We Have the Technology To Support Student Success, But Why Isn’t It Available?

As the world transitions through year two, and yet another strain of the pandemic virus, many colleges and universities are still struggling with implementing advisement programs, degree planning, and alert systems needed by students to maintain academic standing and attain their academic goals more efficiently. There are many newly developed technologies available today that can help students succeed, however, recent research shows that many institutions, faculty and staff are still not ready and able to implement these new technologies to help at risk students reach their goals.

In a recent survey conducted by Educause, data shows that while over 70 percent of institutions have policies and best practices in place for developing and safeguarding data management and governance, less than half actually have the technology in place to capture and share the data across organizational systems (Galanek, Gierdowski, 2019).

And while having policies, best practices and limited technology available is important for driving student success, providing the training and applications required to access the data for students, faculty and staff to monitor progress is even more critical. Of the institutions who support the adoption and use of technology systems that support student success, a little over half of those actually provide the training needed to effectively use the technology (Grajek, Brooks, 2020).

More importantly, students who are struggling through personal situations, health crisis, or academic difficulties, as well as those students who require guidance on degree planning or managing how to apply their academic credits across multiple institutions, need access to and training for managing success. Thankfully, most institutions today have the digital technology in place for degree auditing, planning and credit transfer capabilities, but less than half provide a self-service course or program recommendation system, and even fewer provide any counseling or community referral resources for those at serious risk, and in todays limited remote environment, lack of access to this critical information technology can be highly detrimental to success (Gierdowski, 2019).

The last few years have been difficult on students, faculty and staff, adopting to full or part time remote learning environments, then back and forth to campus, dealing with the pandemic effects and surviving the stress has taken its toll on everyone. Now more than ever, it is critical that higher education institutions not only adopt important policies and best practices, but actually develop and implement the technology needed to drive student success.

At risk students looking for counseling help, and those students requiring guidance and information on how to manage their academic information, along with the support from faculty and staff, all require access to available technology, and the critical training needed to drive student success. This important technology is available, we just need more institutions to implement them as quickly as possible.

References

Galanek, J., Gierdowski, D. (2019). 2019 Study of Faculty and Information Technology. Educause. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2019/12/2019-study-of-faculty-and-information-technology

Gierdowski, D. (2019). ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology. Educause. https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/ecar-study-of-undergraduate-students-and-information-technology/2019/executive-summary-and-introduction

Grajek, S., Brooks, C. (2020). How Technology Can Support Student Success during COVID-19. Educause. https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/3/how-technology-can-support-student-success-during-covid19