The world has gone through a severe transformation over the past three decades. The massive computers of the 1980s were replaced by fast, nimble, and incredibly powerful supercomputers found in almost everyone's pocket. This technological change has brought people to access services at any time of day and night and from practically anywhere in the world - leading to a significant shift that's also happening in higher education.
Statistics show that by 2022, at least 10% colleges will use a variety of smart technologies to enhance student success rates. By 2022, 80% of smartphones will have pre-equipped artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. It was only 10% in 2017.
Cognitive computing, or the coming together of AI, machine learning, and big data, will bring a high degree of personalization to every part of the economic landscape. Higher education, in particular, will play a crucial role in how this technological change will evolve, making it responsibility for Education CIOs to learn and adequately understand the potential and the risks involved when developing a strategy centered on this technology.
The Challenges of Personalization in Higher Education
Technology is and has always been an enabler for new strategic capabilities in higher education. The challenge, however, will fall on CIOs to create a business case that fits the more substantial strategic investment and can support the fundamental change needed in operating models.
The institutions seeking to take the strategic advantage by adopting early technology will realize that some critical tools, architectural elements, and capabilities needed to support advanced analytics are not yet available on the market. It means that they need to either build their own or outsource some of these development efforts.
Nevertheless, service personalization is a strategic step that colleges and other learning institutions need to take to remain relevant and competitive in the market.
On-Campus AI
Just like Uber disrupted the taxi sector, Airbnb the hotel industry, and Amazon in retail, it is only a matter of time before something significantly similar will also happen in higher education.
Personalized learning - The traditional - one module guide for all - model is quickly replaced in universities by AI algorithms that can personalize content for each student's needs and learning pace.
Performance monitoring - Blockchains will revolutionize the way how universities operate by automating a wide range of processes such as the recognition and transfer of credits, registering and recording of scholarly research property rights, etc.
Enhanced Customer Care - Cognitive computing can also help improve customer care and experience by providing a 24/7 online advisory service where students can ask various questions and receive instant answers.
Student Flexibility - Tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices will become the primary delivery methods as students will have the possibility to use whatever platform and study from wherever they want.
Smart Campuses - Smart classrooms can be personalized for different faculty members, monitor attendance, or better supervise exams. Intelligent campuses can remotely monitor and control every of the university's facilities and systems like parking lots, alarms, heating and lighting systems, room usage, and so on.
The college campus has been exposed to a pervasive growth of personal computing over the past several decades. In the coming years, however, a new wave of changes will take place - a wave of personalization fueled by AI and big data. Higher education institutions have an opportunity to lead this transformation in the new era. If you want to learn more about personalization and AI, contact us today!