Change drivers in higher education IT: reflections from UCISA and EDUCAUSE

October is probably the most important month in higher education IT. After a summer of hard work to get their infrastructure ready for the new academic year, and a busy start of the year, welcoming freshers and putting out fires, IT professionals congregate at industry events, to learn from each other and share their challenges. In the UK, UCISA hosted their DIG24 Conference, focused on the Smart Campus, while EDUCAUSE held their Annual Conference a couple of weeks later.

Our team has been at the centre of these events, leading and contributing to important conversations that continue to shape the future of higher education across the globe. Here are our key insights about the top 5 priorities for the sector, across both sides of the pond.

Data

Data is more important than brick and mortar, it’s the institutions’ lifeline, the foundation that supports progress. The biggest challenge and opportunity, at the same time, it can be a blocker or an enabler, a double-edged sword that can get in the way of innovation or can be a catalyst for it.

Without good data, there is no Gen AI, but at the same time, once it’s collected, it must be protected and only used for intended purposes. The good news is that universities don’t have to manage it all themselves. The data management landscape has changed significantly, thanks to AI and automation. This allows universities to not only store their data more securely, but also mine it for insights or isolate it for specific purposes with a fraction of the effort it used to take.

With Gen AI, institutions can make better use of unstructured data in a secure way and interrogate it in multiple ways to ensure insights are reliable.  But before embarking on that journey, there needs to be trust and confidence in its traceability, integrity and validity, with better data ownership. Unlike other sectors, higher education has tons of new and legacy data, being generated at a tremendous pace, so it’s understandable why it is taking it longer to jump on the AI band wagon, but there are positive signs of progress in the right direction.

Once the sector of the custom-build, higher ed is now more open to standardisation, recognizing the benefits of standardised processes and data, and being more willing to change internal processes and use a product as it was built if it achieves efficiencies.

Efficiency and effectiveness

Institutions are managing a difficult balancing act, to continue to improve performance, student experience, sustainability, cybersecurity and new technology adoption with diminishing budgets and human resources.

To do more with less, IT teams are increasingly seizing opportunities to simplify, consolidate, integrate and automate processes, and to collaborate across disciplines to improve efficiency. We’ve seen examples of IT teams collaborating with Estates teams to better integrate the physical and digital realms. From air quality to safety controls, from reporting repairs to managing occupancy, these tasks will eventually be automated, but so much effort and careful planning will need to go into it before that happens. What’s really exciting through, is the eagerness to start now, work with what exists, and keep building to reach the vision.

The age-old sayings “necessity breeds innovation”, and “with every challenge comes opportunity” ring true for the sector right now. Rather than reducing investments in new technologies, many IT leaders are choosing to retire legacy systems and use the financial constraints to invest in doing things differently. For instance, many universities are doing away with desktop computers, instead replacing them with laptops and investing in enabling secure BYOD. Win-win for university and students, who prefer to use their own devices, and take their work outside of university halls.

Taking a whole life cycle perspective on products and services is starting to replace the short-termism previously seen, with institutions becoming more mature in considering the lifetime return on investment. For example, one institution realised the administrative cost of loaning laptops to students was larger than that of letting them borrow them for free, so they run a free medium-term loan scheme to help students without access to suitable devices.

In the same vein, staff hours are now gaining in importance, with efforts to increase productivity by outsourcing and automating repetitive tasks. Software engineers don’t want to spend hours on end packaging hundreds of applications each time there’s an update, they want someone to take that off their plates. To better support the sector, technology will need to be more intuitive, do more of the heavy lifting, and provide actionable data and insights.

Student experience

There are several fundamental cultural differences that sets the college experience in the US c apart from the university experience in the UK., with fundamental cultural differences that sets them apart. The US higher education is currently going through a trust crisis – while many people still value higher education, fewer than ever think it’s worth it. This is demonstrated by the significant drop in enrolments, not helped by the FAFSA fiasco, which has disproportionately affected people from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds. College athletics are also a huge part of the higher ed culture, with so many institutions having to cater for competing expectations when it comes to student experience and success. US academics have a lot more autonomy and power than in the UK, with dogmatic wars between academic freedom, antisemitism and freedom of speech pushing faculty members to ban lecture recordings. This has a flow-on effect on colleges’ ability to provide hybrid and online learning, when demand for online courses is higher than ever.

In stark contrast, the UK higher education has had an interesting domestic resurgence this academic year, with more UK students getting into the first degree of their choice. This is due to fewer international students enrolling in the UK, which brings its own financial problems to a sector that was already struggling. Online and flexible learning is reaching tipping point in the UK, expected to become the norm over the next few years.

But there are so many more similarities for the two systems when it comes to student experience: more students than ever need to work to support themselves through their degrees; the students from disadvantaged backgrounds will need additional supports to succeed; teaching and learning need to adapt fast to meet the rapidly changing workplace demands; students’ expectations for minimal digital standards and use of AI are increasing, and institutions are not there yet.

What we do see in both worlds, is an acute awareness of these issues, a willingness to change and many initiatives to provide flexibility and seamless interactions across the physical and digital spaces, with a focus on tackling inequalities. More on enhancing the student digital experience here.

Security and privacy

Higher education is a hot target for cyberattacks, with 97% of UK institutions reporting a breach or attack in 2023. The stats for the sector are off the charts when it comes to ransomware, impersonation or denial of service when compared with other sectors. But what is notable is that the sector is also a lot better at detecting, reporting and controlling these incidents. Also, unlike in other sectors, cybersecurity is taken seriously at leadership level. Institution leaders have a good understanding of its risks and implications, and they are supportive of investments in this area.

The collaborative nature of higher education opens it to more vulnerability. So, when it comes to cybersecurity, the best line of protection is zero trust – assume everyone will lose your data. If you can’t protect it, don’t share it. If you can’t revoke access to it, don’t share it. Your data can’t be critical and undefendable.

In the US, there are currently no mandatory cybersecurity regulation or standards for colleges, but increasingly more leaders are expecting it to be introduced soon. The UK’s Cyber Essentials (Plus) certification has become mandatory for colleges and post 16 education, but not yet for higher education. This is not an easy certification to achieve and maintain, but many institutions will be required to demonstrate they are taking the necessary steps to protect their intellectual property and their students and staff privacy.

Resilience and sustainability

Institutional resilience is the ability to anticipate, respond and adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in ways that maximize opportunities and minimize negative impacts of unforeseen events. While the US is focused more on resilience, the UK talks more about sustainability. This could be due to the more loaded meaning of “sustainability” in the UK, which includes resilience, as well as the social, economic and environmental impact of institutions on its people, communities and the planet.

There is a lot of discussion around financial sustainability, and the ability to continue to deliver its core mission, whether that is through avoiding existential threats, modernising and securing its digital infrastructure, transforming teaching and learning or remaining competitive in the face of continuous innovation.

What is less prominent in discussions in the US is the other side of the sustainability coin – measuring and reducing its environmental impact and using its purchase power to push its supply chain towards better transparency. This may be due to more stringent environmental regulations in the UK, compared to the US, but also from higher student and societal expectations.

Tools like the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), PAIA (Product Attribute to Impact Algorithm) or the Greenhouse Gas Protocol are being more widely used to assess IT products, both physical and digital, and make better informed decisions. This shows the sector is starting to mature in its strategic and long-term perspective, a trend that will cross the pond to the US in the not-so-distant future. But the sector won’t get too far on its own, it must work in partnership with its supply chain to find joint solutions and achieve sustainability goals that benefit all.

Collaboration and leadership

The “how” is just as important as the “what”, and what really stands out in the higher education is the increased willingness to collaborate, both internally within institutions, and externally, between institutions and with their suppliers.

“We can't do it alone. Initiative leaders need to find consultants and solution providers who understand higher education and have a track record of success with similar kinds of institutions. They can help set expectations with the community and help avoid missteps that have tripped others up in the past”. Source: Educause Top 10.

Daring leadership, as coined by Dr Brené Brown, is more important than ever. The US has a mass leadership crisis at top level. The political polarisation around the Israel-Hamas war, and the deepening divergence of views on the value and function of higher education in society, is creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and putting Presidents in a position of public scrutiny and criticism many prefer to avoid. (Deloitte 2024 Higher Education Trends)

While riding the political and ideological wave, institutions need to create multiple layers of leadership, devolve decisions and responsibilities to ensure not only business continuity, but also a widespread ability to shape and execute their strategic objectives.

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