The Impact of
Academic Technologies
on Successful Pandemic Operations
While the pandemic caused unprecedented disruption to in-person learning, it also granted faculty the chance to adopt new technologies and experiment with their curriculum. This has left many higher education leaders wondering about how they can better use academic technology to support faculty and students.
To help answer these questions, EAB conducted a survey of academic and IT leaders in December 2020 to assess the perceived impact of existing and new academic technologies on academic continuity, identify trends in tech purchasing, and gauge satisfaction with different vendor products. Survey participants were asked about their technology use across five academic imperatives: deliver remote instruction, delivery hybrid instruction, design curricula, support faculty work, and support students.
Thank you to the 72 senior leader who gave their views.
What changed in academic tech in response to the pandemic?
Which category of technology investment has proven most important?
Delivery of instruction was the most important category of tech investment by far, followed by faculty support. Public institutions
highlighted the impact of device and wifi access investments far more frequently than private institutions.
8%
3.2%
11.1%
20.6%
20.6%
1.6%
Device and internet access investments had greater perceived impact for public institutions
PUBLICS
PRIVATES
Given the smaller scale of their new tech investments, larger, public institutions may have been better equipped technology-wise to handle the switch to remote/hybrid instruction, than smaller, private institutions who made more new technology investments.
In every area of investment besides designing curricula, public institutions were less likely to invest in new academic technology and instead rely on existing technology.
Invested in new academic technologies
Invested in remote instruction tools
Invested in lecture capture tools for remote and hybrid instruction
Invested in curricula design tools
Invested in laptops for faculty
Invested in student support tools
Five academic imperatives
Deliver remote
instruction
Web-conferencing and LMS tools were most impactful to delivering remote instruction and received higher satisfaction rates. Despite concerns about student privacy, invasiveness, and equity, larger institutions were more likely to employ remote proctoring tools. Zoom and Blackboard were the leading video conferencing and LMS vendors employed by institutions, respectively.
PUBLICS
invested in remote proctoring
PRIVATES
We are looking to ban the use of online proctoring on our campus. We had Proctorio prior to COVID-19. The pandemic brought more attention to academic integrity issues but also uncovered equity issues in using proctoring.
Responses to "what tech investments were made" and "what existing tech in use."
Video conferencing tools
Lecture capture software
Remote proctoring tools
Learning management systems
Course management systems
Video production and editing tools
Online course messaging boards
Student text messaging tools
Live captioning and transcription services
Other -Â Write in
None
Vendors or productions satisfaction
Deliver hybrid
instruction
Classroom webcam investments and existing LMS systems were essential to enabling hybrid instruction during the pandemic.
PUBLICS
PRIVATES
Responses to "what tech investments were made" and "what existing tech in use."
Room and space scheduling software
Classroom webcams for video streaming
Video production and editing tools
Learning management systems
Course management systems
Online course messaging platforms
Online course messaging boards
Other -Â Write in
None
Vendors or productions satisfaction
Design
curricula
Rather than make net new investments, universities and colleges leveraged existing in-house resources to design curricula for remote/hybrid instruction; 16% of respondents indicated they deployed in-house instructional designers and faculty training to help adapt curricula for remote and hybrid delivery.
Responses to "what tech investments were made" and "what existing tech in use."
Remote proctoring tools
Learning analytics capabilities
Extended reality (i.e., VR, AR, MR) learning environments, simulations, or activities
Live captioning and transcription services
Other -Â Write in
None
Vendors or productions satisfaction
Support
faculty work
Additional investments in hardware (e.g., laptops, portable devices, Wi-Fi hotspots) was integral to supporting remote faculty work.
Responses to "what tech investments were made" and "what existing tech in use."
Video conferencing tools (e.g., Zoom, Webex)
Communication platforms (e.g., Slack)
Customer relationship management (CRM) software (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot)
Content management and file sharing services (e.g., Box, OneDrive)
Laptop or other portable devices
WiFi hotspots
Computer monitors or docks
Other -Â Write in
None
Vendors or productions satisfaction
Support
students
Institutions prioritized technology to support student mental health and community-building in times of crises; while 31.25% of private institutions made new investments in remote mental health self-evaluation tools, 22.6% of public institutions indicated that they utilized their existing self-evaluation tools.
of public institutions employed existing remote mental health self-evaluation tools
Responses to "what tech investments were made" and "what existing tech in use."
Student success management systems (e.g., academic planning/career readiness)
Virtual AI assistants
Student text messaging platforms
Remote mental health self-evaluation tools
Virtual or app-based social communities
Other -Â Write in
None
Vendors or product satisfaction
Ready to learn more?
Discover the top 10 up-at-night issues for Teaching and Learning technologists plus get hands-on implementation toolkits to improve faculty engagement during technology selection processes.
