Are universities
smart enough?

Youth may well be wasted on the young, but not when it comes to exerting influence on the higher education sector. As we prepare to enter the 2020s – poised to embrace the emerging technologies and innovations that a new decade will bring – students are increasingly recognised as a driving force for change and credited with shaping tomorrow’s higher education landscape…and smart universities are listening.

When asked if their university utilised smart campus technology – including connected and optimised ICT technologies, the use of smart devices, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the Internet of Things (IoT) – nearly half (40%) of the respondents were unable to answer either way. Additionally, one in five (19%) answered ‘no’.

For higher education providers that forgo the use of smart technologies, or fail to communicate existing initiatives clearly to students, the next finding will be of concern. More than half (54%) of surveyed students would switch (or consider switching) to an alternate university where better usage of technology and innovation is evident. For institutions hoping to deliver on student expectations and to revolutionise the higher education experience, effectively leveraging smart campus technologies is now imperative.

In terms of service delivery and community expectations, higher education institutions essentially replicate the underlying framework of local government areas – so it makes sense to look toward local councils and their ‘smart cities’ initiatives for insight and inspiration. University and college campuses can be viewed as mini-cities – even with the emergence of smaller, urban-based sites designed to deliver a more intimate education experience.

When forward thinking councils around Australia began to investigate how to bring their smart city aspirations to life, they recognised that the needs of a community and its residents was the fundamental starting point. They also understood that to meet tomorrow’s expectations and work with the new transformative technologies that would emerge meant moving away from legacy software and systems that employed a closed, proprietary architecture in favour of an open protocol. For the education sector - the same base points apply.

When 98 per cent of the student body signals a preference for broad online access backed by self-managed administration capability — and almost 70 per cent declare it vital to their educational experience — it’s probably worthwhile listening.

The study showed that students falling into the millennial and Gen Z cohort expect a consistent student experience across all touchpoints and interactions — 34 per cent said it was very important and a further 32 per cent declared it extremely important. This becomes even more noteworthy when considered in the context of a lifelong relationship that spans multiple degrees.

A logical starting point is the software and systems used to underpin operations. Rationalising multiple standalone applications into a single discrete enterprise-wide solution enables universities to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and streamline processes through end-to-end management of operations. And before a university invests in a raft of smart technology, it needs to ensure it has the right foundations to interpret, analyse and use the data that technology will deliver in a meaningful way.

Maintaining a suite of on-premise products is expensive and unnecessary, requiring dedicated IT resources and a complex integration layer to ensure interoperability. Moving to a cloud-based Software as a Service (Saas) methodology allows universities to operate a simple, cost-effective and elastic model of computing that puts the student community first, rather than the technology.