Schools have been scrambling to meet demand: The new library at St. Edward’s boasts “global digital classrooms” equipped with tools for immersive video conferencing, lecture capture, and content display from mobile devices.
But surveyed campus IT staff cited budgets as the biggest challenge to changing campus technology infrastructure to support a shift to more tech-based learning. In higher education, public universities are facing less funding from states, and because it is difficult to keep raising tuition, many are forced to cut their budgets at a time when they are trying to expand resources, Lausch said.
Class size issues, lack of time, lack of professional development, and difficulties in adapting traditional curriculum to new formats can further impede the move to a new learning model—although these concerns are secondary to budget worries.
“Managing people and budget resources will always be a challenge,” so it is imperative to determine “what needs to be done now, later, and in what order,” Hockenhull said.
At St. Edward’s, faculty and IT staff meet regularly through the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable (TLTR) program to check in on the efficacy of existing instructional technology projects. There, faculty members can also propose new projects and the group votes on which pilot programs merit funding.
To make difficult funding decisions, Lausch and Hockenhull both emphasized the importance of focusing on the big picture.
Even as university IT staff continually push boundaries and expand, “the core educational mission should inform everything you do,” Hockenhull emphasized.
As St. Edward’s develop pilots for putting several degree programs online, he said the challenge is to ensure that the “appropriate academic and intellectual discourse is still there … for a true St. Edward’s experience,” he said.
Campus technology staff should engage both academic leadership and academic assessment, Hockenhull said. He recommended that schools work with accrediting bodies to ensure that adding more technology helps rather than hinders educational outcomes, based on documentation and assessment.
“You don’t just play with technology—you don’t throw technology at the problem and hope it’s going to solve it,” Hockenhull said.
While technology is part of the solution, it comes down to the core mission of providing high-quality education, he said.
As schools move toward the new learning model, they must carefully monitor not only planning, but also implementation.
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