At the end of this academic year (June 2005), the COSTS project will merge with the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS). We are recommending that for future years the current COSTS participants complete the Core Data Survey (CDS is open to all institutions, whether they are members of EDUCAUSE or not).

Our reasoning is as follows:

-We feel we have established the importance of IT benchmarks, and have successfully opened a dialogue between IT leaders and institutional leaders. We now want this effort to move to the next level, and EDUCAUSE is the organization that has resources, leadership, and membership size to do just that. As we’ve said in the past, we have “day jobs” and have, at times, been frustrated by our inability to add more value to the data for lack of time. We think the CDS can do this. EDUCAUSE has also agreed to incorporate key COSTS fields into the CDS so that the IT benchmark ratios can still be calculated if the data is entered.

-The CDS has demonstrated in its first years of existence that it provides a powerful set of tools for promoting understanding of IT investments. We feel EDUCAUSE is committed to increasing its value in the future.

-The CDS provides the opportunity to relate benchmark/ budget/ staffing data with policy/ organizational data by institution. This can only help promote further understanding of IT investments.

-We feel that collecting data about actual expenditures (as in CDS) rather than budgets (as in COSTS) is reasonable. While this means that data reporting and analysis will be retrospective rather than prospective the value of having more institutions participating and promoting wider understanding is worth the tradeoff.

-One less survey is probably a good thing for all of us in higher education.

-Finally, over the last 8 years our work on COSTS has been an exciting and challenging experience for both of us. The support provided by the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC) has been instrumental in whatever success we have had. And we’ve learned a lot! We have some thoughts about what we want to tackle next but that’s for another day…

While the COSTS Project will officially come to an end, we are enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by this transition. Thanks again for your participation over the past decade,

Dave and Karen