Top 10 IT Issues, 2020: The Drive to Digital Transformation Begins | EDUCAUSE Review

The EDUCAUSE 2020 Top 10 IT Issues describe the start of the higher education drive to digital transformation, as colleges and universities work to simplify, sustain, and innovate.

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Colleges and universities today face numerous and varied challenges, as Susan Grajek and the 2019–2020 EDUCAUSE IT Issues Panel reports.

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Higher education leaders know that with so much at stake, perhaps even their own institution's survival, transformational change is needed. Leaders are hoping to serve different types of learners, offer more flexible credentials and learning opportunities, expand research efforts, and develop new partnerships with employers, industries, and local schools and communities. They are, in short, seeking to adapt and even radically alter their business models and the value delivered by their colleges and universities.

Technology has a significant role to play. In the past twenty years, digital technology has advanced rapidly enough to evolve from enabling back-office operations to expanding access to businesses and institutions, delivering new kinds of products and services, adapting offerings to specific needs and interests, and generally providing a competitive advantage to organizations that can use technology innovatively and well. This use of technology is being described as digital transformation (aka Dx). Higher education too is embarking on Dx, which EDUCAUSE defines as "a series of deep and coordinated culture, workforce, and technology shifts that enable new educational and operating models and transform an institution's operations, strategic directions, and value proposition."¹

The EDUCAUSE 2020 Top 10 IT Issues tell a story of how higher education is beginning its digital transformation journey. Colleges and universities are working to unmake old practices and structures that have become inefficient and are preparing to use technology and data to better understand and support students and to become more student-centric...

For higher education to meet these challenges, nothing less than transformative change will do. Dx is the mechanism for such change. The journey will be long and unpredictable. It begins with shoring up existing foundations via simplification and sustainability. It picks up speed with innovation. The integrative CIO will help ensure a smooth ride to the right destination. Thus the drive to digital transformation begins. 
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Source: EDUCAUSE Review