EDUCause Issues Its Annual Report on Top IT Issues In Higher Ed – With a 2021 Twist
2020 was a year of radical changes, realignments, and fights for survival in many industries. As we all know, higher education was no exception.
EDUCause’s newest report, Top IT Issues, 2021: Emerging from the Pandemic, reflects the monumental challenges institutions have faced this year. Instead of their usual list of the top 10 IT challenges facing higher ed, EDUCause took a novel approach, basing their report on three scenarios that higher ed IT leaders have indicated their institutions may be facing as a result of the pandemic.
Within each scenario—Recover, Evolve, and Transform—are five issues that IT leaders noted as being most important to them.
This infographic they created gives a solid overview of the issues discussed in the report:
Restore – For institutions facing this scenario, the primary focus is on restoring their finances and surviving the turbulence the pandemic has caused. They also see the vital importance of ensuring digital equity for their students and creating a strong online learning experience, but that has to happen in tandem with a restoration of the institution’s financial health.
Evolve – Institutions that fall into the Evolve scenario are still concerned about finances, but are focused more heavily on student experience issues. Online education and equitable access to that education feature prominently in their concerns, as well as student success related to attaining academic and career goals.
Transform – The institutions in this category are using the pandemic to make large-scale structural changes, launching or accelerating a new agenda that will transform the way the institution fulfills its mission. These institutions are proactively looking to align a heavy focus on technology with their goals of recruitment, enrollment, and education.
Out of the three, you’ll notice there is a good amount of overlap between Restore and Evolve. The institutions in these scenarios face many of the same issues, but due to their individual circumstances, are choosing to place a heavier focus in different places. Institutions in the Transform scenario are taking a more radical approach and therefore face their own set of unique issues.
Regardless of where your institution falls—Restore, Evolve, Transform, or somewhere in between—N2N’s Illuminate platform can help you face those issues head on and provide the best possible experience and education for your students. Right now, change continues to come quickly and unexpectedly, so you need the ability to leverage your institution’s data more than ever. Illuminate is the perfect platform for these unprecedented times, providing a systematic way to integrate your SIS with any other tools you need, so that you can actually use your data to grow more efficient and effective. However you decide to tackle the issues EDUCause has highlighted, Illuminate will be there to help you quickly, affordably, and painlessly integrate new technology on your campus.
We’ll be diving deeper into the EDUCause report in future posts, so stay tuned to learn more about each of these scenarios and how your institution can position itself to thrive amidst uncertainty.
Want to learn more? Contact us to find out how we can help you solve your campus IT and data integration issues today!
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