MABUG 2019

The underutilization of Technology in Higher Education is often ignored. There is a reluctance to move from long-standing manual practices and legacy infrastructure. The mantra “this is the way we’ve always done it” continues to drive inefficiencies.
Institutional decision makers and consumers of technologies struggle with pre- and post- implementation challenges. Reluctance to change, lack of analytical insight, lack of on-going training and poor reporting capabilities result in the dependence on inefficiencies and lack of adoption of the advancement of technology solutions.
Business goals / business practices must be considered to help drive better utilization of technology for institutional success in support of students. As institutional policies evolve, processes need periodic reviews to replace the outdated mantra.
Interestingly technology solutions requires the most hard dollar costs, and returns the least in terms of ROI if the people (decision makers) and the processes are not positioned productively. The real value in technology solutions is the ‘people’ to justify the long-term financial investment.
This “Triad” – people, process, technology – can make or break institutional effectiveness, employee morale, student satisfaction, state and federal funding and, most importantly, effective leadership decision making. It is time to realize that technology is not to blame.