PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) Analysis Research from Fall 2015

General Comments (These comments did not fit under the four categories but should be considered.)

Source:

ECAR Top-Ten Strategic Technologies in 2014: http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/higher-educations-top-ten-strategic-technologies-2014 , http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/ers/ers1403/ers1403.pdf, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/EIG/EIGEA/top_ten_technologies/ IT and higher education leaders have long used the annual EDUCAUSE top-ten findings to calibrate their IT-related activities and inform their strategic planning. In 2014, EDUCAUSE is introducing a complementary list: the top-ten strategic technologies in higher education. Together, the two lists can provide more complete and nuanced guidance on institutional IT priorities.

Our definition of a strategic technology is based on the time, active attention, and priority a technology has at a given time. Mature, fully deployed technologies (such as financial information systems or networks) may be among the most mission-critical technologies, but they are more likely to be receiving operational than strategic attention. “Strategic technologies” are relatively new technologies institutions will be spending the most time implementing, planning, and tracking in 2014.

The top-ten strategic technologies were selected from the analysis of a vetted set of 78 technologies presented to EDUCAUSE members in a survey in fall 2013. This report does not aim to describe or justify the importance of these technologies. A number of excellent existing resources already do that. The value of the EDUCAUSE list is that it is based on data about member’s actual plans and thus sheds light not on what people are talking about but what institutions are doing.

Key Findings:

• Analytics dominates the list, with four of the 10 technologies. Institutions are focusing on both learning and administrative analytics.

• Mobile apps are also prominent, with two technologies and additional support for wireless networking.

• Institutions’ other infrastructure priorities – unifies communications, virtual desktops or PC applications, and identity and access management – show the influence of BYOE (bring your own everything) and preparation for moves to the cloud.

• We predict that all 10 technologies will be deployed in at least half of colleges and universities by 2017.

• Public master’s universities are spending more time with emerging educational technologies than other institutions.

• Large and private doctoral institutions are paying more attention to more technologies than other institutional types. Relative to other institutional types, a smaller proportion of bachelor’s institutions are paying attention to many of the technologies we asked about. Institutional approaches to technology – whether early adopters, mainstream, or lagging – also influence the technologies selected in the rankings.

• Four additional technologies may be on the list in coming years because institutions are spending significant planning time on them in 2014: mobile device management, network capacity planning and management tools, mobile data protections, and online courses on mobile devices.

• Further out, institutions are devoting the most attention to tracking these technologies; adaptive learning, gamification, mobile data protection, predictive analytics, e-book readers/e-textbooks, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), the Internet of things, text content analytics, mashware, open content, and big data.

Political Source:

EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues for 2015 will be out in January, but here is a link to the 2014 issues: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/top-ten-it-issues-2014-be-change-you-see

Improving student outcomes through an institutional approach that strategically leverages technology.

Leveraging technology to improve student outcomes continues to be an important issue for higher education as public policy and funding models increasingly focus on the completion agenda.

Implementing risk management and information security practices to protect institutional IT resources/data and respond to regulatory compliance mandates.

Information security organizations were early adopters of risk management practices—and it served those organizations well in prioritizing risks and responding to them. However, foundational risk management practices, such as risk identification, prioritization, and response activities need to move beyond the purview of just the information security organization to protect institutional data and resources. Increasingly institutions are turning to enterprise IT risk management programs to look at the strategic, operational, financial, legal, and reputational risks inherent in operating information technology systems. Whether homegrown or based on a well-recognized standard, these programs offer a more holistic approach to understanding a variety of types of risk across the institution and prioritizing strategic resource allocation accordingly. Looking across

the institution for risks also provides the best opportunity for protecting institutional resources and data.

Source:

Campus Computing 2014 Survey: The 2014 National Survey of Computing and Information Technology in US Higher Education http://www.campuscomputing.net/item/campus-computing-2014 .

Campuses Struggle to Provide Effective User Support and IT Training, and Also Digital Access for Disabled Students

Four decades into the “computer revolution in higher education,” new data from fall 2014 Campus Computing Survey reveal that although CIOs and senior campus IT officers proclaim IT user support to be one of their top institutional IT priorities, many campuses continue to struggle with providing adequate support services and IT training for students and faculty. The new survey also documents a serious challenge of providing digital resources and services for disabled students, major concerns about IT security on the Cloud, and a big decline in the percentage of IT officers who view MOOCs as offering “a viable model for the effective delivery of online instruction.” IT Services for Disabled Students

Less than half (47 percent) of the 470 institutions participating in the fall 2014 survey report having a strategic plan for IT compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates; less than one-fifth (19 percent) rate services for disabled students as “excellent” (range: 14 percent in private four-year institutions to 24 percent in community colleges).

“While many IT officials feel that their institutions are making a significant effort to provide access to digital curricular resources and services to disabled students, there is often a large gap between what is offered or available and what the current law mandates," says Green. Advocates for the disabled are using litigation and also proposing new legislation such as the TEACH Act to cajole campuses into complying with the current ADA mandates.

Small Gains in Cloud Computing; Some Concerns About IT Security in the Cloud

The proportion of campuses reporting a strategic plan for Cloud computing rose to 29 percent in fall 2014, up from 27 percent last year, 24 percent in 2012, 21 percent in 2011, and 9 percent in 2009. Just 9 percent of the survey participants report that their campus has moved or is converting to Cloud Computing for ERP (administrative) services, compared to 7 percent last year, 6 percent in 2012, and up from 4 percent in 2011 (range: from 19 percent for private universities to 4 percent for private four-year colleges.)

Also, security in the Cloud is a major concern for a significant minority of the survey participants: fully a third (33 percent) disagree that “cloud computing offers a level of data reliability and security that equals or excels the level of security and reliability we can provide with on-campus hosting.”

Although almost half (47 percent) of campuses now report running their LMS in the Cloud, less than a tenth of CIOs or senior campus IT officers who participated in the 2014 survey believe that their institution will be running a “high value” application such as finance or student information systems in the Cloud in five years, by fall 2019. However, more than a fourth anticipate that their college or university could deploy a Cloud-based application for collaboration platforms, content management, ePortfiolios, lecture capture, and video management in five years.

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed

Rise of Data-Driven Learning and Assessment (Listed under Mid-Range Trends: Driving changes in higher education within three to five years)

There is a growing interest in using new sources of data for personalizing the learning experience and for performance measurement. As learners participate in online activities, they leave an increasingly clear trail of analytics data that can be mined for insights. Learning analytics experiments and demonstration projects are currently examining ways to use that data to modify learning strategies and processes. Dashboards filter this information so that student progress can be monitored in real time. As the field of learning analytics matures, the hope is that this information will enable continual improvement of learning outcomes.

Relative Lack of Rewards for Teaching (Listed under Solvable Challenges: Those that we understand and know how to solve)

Teaching is often rated lower than research in academia. In the global education marketplace, a university’s status is largely determined on the quantity and quality of its research. According to the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings methodology, research and citations account for 60% of a university’s score, while teaching is only half that. There is an overarching sense in the academic world that research credentials are a more valuable asset than talent and skill as an instructor. Because of this way of thinking, efforts to implement effective pedagogies are lacking. Adjunct professors and students feel the brunt of this challenge, as teaching-only contracts are underrated and underpaid, and learners must accept the outdated teaching styles of the university’s primary researchers. To balance competing priorities, larger universities are experimenting with alternating heavy and light teaching loads throughout the school year, and hiring more adjunct professors.

Source:

Higher Education Compliance Alliance: List of Political & Regulatory Issues (as of December 2nd, 2014) http://www.higheredcompliance.org/matrix/

Title Nine:

(Definition from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX) Title IX is a portion of the United States Education Amendments of 1972.. In 2002 the Act was renamed the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. The Act states that:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of gender, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

Although the original statute made no explicit mention of sports, Title IX is best known for its impact on sports in educational institutions. In essence it requires that schools receiving federal funds, including student financial assistance, must provide equal opportunities for women and girls to compete in sports.

Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA): (Definition from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html) FERPA is a Federal law pertaining to the protection of student educational records. The law is applicable to educational institutions who receive funds under any U.S. Department of Education program. FERPA prohibits disclosure of student educational records or personally identifiable information without written consent (from parents or students who are 18 years of age or older) except in specified conditions. The law also provides parents and students rights to inspect records and request corrections to records they feel are inaccurate. What information a school can disclose and under what processes is specified under the law. Note that because student records often contain medical information, there is an overlap between FERPA and HIPPA. (http://www.astho.org/Programs/Preparedness/Public-Health-Emergency-Law/Public-Health-and-Schools-Toolkit/Comparison-of-FERPA-and-HIPAA-Privacy-Rule/)

(

Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) (Definition from https://ispub.com/IJLHE/6/2/3751)

HIPAA was enacted in 1996 to establish protections of individually identifiable health information. In addition to defining the responsibilities of health care providers to protect patient’s health records, the Act gives patients specified rights over their own health records. Again, there is considerable overlap between FERPA and HIPPA.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) (Definition from http://www.higheredcompliance.org/matrix/) GLBA is a Federal law that “governs the collection, disclosure, and protection of consumers’ personal information and personally identifiable information.” While it was aimed at the banking industry it defines requirements for all institutions that offer financial product/serves such as loans.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – Section 508 (Definition from http://www.justice.gov/crt/508/508home.php http://www.usg.edu/siteinfo/higher_education_the_americans_with_disabilities_act_and_section_508) Although Section 508 is often thought to be a part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ American with Disabilities Act it is actually an amendment made in 1998 to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 508 requires that websites (applications, web pages, and attachments) be built so that all content is available to people with disabilities. Compliance with this Act is required by Federal agencies. Compliance requirements for Colleges and Universities are more difficult to determine. If an institution of higher education receives federal funding section 508 does not automatically apply. However, states that receive funds through the Assistive Technology Act are required to comply implying that institutions in state systems are also required to comply.

US Copyright Law (Definition from http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Music-use-of-copyright.pdf) The American Council on Education (ACE) and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) issued a joint report ‘Use of Copyrighted Music on College and University Campuses’ to serve as a guideline for campus use of music.

Some common scenarios where a college would need to be aware of copyright issues include: Playing music as part of a performance for educational purposes

• Playing music over the college radio station • Playing music as part of a YouTube video

• Playing music in a lecture, lab or studio • Playing music when not required for educational purposes in the student union,

fitness facility, during a sporting event In some instances the use of music for educational purposes are exempt from copyright restrictions. In other cases copyright licenses, of which there are many kinds, should be secured. The exemptions that were available for ecucation became more restrictive in January 1978. A key distinction that needs to be understood is the difference between a ‘musical work’ and a ‘sound recording’. A ‘musical work’ or composition is a song or musical piece written by a composer/songwriter. The copyright may be owned by the creator of the piece or by a music publisher. A ‘sound recording’ is a recording of a performance of a ‘musical work’. Since each artist would create a unique version of the musical work, they can copy write their sound recording. Obtaining a copyright license for the ‘musical work’ does not automatically grant a license to use a recording of that ‘musical work’. Conversely if you want to use a licensed recording of a musical work, you may need to also obtain a license for both the recording and the musical work.

Below is a recap of the various licenses that was provided in the report.

License/Right Meaning: Performance rights Gives the right to publicly perform or display music. A

“performance” can range from a live on-campus performance to a “music on hold” system for callers.

Grand rights Gives the right to perform music as part of dramatic performances, such as operas, operettas, musical plays, ballets, and others. Concert versions of dramatic musical works also require grand rights.

Mechanical rights The right to make copies of, or to reproduce mechanically, non-dramatic musical works for distribution.

Synchronization rights The right to use musical works and/or sound recordings in combination with visual images such as movies, videos, or television.

Jukebox license One paid license per jukebox instead of paying each performing rights organization separately. Typically, the vendor renting the jukebox acquires the license.

Given the complexity of the copyright laws, the best advice is to always seek legal counsel.

Economic

Source:

EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues for 2015 will be out in January, but here is a link to the 2014 issues: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/top-ten-it-issues-2014-be-change-you-see

Changing IT funding models to sustain core service, support innovation and facilitate growth.

Universities everywhere are under significant financial pressure. This is naturally translating into pressure on the IT budget. CIO’s will need to employ increasingly innovative strategies to attract new funding to sustain core services, provide space for innovation and facilitate growth. Sourcing technologies and services at scale to reduce costs (via cloud, greater centralization of institutional IT services and systems, cross‐institutional collaborations, and so forth) The funding crisis for higher education is placing pressures on institutions to make available dollars stretch as far as possible so as not to reduce services. Information technology, which accounts for a median of 4% of institutional budgets, is central to many institutions’ plans for cost reduction or at least containment: It represents a concentrated source of spending, and therefore savings, and it offers the promise of automating work or otherwise introducing efficiencies that will thereby reduce costs. Of course this duality can challenge IT organizations, who may feel called to lower their spending at a time when they are also being asked to resource new initiatives. Something has to give. Fortunately, several alternatives are emerging that may help IT and thus institutions reduce their costs if they are prepared to make the changes that will truly deliver efficiencies.

Source:

Campus Computing 2014 Survey: http://www.campuscomputing.net/item/campus-computing-2014 .

Assessing the Effectiveness of Campus IT Investments The focus on IT services becomes even more interesting when viewed in the context of how campus IT officers assess the effectiveness of campus investments in information technology. Two-thirds (64 percent) view the campus IT investment to support library resources and services as “very effective,” followed by administrative information systems and on-campus teaching and instruction (63 percent), student services (55 percent), and academic support services (53 percent). In contrast, just 30 percent cite the IT investment to support analytics and alumni services as very effective, followed by development efforts (32 percent), and online courses (45 percent). The numbers regarding the effectiveness of IT investments to support research and scholarship understandably vary by sector, highest in universities (51percent) and lowest in private four-year colleges (25 percent).

“These data suggest that CIOs and senior campus IT officers assess the effectiveness of IT investments at their institutions as ‘okay to good,’ but not great,” says Green. He acknowledges that across almost all campuses there have long been great expectations for the role of technology in instruction and campus management, and that both technology providers as well as campus technology advocates and evangelists may have contributed to unrealistic expectations about how quickly an investment in IT could deliver expected gains in instructional outcomes or institutional performance and productivity. “A key responsibility of and challenge for IT leadership is to manage expectations and to communicate the effectiveness of IT investments, both to senior campus officials and also to faculty,” says Green.

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under Difficult Challenges: Those we understand but for which solutions are elusive)

Competition from New Models of Education New models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the traditional models of higher education. Across the board, institutions are looking for ways to provide a high quality of service and more learning opportunities. Massive open online courses are at the forefront of these discussions, enabling students to supplement their education and experiences at brick and-mortar institutions with increasingly rich, and often free, online offerings. At the same time, issues have arisen related to the low completion rates of some MOOCs. As these new platforms emerge, there is a growing need to frankly evaluate the models and determine how to best support collaboration, interaction, and assessment at scale. Simply capitalizing on new technology is not enough; the new models must use these tools and services to engage students on a deeper level.

Scaling Teaching Innovations Our organizations are not adept at moving teaching innovations into mainstream practice. Innovation springs from the freedom to connect ideas in new ways. Our schools and universities generally allow us to connect ideas only in prescribed ways — sometimes these lead to new insights, but more likely they lead to rote learning. Current organizational promotion structures rarely reward innovation and improvements in teaching and learning. A pervasive aversion to change limits the diffusion of new ideas, and too often discourages experimentation. Wicked Challenges: Those that are complex to even define, much less address

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under Wicked Challenges: Those that are complex to even define, much less address)

Expanding Access The global drive to increase the number of students participating in undergraduate education is placing pressure across the system. The oft-cited relationship between earning potential and educational attainment plus the clear impact of an educated society on the growth of the middle class is pushing governments to encourage more and more students to enter universities and colleges. In many countries, however, the population of students prepared for undergraduate study is already enrolled — expanding access means extending it to students who may not have the academic background to be successful without additional support. Many in universities feel that these institutions do not have sufficient time and resources to help this set of students. Keeping Education Relevant Many pundits worry that if higher education does not adapt to the times, other models of learning (especially other business models) will take its place. While this concern has some merits, it is unlikely that universities as we know them will go away. There are parts of the university enterprise, however, that are at risk, such as continuing and advanced education in highly technical, fast-moving fields. As online learning and free educational content become more pervasive, institutional stakeholders must address the question of what universities can provide that other approaches cannot, and rethink the value of higher education from a student’s perspective.

Social

Source:

EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues for 2015 will be out in January, but here is a link to the 2014 issues: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/top-ten-it-issues-2014-be-change-you-see

Assisting faculty with the instructional integration of information technology It is time to actively help faculty develop higher levels of competence in both the technical literacy required to effectively use the available tools and in pedagogical approaches that integrate technology into teaching.

Determining the role of online learning and developing a strategy for that role A key strategic issue regarding online learning is not whether to engage, but how. Increasingly, the issue is focused on content that is electronic and how that content gets delivered through various mechanisms (e.g., course management systems, YouTube, MOOCs, etc.). The strategic discussion should be focused on: (a) the quality assurance of the content; (b) access to the content; and (c) the ability to aggregate the content into various "packages," such as courses.

The BYOE trend has not been shaped by any institutional policy or plan but rather by student expectations that they have the same resources on campus as they have in their home or at Starbucks. This dynamic has already placed demands on technology infrastructure and resources. While some of this use of resources is academic, a great deal is directed to students’ personal use of the internet.

Source:

ECAR Top-Ten Strategic Technologies in 2014: http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/higher-educations-top-ten-strategic-technologies-2014 , http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/ers/ers1403/ers1403.pdf, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/EIG/EIGEA/top_ten_technologies/

Mobile apps for enterprise applications Mobile apps for enterprise applications refers generally to Internet applications that run on mobile devices such as smartphones and are designed to integrate with all aspects of an organization’s businesses and processes. These apps make it possible to access enterprise-wide resources (such as course catalogs, student information systems, and human resource systems) and to conduct enterprise transactions from the mobile device.

Unified communications and collaboration

Unified communications and collaboration refers to the integration of communication methods and technologies, both with each other and with other applications. These technologies converge and enable the use of multiple enterprise communication outlets.

Learning analytics: Degree advising

Learning analytics: Degree advising is an institutional capability to provide students, faculty, and staff with holistic information and services that contribute to the completion of a degree or other credential. These systems include coordinated education planning, progress tracking, advising, and early alerts that are often incorporated into enterprise-grade solutions.

Source:

Campus Computing 2014 Survey: http://www.campuscomputing.net/item/campus-computing-2014 .

Campus IT Priorities

Four-fifths (81 percent) of the CIOs and senior campus IT officers who represent the 470 colleges and universities that participated in the fall 2014 survey report that “assisting faculty with the instructional integration of information technology” is a very important institutional IT priority over the next two-three years. Three-fourths (74 percent) also

identify “providing adequate user support” as a top campus IT priority. Yet when asked about the quality of user support services and training, just under three-fifths (58 percent) assess the IT user support services at their institution as “excellent.” Additionally, less than three-in-ten (28 percent) report that their institution provides “excellent” IT training for faculty while only an eighth (13 percent) rate IT training for students as “excellent.”

“Viewed in aggregate, these data document the continuing challenge that CIOs and senior IT officers confront, and faculty and students experience, in the realm of user support” says Kenneth C. Green, founding director of The Campus Computing Project, which is the largest continuing study of IT planning and policy issues in American higher education. Moreover placed in the context of the priority for the “instructional integration of information technology,” Green notes that the dismal numbers for faculty and student IT training help to explain the frustration that many faculty experience in their efforts to use technology resourceseffectively for teaching and that students experience when they use technology tools and digital resources for learning. MOOCs and Online Education

The 2014 survey data suggest that “MOOC madness” is beginning to decline. Less than two-fifths (38 percent) of the 2014 survey respondents agree that “MOOCs offer a viable model for the effective delivery of online instruction,” down from over half (53 percent) in fall 2013. Concurrently, expectations for making money on MOOCs also declined by a third: just a fifth (19 percent) percent agree that MOOCS “offer a viable model for campuses to realize new revenues,” down from 29 percent last fall.

Yet even as senior IT officers are less sanguine now about MOOCS, the 2014 data reveal that a small but significant (and slowly growing) number of campuses are contracting with third party providers for various services (recruitment, curricular development, student services) to help develop or expand their online programs.

In aggregate three-in-ten campuses (29 percent) that participated in the 2014 survey report outsourcing for their online programs, compared to 23 percent in fall 2013. The outsourcing numbers range from 35 percent in private four-years colleges to universities to 16 percent in community colleges. However, here as with MOOCs, senior campus IT officers are not upbeat about outsourcing: just 43 percent agree that outsourcing offers a viable instructional strategy for their institution’s online efforts while just a third (34 percent) believe that outsourcing provides a viable revenue strategy for their institution’s online activities. The clear exception to these low numbers is among IT officers in private universities: two-thirds (67 percent) view outsourcing some aspects of online education as a viable instructional strategy, while three-fifths (59 percent) view it as an effective revenue strategy. Going Mobile

The 2014 survey documents the continuing movement to mobile. More than four-fifths (83 percent) of the campuses participating in this year’s survey have activated mobile apps as of fall 2014 or will do so in the coming academic year, compared to 78 percent last year, 60 percent in fall 2012, 42 percent in fall 2011, and 23 percent in fall 2010.

Across sectors, public universities lead the movement: 99 percent will be up on mobile apps by the end of the current academic year, followed by 95 percent of private universities, 92 percent of public four-year colleges, and 77 percent of community colleges and 73 percent of private four-year institutions.

What explains these gains in going mobile? “Colleges and universities are clearly playing catch-up with the consumer experience. Students come to campus with their smartphones and tablets expecting to use mobile apps to navigate campus resources and use campus services,” says Green. Also of note is that senior campus IT officers now report that tablets and smartphones have higher priority in their IT planning activities: 83 percent cite tablet devices and 82 percent note that smartphones will be “very important” in IT planning over the next two-three years, compared to just 64 percent who cite laptop computers. This focus on mobile devices in IT planning, says Green, “suggests that IT leaders are following the ‘Gretsky rule’ and are skating to where the digital puck is going.”

Interestingly, although CIOs and senior IT officers representing 70 percent of the institutions in the survey identify “implementing/ supporting mobile computing” as a top institutional IT priority over the next three years, less than a fifth (17 percent) rate mobile services at their institution as “excellent.”

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under Fast Trends: Driving changes in higher education over the next one to two years)

Growing Ubiquity of Social Media Social media is changing the way people interact, present ideas and information, and judge the quality of content and contributions. More than 1.2 billion people use Facebook regularly according to numbers released in October 2013; a recent report by Business Insider reported 2.7 billion people — almost 40% of the world population — regularly use social media. The top 25 social media platforms worldwide share 6.3 billion accounts among them. Educators, students, alumni, and the general public routinely use social media to share news about scientific and other developments. The impact of these changes in scholarly communication and on the credibility of information remains to be seen, but it is clear that social media has found significant traction in almost every education sector.

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under Mid-Range Trends: Driving changes in higher education over three to five years)

Shift from Students as Consumers to Students as Creators A shift is taking place in the focus of pedagogical practice on university campuses all over the world as students across a wide variety of disciplines are learning by making and creating rather than from the simple consumption of content. Creativity, as illustrated by the growth of user-generated videos, maker communities, and crowdfunded projects in the past couple years, is increasingly the means for active, hands-on learning. University departments in areas that have not traditionally had lab or hands-on components are shifting to incorporate hands-on learning experiences as an integral part of the curriculum. Courses and degree plans across all disciplines at institutions are in the process of changing to reflect the importance of media creation, design, and entrepreneurship.

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under Long-Range Trends: Driving changes in higher education over five or more years)

Agile Approaches to Change There is a growing consensus among many higher education thought leaders that institutional leadership and curricula could benefit from agile startup models. Educators are working to develop new approaches and programs based on these models that stimulate top-down change and can be implemented across a broad range of institutional settings. The Lean Startup movement uses technology as a catalyst for promoting a culture of innovation in a more widespread, cost-effective manner. Pilots and other experimental programs are being developed for teaching and improving organizational structure to more effectively nurture entrepreneurship among both students and faculty. Evolution of Online Learning Over the past several years, there has been a shift in the perception of online learning to the point where it is seen as a viable alternative to some forms of face-to-face learning. The value that online learning offers is now well understood, with flexibility, ease of access, and the integration of sophisticated multimedia and technologies chief among the list of appeals. Recent developments in business models are upping the ante of innovation in these digital environments, which are now widely considered to be ripe for new ideas, services, and products. While growing steadily, this trend is still a number of years away from its maximum impact. Progress in learning analytics, adaptive learning, and a combination of cutting-edge asynchronous and synchronous tools will continue to advance the state of online learning and keep it compelling, though many of these are still the subjects of experiments and research by online learning providers and higher education institutions.

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under Solvable Challenges: Those that we understand and know how to solve)

Low Digital Fluency of Faculty Faculty training still does not acknowledge the fact that digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession. Despite the widespread agreement on the importance of digital media literacy, training in the supporting skills and techniques is rare in teacher education and non-existent in the preparation of faculty. As lecturers and professors begin to realize that they are limiting their students by not helping them to develop and use digital media literacy skills across the curriculum, the lack of formal training is being offset through professional development or informal learning, but we are far from seeing digital media literacy as a norm. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking, and thus skills and standards based on tools and platforms have proven to be somewhat ephemeral.

Technological

Source:

EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues for 2015 will be out in January, but here is a link to the 2014 issues: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/top-ten-it-issues-2014-be-change-you-see

Establishing a partnership between the IT organization and institutional leadership to develop a collective understanding of what information technology can deliver To establish an effective partnership, IT and institutional leadership must start with a shared vision. IT leadership must be able to understand the institutional missions and strategic priorities and align resources to support and achieve them. Recognizing that both institutional leadership and IT bring significant perspectives to the table will benefit all.

Developing an IT staffing and organizational model to accommodate the changing IT environment and facilitate openness and agility Today's IT demands require a different kind of professional. Staff can no longer pick a technology platform or role and make it a career. Managers have to prepare staff for technologies and service models on the horizon, developing the talent as the technologies and models emerge. This entails hiring agile staff who are comfortable with change,

building flatter organizations that allow for quick decision making and innovative thinking, and continually developing staff. Using analytics to help drive critical institutional outcomes Analytics provide a powerful tool to help guide student learning outcome assessment if implemented appropriately. Given that these tools are often connected to course management systems, they may most easily be used with hybrid and online courses. However, the potential is there for learning outcomes to be measured for all students. These tools can also be tied to various retention tools, such as just-in-time intervention and intrusive advising.

Developing an enterprise IT architecture that can respond to changing conditions and new opportunities One the key challenges and opportunities facing IT leaders is how they optimize the mix of technology services delivered from on-premise, cloud, or hosted sources. Each week, new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings become available that may solve key issues at your campus. Similarly, new infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) are coming online that allow institutions outsource components of their infrastructure that might never have seemed possible years ago.

Source:

ECAR Top-Ten Strategic Technologies in 2014: http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/higher-educations-top-ten-strategic-technologies-2014 , http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/ers/ers1403/ers1403.pdf, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/EIG/EIGEA/top_ten_technologies/

Business intelligence (BI) reporting dashboards Business intelligence (BI) reporting dashboards, sometimes also referred to as “enterprise dashboards,” refer generally to any dashboard or visual display designed to relay business status information. These dashboards display data visualizations such as charts and graphs with metrics that monitor business processes and activities from enrollment and graduate rates to research funding and expenditures to strategic project status indicators. The purpose of the dashboard is to display the status of the underlying organization’s business activities.

Mobile app development Mobile app development is the organizational capability for the development of mobile applications. There are a number of development questions to answer as organizations consider mobile application development. Organizations must make decisions about native apps for specific devices and mobile web development strategies. Issues of accessibility, security, data protection, and responsive web design also must be addressed when considering mobile app development.

Enterprise identity and access management solutions Enterprise identity and access management solutions are the policies, processes, and technologies that establish user identities and enforce rules about access to organizational digital resources. In these solutions, a user can employ a single digital identity to access all resources to which the user is entitled. These solutions also might include federated identity management solutions, which extends this approach above the enterprise level, creating a trusted authority for digital identities across multiple organizations.1

Learning analytics Course level is the “use of analytics techniques and technologies to help target instructional, curricular, and support resources to support the achievement of specific learning goals.”2 Course-level learning analytics focuses on the collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners in their coursework in order to improve student success.

Administrative or business performance analytics Administrative or business performance analytics is the use of analytics techniques and technologies to help target organizational resources to support organizational goals. Administrative or business performance analytics focuses on the collection, analysis, and reporting of business data (e.g., financial or budgetary data) to improve organizational success.

802.11ac wireless networking standard 802.11ac wireless networking standard, issued by the IEEE Standards Association, details wireless transmission speed specifications. IEEE 802.11ac builds on IEEE 802.11n and allows for higher data throughput. It was published in December 2013.

Virtual desktops or virtual PC applications deliver virtualization Virtual desktops or virtual PC applications deliver virtualization, an approach by which several applications—sometimes running on different operating systems—run on the same piece of hardware, creating multiple “virtual” servers from a single machine. Software manages the different applications and systems, resulting in an experience for end users that is indistinguishable from having each application on a dedicated machine. A virtualized environment provides an IT organization with greater flexibility to deploy new applications and manage existing ones.3

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New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under Fast Trends: Driving changes in higher education over the next one to two years)

Integration of Online, Hybrid, and Collaborative Learning Education paradigms are shifting to include more online learning, blended and hybrid learning, and collaborative models. Students already spend much of their free time on the Internet, learning and exchanging new information. Institutions that embrace face-to-face, online, and hybrid learning models have the potential to leverage the online skills learners have already developed independent of academia. Online learning environments can offer different affordances than physical campuses, including opportunities for increased collaboration while equipping students with stronger digital skills. Hybrid models, when designed and implemented successfully, enable students to travel to campus for some activities, while using the network for others, taking advantage of the best of both environments.

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New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under: Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less)

Flipped Classroom The flipped classroom refers to a model of learning that rearranges how time is spent both in and out of class to shift the ownership of learning from the educators to the students. In the flipped classroom model, valuable class time is devoted to more active, project-based learning where students work together to solve local or global challenges — or other real-world applications — to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. Rather than the teacher using class time to dispense information, that work is done by each student after class, and could take the form of watching video lectures, listening to podcasts, perusing enhanced e-book content, and collaborating with peers in online communities. Students can access this wide variety of resources any time they need them. Teachers can devote more time to interacting with each individual. After class, students manage the content they use, the pace and style of learning, and the ways in which they demonstrate their knowledge; the teacher adapts instructional and collaborative approaches to suit their learning needs and personal learning journeys. The goal is for students to learn more authentically by doing. Learning Analytics Learning analytics is an educational application of “big data,” a branch of statistical analysis that was originally developed as a way for businesses to analyze commercial activities, identify spending trends, and predict consumer behavior. As web-tracking tools became more sophisticated, many companies built vast reserves of information to individualize the consumer experience. Education is embarking on a similar pursuit into new ways of applying to improve student engagement and provide a high-quality, personalized experience for learners.

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New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under: Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years)

3D Printing Known in industrial circles as rapid prototyping, 3D printing refers to technologies that construct physical objects from three dimensional (3D) digital content such as 3D modeling software, computer-aided design (CAD) tools, computer-aided tomography (CAT), and X-ray crystallography. A 3D printer builds a tangible model or prototype from the electronic file, one layer at a time, through an extrusion-like process using plastics and other flexible materials, or an inkjet-like process to spray a bonding agent onto a very thin layer of fixable powder. The deposits created by the machine can be applied very accurately to build an object from the bottom up, layer by layer, with resolutions that, even in the least expensive machines, are more than sufficient to express a large amount of detail. The process even accommodates moving parts within the object. Using different materials and bonding agents, color can be applied, and parts can be rendered in plastic, resin, metal, tissue, and even food. This technology is commonly used in manufacturing to build prototypes of almost any object (scaled to fit the printer, of course) that can be conveyed in three dimensions. Games and Gamification The games culture has grown to include a substantial proportion of the world’s population, with the age of the average gamer increasing with each passing year. As tablets and smartphones have proliferated, desktop and laptop computers, television sets, and gaming consoles are no longer the only way to connect with other players online, making game-play a portable activity that can happen in a diverse array of settings. Gameplay has long since moved on from solely being recreational and has found considerable traction in the military, business and industry, and increasingly, education as a useful training and motivation tool. While a growing number of educational institutions and programs are experimenting with game-play, there has also been increased attention surrounding gamification — the integration of gaming elements, mechanics, and frameworks into non-game situations and scenarios. Businesses have embraced gamification as a way to design incentive programs that engage employees through rewards, leader boards, and badges, often with a mobile component. Although more nascent than in military or industry settings, the gamification of education is gaining support among educators who recognize that effectively designed games can stimulate large gains in productivity and creativity among learners.

Source:

New Media Center Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed (Listed under: Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years)

Quantified Self Quantified self describes the phenomenon of consumers being able to closely track data that is relevant to their daily activities through the use of technology. The emergence of wearable devices on the market such as watches, wristbands, and necklaces that are designed to automatically collect data are helping people manage their fitness, sleep cycles, and eating habits. Mobile apps also share a central role in this idea by providing easyto-read dashboards for consumers to view and analyze their personal metrics. Empowered by these insights, many individuals now rely on these technologies to improve their lifestyle and health. Today’s apps not only track where a person goes, what they do, and how much time they spend doing it, but now what their aspirations are and when those can be accomplished. Novel devices, such as the Memoto, a camera worn around the neck that is designed to capture an image every half minute are enabling people to track their lives automatically. As more people rely on their mobile devices to monitor their daily activities, personal data is becoming a larger part of everyday life. Virtual Assistants As voice recognition and gesture-based technologies advance and more recently, converge, we are quickly moving away from the notion of interacting with our devices via a pointer and keyboard. Virtual assistants are a credible extension of work being done with natural user interfaces (NUIs), and the first examples are already in the marketplace. The concept builds on developments in interfaces across the spectrum of engineering, computer science, and biometrics. The Apple iPhone’s Siri and Android’s Jelly Bean are recent mobile-based examples, and allow users to control all the functions of the phone, participate in lifelike conversations with the virtual assistant, and more. A new class of smart televisions are among the first devices to make comprehensive use of the idea. While crude versions of virtual assistants have been around for some time, we have yet to achieve the level of interactivity seen in Apple’s classic video, Knowledge Navigator. Virtual assistants of that caliber and their applications for learning are clearly in the long-term horizon, but the potential of the technology to add substance to informal modes of learning is compelling.

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“A Day Made of Glass” videos http://www.corning.com/ADayMadeofGlass/Videos/index.aspx (Summary by Dave Weil, Director Enterprise Application Services)

In 2011 and 2012, Corning Glass made a series of videos to share their vision about the future. Yes, it’s a long commercial for Corning, but I think they provide some interesting food for thought about what some future technologies might look like. Some is science fiction, most based on some aspects of reality. The third video on the page (A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked) talks about what’s possible and what’s not – and probably the most relevant to view. Although this is a commercial, the interesting exercise is taking some of the examples shown and trying to deconstruct them and envision what infrastructures and foundational

technologies need to be in place to enable these visions of the future. I think the narrator sums it up very nicely at the very end of the “Unpacked” video: “Of course this is not just a story about glass, it’s a story about a shift in the way we will communicate, and use technology in the future. It’s a story about ubiquitous displays, open operating systems, shared applications, cloud media storage, and unlimited bandwidth. We know that there are many obstacles to be overcome before this can become an attainable reliable reality…”

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College 2.0 How Chief Information Officers and Faculty View Technology and the Future of Higher Education Reported in ‘The Chronicle of Higher Education’ http://chronicle.texterity.com/chronicle/20141107a?pg=25#pg25

EFFICACY OF TECHNOLOGY Some 75 percent of technology officials said that digital resources were well deployed on their campuses, compared to more than 50 percent of faculty members. Only 41 percent of professors said the technology needs of academic departments were understood and addressed by the central IT department.

HYBRID AND ONLINE COURSES CIOs say that a majority of students on campus will be taking online and hybrid courses in a decade. Whether those courses are of better quality than face-toface classes remains a question, however. Nearly 75 percent of CIOs said that the value of a hybrid course was better than a course taken in person; only 39 percent of faculty agreed with that opinion. But CIOs and faculty were largely in agreement that online courses don’t come close to the quality of face-to-face courses. BIG DATA Although few campuses in the survey use Big Data to improve student success, some six in 10 CIOs say that it has the potential to improve student outcomes, compared to just three in 10 faculty members. DISRUPTIVE CHANGE Most CIOs and faculty members say their campuses need a moderate amount of change in the next decade to adapt to technology. Only one-quarter say that significant change is needed. CLOUD-BASED TECHNOLOGY The technology officers predicted that more than 50 percent of systems on their campuses would be in the cloud within five years.

MOBILE COMPUTING More than half of CIOs said that mobile tablets would play a significant role in defining their technology needs in the future, although only one-third of them said they had a coherent mobile strategy. One quarter of technology officers said the trend toward students bringing their own devices to campus was straining their networks beyond capacity.

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The Internet of Things http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/ http://selectedreads.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The-Internet-of-Things-Infographic-06.png

These 2 links provide a brief overview of the exploding area of “Internet of Things” (IoT). I believe the Internet of Things represents a significant opportunity for higher education, but also possess many challenges for us as an IT organization. What are the implications for us, in terms of our infrastructure, support services, and offerings in the future?

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Personalized Experiences http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/10/features/like-magic

I think the first six or seven paragraphs (the rest of the article goes somewhat downhill from there) from the article below about what Disney World is doing to personalize the experience for visitors provides interesting fodder to try and envision how we might map that technology to the college. How could we personalize a student’s experience in similar ways? We could know who they were when they walk into a classroom and sat down at a desk. The computer could automatically log in and resume where they were, attendance would automatically be taken, etc. They could buy things by waving their device in front of a screen (Apple watch anyone?). There are many ways in which we might provide a more personalized experience, tapping into what information we already know about them from Homer, Sakai, Student Clubs and activities, etc….

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Campuses moving from online to On-Demand http://www.ecampusnews.com/uncategorized/on-demand-campus-487/ (This article was ‘hosted’ by Campus Management – a software solutions vendor.)

According to Meris Stansbury in her December 17th, 2014 on-line article there is a “super storm of forces” that is putting pressure on higher education to re-think how they deliver educational content to students. Storm number one comes from student’s changing expectations that accessibility to content will be more flexible. The other storm rises from the economic, competitive and financial environments that higher-ed now finds itself. These include:

1. Delivery models being disrupted – students demand non-standard delivery models that mesh with their life styles and the devices they use.

2. Completion is getting harder – the smaller pool of students and increased options means students are harder to ‘catch’.

3. Funding has new budget constraints – traditional financial aid programs may not fit newer student engagement

4. Outcomes are increasingly becoming a driver – 13 states have enacted legislation linking funding to achievement targets.

The interesting point made in this article is that a new “On Demand Model” needed to provide the responses to these challenges to be driven by a business strategy not by technology. Although the two strategies for both obviously need to be aligned, the focus needs to first be on the business.