A STATEMENT OF PURPOSE FORADOBE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION AND CREATION

OverviewScholarship was once a solitary event, confined

to a relatively small number of well educated

individuals, whose knowledge was limited to

the bound volumes in a library. Knowledge was

expensive to produce, difficult to obtain, and limited

to those who had the time and means to acquire it.

Fast forward to today, as we experience life during

the “knowledge revolution,” when new information

is growing at a dizzying rate and a thought, a Tweet,

or a video can travel around the world in a few

seconds.

“…Technology provides the means to access,

process and distribute vast amounts of data and

information than ever before imagined, but this

remains an almost meaningless activity without

processes of knowledge management to translate

data and information into relevant knowledge which

can be productively utilized (Clarke, 2001, p. 192).”

Vartan Gregorian, while serving as President and

Professor of History at Brown University stated,

“One of the greatest challenges facing our society

and contemporary civilization is how to transform

information into knowledge” (1993, p. 605).

Knowledge generation and transmission are

the core business of higher education. The leading

universities of tomorrow will be those who:

• can transform information into knowledge,

• understand how to harness the power of

technology to create and disseminate new

knowledge,

• build collaborative interdisciplinary learning

communities,

• apply new knowledge to solve some of the

world’s most pressing issues while educating

the next generation to use the technological

tools at their disposal to reach higher and

climb further than today’s faculty ever

thought possible.

Statement of the IssueToday’s faculty are in a transitional stage between

the paper and/or computer-based modes of

scholarship they perfected in graduate school and

the new and ever changing demands of scholarship

and teaching in the digital age. While many faculty

strive to keep abreast of technological advances, the

sheer pace of change, the proliferation of software

tools, and the increasing use of mobile devices in

higher education allowing students to learn anytime,

anywhere present significant challenges to faculty.

Multiple demands on their time and varying

levels of accessibility to meaningful professional

development opportunities, make it difficult for

faculty to experiment with and adopt promising

new digital tools to create, communicate, and

collaborate with one another and their students. As

a result, change is incremental in the adoption and

diffusion of technology in higher education.

As a dean of one of the largest urban public

Colleges of Education in the United States, I asked

myself, “How can I break this cycle?” What can I

do to spur the adoption of digital tools that show

promise of enabling faculty to perform their core

functions as scholars and teachers? How can we,

for example, unleash the power inherent in Adobe

Acrobat X to help faculty easily access, modify,

synthesize, and compile content from numerous

sources and apply that to the real-world business

of educating today’s college students – including

millenials and mid-career changers? How much

richer would the educational experience be for

our students if they could easily create electronic

portfolios showcasing their abilities as future

teachers? How could the teaching/learning

process be enhanced by providing both faculty and

students with the tools to help them design rich

media content and share it easily within a learning

community? How beneficial would it be for faculty

to communicate and collaborate as readily with a

colleague on another continent as one down the hall

using Adobe Connect? If faculty members cannot

connect in real-time for a student’s dissertation

defense, could they accomplish the same purpose

by meeting via Adobe Connect? How could the

classroom experience be enlivened by having leading

scholars make guest appearances or practicing

professionals contribute their expertise in dialogues

with students using Adobe Connect?

While digital tools such as Adobe Creative Suites,

Adobe Acrobat X, and Adobe Connect can easily

help faculty perform their core functions and

enhance the learning process for students, higher

education is also facing the same difficulties as

many other businesses – we are literally drowning in

paper and we are running out of space. Certainly,

technology has allowed us to reduce our reliance on

paper, but too much time and too many resources

are still being wasted purchasing, copying, printing,

filing, faxing, retrieving, shredding and/or storing

paper. Our dependance on paper transmission of

information in higher education is costly, time

consuming, and inefficient. In addition, it robs

us of the opportunity to empower our staff to think

differently about how we do business. Many of my

staff members are eager to learn how to use Adobe’s

new digital tools, have creative ideas to solve the

business systems/workflow problems we face in higher

education, and would welcome opportunities for

professional development and to share solutions with

other staff in a learning community. My leadership

team is receptive to experimenting with digital tools

to create, collaborate, and communicate because

they realize that higher education cannot succeed in

the 21st century unless we adopt more effective and

efficient means of transforming information into

knowledge and empowering our faculty, students, and

staff to become more innovative.

“Going Green” initiatives are becoming more

common in higher education. Many colleges and

universities are responding to the call to become more

environmentally conscious.

“The University of South Florida has become

one of a small number of universities nationwide

whose efforts to build an environmentally-conscious

campus and advance sustainability efforts through

research have earned a “gold” rating from the

Association for the Advancement of Sustainability

in Higher Education, the nation’s leading advocacy

group for the green campus movement” (Maddux

Newswire, February 3, 2011).

As a college and university, we simply can and

must do more to be responsible stewards of our

environment – and that involves going paper-free

to the maximum possible extent. The cost savings

and other efficiencies businesses have experienced in

reducing their excessive reliance on paper provides

an additional impetus for higher education to

experiment with Adobe Acrobat X to streamline our

workflows and design more efficient digital scanning

and document retrieval systems. Reducing carbon

emissions by holding meetings online via Adobe

Connect also appeals to universities in their efforts

to “Go Green,” and helps reduce costs during these

difficult economic times.

Proposed Project: Collaboration, Communication, and Creation with Adobe Acrobat X, Adobe Connect, and Adobe Creative Suite

We will implement in the USF College of

Education Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Connect,

and Adobe Creative Suite as our standards for

collaboration, communication, and creation.

We will document the development of a model

and evaluate the perceived effectiveness of Adobe

tools to solve problems related to instruction,

administration, and business operations of a large

urban college. We will use Adobe assets such as

Adobe TV and Adobe Educational Leaders to

prepare faculty, staff, and administrators in the

College of Education to effectively use Adobe tools.

We will also use Adobe Educational Exchange to

create a community of learners in which our faculty,

staff, administrators and students can collaborate

with one another regarding their use of Adobe tools.

BenefitsThe USF College of Education will serve as

an incubator for selected Adobe digital tools for

collaboration, communication, and creation.

Faculty, staff and students will use these tools to help

them be more successful, effective, and efficient in

performing their roles in the academic enterprise

whether that be as a faculty member, a student, or

a staff member performing key tasks that support

student success and faculty productivity.

The model/demonstration project we propose

will provide Adobe with an objective evaluation

of the effectiveness of transforming a large urban

College of Education from a paper-based, partially

computerized system of operation into a digital

environment. Through our partnership, based on

a shared vision of how technology can enhance

teaching and learning and a commitment to

evaluation in real-world settings, we will provide

higher education with the tools needed to succeed

in the 21st century. The insights and lessons we

learn by asking ourselves, “What if…” and “How

can we….” use Adobe’s creation, collaboration, and

communication tools to revolutionize teaching and

learning in higher education will provide a road map

for other colleges and universities to follow.

Colleen S. Kennedy, Ph.D.

Dean & Professor

College of Education

University of South Florida

References• Gregorian, V. (1993). Education and our divided

knowledge. Proceedings of the American

• Philosophical Society, 137(4, 250th Anniversary

Issue), pp. 605-611.

• Thomas C. (2001). The knowledge economy.

Education + Training, 43 (4/5), pp.189 – 196.

• USF Sustainability Initiatives Earn Coveted

‘Gold’ Rating. (2011, Feb. 3). The Maddux

Report News Wire.

LEE WILLIAMS / ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT / 4202 EAST FOWLER AVENUE, ALC100 / TAMPA, FLORIDA 33620t (813) 974-4502 w UNSTOPPABLE.USF.EDU