In its eight years of existence, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar has implemented several technology advancement initiatives and pilot programs that appear to rival those on the main campus.

Last summer, one program at SFS-Q sought to introduce iPads to the classroom.

SFS-Q Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and government professor Kai-Henrik Barth was one of the first to use the devices, in an effort to make his Science, Technology and International Politics course paperless.

SFS-Q Instructional Design Analyst Ginny Jones said that the iPad pilot program has elicited varied reactions from students and faculty. While some found the technology extremely advantageous to their learning, others preferred using old-fashioned textbooks.

But Qatar has also seen several other technology updates in recent years, chief among them continued updates to the school’s video classroom system, which was instituted five years ago, and the implementation of lecture captures that include video and audio.

Jones hopes that these technological advancements will offer creative ways of providing course content.

“[I hope that they will] increase active learning and change the dynamic to a more integrated, collaborative classroom environment,” Jones said.

Despite differences in technology on both campuses, Davis denied that Qatar was more advanced than the Washington campus, emphasizing that the IT Department in Qatar is an extension of Georgetown’s University Information Services.

“They are using the same infrastructure that we have,” Davis said. “They back up to our servers, and our teams speak if not weekly, daily across both campuses.”

But Davis conceded that certain aspects of SFS-Q facilitate the implementation of new technologies that could not as easily take root in D.C.

Davis said that SFS-Q is better-positioned to pilot new technologies, including the iPad initiative and a trial of the web content management software Drupal.

According to SFS-Q Chief Information Officer Johnathon Chapman, the campus’s relatively small size and young age are particularly advantageous for the implementation of new technology.

“It’s very easy to get involved with technology when you’re small and young,” he said. “As any institution becomes larger … you already have more systems that you’ve already made significant investments in, so you have a lot less justification to go off and try a new direction [of technology].”

The larger scale of the main campus, on the other hand, renders updating technology more inefficient.

“It makes it more challenging because of the decentralized nature of how we operate to try to find a solution that meets the majority of our stakeholders,” Davis said.

Another factor that distinguishes SFS-Q from the main campus is funding. Because of the smaller student body and faculty in Qatar, Jones said that technologic advancements are built into the school’s regular budget. Technology spending for main campus, however, is complicated because spending outside of UIS in other departments is nearly double that of UIS’s budget.

“There is money being spent on technology [at the main campus], but what we need to do is be smarter about where we’re making those technology investments and consider how [they benefit] Georgetown as a whole,” Davis said.

On the Washington campus, Chief Information Officer Lisa Davis indicated that the main campus is also looking to expand technology with the Technology-Enhanced Learning Initiatives.

Davis said that the program is in its early phases, with faculty currently submitting proposals to better integrate technology into the classroom experience. The initiative will move forward once a committee considers the proposals, but Davis declined to provide a further timeline.

Other projects on the main campus include the modernization of printing and the addition of Wi-Ficonnections in Healy Hall and White-Gravenor Hall. Davis hopes for the campus to have ubiquitousWi-Fi by December. An iPad pilot program with the Georgetown University Medical Center is also in its initial stages.

“We’re working to move IT at Georgetown from a service provider model to a fully integrated partner of our academic and research missions and a key facilitator of innovation at Georgetown,” Davis said.

Jones and Chapman also acknowledge that some of SFS-Q’s most recent technological innovations, such as the use of iClickers, originated on main campus. Many of their resources, such as Blackboard and the main video content sharing system, also first came into use on the Washington campus.

“We take full advantage of the resources that are provided by main campus, and, in many ways, what we do in our classrooms is not that unlike what is happening innovatively in Georgetown’s classrooms,” Jones said. “It’s very much a parallel effort.”

Chapman said that he believes that the main campus is not far behind Qatar in terms of technological advancement.

“Modernization projects are moving Georgetown, in Washington, up into the same level as and probably beyond us [at Qatar],” Chapman said. “We’ll be doing some leapfrog. We just have the advantage of being the young person here, so we’re able to do some new stuff.”