| | August - 20208IN MY OPINIONThe Transformation of Education: What Role Does Technology Play?By Tom Andriola, VP & CIO, University of CaliforniaPeople who know I came from the healthcare industry, before joining higher education, often ask me to compare the two. Even though my experience in higher education is still relatively short, I have observed evolutionary similarities that present both great challenges and opportunities for higher education IT leaders in the years ahead.Over the last sixteen years, I have watched a technology-associated evolution in healthcare that includes stages of challenge, struggle, hype, failure, rebirth, struggle, adaption and the process continues. I see education in the early stages of such a technology revolution and think the next ten to fifteen years will be as transformational (and fun) as any time in modern history. In higher education, we use the phrase "educational technology" largely to refer to the confined context of technology in the classroom and its potential impact on pedagogy. At a time when many people critical of education want new ways to measure value, that context misses the bigger picture and larger opportunity for transformation in education.I prefer expanding "educational technology" to mean the intersection of technology and data in the innovation cycle that leads to increased value creation. That is a lot of buzz words, but the essence of what I mean is that:1) Innovation will be driven by moving toward more evidence-based decision-making;2) Data should be seen and leveraged as an asset, so logically, more data represents more assets; and
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