Imperatives

BREAKING BOUNDARIES
The main purpose of education is to equip students for success in life. The world around educational institutions, however, is rapidly changing. Some of these changes are due to trends in society: the population is changing in numbers and composition. The increased focus on individual needs and competition between educational institutions turn students into clients and is driving a customised and service-based approach. Other changes are driven by workforce needs and economic development. Still, the expectation to deliver high quality remains.

Resources available are likely to decline. Governments tend to spend less on education, due to the economic downturn. Meanwhile maintaining quality is a severe issue at many educational levels. New education models, an intense focus on the student experience, and a drive for innovation are among the strategies to ensure that education continues to meet society’s needs. Therefore educational institutions will have to adapt new operating models and information technology to support education, finance, logistics and research, and to fulfil students’ and society’s demands.

Business trends

Several general trends can be identified in education:

• Decrease in available resources
• Growing demand for flexible and customisable education
• Growing competition and internationalisation
• Collaboration across boundaries
• Alliances across the market.

Decrease in available resources is expected at all levels. Due to the economic downturn, governments and funding institutions are reviewing their budgets and trying to find ways to cut expenditures. Meanwhile, an increase in demand and variability of student population is to be expected. This forces educational institutions to rethink their education models, to make costs more transparent and to streamline their processes and organisational structures. Looking at maximising output and throughput, institutions will measure more intensively but also more accurately on:

• Students’ chances for success before starting an education, course or training
• Progress during the process of education
• The students’ level compared to examination standards.

Universities, colleges and schools are working on methods to balance the demand for more customised education with the demand for an efficient and manageable learning environment. This drives the need to new educational models focusing on the students’ individual needs, supported by flexible Student Lifecycle Management (SLM), eLearning systems, and distance learning facilities. This applies not only to students, but also to postgraduates or students who apply to special courses and programmes and lifelong learning. Customising of education will however only be applicable, effective and manageable to a certain level, due to restrictions in accreditation, course planning, and available staff and resources.

Growing competition between universities and colleges is driving the need for a more service-oriented organisation. Institutions need to define their Unique Selling Point and continuously maintain high standards.

The success of educational institutions will require not only excellent results in knowledge transfer to their students, but also a considerable effort to prepare students for their future role in society. This can only be done by effectively collaborating with society itself. Making this ambition a reality
will require collaboration across boundaries. In primary and secondary education this will mean greater involvement from – and transparency to – parents, local community, future employers, supervisory and funding bodies, as well as other educational organisations.

In higher and continued education it will also mean crossing organisational and geographical boundaries. Today’s universities and colleges are building alliances to provide education at several levels and to collaborate on research. Being connected to corporations and institutions will be a prerequisite for higher education institutions to successfully apply the knowledge built up through both pure and applied research. Alliances are also used to collaborate on software development and implementation (e.g. SLM and eLearning). Intergovernmental knowledge institutions are gathering best practices and working on process and reporting standards for education.

Impact technologies

Integrated SLM will support the student lifecycle from student intake, planning, and logistics to examination and sign-off. Student Lifecycle Systems will be integrated with Enterprise Resource Planning systems for financial and HR purposes. Therefore they will replace traditional legacy systems.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is getting more and more widespread for maintaining relationships with alumni, funding companies, and institutions. CRM applications are also used to manage relations with potential students.

eLearning and distance learning will take the learning experience out of the classroom. As diversity in mobile devices and bandwidth availability progresses, technological barriers for eLearning are removed.

Business Intelligence (BI) systems are helpful in measuring and understanding students’ performance and for the monitoring of costs.

Master Data Management (MDM) provides a single view of the student across multiple systems and through the entire student’s lifecycle.

Identity and Access Management ensures that secure content is accessed only by those entitled to it. This not only occurs for content, but also for physical entrance to institutional buildings, libraries, and sports facilities.

Collaborative technologies, Web 2.0, and social networks will enhance the areas of knowledge transfer and collaboration across boundaries both internally and externally. This will provide means to enhance involvement from and transparency to parents, local community, future employers, supervisory and funding bodies, as well as other educational organisations.

Outsourcing is on the agenda. Effective management of third-party vendors is vital. IT departments are organising demand-supply functions, and are collaborating more with other institutions.

Cloud Computing institutions will seek shared sourcing of IT services: infrastructure, platforms, and applications. The trend will be to source IT services for support processes out of the cloud. This concept is a paradigm shift whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer have need of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure ‘in the cloud’ that supports them.

Open source applications – as well as content developed within communities – will become more widespread. Challenges will remain on integration into existing application landscapes and curriculum standards.

Extensive Business Reporting Languages (XBRL) will save costs and improve efficiency in handling financial and performance information with funding agencies and governmental institutions. xBRL initiatives for higher education are on the roll in several countries.

Mobile applications will bring portal functionality, collaboration and network tooling as well as content applications to the mobile devices of students.

Shared Services Centres (SSCs) will help ensure efficiencies across departments are applied in the area of student administration.

Sustainability is an increasing focus in education. Citizens and customers are increasingly demanding more products and services that use clean energy. Over the next period, legislation on this subject is expected. This means that institutions need to work on ‘Green’ data centres and use applications to monitor and decrease energy, gas, and water usage in their facilities.
 
Collaborative technologies, Web 2.0, and social networks will enhance the areas of knowledge transfer and collaboration across boundaries both internally and externally. This will provide means to enhance involvement from and transparency to parents, local community, future employers,  supervisory and funding bodies, as well as other educational organisations.

Outsourcing is on the agenda. Effective management of third-party vendors is vital. IT departments are organising demand-supply functions, and are collaborating more with other institutions.