3 tactics to improve tech adoption across campus

Every CIO knows that a technology is only as good as the number of people using it. So, they often feel frustrated when customers do not adopt existing technology and instead acquire duplicate solutions on their own. This report highlights three tactics CIOs and their teams can use to improve adoption and efficacy of current products by faculty and staff across campus.

Introduction

Buying a new technology product can be a daunting task. CIOs and their teams must assess business needs, review product options, sit through multiple demos, negotiate with vendors, anticipate security risks, and do a whole lot more.

Yet, once the product is installed and implemented, many customers do not use it. In fact, a recent 1E report found that 47% of deployed software is left unused in the education industry.*

What’s more, instead of using existing products, customers often end up purchasing duplicate applications, resulting in a bloated portfolio that’s costly to support, and especially hard to justify in times of shrinking budgets.

*Source: “Software Usage and Waste Report 2016”, 1E, 2016.

Sources: “Employees Often Overlooked When Companies Adopt New Technology”, Help Net Security, June 25, 2020; M An & E Brudner, “The State of Inbound 2016”, Hubspot, September 12, 2016; “The Problem with Most CRMs – An Alternate Perspective”, CSO Insights, 2019.

Tactics to improve tech adoption across campus

EAB has identified three tactics for IT units looking to improve tech adoption by faculty and staff in higher ed institutions.

1. Deploy business unit product champions to social-proof new technology products
2. Request vendors to hold office hours to drive adoption of high-priority products
3. Create incentives to motivate faculty and staff to participate in product training

Tactic 1: Business unit product champions

Just like every idea needs a champion, technology products often require product champions who are willing to evangelize and showcase its benefits to others. These product champions or super-users employ a psychological phenomenon called social proofing, the idea that customers are more likely to use a product or adopt a new behavior if someone they know and trust tells them it’s a good idea. Think about the social influencers among college students – the mini-Kim Kardashians in every dorm – who influence other students to popularize certain clothing or makeup brands.

Embry Riddle University’s IT team used the concept of social proofing to create a new role of business unit product champions who help improve adoption and utilization of some of their enterprise-wide solutions. They identified tech enthusiasts within some of their high priority business units and provided them with the necessary training to serve as product experts within their department. These product champions then went back to their colleagues and encouraged them to adopt certain products. Embry-Riddle’s CIO told us that these product champions helped socialize some of their staple products, including Workday on campus.

Tactic 2: Recurring vendor office hours

While product champions can increase familiarity with tools, customers may experience more complex problems that product champions cannot solve. Even IT staff may struggle or have limited bandwidth to provide the required assistance. In these cases, it may be prudent to bring in vendors to directly support customers.

Vendor representatives not only have specialized knowledge about how their products are utilized across various institutions, but they are also trained in making their products more appealing and easier to use for customers.

As a result, they can often help customers solve problems more effectively and efficiently than university IT staff. Realizing this, a few progressive universities have coordinated with some of their top strategic vendors to establish recurring vendor office hours.

We acknowledge that many IT units may be hesitant to put vendors in direct contact with customers. They are worried that vendors may try to upsell products directly to business units. However, this model can be successful with a few ground rules in place.

Case study: Vanderbilt’s office hours

• Vanderbilt University holds monthly, open-door meetings where Microsoft technology experts are available for live Q&A sessions.
• Microsoft office hours led to increased socialization and use of Microsoft products on campus

Tactic 3: Product training incentives

The third tactic institutions can use to improve adoption is to create incentives for participating in product training. Faculty and staff often do not take up training, even when they struggle to use a product and trainings are readily available. To respond to this challenge, Virginia Tech University’s IT team created a faculty reward program that tied product training to computer refreshes. Faculty must complete 12 learning credits within four years to get their computers refreshed. The training curriculum covered relevant topics to improve teaching and learning, productivity, and research and discovery, among others. Examples of modules include: Building assignments on Canvas, Zoom Essentials, and Book Publishing with Pressbooks.

The program proved to be enormously successful in increasing digital fluency across campus. Just in FY2020, over 1800 faculty participated in the program and almost 500 of them completed 12 learning credits within the last four years – the number required to get their computers refreshed. Virginia Tech’s CIO reported that this program was one of the main reasons their faculty was able to quickly shift gears and teach hybrid and online courses amid COVID.

Computer refresh incentives drive faculty product training at Virginia Tech

• Virginia Tech’s Professional Development Network (PDN) leverages campus-wide partnerships to offer programming designed to foster technology integration and increase digital fluency for faculty and staff
• Full-time faculty are eligible for a computer refresh if they complete 12 learning credits and 2 required courses within four-year time span
• Required courses: “Trends in Learning Technologies in Higher Education” and “Cybersecurity”