE If hackers get into a college’s network, they can gather terabytes of research data or emails to sift for possible profit. “It might take years to look at it,” says Mitchel Davis (right), chief information officer at Bowdoin College, “but they want to get hold of it.” Steven Blanc, associate chief information officer, says, “security is not something that IT does, it’s something the college does.” Keeping Up With the Growing Threat to Data Security By LEE GARDNER AST FALL, Donald Trump theorized most all attacks have more mercenary motives. chief information officer at Indiana Univer- that the computer hacker who stole It’s an escalating battle that many colleges sity. “The bad guys can try 10,000 times, or emails from the Democratic National must fight with limited resources. And the 50,000 times. As long as they get it right once, Committee could have been “someone stakes are high. A major breach can expose they get a win. It’s a very, very asymmetrical sitting on their bed that weighs 400 thousands of names and Social Security num- game now.” Lpounds.” But the stereotypical rogue nerd isn’t bers, credit-card numbers, and other personal Groups of criminal hackers, many of them the threat that most concerns information-se- data that employees and students turn over to based overseas, have upgraded their tools and curity officers on college campuses. colleges all the time, leaving those affect- methods. “They’re using these almost weap- Their institutions are under constant attack, ed vulnerable to identity theft. A breach at ons-grade hacking kits,” Mr. Wheeler says. they say, by groups of criminal hackers who the University of California at Berkeley last But even familiar modes of attack have have professionalized, and industrialized, year compromised the personal data of about grown in sophistication. “Phishing,” in which their efforts in the past few years. If the 80,000 current and former employees and people receive an email designed to get them hackers find a tiny flaw in a college’s -da students. to give up passwords or financial information, BIG DATA ON CAMPUS ta-security apparatus — an unsecured An attack can also bring an institution’s has evolved past “a rich uncle in Nigeria who server, a careless user — they can infil- computer network crashing down: In 2015, wants to wire you a million dollars,” he says, trate its network, Hoover up any and all Rutgers University was hit with several “de- and now uses messages that look very legiti- data they come across, and peddle the choice nial of service” attacks, in which a hacker mate: “They’re simple, they’re short, they’re bits on the dark market — those shadowy flooded the institution’s network with data, often contextualized for something going corners of the internet where people go to temporarily crippling it. In the aftermath, on at the institution.” Indiana delivered 442 buy and sell illicit goods anonymously. There the university budgeted about $3 million to million emails to its users last year, and its have been thefts of politically sensitive data, improve its data security. countermeasures killed 2.1 billion emails be- as when hackers published hundreds of emails Colleges “have to be right every time” when fore they entered its system. and documents in 2009 that raised questions it comes to securing data, says Brad Wheeler, The rise of big data has also abetted hackers’ about climate scientists' impartiality, but al- vice president for information technology and efforts. A decade ago, a spreadsheet of Social B4 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION • THE DIGITAL CAMPUS APRIL 14, 2017 Security numbers was “the holy grail” for explaining that it would protect not only the “We’re looking for people who are seasoned hackers, says Ronald D. Kraemer, vice presi- university but also individuals from theft and in dealing with difficult situations,” says Dar- dent and chief information and digital officer fraud. Most people are already used to using ren Lacey, chief information-security officer at the University of Notre Dame. Data that multifactor authentication for accessing bank and director of IT compliance at the Johns can be used for identity theft or to tap finan- machines (a bank card and a PIN), he says. It Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Med- cial resources remain the primary targets, but seems like an unaccustomed step for computer icine. “It can be difficult for people to get into in the past few years, “the analytics tools that access, but it shields their research and their the field, even though there’s a shortage of people have available to them to sort through finances. people once you’re in.” data and to figure out what the hidden gems Indeed, getting everyone on campus to keep The shortage has driven up salaries for top are have just advanced so much,” he says. Per- computer security in mind can be as good as information-security staff as well. A chief in- sonally identifiable information is still the some technical backstop, and more affordable. formation-security officer at a typical college most desirable, and lucrative, goal, but if hack- When Bowdoin rolled out multifactor authen- 10 years ago might have started at $75,000, ers get into a college’s network they can gather tication about a year ago, the goal was not just Mr. Davis says. “Now? Double that.” terabytes of research data or emails to sift for to sell the new program, according to Steven Despite scarce personnel and limited re- possible profit. Most of the nonpersonal data A. Blanc, vice president and associate chief in- sources, Mr. Lacey thinks will contain little or no information that can formation officer. It was important to impart colleges do a good job over be leveraged, but it doesn’t matter. the idea that “security is not something that all at data security. Data-se- “They just slurp it all up,” says Mitchel W. IT does, it’s something the college does,” he curity professionals in higher “ If we have to have it, Davis, chief information officer and senior says.