Within the last few years many higher education institutions and systems have invested heavily in technology and have raised the bar in student expectations for online student services and online learning opportunities.
Why?
Because systems and schools that fail to offer state-of-the-art online learning opportunities and accompanying services over the next decade will lose students who routinely use commercial applications such as Amazon.com, PayPal and Facebook to browse catalogs, pay bills and network with one another. Digitally savvy students demand these same conveniences from their educational institutions and now have the choice of taking online classes from public and private institutions anywhere in the world.
So what is being done through technology. Well, the goals of many technology investments include the following:
- Creation of online course offerings, collaborative environments and even online clubs and activities.
- Providing life-long learning resources and experiences for students, staff, faculty, administration, college leadership and alumni;
- Support and enhance information collaboration and knowledge sharing;
- Provide a standards-based technology architecture across colleges or systems;
- Provide wireless access to students across the campus environment;
- Consistent and convenient data integration for back office system such as finance, billing and purchasing;
- Increase educational capacity and effectiveness through shared IT resources
- Provide 24/7 online student services;
- Develop an academic culture of rapid, constant change and continuous improvement;
- Shift to modern technology infrastructures (hardware and software) which are scalable and interoperable with existing and foreseeable technological innovations;
- Increase recruiting yield with more effective targeting of recruiting dollars;
- Increase admissions productivity with more inquiries and applications processed by fewer staff;
- Increase financial aid productivity with more financial aid applications processed with fewer staff;
- Optimize course scheduling to allow more classes and events to be scheduled with a smaller inventory of classrooms;
- Shift to web-based financial aid systems to allow students to submit applications, view and accept or decline awards, and view transaction balances online;
- Shift to web-based course registration to allow course enrollments to be transacted and course grades to be posted online;
- Shift to self-service human resources systems that allow employees to self-manage their paychecks, benefits, vacation, and sick leave accruals.
Does this cover everything? Did I miss something? Does this "feel" accurate? Are higher education systems really there?
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5 comments:
From what I've seen, most schools are halfway there. Many of your points reference the ability of students to do administrative tasks like register for classes and pay bills online. This functionality became standard (at least at my university) while I was going through school a few years ago, but I think the next step will be to integrate this all into a single platform- one go-to spot for all students and faculty to get school information. This year is supposed to be a big year for mobile phone apps and I think we'll see a lot more schools- Standford and MIT have set the standard- come out with their own apps. Students will be able to pay their bills and see when the next school shuttle is coming- all from one location.
Hi Karl: I'm getting caught up on reading RSS subscriptions today and found this gem of yours from a week ago. Your list seems very thorough. These are all the sustaining innovations that could evolve institutions of higher ed into the 21st century. Your list poses no threat to the incumbent business model and power structure while continuing to improve courses, value to numerous constituencies and the efficiency of administrative procedures. With all my recent writing on my blog about disrupting higher ed, I have in mind some added items for the list that would pose threats to the established order:
1. Bring "Rate My Professor" functionality into campus IT systems. Allow for evaluating the perceived usefulness, actionability and relevance of content, as well as how classes were taught by individual instructors.
2. Provide online support, self-diagnostics and remedial protocols for students who are having trouble (with particular content, teaching styles, workload pressures etc.) that deserves to be better understood as a systemic issue rather than getting handled by labeling the student as defective which encourages dropping out of college.
3. Reverse the use of classroom/homework dichotomy so that the lectures get watched alone outside of class and the homework gets done together in class. Offer the presentations for download onto handhelds to then be watched anywhere.
4. Integrate online learning experiences into more than particular courses, so that avatars, profiles, contact info, etc does not get deleted at the end of a class, but serves as an ongoing identity through college years and subsequent alumni experiences.
Tom,
You are absolutely right! I didn't think of it at the time but this list is just enabling universities to do what they've always done but perhaps faster and more efficient.
What they should really focus on is game changing technology. Your suggestions are great. Disruptive technologies for a new educational system.
Thanks for the comment and for planting those thoughts.
Mr.Kapp, please do not delete my comment. А matter of life and death
Well I don't know about in because I'm not in a profession of education. I'm student of community college.
Great Stuff !
:)
community colleges
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