The rapid pace of change in the education industry coupled with even more rapid technological innovation and usage is requiring institutions to plan for a future where the only certainty will be increased demand for services and fewer resources with which to deliver them. Students, families, government and regulatory agencies, and even the public are demanding far more from their education institutions.
In response to these demands, many institutions are reconsidering their strategies for buying, maintaining, and delivering IT services. In the near to medium term, even the most entrenched beliefs and approaches will be under review in order to transform the institutional IT landscape into one capable of far more flexibility, agility, and even efficiency.
The competitive landscape for vendors serving the higher education market is shifting rapidly in new and unexpected ways. Segmentations along solution boundaries are losing relevance as many providers seek to offer a complete and fully integrated set of applications across both academic and administrative computing. Moreover, the rising influence of and demand for consumer market solutions and services in higher education will bring a new set of players to the table. Finding the right solution providers and structuring partner strategies has never been more challenging for institutions and vendors.
The combination of intensifying budgetary pressures, growing demand for improved services, and escalating concerns about long-term solution flexibility and innovation is re-opening the conversation in the education industry around open source solutions. Utilizing an open source approach for enterprise applications can be a particularly complex and potentially onerous endeavor, but a number of interesting options have emerged for institutions.
Cloud computing has created considerable buzz across most industries, and with the rampant success of the free university email services by Google and Microsoft, the institutional door has opened for it as well. Nevertheless, significant questions remain around the ability of the cloud to deliver true cost savings for colleges and universities without compromising quality of service and, more importantly, the security of student and personnel data.
After years of struggling with how to contend with the surging and unmanageable cost of textbooks, the higher education industry is perched on the precipice of adopting digital textbooks in ways that are more pervasive. New, and wildly popular, consumer technologies and attractive pricing models for purchasing content are making their way through the campus gates. Yet, questions remain about the how these options should be deployed on an institution-wide basis and ultimately impact instruction, student finances, and the role of the campus bookstore.
In ever-increasing amounts, relationships are created, opinions are formed, and information is communicated through social media. Few institutions fail to see the tremendous potential of harnessing this tool to power recruitment, retention, and development efforts, particularly within the scope of a larger relationship management strategy. Yet, unlike enterprise applications, the technology underpinning social media and student preferences for it evolves rapidly and can neither be owned nor controlled by institutions, leaving many baffled as to how to leverage it effectively.
