Schools and universities strive every day to give their students an effective, fulfilling, successful personal growth and academic learning experience. Harnessing technology innovations can pave the way to achieving those goals. During Carahsoft’s annual EdTech Talks Summit, experts in education and the IT industry discussed how existing and emerging solutions such as observability, the ‘secure by design’ approach and analytics can enhance education to personalize experiences, provide developmental insights on learning approaches and achieve maximum support for all students.
Addressing Post-Pandemic Digital Transformation with Observability
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there were many education challenges including a rapid shift to remote learning, the need to adapt quickly to new technologies and evolving cybersecurity threats. Schools and universities play a major role in the nation’s critical infrastructure along with the transportation sector, water and pipeline management, utilities and more making them vulnerable to cyberattacks. Bolstering the strength of cybersecurity infrastructure is a key component of the student experience as schools are responsible for safeguarding student’s educational, health and personal identification records.
One step towards achieving cybersecurity is observability. In a time when education leaders are asked to do more with less, observability allows institutions to understand what is happening within their networks and why. Observability should be used to empower education IT teams and in conjunction with active monitoring platforms, which will help them understand the full scope of the data in their network management systems to then apply actionable intelligence to solve issues. When exploring this data, IT staff should consider these questions:
- Is the network following the proper compliance rules that are in place? If not, what change was made to take the network out of compliance?
- What is the user experience like right now?
- What vulnerabilities are there within the network?
- Are students able to reliably access what they need and are those systems performing correctly?
- Are the internal safeguards working as efficiently as external safeguards?
- Do students have proper online safety awareness to aid in avoiding potential risks?
Implementing observability best practices can boost the security and manageability of schools’ network infrastructures, leading to improved experiences for students, faculty and cross-campus communities.
Secure by Design for Education
One of the leading ways manufacturers, developers and education institutions can ensure their products are safe and efficient for students and staff is to create and utilize products that are secure by design. This holistic approach establishes that each product code, solution bundle and packages is tested and validated before an end user receives them, and therefore, contains a built-in cybersecurity insurance policy. In the future, this will save schools time and costs by decreasing the number of cyber threats they face. Students and faculty will experience an increased learning capacity. For example, these solutions help keep students in schools and experiencing less interruption and downtime because of ransomware attacks. This approach empowers faculty to seamlessly adopt and integrate the use of secure solutions into their curriculum and lesson plans. With secure by design solutions, educators and students can rely on the fact that their data will be protected by modernized products tailored with them in mind.
The Importance of Analytics in Higher Education
Data plays a crucial role in educational infrastructure, offering valuable insights into the ever-evolving trends in learning. Most schools have siloed data in multiple areas such as learning management systems, enrollment systems and alumni engagement systems. Some colleges and universities within the Public Sector are only able to perform localized, descriptive analytics such as running spreadsheets and creating dashboards to see enrollment and graduation rates. The key to valuable, actionable and intelligent analytics is being able to discern how data intersects and correlates for more predictive and prescriptive analytics across the various digital spaces where institution data is stored. To do this, schools can leverage the power of automation through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to augment data and use the insights gained to improve analytic maturity, helping faculty and administrators better serve students and their education missions.
From increased security through observability and intentional technology designs to data-driven insights, the impact of these solutions on student growth is reshaping the educational landscape and creating an environment where students can thrive both academically and personally.
Visit the EdTech Talks Conference Resource Center to view panel discussions and other innovative insights surrounding security, AI and student success from Carahsoft and our partners.
About Carahsoft in the Education Market
Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Education IT Solutions Provider™.
Together with our technology manufacturers and reseller partners, we are committed to providing IT products, services and training to support Education organizations.
Carahsoft is a leading IT distributor and top-performing E&I Cooperative Services, Golden State Technology Solutions, Internet2, NJSBA, OMNIA Partners and The Quilt contract holder, enhancing student learning and enabling faculty to meet the needs of Higher Education institutions.
Learn more at http://www.carahsoft.com/education.
