Mapping Edtech Adoption in Online Higher Education: when does IT matter?

Concurrent Session 3

Brief Abstract

Colleges spend a lot on online learning technology. Some value is clear, but can we say more about impact on institutional performance? Using implementation data from LISTedTECH and Eduventures, plus perspectives from two institutioinal online leaders. this session explores online learning edtech adoption and impact in U.S. higher education.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Richard Garrett, Eduventures Inc.

Richard Garrett is Chief Research Officer of Eduventures Research, an NRCCUA company. Richard has 20+ years experience in higher education research, consulting, and policy. Richard is co-director of the CHLOE Project, a survey of online learning leaders conducted in partnership with Quality Matters. He combines his work at Eduventures with heading up the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, a think tank focused on global developments in online learning and cross-border higher education. The Observatory is part of i-graduate and Tribal Group.

Co-presenter: Connie Johnson, Colorado Technical University

Dr. Connie Johnson is Colorado Technical University's (CTU) chief academic officer and provost, working with both online and ground degree programs. She has oversight of academic affairs, including faculty, curriculum, classroom experience, and accreditation. During her time at CTU, Connie has initiated adaptive learning technology implementation, effective leadership of academics, women's leadership, leading academics through change, and effective technology implementation in the online classroom including the promotion of academics, faculty and student engagement through social media. Connie has served in higher education for over 20 years with extensive experience in online and ground teaching, administration, and leadership. Additionally, Connie has extensive experience in regional accreditation, curriculum implementation, and faculty training and development. She is a trained peer evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), has completed and served as a facilitator in the ACE Chief Academic Officer Institute, and is a member of the CTU Board of Trustees. Her educational background includes a Doctorate of Education, organizational leadership emphasis (2010), and a Master of Business Administration in management (1991) from Nova Southeastern University; and a Bachelor of Science with honors in criminal justice from Florida State University. Dr. Connie Johnson is Colorado Technical University's (CTU) chief academic officer and provost, working with both online and ground degree programs. She has oversight of academic affairs, including faculty, curriculum, classroom experience, and accreditation. During her time at CTU, Connie has initiated adaptive learning technology implementation, effective leadership of academics, women's leadership, leading academics through change, and effective technology implementation in the online classroom including the promotion of academics, faculty and student engagement through social media. Connie has served in higher education for over 30 years with experience in online and campus teaching, administration, and leadership. Additionally, Connie has extensive experience in regional accreditation, curriculum implementation, and faculty training and development. She is a trained peer evaluator and team chair for the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), has completed and served as a facilitator in the ACE Chief Academic Officer Institute, and is a member of ACAO (Association of Chief Academic Officers) Board of Directors. Additionally, Connie serves as a member of the Every Learner Every Where (ELE) Network. Connie’s area of research and scholarship is in the areas of adaptive learning and faculty implementation of digital tools. Her educational background includes a Doctorate of Education, organizational leadership emphasis (2010), and a Master of Business Administration in management (1991) from Nova Southeastern University; and a Bachelor of Science with honors in criminal justice from Florida State University.

Co-presenter: Andrea Jones, Jackson State University (Virtual Presenter)

Additional Authors

Extended Abstract

Everyone knows that the IT budgets at colleges and universities have grown over the decades, and that an ever-wider array of edtech solutions are on offer, from e-portfolios to e-proctoring and CRMs to student retention tools. It goes without saying that online schools and divisions, which account for a growing share of total enrollment, are defined by certain kinds of technology. Indeed, during the COVID-19 pandemic, forms of remote and online learning afforded precious academic continuity at almost every higher education institution nationwide.

In 2021, the online higher education market is split between a handful of online giants with tens or hundreds of thousands of online students, and "ordinary" colleges and universities active in the online market at a smaller scale. Can the success of the online giants be attributed in part to superior technology driving a better student experience? Or do most schools active in the online market have essentially the same technology? Do strategy and execution matter more than technology alone? Platforms such as Coursera and edX, and online program management firms, offer colleges ways to outsource aspects of online technology.

Yet we know surprisingly little about which fully or partly online schools use which solutions, and the impact on institutional performance. The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service and the Campus Computing Survey reveal a lot about the direction and nature of IT spending in higher education generally, but do not have much to say about online learning technology specifically or about impact. The CHLOE survey captures data on edtech solution-type adoption in online higher education, but not specific solutions or combinations of solutions. 

Online higher education is now 30 years old, and we are living through a golden age of edtech innovation supercharged by a global pandemic. As schools emerge from the crisis, newly experienced and comfortable with forms of online learning and charting future directions, can we ask deeper questions about online higher education edtech portfolios, impact and value?

Eduventures partners with LISTedTECH, a company that tracks technology implementations at colleges and universities worldwide, spanning a wide range of edtech product types. Focusing on the United States, this data, paired with other higher education intelligence, allows us to ask:

  • Are online learning edtech adoption trends stabilizing and converging across colleges and universities, or not?
  • Has the pandemic closed or widened edtech adoption gaps across different types of institition and different levels of online learning scale?
  • Do particular technologies show up in institutional online learning performance data?
  • Do the most successful online-oriented institutions deploy a distinctive mix of technologies?

Of course, “proving” the strategic benefits of edtech, or any IT, is complicated by the inherent complexities of tracing cause-and-effect, as well as vital but hard-to-track implementation variables (i.e., people, structures, processes, context, culture). Assessing solutions in the abstract is very different than in real world organizations and institutions, none of which are exactly alike. Even agreeing on what defines the “most successful” institutions is not always straightforward, highlighting different missions, settings, goals and resources. 

Almost 20 years ago Harvard Business Review published the controversial article by Nicolas Carr entitled IT Doesn’t Matter. Carr agued that IT has much less strategic or market-beating value than boosters allege, likening information technology to a utility like electricity: essential but commoditized. Executives, Carr asserted, waste precious resources chasing the latest shiny IT objects, neglecting the fundamentals of fit, integration, and cost control. Today, is online higher education technology commodity or competitive edge?   

There are no simple answers to edtech impact questions, but better data- and better questions- help push knowledge forward. 

In this session, Eduventures analysts and online leaders from two very different institutions (Connie Johnson, CAO and Provost at Colorado Technical University and Andrea Jones-Davis, Dean Jackson State University Online), will explore these questions. Examples of LISTedTECH data and how Eduventures is using it will be discussed, and institutional leaders will reflect on how and why their institution’s online learning edtech portfolio has evolved, how they think about impact, and what the future holds.

Session attendees will be encouraged to share perspectives on online learning technologies at their institutions.