Investing now in the future of higher education

Hoping to put an end to what he called a “rotten year”, Simon Harris, the Minister for Higher Education, has indicated that face-to-face teaching will resume after the summer.

Noting that the adult population should be vaccinated by then, including students, he pointed to a return to campus.

“College has been reduced to basically looking down a Zoom camera in the box room or at the corner of the kitchen table. That’s ending. We are getting our students and our staff back to college,” he said.

The picture is similar across Europe: Britain resumed face-to-face teaching on May 17 this year, and expectations are high that next year will see a return to something resembling normality. Meanwhile, in France, higher education minister Frédérique Vidal said the 2021-22 academic year will be in-person.

However, the devil is in the detail: French plans for in-person teaching include an increase in so-called ‘hybrid learning’, so it seems that the technology used to keep the show on the road is not quite destined for the scrapheap.

John McCabe, managing director, Damovo Global Services and Ireland, said that a return to campus will be welcomed by all, but remote learning will still feature in the mix in the future.

“Things will get back to normal now, universities will go back to on-campus learning, but remote learning will likely become more common,” he said.

Everyone involved, from the students to the university administrations, is seeking to get universities back open full time. “They want to get some students back onto campus and you can understand that. I think it will be some kind of hybrid model, but with even more AI,” he said.

“Technology can be utilised to enhance the overall traditional lecture theatre experience – delivering a richer experience not only for the students that are there in person, but also the people dialling in remotely, and the academic who is delivering the lecture. The days of one-way dialogue are long gone. It is now possible to make the experience much richer and more collaborative.”

Beyond teaching, though, McCabe said there are significant opportunities for implementing IT systems that deal with particular problems and choke points in the university experience.

“We've just signed a partnership with Teleportivity. Their software can significantly improve the student experience by providing a virtual helpdesk portal, providing students with human support across the campus that can be provisioned from one central location, with far fewer resources,” he said.

Other technologies that could be updated include payroll and accounting, which can be an area of real frustration.

“Let’s say you have a guest lecturer on for six weeks. How do you get them onto the payroll? It's the classic story of business: what are the processes and what is it you're wanting to do,” he said.

If the need for investment in information technology was laid bare by the pandemic, there was also the tendency to view the technology only in terms of teaching support when in fact the uses of technology run the gamut of organisational processes.

“All of the focus has been on remote learning, and rightly so during the pandemic, but there is a lot more in terms of what universities need,” said McCabe.

The thorny question of funding will doubtlessly be raised, with Irish institutions under pressure: student numbers are up and staff numbers are static, but budgets are down.

IT security alone, though, is making the case for greater investment in IT, right across all sectors of society, and recent breaches have proved that Irish institutions are not invisible to malicious actors.

“Security on the networks, as much as any business, is now more so than ever a major issue and security is on their radar,” said McCabe.

Some problems faced by higher education are sui generis, though. Take student registration, for example: thousands of students descend onto campus, all needing to be registered and oriented in a short period of time, thus creating a massive choke point that can bog down administrative services or even push them to breaking point.

McCabe said that no-one was blind to this reality, and Damovo has tailored software solutions in the area.

“Our higher education customers understand the challenges. We've had a number of conversations about student registration. There are ways to streamline and automate these processes using technology, which will deliver a better experience all round,” he said.

In the end, McCabe said, universities and other higher education institutions should be congratulated for their efforts during the lockdowns. Now, though, it is time to plan for the future.

“Like everyone, it was all about keeping the lights on, keeping things going, investing on what needed to be done to support their lecturers and get the exams done online. Now, though, a strategic view must come into play, in order to make institutions more cost efficient whilst ensuring they remain competitive and attract the levels of new students required to be a success.” he said.