When colleges and universities were first forced to go virtual in 2020, there was a scramble to get everyone online. And while those early virtual meeting rooms performed adequately under the circumstances, they were hardly operating as robust learning platforms. However, they were ideal for figuring out what worked and what needed improvement to support better learning environments and more efficient student engagement. The designers of Adobe Connect took advantage of that feedback, creating a fully customizable platform that educators can use to configure virtual classrooms perfectly suited ..read more

While most faculty agree that ed tech enhances the teaching and learning experience, many question whether higher education administrators are choosing the right products. In WGU Labs’ College Innovation Network survey of nearly 500 faculty members at post-secondary institutions, 30 percent of respondents said they do not trust their institution to choose effective products, and 27 percent do not trust ed tech vendors to provide effective products. To establish trust, administrators need to include faculty members in decision-making and provide more robust support during implementation and ..read more

Colleges and universities should harness the full benefits of their data centers to bolster student, faculty and staff services using transformative solutions. For that to happen, CIOs and CTOs must analyze, integrate and optimize their current and planned use of data virtualization solutions.   By virtualization, I mean solutions that empower IT data centers to run multiple independent computing sessions simultaneously on a single physical computer. By enabling one system to support or host multiple guest virtual machines, institutions are essentially sharing hardware resources. Colleges ..read more

Managing the end of the device lifecycle for things like phones, tablets, laptops and desktops can turn what might seem like a basic IT task into a circus of political and financial conversations at higher education institutions. To bring some objectivity to the process, consider these five questions: 1. Has the Device Use Case Changed? Before simply replacing an older device with an updated model, ask end users if their use cases have changed. A shift from desktop to mobile, or vice versa, may be in the works. Laptops, desktops and tablets can be upsized or downsized, depending on u ..read more

There’s a common misconception about zero trust. It presumes that higher education institutions must make costly financial investments in newfangled security products in order to protect themselves from the scourge of cybercrime. Very little of that is true. The zero-trust philosophy — put simply as the implementation of a security architecture that automatically denies access to everyone before analyzing permissions to determine which people and/or devices can access which areas of a technology IT ecosystem — is not a product one can buy. There is no shiny new tool that will, on its own, set ..read more

The federal government responded to the changing higher education landscape in the early part of this decade by making significant grant funds available to colleges and universities to promote student safety and help institutions offer remote and hybrid instruction. Those funds, most notably the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, expired last year, and while the cutoff was expected, the gap in funding may have left some administrators searching for additional dollars to transform university technology. One area where higher education institutions can still tap into government funding and ..read more

Anyone versed in the use of security cameras is familiar with the DORI standard: When surveying a site, the decision about where to position a device will affect the camera’s detection, observation, recognition and identification capabilities. While universities in the market for a physical security upgrade don’t need to understand everything about DORI, they should be prepared to help their vendors position cameras for maximum coverage. Here are a few considerations when you’re ready to begin your site assessment. CASE STUDY: Learn more about how Bowie State deve ..read more

The benefits of device management are fairly straightforward. It’s a tool (or set of tools) that removes the human element from deploying, maintaining, securing and replacing the laptops, desktops, tablets and smartphones that power higher education. So, why isn’t every university IT team in the country outsourcing device management? The answer to that is also fairly straightforward: Higher education is in the midst of belt-tightening, and device management programs mean that institutions are asked to spend money on something that almost any trained IT person could do just as well. That’s an ..read more

The attendance, performance and other data students generate during each academic year can paint a vivid picture of their college experience, including what factors contribute to or undermine the likelihood that they’ll graduate. That information could prove increasingly important as institutions edge closer to the enrollment cliff, when a reduction in high school graduating class size is expected to cause a steep drop-off in higher education enrollment as early as 2025. Although enrollment increased in fall 2023, it decreased in the three years prior, according to a National Student ..read more

A common misconception in higher education is that colleges and universities focus primarily on the success of the learners enrolled on campus. After all, that’s when they are under the care of an institution, learning in their chosen area of study, engaging in co-curricular activities and possibly living under the school’s banner. However, this is only one part of a larger student lifecycle, and as the 2025 enrollment cliff looms, it’s getting harder to attract new learners from a decreasing pool of prospective students. Institutions that invest in the people and tools that inform the entire ..read more