Hello my name is Jeff Barnes and welcome to my site, Service Technology and Student Centrism.

I am the Deputy Chief Information Officer at Queens College.

I have been an information technology educator, programmer, systems analyst, and director for more than 20 years and have been involved in many projects that were at the forefront of organizational change.

For the last eight years I have been serving as a director of information technology and have come to understand that the mission, values and goals of many educational systems, especially higher education institutions, are under intense scrutiny by many internal and external stakeholders.

I believe this level of scrutiny has caused many universities, colleges and centers to examine, re-engineer and upgrade their operational infrastructure to support new strategic initiatives that will take them in the direction they have decided is best for them.

I believe information technology is a major enabler and is at the forefront of this institutional change.

Although to many people in higher education the sheer amount of change is daunting, I have come to realize that coordinating and leading information technology initiatives in support of organizational change is exciting, challenging and fulfilling.

It is clear to me that providing support, guidance and innovative solutions to our institutions as they reinvent how they do what they do best and more importantly how they provide our communities with the human capital needed, will write the story of our next American century.

In this blog site I will use my ability to ferret out information on the technology and non-technology initiatives that show the most promise for positive outcomes and post them here.

I also intend for this to be an open forum for discussion on how best to provide self-service, student centric technology resources to improve the academic experience for all students.