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8/17/2010
In my post dated June 23, 2010, I had just returned from the Career College Association’s Annual Conference & Expo. In that post, I shared what I believe is an opportunity that schools could take advantage of – virtualization in delivering student labs.
The opportunity: Most schools today still follow the traditional approach of setting up classroom sessions by investing in hardware and software, while not providing hands on learning for their online student body, because of the high cost associated with the hardware, software and maintenance of hands-on labs. NIIT’s vLab product offers schools a viable, hands-on learning solution that is a cost effective alternative to this capital intense process, and I had many engaging conversations with learning leaders about this option at CCA.
As we all experienced the heat of the summer, my team and I traveled to Boston, MA to attend Campus Technology Conference in Boston. (You can view the experience on our Facebook page.) But we left feeling the same. There’s opportunity and more importantly – it must be taken advantage of.
To support schools in their efforts to transform the experience and impact student success, including equipping students will valuable immersive learning experiences, we’re proud to host a virtual event.
Join us! September 8, 2010 1pm Eastern | 12 Noon Central | 11am Pacific
Register Here
Virtual Event Attendees will:
- Learn how to profitably add hands on learning components to your IT and non-IT programs for both on ground and online students thereby giving both groups of students same critical learning opportunities.
- Learn how your student community can affordably, safely and reliably practice complex new skills in a live environment.
- Learn how to ensure your student community has mastered cutting edge skills by assessing them in a live environment.
- Discover how Bryant & Stratton, EDMC, DeVry and others have leveraged the vLab technology.
- Gain free access to a special vLabs trial package after the event!
During the event I will also announce how your campus could WIN vLabs for IT program for your winter cohort.
For more information, please contact Versha Sharma at 847-346-0012 or Versha.Sharma@niit.com
6/23/2010We recently attended the 2010 Career College Association Conference, with the theme “Winning Hand… Education, Jobs and a Globally Competitive Workforce,” and showcased our solutions in virtualization and program development in our interactive demo center. As always, this was a lively and informative session. Some of the main questions and concerns I heard from conference attendees:
- What is the current economic climate for educational institutions?
- How can institutions provide hands-on learning opportunities for their students without incurring high costs in hardware, software, and maintenance?
- What is the current state of online learning, and how is it affecting student retention and success?
- What implications does CCA’s name change have for higher education, and how does it relate to recent government initiatives?
- How are you helping other institutions with various government, economic climate and scale challenges moving forward?
Here are my perspectives on those questions.
- The good news: We’re starting to see a recovery from the economic downturn. For-profit (private sector) colleges and universities are experiencing exponential growth rates due to increased enrollments, and overall the sector is gaining market share. This is great news for educational institutions, the partners that work with them, and for the companies who will benefit from these new graduates. However, this also means we must work hard to attract students and equip them with best-in-class learning solutions in order to “keep the good times rolling.” Student Services such as tutoring is a clear means in this area to impact student success. |
- The opportunity: Most schools today still follow the traditional approach of setting up classroom sessions by investing in hardware and software, while not providing hands on learning for their online student body, because of the high cost associated with the hardware, software and maintenance of hands-on labs. NIIT’s vLab product offers schools a viable, hands-on learning solution that is a cost effective alternative to this capital intense process, and I had many engaging conversations with learning leaders about this option at CCA.
- More good news: Online schools are maturing and investing in “immersive” learning models to enhance learners’ experience, differentiate their product offering, and take full advantage of the social media and technology available today. The resulting online learning options are rich with content, engaging and obtain great results for learners.
- Positive change: CCA’s name change to APSCU reflects how the organization is putting more emphasis on private sector schools and universities to build the capacity required to meet the Obama Graduation initiative, which has the goal of helping an additional five million Americans earn degrees and certificates in the next decade.
- One caveat: Based on the points above, the immediate challenge is to lobby the new regulations that are being discussed by the DOE, such as gainful employment, incentive compensation, default cohort rates, and so on, with the goal of curbing abuses in the for-profit sector of higher education. This means that more than ever, we need to work together for learning content to be engaging, relevant, and build skills that translate to the real world.
What were your top 5 takeaways from the Career College Education Conference? Post a Comment.
6/8/2010
Recently I’ve spent much time talking with you about the roles virtualization, business intelligence and Web 2.0 have begun to play in higher education. NIIT’s offerings in program development, virtual labs, and gaming solution are breaking new ground in enabling higher education institutions such as yours to broaden course offerings and equip graduates with highly marketable skills in today’s economy while reducing cost and risk.
While Business Intelligence is big in business, we can take a page from the corporate world’s book and apply lessons learned there to better help us tune the learning experience for today’s students. And virtualization, or virtual labs if you will, plays an even more substantive role as we each grapple with shrinking budgets and the quick pace at which technology changes. Staying abreast of technological advancements and being able to embrace the right changes for our students’ benefit is paramount.
This is why NIIT is once again proud to be involved with the Career College Association (CCA) Convention and Exposition, being held June 9-11 at the Palazzo, Las Vegas. The theme “Winning Hand…Education, Jobs and a Globally Competitive Workforce” is central to what many of you are trying to accomplish today. Our role collectively to train and develop workers around the world is more important than ever.
I’d like to personally invite you to stop by our booth, number 902, where we will be showcasing our solutions in virtualization and program development in our interactive demo center. There you can experience for yourself how NIIT’s solutions can enhance your current activities and programs. Additionally we will be giving away $200 Casino Chips each day of the conference at our booth.
4/5/2010Guest Post by Manoj Kumar Munjal
Now that I’ve discussed the “what” of Web 2.0, I’d like to take a moment to give you a peek into the “why,” as it relates to education. Let me start off with a quick fact:
With so many options on the table thanks to Web 2.0, it is tempting to try to build a strategy that leverages them all, but it’s important to think quality over quantity. With Web 2.0, one size does not fit all!
The following is a core “menu” of Web 2.0 technologies that are most commonly used in the education environment today. If you are considering building out a Web 2.0 learning strategy, make sure you are familiar with the uses and benefits of each of these, so you can best determine the optimal “mix” for your needs.
- Widgets are like mini applications which allow students to explore and digest math problems in conceptual formats, and enable teachers to evaluate and collaborate with students during online exercises.
- Podcasting enables remote access to media-based audio files that can be used to disseminate information, and increase a sense of community for staff and students.
- 3D Technologies are already being used by institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and UC Davis for architectural design modeling, language immersion, photography, criminal justice, vocational training, and business and commerce modeling.
- Blogs can be harnessed to facilitate collaborative learning environments, share information, and serve as an information hub for students and faculty.
- RSS Feeds make it easy to publish frequently updated Web-based content, bringing together information from multiple Web sites on to a single page via an application called feed collector.
- Wikis are open-access Web sites that allow multiple users to create, edit, and organize content collaboratively.
- Video Sharing sites enable institutions to create “how-to” videos, record classroom sessions, produce guest lectures, capture student projects, and (in conjunction with RSS feeds) automate the distribution of content.
The move to Web 2.0 integration may seem like a daunting and complex undertaking at first, and to be honest, it is. But having the vision to take advantage of innovations that are revolutionizing the education arena from both an academic and operational standpoint is simply smart business.
3/19/2010Guest Post by Manoj Kumar Munjal
From Facebook to Twitter to Wikipedia, the information sharing and collaboration capabilities of Web 2.0 technologies have re-shaped the way we live, work - and even learn. Student demand for interactive learning experiences is booming, and in order to engage and attract this new generation of learners, institutions are feeling a more pressing need to get on board with this technology now. Administrators today are asking themselves:
- How are other institutions using Web 2.0?
- Can Web 2.0 technologies be plugged into our existing academic applications?
- How can I position my school to today be ready for the advent of Web 3.0 tomorrow?
Now, in order to understand the advances of this technology, we should really contrast it with its predecessor. Web 1.0, long the Internet standard, was by nature a static, “read-only” medium. It was great for gathering basic knowledge, but lacked the breadth and depth that can only be achieved with an interactive platform.
The advent of Web 2.0 changed all that. Today we can instantaneously create, share, modify, build, and disseminate information. Users worldwide can collaborate as never before, exchanging ideas, opinion, and data, and exposing each other to a growing and seemingly unlimited online knowledge base.
Web 2.0, it seems, was simply made for the education market.
Using Web 2.0-based learning tools and applications facilitates better sharing and collaboration , and makes it easier for students to interact, allowing the best ideas to surface and evolve as participants work together. Students now have an unparalleled opportunity to take their raw ideas and develop them to unprecedented levels.
When integrated into standard curricula and academic programs, I’ve seen Web 2.0 technologies bring enormous benefits to colleges and universities:
- Increased collaboration among students and faculty
- Cost-effective ways of delivering experiential and hands-on learning
- Establishment of institutions as leaders in innovation
- Improvements to Learning Management Systems
It is encouraging to me that some early adopters, primarily those focused on distance-based learning and Web-based classroom instruction, have already tapped into Web 2.0. Others still are beginning to implement social networking, wikis, and blogs—and are getting great results.
So just how does the education sector, still relatively new to Web 2.0, ramp up quickly to begin teaching in that environment? In my next post, I will go over teaching and learning in Web 2.0.
And speaking of Web 2.0, please connect to Venkat on Facebook to get the latest on learning technologies!
2/12/2010Over the last two posts, we’ve talked a lot about leveraging intelligence. Business Intelligence is only, if you will, getting smarter. Change happens fast - and adopting now is the only way they can continue to remain viable in a more competitive, connected, and technologically advanced world. Institutions of higher education, responsible for producing the next generation of leaders, need to take a look at the most fundamental level of their organizations to make vast institutional changes that adapt to these trends and intelligently launch initiatives that will assess risks, identify opportunities, and capitalize on ways to improve operations.
But what if your institutions is perhaps a little smaller, more resourced constrained and lacks the necessary investments, infrastructure and support tools to implement a serious center of intelligence? Today, I want to address my comments to this important audience.
As with any new approach to operations, it’s wise to choose technology that aligns with an institution’s strategic initiatives. There is no one size fits all approach. Here are my tips for even SMALL Schools -
Top 7 Tips for Deploying Effective and Profitable BI Solutions for even small schools
- Start with a Strawman; Identify Your Needs, Objectives , and Benefits
Define your institutional goals and objectives to see where BI will be most helpful. While doing so, find out what kinds of tools faculty and administrators need to improve data collection, reporting, and assessment. Director of new equipment systems from its elevator puts it this way in the business context: “If [businesses] don’t have a very clear idea of what the end result is supposed to be, they should never start.” The same principle applies to institutions of higher learning. You might not be sure exactly how large or small to scope your strawman, that’s okay. If you need a starting point, please read a Case in Practice of BI.
- Create a Definition of what is useful Data: Get Aligned
Establish consistency across data and common data names to avoid redundancy of information and any possible confusion. Also ensure that you determine true data from one source, and identify which tools will best help each user. This kind of organization up-front can reduce frustration and the need to refine processes down the road. As James Young, senior financial systems analyst for book publisher Simon and Schuster, points out, this step is vital: "Otherwise, you'll constantly be patching and trying to make up for that initial mistake.”
- Research the Appropriate Partner for your unique needs
A single platform with a common set of integrated tools will facilitate efficient BI usage across any organization. Research vendors that understand the pain points and objectives of your institution—and the educational sector as a whole—to establish a solid BI foundation that will help you realize your unique goals. In your research you should be certain that your chosen BI partner is one that has experts who are knowledgeable about your system and needs so they can help faculty and administrators understand the best ways to maximize your BI applications.
- Take a 360 Fully Connected Approach: Integrate
Set up a holistic BI solution that works seamlessly with your current systems. Tight integration will help ensure operational efficiency and peak performance. You might also want to set up an executive commitment or governance structure to support each department’s key concerns and business applications for the BI system. Remember this – that which people help to create, they will support. Get others involved and get their stake in the game.
- Make sure your Tools are one’s that everyone can use: Don’t launch without effective Training.
Before you begin using BI tools and systems, it’s best to train all potential users. Training and adoption of the system should be a clear focus in your rollout plan. Take the same approach as you would when launching a new program on one of your campuses. Think of your new BI system in the same light and approach the adoption, participation and ‘enrollment’ of the ‘course’ with the same zeal and positive expectations. Also, be sure to show the community of users success stories of adoption to act as your internal PR ‘team’.
- Testing 123: Evaluate, Monitor and Measure:
Once your users are trained and systems implemented, it’s wise to test out BI in various contexts to see whether it meets the needs of your faculty and staff, and pinpoint any areas that require improvement. Remember, BI is commonly implemented in stages, and it’s crucial to assess each step for optimal performance.
- Continuously Take Stock & Make Adjustments: Continual Assessment
Periodically review your BI systems and processes—particularly if your institutional goals change. Ensure that your BI vendor is there to help you for maintenance and ongoing support issues, and it updates your system to meet your evolving needs.
Share Your Rollout Experience:BI when leveraged appropriately can be a tremendous tool to use in many organizations. My readers would love to hear your unique experience. For those of you in smaller schools who have deployed BI systems, we’d love to hear your feedback on the ideas presented here and even add to them. Please post your comments for your colleagues to learn from your experiences.
2/9/2010
As we continue the conversation on business intelligence, I thought that by placing it as a backdrop to the beginning of the year we’re into might provide not only a more topical focus, but as well might align with where many of your initiatives and teams have been focused upon this year thus far – achieving your 2010 strategy by relying upon key intelligence to support your decision making and sustain your operating processes.
If you recall, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, the pundits and the media are already talking about not only about his comments focusing on the middle class, but also the reiteration of the governments continued commitment to education and once again being the country with the most college graduates. For example, there’s serious talks relaxed student loan repayment options and additional education tax credits including stimulus funding for community colleges.
To start the conversation, I’d like to solicit your ideas on the following:
- How can institutions run their operations, taking cues from successful corporations, and leverage government’s unprecedented support through business intelligence?
- As enrollment is soaring and class seats at nearly maximum capacity, times are good. But how can business intelligence keep ‘the good times rolling’?
Let’s start by looking at some examples of how others, even those outside of higher education are adapting BI as a business tool.
Local Government:
When the City of Albuquerque leveraged BI software to identify opportunities to cut cell phone usage and related overage and usage fees, it saved the city more than $2 million.
Auto Industry:
Toyota uncovered an alarming trend: that it had been over paying shippers two-fold in 2000.
Technology Companies
Google, Yahoo, and other Web-based companies use BI to research trends and capitalize on new market insights, with clearly advantageous results.
Essentially, what all of this indicates is that businesses have been able to unlock silos of information, share them with the people who need them—when they need them, and uncover and analyze clear trends that make predictions about future results. As a result, enterprises and even government agencies have tapped into the power of BI to inform smarter decisions to improve offerings, marketing and operational strategies, and performance as a whole.
Evidently, BI is big in business, but in our case, how can we achieve similar or more successful results in higher education? If we start with higher education’s traditional challenges of Managing Student Records, Increasing Student Retention, Improving the Student Experience and Managing Resources Effectively we can achieve a clear view of how such technology can improve profits, expand programs and campuses and achieve competitive advantage in various education sectors.
Managing Student Records:
The National University of Health Sciences (NUHS) is a BI success case in point. After adopting BI in 2007, NHUS officials were able to view “one version of the truth.” In other words, data was no longer departmentalized, but rather captured and made accessible via a single dashboard. As a result, admission registrars could better track student admissions. As Keith Werosh, University Registrar at NUHS pointed out, “Today, we get [admissions numbers] on day 10 of the term. Before [BI], that information wasn't available until a couple of months into the term. This is a huge help in terms of informing the deans and executive management where we are and where we need to be for each program.”
Increasing Retention and Refining Marketing Strategies:
One of the earliest adopters of BI in higher education is Florida State University (FSU), which invested in BI solutions in 1999.10 Since then, the University has been able to increase freshman retention rates from 84 percent to 90 percent, and can now base admission standards on demographic trends and statistical modeling from the previous year’s data. Richard Burnett, Director of Institutional Research at FSU, suggests that key insights derived from BI allow the school to constantly refine its tactics to gain a strategic advantage in the higher education sector.
Building Efficiency and Managing Resources More Effectively:
Ora Fish, acting director of integrating administrative computing services at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute indicates that with BI, the Institute “can be more efficient in terms of distributing the teaching and researching load on the faculty side.” 12 Resselaer began a BI initiative called “The Data Warehouse Project,” which, according to John Kolb, Rensselaer’s chief information officer, “has allowed Rensselaer to significantly improve consistency and access to Institute information. This has allowed improved planning, forecasting, and decision-making processes for various campus constituencies.”
Improving the Student Experience: Refining and Adding Courses, Site Locations to Meet Student Needs:
Assessment is one of the constant pain points of all Institutions of Higher Learning, yet it is an important tool for understanding how well students are performing and can consequently make changes to improve these outcomes. With BI, colleges and universities can analyze the efficacy of courses and associated learning materials in near real-time and make immediate adjustments that will boost student learning and retention.
At FSU, BI painted a clear picture of which classes were filling up fastest via alerts that get automatically sent out to key personnel when classes were 80 percent full.8 Faculty could then change course sites to accommodate the accurate student loads. This same technology can help colleges and universities expand facilities in “hot” locations. By looking into student records, administrators can see where the most successful applicants are coming from, and seize the opportunity to expand in underserved geographic areas.
Centralizing Reporting and Increasing Accountability:
At The College of St. Scholastica, BI has helped administrators access more information without having to turn to the IT department. Now, says Lynne Hamre, chief information officer at the College, everyone “can easily and on their own go in and make informed decisions on how to do the business of the institution. They don’t have to ask anyone, they don’t have to wonder how accurate the information is.. We know how to get our data. We don’t have to sit and wait for it.”
In summary, Business Intelligence can dramatically transform and simplify the myriad of interwoven processes at today’s leading institutions of higher education. By seizing what was previously unattainable, local intelligence, BI provides an expanded—and integrated—view of data that not only details historic trends, but also reveals current and predictive results, allowing administrators to grasp the story of information in its entirety.
Next Month’s Topic : Web 2.0.
Post a Comment, Ask a Question or Share Your Feedback.
1/29/2010
In my post on emerging technologies in virtualization, I made mention of the role that intelligence can play within an institution. This month’s topic “Business Intelligence” dives deeper into the concept to bring about discussion on how we as education leaders can better harness the power of tools like Business Intelligence.
As with tradition, I’d like to open the post with a few questions for you to ponder as you read.
- How to is your institution leveraging BI to gain a deeper understanding of historical, current and future outcomes
- How are you making fact bases decision on where to open new campuses, successfully introduce in-demand programs to campuses across the institution.
- Consider factors beyond the surge in enrollment, what drivers are you closely monitoring to drive expansion
- Why is there such ambiguity about Business Intelligence?
- What barriers to leveraging such intelligence are you facing? (Again, I’m happy to post a tool kit if enough folks are finding trouble in this area.)
This is an era of new socioeconomic and technological realties. The business world, weighed down by responsibilities to constantly boost performance while demonstrating profitability is slightly different from colleges and universities which have unique and complex concerns that extend beyond the realm of traditional business paradigms. They have obligations to a different “Wall Street” if you will - accrediting and funding bodies, academic leaders, current and potential partners, and students, all of which are susceptible to the same external forces. Essentially, the profits they must show extend beyond the balance sheet and include not just past results and potential, but accountability, enrollment growth, and student progress.
Student records, faculty logs, administrative accounts, funding requests, accountability reports, and course catalogues flood institutional depositories on a daily basis. Finding a way to filter through, make sense of, and improve upon this data presents an enormous challenge which is typically addressed by transactional reports that help administrators answer important questions such as X number of students enrolled in Y classes, with Z results. But these equations, necessary in revealing what has happened, lack vital elements such as why it has happened, what will likely happen next, and what institutions can do about it.
Enter the role of Business Intelligence.
Analytics and their transformation from raw data into concrete tactics and strategies that can catalyze growth is today’s necessary prescription for institutional growth. By integrating and more importantly leveraging Business Intelligence within their infrastructure institutions of higher learning can key in on the same insights that have traditionally propelled businesses to new heights.
Amidst reluctance, businesses have been able to unlock silos of information, share them with the people who need them—when they need them, and uncover and analyze clear trends that make predictions about future results. As a result, enterprises have tapped into the power of BI to execute smarter decisions and strategy for growth. We know if business can do it then the concept was born in academia, but the question is not where the idea came from, it’s how can higher education leverage the technologies to produce results? One hypothesis is insisting upon one truth.
Poor intelligence leads to poor decisions. That is why it is crucial, particularly in an increasingly competitive market, to develop core insights that allow institutions to see their organization from one “truth level.” The National University of Health Sciences (NUHS) is a BI success case in point. After adopting BI in 2007, NHUS officials were able to view “one version of the truth.” This example is similar to results seen in businesses with the use of customer relationship management software like Salesforce.com – “one version of customer centric truth”.
Beyond “truth” BI also straightens the “path” and unburdens shared services departments who traditionally were charged with supporting “truth”. At The College of St. Scholastica, BI has helped administrators access more information without having to turn to the IT department. And finally, Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute began a BI initiative called “The Data Warehouse Project,” which was in fact so successful that Computerworld selected the Institute as a finalist for its “Best Practices in Business Intelligence” award in 2006, it also has allowed Rensselaer to significantly improve planning, forecasting, and decision-making processes for various campus constituencies.”
The fact of the matter is clear. “Admission files can connect to financial aid information can connect to student services files can connect to academic records, and so on. The end result can in fact be data which is a) tremendously useful and b) that can actually predict what the student might do next, and even calculate financial aid needs and shifting interests”. Armed with this holistic understanding backed with advanced technologies of BI, administrators can corral all the pieces to fit together, and in turn, apply new insights to refine processes, deploy resources more effectively, maximize ROI, and boost overall campus performance.
For more examples on how Business Intelligence can be leveraged in higher education, download my recent paper on Business Intelligence.
As always, I encourage you to post a comment, ask a question or suggest another topic which you’d like me to address in the coming weeks.
11/27/2009
Earlier this month we discussed the business case for deploying virtualization throughout institutions. This week I’d like to address a second piece of the challenge, emerging technologies with respect to the hands-on experience and their various uses to support a student including performance based assessments.
To get the conversation started, below is a list of questions that I’d like to pose to you as you read through this week’s post.
- How do you currently provide “hands-on” experience to your students in IT related courses?
- How do you assess students on performance without compromising integrity and eliminating the opportunity for “cheating”?
- If your institution deployed such technology, how would that evolve your experience as a faculty member?
We know that virtualization technology improves operational efficiencies and reduces overhead and technology-related expenses as evidence by not only the IDC report (see post Virtualization in Higher Education: Part 1) various other examples and comments listed. But beyond the top and bottom line indicators how can we measure the positive effects of student experience indicators? Is there another case to extend virtualization to improve the faculty experience?
Years ago I was a member of the faculty at NIIT and I often struggled with the ability to assess students systemically and overcome the challenges of the hands-on assessments, question bank, cheating and the like. At the time there wasn’t a technology solution to be able to this virtually, but today there is.
Performance Based Assessments.
Faculty have the difficult task of performing as both coach and non-judgmental mentor, and being equally adept at scrutinizing student performance to see if they “measure up” or “make the grade.” This challenge is exacerbated by inefficient assessment technique and the exhaustive bank for thousands of test items. The fact that most institutions still rely on pen and paper testing only makes things worse.
At the recent Career College Association Conference (Download the podcast and presentation.) I spoke on this new technology and found that a fair portion of the audience hadn’t heard of it. Perhaps you haven’t either. The technology is vLabs. It is a real-time lab environment using virtualization to handle multiple applications anywhere, all the time. Moreover vLabs are created with a combination of multi-tiered software environments, at-the-ready server-side and technology applications, and automated scheduling features, which support an overlay of structured practice for learners. Most of my IT colleagues are familiar with vLabs in some form; they aren’t at the same time familiar with its deeper functionality in performance based assessment.
With virtualization technologies like vLabs, faculty can establish a unified approach to performance-based assessments that can be recorded and retrieved virtually instantaneously. This creates a series of very fortunate events: first in real times students can see whether they are meeting course expectations, no more waiting until next week to get the folded paper with the letter grade circled in red ink. (“Phew” and “Rock On” I hear students say!), second instructors can ensure that course curriculum is overall aligned to objectives (did I hear you say no more grading papers during half time of the college football game on Saturday?), and third – which we can’t forget - institutions can determine the effectiveness of any program. If your CFO or CIO could tap into this type of business intelligence in real time, image the effects on program expansion and funding.
We all are too familiar with the concept of “What gets measured gets our attention, gets funding, and gets taught.” That statement, made by The Center for Public Policy in Higher Education in 2006, is an axiom by which institutions of higher learning today must operate. Particularly now, in an era of increasing scrutiny and shrinking budgets, providing evidence that a school’s pedagogical goals are being met is critical. Using vLab technology can lessen the burden of information while delivering meaningful course intelligence for all stakeholders.
As always, I encourage you to post a comment, ask a question or suggest another topic which you’d like me to address in the coming weeks.
10/30/2009
Fueled by current economic conditions, colleges and universities are experiencing an unprecedented surge in enrollment. While this spike presents exciting new growth opportunities, it also underscores an escalating challenge: how to efficiently and effectively meet the technology demands of a growing student population. In my recent paper, Virtualization in Higher Education, I discuss a number of the challenges that are facing today’s leading colleges and universities and offer tangible ways in which virtualization is creating cost efficiencies, changing the student experience for the better and improving the mechanism by which faculty can interact, assess and prepare students’ for their careers tomorrow. You can access the paper with the following link - http://img.en25.com/Web/NIIT/NIIT_WP_Virtual_Classroom.pdf
Going beyond the content of the paper, I wanted to highlight a few key concepts and start a robust discussion. Through research for the paper and conversations with various colleagues, the same theme seems to surface - some faculty struggle with the concept, while others thrive. Part of the reason I started this blog was to help education leaders find answers to tough questions. To get the conversation started, below is a list of questions that I’d like to pose to you as you read through this week’s post:
How are you using virtualization within your on-ground or online campus? How is it transforming the student experience?
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What benefits are you realizing through the deployment of such technology?
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How did you come to realize that you needed to deploy a solution like this within your campus system?
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What are your greatest challenges with selling the business case to leadership?
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Do you have the tools to get obtain executive sponsorship?
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Would you like some help? Would a tool kit help? (If enough folks are struggling with this, I am happy to upload a tool kit in the next post.)
According to a 2006 Gartner Special Report, “Virtualization is the highest impact trend changing infrastructure and operations through 2012. It will change how you manage, how and what you buy, how you deploy, how you plan, and how you charge.”
While the concept of virtualization is growing in popularity, schools seem reluctant to integrate true, hands-on virtual technology into their programs. And while this might seem an obvious next step to enhance the student experience, schools are still struggling to harness the power of virtual labs across campuses and within programs.
Businesses have already seen impressive savings through virtualization. Let’s take an example to better set the backdrop of today’s challenge: According to a recent IDC study, 88 percent of U.S.-based organizations saved 20 percent of capital expenditures by employing virtualization.10
Then what are we waiting for? It would seem therefore that one way to encourage the transition within academia- and better prepare students for employability in the real world- requires institutions to foster a virtual environment that not only gives students real life experiences and allows them to assess and master the skills necessary to thrive in their careers, but also improves cost efficiencies within the institution’s ecosystem itself.
There are of course a myriad challenges presented by traditional IT labs and large-scale technology deployment, which we all know is complex, expensive, and puts colleges and universities in a vulnerable position: how can school administrators decide between the value of rolling out the latest technology versus the costly overhead required to do so? Will they have the resources to manage a wide range of operating systems and applications? And if they do implement large, complex systems, can they risk losing their sizeable investment if the system fails? While there are no hard and fast answers to any of these questions, schools that utilize virtualization will no longer need to grapple with these tough decisions.
I think however if we ask ourselves a power yet simple question we can arrive at the fundamental thought for developing the business case for virtualization: what is the impact on the school’s business? IF we take the IDC example, a 20% impact on business is pretty sizable to make the shift. What if your IT department could shave 20% off its capital expense? What would that mean in campus expansion, new program development, new technology integration – all aimed at increased enrollment?
Ultimately, by deploying virtualization and it’s various forms, colleges and universities can broaden and streamline technology program offerings, reduce overhead associated with IT expansion and maintenance with less risk than traditional IT-related investments, and prepare our next generation of leaders.
As always, I encourage you to post a comment, ask a question or suggest another topic which you’d like me to address in the coming weeks. | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XsnLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xsn | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.2 | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.3 | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.4 | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 255 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 256 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /highereducationblog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 256 |
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