Page 20 - Campus Technology, January/February 2019

VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE
can support interventions for both — from simple listeners for logins to the LMS, which can alert faculty and advisers so they can talk with students; to automation of SAP suspension alerts and appeals to get at-risk students back on track; to dynami- cally displayed explanations of the ramifications to requests like course withdrawal, with its requirement to pay back finan- cial aid, and change of major, both of which can cause issues downstream with persistence. In the coming year, I expect to see more schools using automation with their own learning analytics and real-time data to both support success and more easily comply with mandates.
Rowe: Kathy makes a great point about defining student success. Creating a definition appropriate to a campus cul- ture, and having everyone buy into and support that defini- tion, is critical. Limiting the definition to graduation ignores the student’s intent; perhaps the student intended to stay one or two years and transfer. The role of successful finan- cial management along with successful academic progress needs to be considered as well. One definition of student success may be “Successfully achieved academic goals,” while another at the same institution may be “Successfully achieved academic goals while managing college costs and avoiding unnecessary debt.” These two definitions may cre- ate conflicting processes if present at the same institution. A simple definition of success may just be “Keeping an enrolled student enrolled through the successful completion of the
enrolled semester.” That simple definition captures intent and provides a direct focus. The definition of success has to be part of the university’s culture.
2) Technology/Innovation Incubators
Leon: Technology and innovation are happening all around us, and we have seen and heard many stories of wonderful ideas that have started and incubated on a college campus. Fresno State is trying to take a proactive approach with its recently created technology innovation team, whose vision is to enhance teaching and learning and support various forms of student success through partnerships with students, faculty, staff and the community as well as local and national technology companies. We have a number of technology innovation projects in progress, involving technologies such as Internet of Things, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cryptocurrencies and cloud computing. We are actively getting students involved. Two years ago, we partnered with students to start the campus’s inaugural HackFresno hackathon event, and this spring will mark the event’s third-annual hackathon. This spring we are also partnering with the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to launch Ignite, a crowdsourced incubation program to encourage and support up to three student teams using technology and innovation to bring ideas and concepts toward implementation.
Rowe: The word that stops me here is “incubators.” An incubator stands alone. For many of us, innovation is deeply imbedded in everyday projects within the organization, and not a stand-alone activity.
Lueckeman: Like Theresa, I feel the generic word “incu- bator” seems a misnomer in higher ed. We cannot ignore the significant work done in tech transfer and innovation centers as a team effort. We will see more of these partnerships and, going forward, schools will increasingly embrace academic partner- ships with employers to ensure transfer of in-demand skills.
3) STEM Education
Rowe: Our future demands talented scientists and quality scientific inquiry. Given funding issues and a societal attitude that disrespects science, it is difficult to recruit and retain students and faculty with the scientific talent needed for academic success. There are also financial obstacles blocking the creation and maintenance of the labs and tools needed for effective academic programs. The challenges grow as we look at graduate programs; program cuts and lack of deep investment impact the ability to perform quality scientific research and leave fewer opportunities for graduate students. Programs like bioinformatics or advanced cybersecurity require big data cyberinfrastructure or customized sandboxes, and these are an expense beyond traditional IT budgets.4
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | January/February 2019