The future of higher education

IBM The future of higher education

Insights from the ACE Fellows Community

http://campustechnology.com/Whitepapers/2012/10/IBM_Future-Higher-Education/Asset.aspx

“The roundtable focus group discussed emerging themes sur-rounding key leadership issues for higher education, investments in the coming years, and the role of technology in enabling transformation.”

Pullquotes:

“The general consensus was that higher education needs to adapt learning experiences to their students and focus on the development of future-relevant skills within a more sustainable cost structure.”

“Today’s students are more diverse in terms of their job needs, expectations, maturity, exposure to learning, technology knowledge, sense of self, independence of learning and learning preferences.”

“The employees and leaders of the future need different skills to compete in today’s increasingly services-dominated job market.”

“”Today there is a discon-nect between what employers say they want and who they hire.” Employers increasingly hire workers who are proficient in problem solving, adaptability and information technology. But the skills that students are learning and current workplace demands are out of alignment.”

“In contemplating the institution of the future, the roundtable participants considered opportunities to create new models for learning, teaching, organizational structure and priorities. Delivering institutional success, or even understanding the worth and meaning of a college degree, is potentially polarizing. As an ACE Fellow asked, “What is learning, and how can you really measure what is being learned?””

“Transformation in higher education will require leaders to be courageous in enacting new business models and programs to embrace the future. To understand what institutional success means and to boost performance, educators need to work to establish common goals and gain insights from a range of areas.”

“Measuring, monitoring, analyzing and optimizing the following areas emerged as ideas from the roundtable that could lead to a better understanding of institutional performance:

•  Agreement on mission and goals among all members of the learning community
•  The ability to attract the right faculty to support strategy
•  Clarity of the role of faculty in implementing change
•  Creating a culture that supports and encourages innovation
•  Creating a learning environment that engages and inspires students
•  Academic programs linked to the larger community and economic impact “‘

“Technology can be a means to an end that frees up capacity for other purposes and uses. To build the skills needed in a twenty-first century global workplace will require fundamental changes in how higher education operates. ACE roundtable participants were asked, “How can technology solve some of our challenges? Have we even begun to mine the ways that technology can help us?””

“Through cloud computing and virtualization, regional educa-tional institutions also can deliver administrative services to multiple sites more efficiently and effectively. These shared services environments can increase the reliability and quality of services while gaining economies of scale through collaboration with peers and partners.”

Stephen