Never in the history of higher education have so many people in so many different roles worked so hard to achieve a single objective: rapid transition from attendance-based instruction to remote learning. Digital Transformation may be motivated by a variety of factors, but now in particular there is a clear need for a community outside the classroom in which educators and students come together.
Universities are beginning to implement smart classroom approaches and adopt attendance registration systems and technology solutions that use data analysis to facilitate academic planning, boost student success, and drive the continuous improvement of study plans.
The Smart Campus challenge has acquired new meaning given the current international health crisis, and Digital Transformation has become the number one priority as Higher Education Institutions prepare to take a major step towards becoming Universities of the Future. Alongside the need to plan online courses and experiences, diversification of modes of teaching and student interaction is essential if drop-out levels are to be kept low. Another important part of the transition is application of the continuous improvement cycle to the new online model. Services and tools are needed that can contribute meaningfully not only to supporting the move to e-learning, but to ensuring that online courses are appealing, effective and efficient.
Student demand for this type of course is growing and new generations are looking for intuitive experiences with which they can be permanently connected. Institutions that are up to date with Digital Transformation are aware of the situation and are beginning to adopt technologies that will facilitate this new form of exchange. A report by Global Information, Inc. found that the e-Learning market was one of the largest growth sectors in 2019 and will undoubtedly continue to expand given the events of 2020.
Smart Education is the transformation of conventional pedagogy into contemporary methods by means of information and communication technology (ICT). It involves the structural reconfiguration of HEIs and their administrative processes, putting the focus on individual students and their learning needs.
This whole education project requires a space that is tailored to the new needs of users, which is why Gartner Consulting defines a smart campus as “...a physical or digital environment in which humans and technology-enabled systems interact in increasingly open, connected, coordinated and intelligent ecosystems. Multiple elements, including people, processes, services and things, come together to create a more immersive, interactive, and automated experience for students, staff, faculty and stakeholders of a university or college.”
HEIs are reflecting upon their objectives and reconfiguring their facilities and services towards interaction that will work intuitively and promote positive results based on innovative practices, making use of new technologies to improve the consumer experience. Management staff are also involved in these changes and must concentrate on the most important areas: activities that serve a true purpose and promote the campus mission.
However, prompt action can today be seen to play a crucial role in continued student learning and engagement. The present need to move to online learning requires that the focus be shifted entirely onto the student, and this includes the work of academics, managers, departments such as student affairs and accessibility, the campus general council, off-campus programmes, accreditation bodies, communications, and a huge variety of Smart Campus elements.
Creation of an interconnected ecosystem generates a novel and enriching experience for all of its members, but in order to achieve this the focus must shift from processes to results. This involves getting to know students through focus groups and the dynamics of Design Thinking in order to identify the use cases and innovations that are best suited to obtaining the results specified in the institution’s strategic plan.
Design Thinking promotes collaboration and empathy on the part of the student, and these are values that must continue to be instilled through online learning. Developmental interventions designed to improve use of technology by academic staff could help teachers to innovate in their practice.
Concerning this strategic framework, Deloitte proposes a number of key principles that foster a connected and consumer-grade experience for anyone who interacts with the campus, whether directly or remotely, in order to keep the community connected:
Today’s students are digital natives and want to interact effortlessly with technology. The user experience is central: real intelligence will be derived from thinking about personae, user journeys, and each of the underlying user types.
Interaction with the platform should be possible via multiple interfaces: video, voice, gesture, touch. The platform should be predictive and designed to address each and every user in a personalized manner.
Campus needs and the technology to support them will constantly evolve, meaning that solutions should employ a design architecture based on microservices that guide campus transformation. These microservices are self-contained and their components are reusable. The aim is to create software and solutions that are loosely coupled, and which leverage previously developed capabilities and solutions.
This architecture approach allows for the flexibility of “morphing” services, which allows the smart campus to evolve over time and allows capabilities to be reused in any manner. This, in turn, helps with the design of systems that can ensure the ever-changing needs of end users are addressed.
The solution is designed to permit HEIs to collaborate with peers and scale massively. While most HEIs are local in their reach and scale, a smart campus solution should allow for global scalability in order to meet the institution’s goals, and be adaptable to changing scenarios which force institutions to rapidly and decisively adopt new measures.
Whether students are in a physical classroom on campus or in a virtual online classroom (participating from anywhere in the world), the solution can be built to support them.
Deloitte has created a summary of the key characteristics of a smart campus and the benefits of adopting such changes:
The education community benefits indirectly from this cultural change. With new learning models and campus use dynamics, each student has access to conference tools and can join collaboration sessions in seconds. Screen sharing and joint use of applications also permits students to work collaboratively without being physically present in one place. Similarly, digital signage, facial recognition and smart cards make it easier for students to move around campus, making routine tasks and transactions more straightforward.
Decisions that used to take weeks can now be made in hours. Previously deep-rooted organisational and bureaucratic obstacles to agile decision-making are now being overcome by the need to move quickly and as a whole institution.
In the ecosystems within today’s HEIs, an unprecedented number and range of people—from teachers to support staff—are working at full capacity to achieve this transition to online instruction. Teachers who have so far only taught students face-to-face often find it challenging to work using only digital means of communication and instruction. Staff previously engaged in a variety of services provided by the university now spend the majority of their time working to support teachers and students in remote learning, and all of them are concerned with ensuring the best possible scenario for our students and teachers.
The transition toward Smart Campus had already begun, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that this form of university experience will soon exist in a variety of manifestations according the objectives of each HEI. In order to successfully execute a project of this complexity, we must study members of the community and improve our understanding of them over time. As a result, the university experience will successfully produce true role models rather than mere reproducers of information.