Gartner Inc., the world leader in research and advice for enterprises, announces the top 10 strategic technologies that will impact higher education in 2019. Gartner highlighted technologies that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in the higher education industry must have on their radars this year, especially as they look to improve their competitive edge and support emerging business models.
"Institutions looking to thrive in the expanding education ecosystem must leverage technology early on to enable them to become more innovative," says Glenda Morgan, Senior Research Director and Analyst at Gartner.
According to Gartner, the top 10 strategic technologies impacting higher education in 2019 are:
sstate-of-the-art security and risk management – There are a wide variety of factors, such as global regulatory compliance, the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape and the expansion of the software as a service (SaaS) portfolio, that are starting to force higher education institutions to address issues security and risk with a multidimensional strategy. "Next-generation security must offer new approaches that support digital business and institutions' academic, research and business goals," says Glenda. “The modern student expects seamless personalized experiences, and therefore typical security goals of confidentiality, integrity, and availability must expand to include privacy, security, and reliability as institutions become more digital.”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Conversation Interface – Conversational interfaces based on Artificial Intelligence are a subset of so-called Conversational User Interfaces, in which user-machine interactions take place in the user's spoken or written natural language. These interfaces make the machine learn what the user wants, rather than having users learn to use the software. Thus, these solutions save students time, increase student satisfaction and are available for use 24/7. "Conversational User Interfaces are expected to see explosive growth in higher education," says Glenda. According to the “2019 CIO Agenda Survey”, the percentage of higher education institutions that have implemented or have plans to implement the use of these solutions jumped from 18 to 38% in just one year.
Smart Campus – A smart campus is a physical or digital environment in which people and technological systems can interact to create immersive and automated experiences, with services that serve all audiences of a university. Smart campus initiatives are still in the early stages, but there has been growing interest in institutions of higher learning. “The smart campus will drive the growth of solutions such as those aimed at robotic process automation (RPA) and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) in higher education. Campus efficiency will be improved and student learning will be enriched with the new features they bring. It's a complete achievement, except for the data security implications that come with most technology initiatives these days,” says the director.
Predictive Analytics - Predictive analytics uses historical data to recognize patterns and assess likely outcomes using statistical or machine learning techniques. They can help with everything, including calculating student demand for a particular course or identifying students at risk of failing, dropping out or transferring their enrollment. “Predictive analytics can be a particularly powerful tool for CIOs in the higher education sector,” says Glenda. “Sceptics might claim that the results of predictive analytics – such as identifying a potential student dropout – could have been determined otherwise, but its real power comes from the way these analytics systems perform the prediction by evaluating a range of factors to solve the problem".
Nudge Tech – Nudge tech is a collection of technologies – Cloud, mobile, social and data – that work together to achieve fast, personalized interaction with students, staff and faculty, such as a real-time text reminder (SMS) to the class. “The idea behind 'poke' (nudge) is for institutions to use data to impact behavior, such as establishing good study habits or having time to exercise between classes,” says Glenda. “Above all, Nudge Tech is a concrete example of how to achieve personalization at scale, which is becoming a key competitive advantage in an increasingly global and digital education ecosystem.”
Digital Accreditation Technologies – Digital credentials are a natural evolution of traditional credentials for eliminating fraud. The maturity of technologies such as blockchain and data encryption, and the evolution of professional networking sites are driving a shift in the delivery of higher education credentials. Students, faculty and the higher education institutions of which they are a part are beginning to expect the ability to exchange credentials quickly and free of charge to enhance the verification and recruitment process. “In many ways, credentials issued by an educational institution are the only tangible evidence of higher education. They should be considered the currency of the educational ecosystem”, says the analyst. “These solutions really allow universities to leverage technology to improve the student experience by giving them more control over their information. The only obstacle is a general lack of understanding of digital accreditation technologies and risk aversion in the high-risk nature of the higher education market.”
Hybrid Integration Platforms – Educational institutions are increasingly adopting cloud-based business applications, resulting in a hybrid portfolio of cloud and on-premises systems. In addition to the complexity of the various integration features required by the hybrid approach, there is the presence of the educational institution's customer relationship manager (CRM) and learning management system (LMS) tools. A hybrid integration platform (HIP) takes advantage of best-in-class integration approaches in both Cloud-based and on-premises environments and is quickly becoming the reference framework for next-generation integration infrastructure.
career software – The importance of career software is reaching its global peak as educational institutions are becoming increasingly accountable for their students' post-graduate outcomes. “Historically, career software has been found in the offices of professional schools such as business or engineering, but we are seeing institutions explore the option of deploying a single career-centric tool at the corporate level,” says Glenda. “The career software market is large and diverse, so universities need to invest time in the tools that meet their specific needs and ecosystem.”
Lifecycle CRM among students – Student Lifecycle CRMs create a 360° view of the entire student life – including their key educational phases, starting with pre-course and passing through candidate, enrollee, graduate, and alumnus status. Historically, most higher education CRM deployments have been driven by the functional needs of individual departments, without enabling a single view of the student.
Wireless presentation technologies – Wireless presentation technologies allow users to project material from a computer or mobile device onto a screen using a wireless network rather than traditional connections. Wireless presentation technologies are likely to become more important as higher education institutions move towards allowing students and faculty to bring their own devices (BYOD) and as the use of mobile technologies such as tablets , increases.
"Institutions looking to thrive in the expanding education ecosystem must leverage technology early on to enable them to become more innovative," says Glenda Morgan, Senior Research Director and Analyst at Gartner.
According to Gartner, the top 10 strategic technologies impacting higher education in 2019 are:
sstate-of-the-art security and risk management – There are a wide variety of factors, such as global regulatory compliance, the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape and the expansion of the software as a service (SaaS) portfolio, that are starting to force higher education institutions to address issues security and risk with a multidimensional strategy. "Next-generation security must offer new approaches that support digital business and institutions' academic, research and business goals," says Glenda. “The modern student expects seamless personalized experiences, and therefore typical security goals of confidentiality, integrity, and availability must expand to include privacy, security, and reliability as institutions become more digital.”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Conversation Interface – Conversational interfaces based on Artificial Intelligence are a subset of so-called Conversational User Interfaces, in which user-machine interactions take place in the user's spoken or written natural language. These interfaces make the machine learn what the user wants, rather than having users learn to use the software. Thus, these solutions save students time, increase student satisfaction and are available for use 24/7. "Conversational User Interfaces are expected to see explosive growth in higher education," says Glenda. According to the “2019 CIO Agenda Survey”, the percentage of higher education institutions that have implemented or have plans to implement the use of these solutions jumped from 18 to 38% in just one year.
Smart Campus – A smart campus is a physical or digital environment in which people and technological systems can interact to create immersive and automated experiences, with services that serve all audiences of a university. Smart campus initiatives are still in the early stages, but there has been growing interest in institutions of higher learning. “The smart campus will drive the growth of solutions such as those aimed at robotic process automation (RPA) and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) in higher education. Campus efficiency will be improved and student learning will be enriched with the new features they bring. It's a complete achievement, except for the data security implications that come with most technology initiatives these days,” says the director.
Predictive Analytics - Predictive analytics uses historical data to recognize patterns and assess likely outcomes using statistical or machine learning techniques. They can help with everything, including calculating student demand for a particular course or identifying students at risk of failing, dropping out or transferring their enrollment. “Predictive analytics can be a particularly powerful tool for CIOs in the higher education sector,” says Glenda. “Sceptics might claim that the results of predictive analytics – such as identifying a potential student dropout – could have been determined otherwise, but its real power comes from the way these analytics systems perform the prediction by evaluating a range of factors to solve the problem".
Nudge Tech – Nudge tech is a collection of technologies – Cloud, mobile, social and data – that work together to achieve fast, personalized interaction with students, staff and faculty, such as a real-time text reminder (SMS) to the class. “The idea behind 'poke' (nudge) is for institutions to use data to impact behavior, such as establishing good study habits or having time to exercise between classes,” says Glenda. “Above all, Nudge Tech is a concrete example of how to achieve personalization at scale, which is becoming a key competitive advantage in an increasingly global and digital education ecosystem.”
Digital Accreditation Technologies – Digital credentials are a natural evolution of traditional credentials for eliminating fraud. The maturity of technologies such as blockchain and data encryption, and the evolution of professional networking sites are driving a shift in the delivery of higher education credentials. Students, faculty and the higher education institutions of which they are a part are beginning to expect the ability to exchange credentials quickly and free of charge to enhance the verification and recruitment process. “In many ways, credentials issued by an educational institution are the only tangible evidence of higher education. They should be considered the currency of the educational ecosystem”, says the analyst. “These solutions really allow universities to leverage technology to improve the student experience by giving them more control over their information. The only obstacle is a general lack of understanding of digital accreditation technologies and risk aversion in the high-risk nature of the higher education market.”
Hybrid Integration Platforms – Educational institutions are increasingly adopting cloud-based business applications, resulting in a hybrid portfolio of cloud and on-premises systems. In addition to the complexity of the various integration features required by the hybrid approach, there is the presence of the educational institution's customer relationship manager (CRM) and learning management system (LMS) tools. A hybrid integration platform (HIP) takes advantage of best-in-class integration approaches in both Cloud-based and on-premises environments and is quickly becoming the reference framework for next-generation integration infrastructure.
career software – The importance of career software is reaching its global peak as educational institutions are becoming increasingly accountable for their students' post-graduate outcomes. “Historically, career software has been found in the offices of professional schools such as business or engineering, but we are seeing institutions explore the option of deploying a single career-centric tool at the corporate level,” says Glenda. “The career software market is large and diverse, so universities need to invest time in the tools that meet their specific needs and ecosystem.”
Lifecycle CRM among students – Student Lifecycle CRMs create a 360° view of the entire student life – including their key educational phases, starting with pre-course and passing through candidate, enrollee, graduate, and alumnus status. Historically, most higher education CRM deployments have been driven by the functional needs of individual departments, without enabling a single view of the student.
Wireless presentation technologies – Wireless presentation technologies allow users to project material from a computer or mobile device onto a screen using a wireless network rather than traditional connections. Wireless presentation technologies are likely to become more important as higher education institutions move towards allowing students and faculty to bring their own devices (BYOD) and as the use of mobile technologies such as tablets , increases.
EN 
PT 
