Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

It’s time to turn legacy HR departments into a digital experience

Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report found that nearly 80 percent of executives surveyed rated employee experience as important, while only 22 percent reported that their organizations were excellent at building a differentiated employee experience. This is often related to legacy human resources (HR) systems that don’t support a modern experience, or fragmented processes that are too manual and don’t use digital tools. These realities can cause your university’s stakeholders to be disappointed with institutional interactions.

Fragmented systems and processes can create frustration for employees when, for example, they’re unable to find the information they need to manage their careers or life events, or when their attempt to execute HR tasks becomes complex and time-consuming.

Today’s digital workforce demands access to information that is predictive, personalized, and easily accessible. So, why don’t HR departments offer something similar?…Read More

How self-service options improve the student experience

With nearly all higher education students using electronic devices to manage their day-to-day life on campus, including uploading assignments to their ePortfolios and managing their course schedules in the institution’s portal via the student information system (SIS), the digital life has become the de facto replacement for paper and pen. Further, students’ expectations—particularly the Gen Z crowd—to manage all of their needs online has led senior institutional leaders to re-examine their processes, chiefly the back office or administrative tasks, enabling self-service capabilities and offering the next generation of paperless functionality.

Implementing new or expanding the use of existing technologies, such as enterprise content-management tools that provide access to e-forms and reduce paper processes, can yield increased efficiencies and productivity, and offer value that improves the overall student experience.

The student-facing side of paperless administration…Read More

For-profits converting to nonprofits to escape government scrutiny?

Some question if a genuine change is happening when considerable profit can still be made below the surface

for-profit-nonprofit

[Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect comments from Grand Canyon University and clarify the University’s in-process conversion.]

As the government cracks down on for-profit institutions, some schools are choosing to convert to nonprofits to avoid the heat. However, they also are facing renewed criticism for what some say are the same profit-making tactics, different name.…Read More

What to look for in a cloud provider of Microsoft Exchange

Here are five key things to consider when looking for an Exchange Server host

microsoft-exchange-providerMicrosoft Exchange provides a rich feature set for email, which has made it a popular option among schools and colleges. And the latest version, Exchange 2013, is a more robust offering than its predecessor, delivering many improvements for schools. These include:

  • Better availability. Exchange 2013 offers higher availability and is more fault-tolerant than previous versions.
  • Greater transparency. Servers are now self-monitoring and work in teams to ensure high availability. When a server detects a problem that could affect the user experience, it transparently switches users to another database.
  • Increased speed. Exchange 2013 provides users with significantly faster speed than Exchange 2010.
  • Windows 8 interface. Microsoft’s Windows 8 interface simplifies navigation on mobile devices.
  • Improved support for mobility. The Outlook Web App has been modified for mobility and will adapt to the user’s screen, whether it’s an iPad, iPhone, another tablet, PC, or laptop.

That said, some educational institutions face challenges in setting up their own Exchange Server. It can be costly and labor-intensive to do this, and using the advanced features of Exchange 2013 requires hardware and training that aren’t financially feasible for some schools.

To overcome these roadblocks, an increasing number of schools and colleges are making the switch to Exchange Server hosting. A dedicated, remotely hosted Exchange Server enables schools to save money on administration and the total cost of ownership, while also redeploying IT staff for other projects and initiatives.…Read More

4 keys to survival in a rapidly changing ed-tech market

Connor Gray, chief strategy officer at Campus Management, shares four strategies for ed-tech leaders to adapt to new innovation

HR-PI-institutions(Editor’s note: This article is part of “Industry Insights,” a new column in which ed-tech executives offer advice and opinions for campus leaders to consider.)

When Borders Books opened in Ann Arbor, Mich., more than 40 years ago, the company was ahead of its time. The Borders brothers had created an inventory system that tailored each store’s offerings to its community. As recently as 2010, the company boasted 511 superstores in the U.S.

What a difference a year can make. When Borders liquidated its remaining stores in 2011, among the reasons cited for its demise was the company’s failure to foresee the rise of eBooks.…Read More

What we can learn from the MOOC experiment

Whether you’re a fan or a critic of the MOOC experience, there are many lessons we can take from these massive open online courses

online-assessments-MOOC“Beyond the MOOC: The return.” That wouldn’t be the worst movie title ever, right?

MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, were the talk of the town in 2012-13. A lot of people heralded the giant eLearning experiences as the tool that would save education, while a lot of others expressed vitriolic hatred for “watered-down” education, and the like.

Last month, I wrote an article suggesting that whether you love them or hate them, whether you feel they are dead in the water or getting ready to finally unleash something incredible, there are some important things to learn from the concept. I argued that educators should try to tap into the lessons learned from the MOOC story, like practical learning, contextual learning, better guidance, architecting social learning, and educating at scale.…Read More