Edu-leaders

IT strategy for an institution depends on its profile, age and technology maturity. The influence of alumni is extremely huge in terms of the overall running of the institution, getting funding, technology layout and blueprints for an institution.

It is also an important consideration as to how many of these alumni actually recruit from their alma mater. The alumni are the extended arms of an institution to companies from a recruitment perspective as well as provide the one-on-one interaction, personal attention and encouragement, that can make the difference between a student choosing their school versus another school.

First of all institutions need to ensure that alumni stay in touch and institutes could do so via an updated alumni electronic database. Schools should ideally explore if they can get endowment for funding from alumni, for technology. Most of the institutions abroad have been able to get grants and donations on the technology front on account of alumni funding and have set up dedicated cells, managed by Donor Relationship Managers. Some companies have come up with specific technology solutions which cater to alumni, help institutions retain and keep in touch with them via social networking sites. Technology would probably be the last rung of the cost ladder for most institutions, but its importance cannot be undermined. To leverage technology here are a few things that one can explore.

In the admission process the entire counselling part should ideally be technology led, right from the admissions to the selection of branches. Any clarification pertaining to these should be done through a contact centre or a tele-calling centre, followed by an instant chat for clarifications by students who are already studying there. The second should be a virtual demo of the university and probably some kind of endorsement by the professors and ex-students. Third, from an admission perspective, ideally the result should be announced within minimum time frames. These should be online and validated.

With regard to technology for administration, unfortunately most ERP systems are restricted only to the financial aspects or timetable scheduling or a transportation perspective. They do not take into account regulatory mechanisms. Technology is not even linked to parents, who are a critical element in the entire ecosystem of higher education.

Unfortunately not many institutions are proactively thinking of a technology strategy. The first step for most is putting up just the preliminary infrastructure required to meet the norms of the regulatory mechanism. Then when they want to start the differentiation, come the industry alliances and a bit of additions to the technology sector. Industry alliances do require the institute to invest in technology. The third element is research. Research is incidental as of now. For research, universities need to invest heavily into cutting edge technologies.

There are few of the new breed who in a bid to be entirely different maybe pumping in heavy investment into technology which unfortunately resides more in the infrastructure side and more to do with basic computing and connectivity comprising desktops, laptops, local area connection, WiFi connection, etc.

The next level of technology is on the application side where we look at the ERP systems and learning management. Phase two comprises administrative processes, rescheduling and some aspects of security. The last mainly because students have by now started accessing WiFi, and the institute wants to be sure that there is no plagiarism from the net or that they are not abusing their net freedom.

Learning management would come under classroom teaching and would actually be under the third layer of technology. The third phase will start when institutions actually start looking at the teaching — learning methodology with file sharing, data repository, knowledge management systems, connecting the faculty through internet telephony or aspects which would minimise the cost of extension to different campuses, etc. This field would also have access to students wi thin thei r hos t ins t i tut ion of net connectivity.

In the final phase of technology there will be advanced elements like downloadable lectures, SMS alerts to parents about wards attendance, facility to upload projects for the faculty to see, etc. These are the different phases of technology diffusion that any institution would go through, when adopting a technology strategy.