Higher education Chief Information Officers can maximize education delivery by adopting automation and business composability much like many innovative CIOs have done in leading industries.
Research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc., defines a composable enterprise as “an organization that delivers business outcomes and adapts to the pace of business change.” Higher education CIOs can use business composability to restructure in the face of uncertainty and adversity, and ultimately achieve results, according to Gartner.
IT budgets in institutions continue to outgrow overall budgets, showing a continued shift toward IT dependency. Expected change in IT budget in 2022 shows that 55 percent of higher education respondents expect an increase in budget, 24 percent expect staying the same, and 21 percent expect a decrease, according to Gartner.
Deployment of emerging technologies within the next 12 months, according to survey’s respondents include the following:
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- Distributed Cloud
- Responsible AI
- Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
- Edge Computing
- Composable Enterprise
- Multi-experience Development Platform
- MLOps
- 5G
- Digital Twin
A total of 72 percent of higher education CIOs responded that they have already deployed or will deploy Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning within the next 12 months, and 70 percent of respondents reported the same on Distributed Cloud. Responsible AI and SASE shared third place with 49 percent of respondents.
Technology dependence is not just about general emerging technologies or infrastructure; each industry has specific software that is paramount for operation. In higher education, the list of specific software continues to increase as software matures and becomes established tools in everything operation.
Common and emerging software with relevance for higher education automation:
Source: Gartner, Inc
The above answers come from higher education CIOs and technology executives who indicated their institution’s interest or activity regarding investment in education-sector-specific technologies including totally new investments and replacing existing ones. The data is part of the 2022 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey.
According to Gartner, some established software such as Learning Management Systems (LMS), Student Information Systems (SIS), Finance, and Human Resources present a cyclical nature. Some education-specific software such as Digital Assessment and Digital Credentials will continue to increase in adoption. Others, such as Learning Analytics and Adaptive Learning seem to have stalled. According to the analyst, there are multiple reasons for variation but the implication for the CIO is that it is important to plan the overall life cycle of software as there is opportunity cost to everything, even upgrading a finance system.
Gartner recommendations to higher education CIOs and other technology executives who are involved in education-specific Digital Transformation include:
- Promote autonomous, self-organizing teamwork by bottom-up support of the rising fraction of business technologist in higher education to achieve increased frontline productivity
- Share accountability among IT, the institution, and business partners in the ecosystem by creating digitally supported feedback loops that constantly optimized output
- Establish intensive development as the default approach by identifying the minimum viable components that improve composability and re-composability, and reduce the risk of incurring technical debt
The 2022 CIO Agenda: A Higher Education Perspective was based on a survey conducted by Gartner which included a total of 2,387 global CIOs and other IT leaders, including 235 from higher education.