Top Higher Education IT issues of 2021
Typically, the EDUCAUSE, a community that takes on challenges of IT technology to advance higher education, has listed TOP 10 IT issues expected to affect HE in the following year. As the pandemic has made 2020 very different and challenging and looking into 2021, it seems the future is still uncertain also within the IT technology and education.
The EDUCAUSE IT Issues Panel has decided to take a different approach to compile the list as the task has become more challenging at these times when no-one can reliably predict what tomorrow holds. Throughout the pandemic, the organization learned a different way to plan and work; they learned about how useful scenarios can be when one is faced with uncertainty since scenarios can help planning for alternative futures.
Higher education is not an exception and is facing multiple possible futures and scenarios, each with its own complex challenges and priorities. Acknowledging this, EDUCAUSE has worked out three lists considering that HE institutions would find themselves in one of three scenarios (or a combination): restore, evolve or transform. The set of these three lists consist of the five top issues that universities can expect to face per scenario, depending on where they are in their response to the events of the COVID-19 situation and the resulting shift to remote, online or hybrid learning.
This scenario assumes that the institutions will do their best if they go back and restore the conditions to what they were before the pandemic.
The top 5 issues selected in this scenario were:
Cost Management: Institutions will put their focus on reducing costs and increasing workforce efficiency.
Online Learning: The universities and colleges will need to acknowledge that going back to the only face to face learning is not an option and put effort into strengthening online and hybrid education.
Financial Health: Budget needs to be revised by Universities mainly because of increased IT technology used for teaching.
Affordability and Digital Equity: Institutions will need to be focused on providing increased support for students’ technology needs and enabling technology availability taking into consideration that not all the students have access to adequate technology.
Information Security: Institutions might require tighter information security leadership.
For some institutions or at least in some aspects of their future strategies going back to the way things were before the pandemic is not an option as new approaches to remote and online learning has been established the institution would not be able to return back to previous ways but that they must adapt to a new version of normal.
The top five IT issues in this category were:
Student Success: In order to to help students attain academic and career goals schools may be looking to advance student support services
Equitable Access to Education: Students might have different backgrounds and access to technology, the universities and college will need to ensure support to these students and establish policies to follow this.
Online Learning: The institutions need to make sure that online learning is no longer an emergency remote option of teaching, but it must be evolving to intentional online learning.
Information Security: Evolving universities need a well-developed cybersecurity operations strategy.
Financial Health: Universities will need to consider to source funds from different channels by partnering and collaborating with other businesses or institutions.
The third scenario might be considered the most advanced, but for some institutions, this might be an answer, as they continue investing in the transformation and they choose to take an active and innovative role that will shape the future of HE.
The top five issues here were:
Institutional Culture: A university must support the creation of their own institutional culture that might involve the use of technology, considering students backgrounds and helping creating student communities a socializing safely.
Technology Alignment: Colleges and universities will need stronger IT teams who can identify and apply sustainable strategies and chose the right innovations.
Technology Strategy: An enterprise architecture that keeps pace with strategic changes and directions need to be developed by Universities.
Enrollment and Recruitment: This will involve exploring and implementing creative, holistic ways of recruitment to attract students using online technology, social media.
Cost Management: Institutions will need to budget for digital transformation, training of current or new teachers to be able to support students with technical issues, ensuring all courses are running smoothly.
These lists and scenarios are now, more than ever, important to consider them for the HE institution to recover from the pandemic crises.
