The developers of computer software have considerable powers to hold us all to ransom.  If they decide that they are not going to continue to support a particular product, then we all have to consider the future sustainability of the use of that - and our general decision is to move to something that has longer term functionaity and support.  At the moment the university is having to upgrade its two biggest software systems for the same reason - that the manufacturer / developer has brought out a new version and will no longer support the old.  It is only 3 years since we installed SAP as our overall business system, yet we are already installing a major upgrade.

Today I chaired the project board for the upgrade of another system - the shift from MOLE as our virtual learning environment to what we are calling MOLE2.  MOLE was a product of WebCT, but that company was bought by Blackboard and support for WebCT will be finishing in less than two years.  So we are having to move to what is in many ways not just an upgrade but a new product - a version of Blackboard 9 which we will call (to show some continuity) MOLE2. 

These upgrades certainly tend to bring additional functionality, although often with a need for time-consuming re-training by users.  We have taken on temporary staff to help with the migration of course materials from MOLE to MOLE2 - and over the summer we will be recruiting students to help with that work (which will certainly have spin-off benefits for them in terms of work experience and internships, but which will cost money).

But one aspect of our dependence on such technologies that I regret is that we run the risk of losing access to masses of material that was developed some time ago for systems that we no longer have.  I have various teaching materials locked away on discs for the Amstrad word processor, and I also have a collection of floppy discs for early versions of Windows.  But there are very few computers around the university now that can accept those floppies (and I doubt if we even have one machine that can read the Amstrad discs from the early 1980s).  I suppose the best-known case of technological change leading to a complete loss of access to materials lies in the BBC's Domesday Project to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the Domesday Book in 1986 - using a video disc to store masses of locally-generated materials, and hence a technology that we no longer use such that all the effort that went into the project has now been effectively wasted.

I don't think of myself as a Luddite - but there are still advantages in sheets of paper and books as means of record.