EDUCAUSE Reports that Higher Education Says AI IOT & Social Media Having Limited Impact. What?3/25/2019 EDUCAUSE Reports that Higher Education Says AI, IOT & Social Media Having Limited Impact. What? https://ift.tt/2HFh1xF I’m still stunned by the results of EDUCAUSE’s survey about the relative importance of technologies and technology-enabled processes. “This is the fifth year that EDUCAUSE has tracked the influence of major trends on the IT strategy of colleges and universities.” The most recent survey was published in early 2019. EDUCAUSE “assessed … 49 IT trends and 77 strategic technologies presented … via a single EDUCAUSE survey in the summer of 2018. The survey was distributed to 11,397 EDUCAUSE members as part of the Top 10 IT Issues research, with three reminders sent; 405 individuals (4%) completed the survey.” (Not sure why only 4% responded. Maybe it had something to do with technology.) Nor am I sure why trends data is released “based on the responses of 297 US-based respondents.” The “Low Impact” 13 With those complaints registered, here’s the list of technologies survey respondents declared as “limited impact” technologies:
What did I miss? How in the world could these technologies and technology-enabled processes be declared of “limited impact,” which means, according to EDUCAUSE, that only between 0-20% of respondents believe the technologies deserve a more vaulted position on the strategic technology list? In fact, the technologies on the “low impact” list failed to even make the “worth understanding” list! Here are the categories into which the technologies were slotted:
So what are the most influential technologies? Here’s the list:
From “Limited Impact” to “Worth Understanding” Here are just a few reasons why AI, social media & IOT might be promoted from the "limited impact" list to the "worth understanding" list:
Learning House identifies 4 areas where AI can help:
Education Diveoffers ideas about how AI can enhance operations. Hanan Aldowah et al reports in the Journal of Physics/Conference Series that: “IoT stands to change dramatically the way universities work, and enhance student learning in many disciplines and at any level. It has huge potential for universities or any other educational institutions.” Andy David, writing in D!gitalist, identifies how higher education can be transformed with IOT:
Social media? Same thing. Look at “the important role of social media in higher education” by Sharuna Segaren, “social media Use in higher education,” by Georgios Zachos, Efrosyni-Alkisti Paraskevopoulou-Kollia and Ioannis Anagnostopoulos, and Higher Education Administration with Social Media, by Laura A. Wankel and Charles Wankel, among so many others. What did I miss? And what about the rest of the list? Like “freedom of speech,” “adaptive learning,” and “the use of algorithms to influence institutional and individual choices”? Limited impact here too? What Were They Thinking? It’s hard to imagine how the limited impact technologies list came to be. One theory is that the 297 respondents were technology infrastructure managers – not strategic technologists. Even though the EDUCAUSE survey was about strategic technology, it’s hard to imagine how blended data centers are so much more important than AI. (Remember, there are five levels of impact and AI is on the least impactful level and blended data centers are on the highest.) Another theory is that the depth of understanding of the broad applicability of AI, IOT and social media is low due to their relative newness as possible drivers of higher education processes, models, products and services. Regardless of why AI, IOT and social media failed to make the medium or high impact lists, none of us – and especially those who work in higher education – should believe that AI, IOT or social media will have limited impact on their worlds. Maybe next time there will be 2,977 respondents instead of 297. Maybe next year the results will reflect observable trends. Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs https://ift.tt/dTEDZf March 25, 2019 at 10:07PM
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