fall semester technologies

13 strategic technologies to keep on your fall semester radar


Institutions are focused on strategic technologies that help support student success and other initiatives

Technologies for planning and mapping students’ educational plans, along with mobile app development, are among the top strategic technologies covered in EDUCAUSE’s 2017 Integrated Planning for Advising and Student Success (iPASS) trends and technologies report.

The report examines higher ed’s top strategic technology priorities. Strategic technologies are newer compared to mature and commonly-deployed technologies such as financial information systems, and these newer technologies are the technologies on which institutions will likely spend most of their time implementing, planning, and tracking this year.

None of the 13 iPASS technologies in the report are currently in place in more than 30 percent of institutions, according to the report.

Student success has for the first time risen to the top 10 issues included in the annual survey of strategic technologies, due in part to a nationwide urgency to address the too-high levels of students who leave their institution without obtaining degrees or certifications.

(Next page: The 13 strategic technologies you’ll want to keep an eye on this fall semester)

The report offers recommendations to help inform an institution’s overall IT strategy and iPASS technology-deployment strategy:

  • Understand how the most influential trends are affecting your institution
  • Review the trends that are taking hold and address them at your institution
  • Understand the trends and consider their possible role at your institution

Researchers assigned four “attention” categories to the technologies to classify the effort the largest proportion of institutions are devoting to each technology. The strategic technologies are grouped according to where they fall in those four categories.

Complete initial deployment and maintain these technologies. Research shows that institutions are planning to deploy and maintain one iPASS strategic technology:
1. Technologies for integrating student records data across case management
systems

Pilot and start deploying these technologies. At this time, institutions are planning to pilot and deploy these iPASS strategic technologies:
2. Uses of APIs
3. Technologies for planning and mapping students’ educational plans
4. Technologies for triggering interventions based on student behavior or faculty input
5. Mobile app development
6. Technologies for degree auditing (documenting and tracking students’
educational plans)

Decide when these technologies fit your strategy, and start planning. Institutions are carefully watching two iPASS strategic technologies, deciding and planning for potential future deployment:
7. Technologies for improving analysis of student data
8. Technologies for offering self-service resources that reduce adviser workloads

Learn about and track these technologies. Institutions are tracking and learning about the following iPASS strategic technologies:
9. Predictive analytics for learning
10. Flexible interactive platforms for descriptive and predictive analytics of institutional data
11. iPASS (Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success) technologies
12. Predictive learning analytics (course level)
13. Mobile apps for institutional BI/analytics

The report also examines 11 trends closed associated with iPASS:

  • Blending of roles and blurring of boundaries between IT and academic/administrative areas
  • Business process redesign
  • Changing faculty roles (focus on advising and student success, growth in adjuncts, etc.)
  • Changing vendor-institution relationships (bypassing IT to work directly with business-area leaders)
  • Changing vendor-institution relationships (moving from a transactional to a strategic relationship)
  • Concerns about institutional sustainability or even survival
  • Data-driven decision making
  • Diversity and inclusivity
  • Institution-wide data management and integrations
  • IT as an agent of institutional transformation and innovation
  • Student success focus/imperatives

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Laura Ascione

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