Implementing proactive maintenance policies to address problems with access to technology at Korean universities

Internationally, numerous seminal studies (e.g., Becker, 1994; Cuban, 2001; Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001; Dwyer, Ringstaff, & Sandholtz, 1990; Sheingold & Hadley, 1990; Zhao, Pugh, Sheldon, & Byers, 2002) have largely left the general issue of access to technology and specifically classroom technology maintenance unexplored despite significant evidence in their findings. This article is a call for researchers, administrators and others involved in the implementation of technology to place more focus upon the important local causes and effects of inadequate maintenance policies and procedures in order to overcome one of the most prevalent barriers to teachers' classroom use. To this end, a step by step process for Korean administrators is outlined, including the establishment of reliability teams based on production plant management techniques developed by Carroll, Sterman, and Marcus (1998). It is proposed that the shift to a more proactive maintenance policy at Korean universities will enable more reliable technology in the classroom and thereby facilitate greater potential for use by teachers. The change will also lower the costs associated with large repairs and premature replacement of equipment leading to lower overall long-term budgets. Importantly, the largest beneficiaries of the change will be the students who will receive instruction that regularly employs the classroom technology that their tuitions have paid and continue to pay for at Korean universities.