Academic Continuity and Institutional Resilience in Higher Education

Chart 1: Academic Continuity in the Context of Institutional Resilience

Academic continuity is a core component of the institution perhaps most closely linked with business continuity, which is an institution’s ability to maintain or restore its business and academic services when some circumstance threatens or disrupts normal operations. Business continuity encompasses disaster recovery, the activities that restore the institution to an acceptable condition after suffering a disaster, but includes additional activities such as attention on customer satisfaction, attaining operational continuity during and after incidents, and recognizing a broad range of threats beyond natural and other major disasters [1]. Some elements of business continuity are clearly related to academic continuity, for instance student services such as registration, academic advising, and financial aid. Many services are indirectly related but critical to academic continuity, in particular information technology (IT) services such as learning management systems (LMS) maintenance or faculty payroll processing. Other elements of business continuity are clearly distinct from academic continuity, for example food services, athletic events, and facilities maintenance.

Beyond this more narrow focus, academic continuity is a vital part of the larger picture of institutional resilience, which is the capacity of an educational institution to prepare for, withstand, and recover from major disasters or other circumstances which threaten or disrupt normal operations [2]. Institutional resilience can be conceived as having two main components: planning and preparation for disruptive events before they happen, and continuity, or the capacity to maintain or restore operations once a disruptive event occurs (Chart 1). In addition to academic and business continuity, institutional resilience is also concerned with operational continuity for other mission-critical functions such as research and intercollegiate athletics. Another major concern which has gained particularly high visibility in the U.S. due to the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech (2007) and Northern Illinois (2008) Universities is campus safety and security.

Institutional resilience is a two-way street: postsecondary institutions depend on emergency management services to maintain academic and other continuities. At the same time, postsecondary institutions are becoming more tightly integrated into regional and statewide emergency management plans to better utilize the significant human and infrastructure resources controlled by the institutions. Having to fulfill these “other missions as assigned” complicates the process of sustaining institutional resilience to aid the larger community’s response and recovery; at times they can impede academic continuity, for instance when state authorities commandeer campus facilities to house displaced disaster victims. Planning scenarios must include local emergency management personnel to be sure that everyone understands the complete picture, as well as the expected outcome.

Particularly in the event of natural or human-induced disasters, emergency management professionals typically conceive the process has having four phases: mitigation (= prevention, or minimizing the effects of a disaster); preparedness (= preparing how to respond in case of a disaster), response (= working to minimize the dangers in the aftermath of a disaster), and recovery (= returning to a state of [relative] normalcy). The four main areas of concern related to institutional resilience are related to each of these areas, including academic continuity.

References:

[1] Pirani, J. and Yanosky, R., Shelter from the Storm: IT and Business Continuity in Higher Education. Retrieved April 15, 2008 from: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/ers/ers0702/EKF0702.pdf

[2] e-Newsletter of the Infrastructure Industry Partnership, January 2008, Issue #57. Retrieved April 15, 2008 from: http://www.tisp.org/enews/archive/january_2008.cfm

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Mike Abbiatti, Louisiana Board of Regents and Laura Pedrick (who created a version of the chart), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for their contributions to this article.