A report from the Centre for Global Higher Education examines the impact of educational technology
The use of educational technology is widespread in higher education, but universities are less advanced in this area than people would expect, according to research published by the Centre for Global Higher Education.
The research, part of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project entitled Universities and Unicorns: Building Digital Assets in the Higher Education Industry, looks at how universities are using edtech and where they or the products are falling short. It was published on 17 April.
Here, we pull out five themes identified in the research.
1. Edtech in higher education is less advanced than imagined
According to the report, there is “a discrepancy between the promises of the edtech industry regarding the quality and impact of digital products and services and the perception of university customers”. Many of the universities spoken to as part of the project, along with some edtech companies, reported that the “current quality of edtech products is generally low compared to other sectors”.
2. User data analytics are not well developed
Many digital products available to universities allow the monitoring of user data analytics, offering the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the students and staff who use them. However, these analytics “are simple and remain at the level of basic descriptive feedback loops for the user”, the report says. Edtech companies are making efforts to convince customers of the value of these analytics, it adds.
3. Universities are building data warehouses
“Universities are in the driving seat of their institutional datafication,” the report states, saying that many are establishing data warehouses and “aim to collect all user data produced by external digital platforms in order to organise and analyse it for pedagogical and business purposes”.
Currently, though, some universities “lack the capacity to analyse, interpret and act on data”, and they need to establish “frameworks for action based on data” so they can use the information to drive decision-making.
4. Democratic data governance is needed
The report says that universities could do more to inform students and staff about the edtech they routinely use. “Universities should also continuously provide transparent information to students and staff about user data collected from them and what is being done with this data within their universities and externally,” the report adds—and students and staff should be able to opt in or out of data collection and processing.
“Students and staff should be included in the governance of edtech and user data at their institutions,” the paper concludes.
5. Digitalisation is expensive
“Digitalisation and datafication create work and costs for universities,” the report states. While technology products often claim to bring efficiency and cost savings, the universities involved in the research felt that digitalisation and data operations “create more work and higher costs”.
“In addition, new staff profiles and skills are needed, including data scientists, vendor managers and cloud engineers, as well as more learning technologists.”