Abstract
Business organizations have had to deal with disasters that challenge their ability to maintain or restore business due to disruption or threats to normal operations. Ensuring that “essential functions” and “mission-critical services” continue is critical to organizational survival. Academia has also been affected by similar disruptions, particularly in the past decade; however, there appears to be much less attention to continuity issues although educational closures can last from days to months impacting students, instructors, staff, and the community. Technological developments—such as text alerts, e-learning, and Skype—now offer opportunities for educators to apply lessons from business for academic continuity. Examples in higher education and the literature on organizational continuity provide the basis for the argument that education today necessitates attention to maintaining continual access to teaching and learning—academic continuity—and that much like business continuity processes, technological developments are integral to survival.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Academic Continuity. (n.d.a). The Sloan-C academic continuity home page. Retrieved February 19, 2012, from http://www.academiccontinuity.org
Academic Continuity. (n.d.b). Action guide for emergency management at institutions of higher education (2010). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Available http://www.ed.gov/emergencyplan
Boin, A., & Lagadec, P. (2000). Preparing for the future: Critical challenges in crisis management. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 8(4), 185–191.
Bourrel, J.-R. (2003). Le CNED ou les distances effacees: la revue due centre national d’enseignment a distance (CNED). French ministere de la jeunesse, de l’education nationale et de la recherche.
Brazeau, P. (2008, March). Holistic protection. Canadian Underwriter. Retrieved December 14, 2010, from http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/issues/story.aspx?aid=1000219481
Cavanaugh, J. C. (2005, November/December). Unpredictable is not an option. Trusteeship Magazine, pp. 8–14.
Chandra, A., Acosta, J., Meredith, L. Sanches, K. Stern, S., Uscher-Pines, L., Williams, M., & Yeung, D. (2010). Understanding community resilience in the context of national health security: A literature review (No. WR-737-DHHS, part of the Rand Health working paper series). Retrieved October 4, 2010, from http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR737.pdf
Comfort, L. K. (1994). Risk and resilience: Inter-organizational learning following the Northridge earthquake of 17 January 1994. Journal of Contingencies & Crisis Management, 2(3), 157.
Crichton, M. T., Ramsay, C. G., & Kelly, T. (2009). Enhancing organizational resilience through emergency planning: Learnings from cross-sectoral lessons. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 17(1), 24–37.
Curtis, G. (2008, February/March). Beyond disaster recovery. Directorship, pp. 38–43.
Ekmecki, O., & Bergstrand, J. (2010, Autumn). Agility in higher education: planning for business continuity in the face of an H1N1 pandemic. SAM: Advanced management journal, 75(4), 20–30.
Elliot, D., Swartz, E., & Herbane, B. (2010). Business continuity management: A crisis management approach (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Ford Pinto Case. (n.d.). Retrieved April 11, 2011, from http://www.wfu.edu/~palmitar/Law&Valuation/Papers/1999/Leggett-pinto.html
Hughes, J. R., & Bushey, K. R. (2006). Learning the hard way. Educause Quarterly, 29(4), 55–57. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/equ0648.pdf
Hyatt, J. A. (2010). Ready to respond: Case studies in campus safety and security. Washington, DC: National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). www.nacubo.org
Mallak, L. (1998). Putting organizational resilience to work. Industrial Management, 40(6), 8. Retrieved October 15, 2010, from Business Source Complete database.
Ministere de l’Education National et Ministere de l’Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche. (2008, Fevrier 25). Plan de prevention et de lutte “pandemie grippale”. Paris: Ministere de l’Education National et Ministere de l’Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche.
Pirani, J. A., & Yanosky, R. (2007, March). Shelter from the storm: IT and business continuity in higher education. EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) Key Findings, http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/ers/ERS0702/ekf0702.pdf
REVICA. (n.d.a). Reviewing European virtual campuses home page. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://revica.europace.org/
REVICA. (n.d.b). Swine flu home page. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://www.virtualcampuses.eu/index.php/Swine_flu
SchWeber, C. (2008, February). Determined to learn: Accessing education despite life-threatening disasters. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Network, 12(1). Retrieved January 12, 2011, from http://www.distanceetdroitaleducation.org/contents/JALN_v12n1_Schweber.pdf
SchWeber, C., & Bouchard, M. (2011). Organizational resilience: Is there evidence to support what works for business continuity? In Proceedings of 2011 Conference—The Society for the Advancement of Management. www.samnational.org
Sloan Semester Home Page. (n.d). Retrieved February 17, 2012, from http://sloanconsortium.org/sloansemester
Somers, S. (2009). Measuring resilience potential: An adaptive strategy for organizational crisis planning. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, l7(1), 12–23.
Thaler-Carter, R. E. (2009, January/February). APPA participates in an innovative effort to enhance campus security and safety. Facilities Manager, pp. 31–34.
U.S. Department of Education, & Office of Safe and Drug-Free School. (2010). Action guide for emergency management at institutions of higher education. Washington, DC: Retrieved March 4, 2013, from http://rems.ed.gov/docs/REMS_ActionGuide.pdf
Weick, K. (1993). The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(4), 628–652. Retrieved October 20, 2010, from JSTOR database, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2393339
Weick, K., & Sutcliffe, K. (2007). Managing the unexpected: Resilient performance in an age of uncertainty (2nd ed.). Wiley: San Francisco.
Winter, S. G. (2005). Developing evolutionary theory for economics and management. In K. G. Smith & M. A. Hitt (Eds.), Great minds in management: The process of theory development (pp. 509–546). New York: Oxford University Press.
Xavier University of Louisiana. (2006, April). Facility planning & management: Disaster & recovery report. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from www.xula.edu/facility/documents/hurricanekatrina.pdf
Xavier University of Louisiana. (2006, June). Hurricane emergency plan. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://www.xula.edu/emergency/documents/Hurricane_Plan.pdf
Xavier University of Louisiana. (n.d.). After Hurricane Katrina: Rebuilding of Xavier. University of Louisiana. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://www.xula.edu/mediarelations/RebuildingXU.pdf
Young, J. Y. (2009). In case of emergency, break tradition: Teach online. Chronicle of Higher Education, 56(2), A23–A24.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Martine Vidal, Distances et saviors editor, for commenting on the draft and making sure the information on CNED was accurate and correctly cited and to Marcia Bouchard who corrected my poor APA and double-checked the existence of the weblinks. Such friends and colleagues are another reason to study and write.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
SchWeber, C. (2013). Survival Lessons: Academic Continuity, Business Continuity, and Technology. In: Van den Bossche, P., Gijselaers, W., Milter, R. (eds) Facilitating Learning in the 21st Century: Leading through Technology, Diversity and Authenticity. Advances in Business Education and Training, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6137-7_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6137-7_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6136-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6137-7
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)