Higher education institutions are looking to implement a single, unified student experience across all campus integration points of information technology
COLUMBUS, Ohio – May 9, 2018 – The 2018 TDX Higher Ed Market Study from TeamDynamix has been released and the results indicate college and university information technology departments will focus more on creating a unified student experience. Typically, a “unified student experience” results in initiatives to improve student portals, make it easier to share information, and improve efficiency in IT departmental responses to service requests from all campus departments from Facilities to Residential Life.
“It really is all about engagement,” said Andrew Graf, chief product strategist for TeamDynamix. “Whether it is through mobility and accessibility, better leverage of big data, or to simply have a more streamlined workflow, higher education is looking to dramatically improve student engagement and create multiple paths to get there. The focus is now on omnichannel engagement.”
The 2018 TDX Higher Ed Market Study surveyed 104 IT leaders from college campuses ranging in size from 5,000 to 50,000 students. Key findings include:
- 45 percent of study participants have an initiative to roll out one service platform across IT, Facilities, Residential Life, Human Resources, and other departments.
- Managing projects and specific work requests will no longer occur in isolation as 50 percent of the participants report bringing project portfolio management and service management together on one platform.
- In evaluating effectiveness of student portals, participants gave student portals 2.77 stars out of 5 and identified that areas of improvement include creating better workflow and automation behind the portal as well as using one portal across campus.
“It really is all about engagement,” said Andrew Graf, chief product strategist for TeamDynamix. “Whether it is through mobility and accessibility, better leverage of big data, or to simply have a more streamlined workflow, higher education is looking to dramatically improve student engagement and create multiple paths to get there. The focus is now on omnichannel engagement.”
“A few years ago, we took a hard look at the ping-pong experience across our campus which included all aspects of administrative and academic operations,” said Rhonda Spells-Fentry, vice president, enterprise technology and CIO from Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland. “In doing this, we stepped through the actual experiences of our students and found that our internal structure was disjointed. This situation is not unique to PGCC, it’s the nature of a campus. One of the key outcomes was a decision to bring all these student service groups into one physical location and now we took this same concept even further by creating a single service portal, not only for students but also for faculty, staff, prospective students, and the community at large.”
Read more from higher education CIOs who discuss their perspective on the one-campus, one-portal approach at Palm Beach State College and the student-centered approach to IT at Bridgewater State University.
A recent New York Times article reported that “a little less than half of the nation’s students graduate in four years; given two more years to get the job done, the percentage rises to only about 60 percent.” Retention is a major focus of conversations about creating student engagement, which can help improve graduation rates. A student who has ongoing IT issues or, for example, must inquire multiple times about financial aid is essentially sending up red flags that the IT system is not meeting their needs. These red flags can be valuable data points for the campus IT department, however, are just one component of evaluating engagement. One way to improve student engagement is with a “One Campus Approach” where students access a single portal to satisfy all the information and technology needs on campus.
About TeamDynamix
TeamDynamix empowers colleges and universities, K-12 districts, and state and local governments to work together smarter, faster, and better by aligning resources and processes. With a unified service and project management platform, TeamDynamix customers can focus on their mission to deliver tangible outcomes for their communities. More at TeamDynamix.com, @TDXBuzz, or on LinkedIn.