| | July-August 20179– Application Programming Interface) would be critical in the success and migration into the cloud. Ensuring standardization of architectures and a sound-proof blueprint moving forward would be one of the key elements to success. Another challenge is the integration of all of these platforms in the cloud, which is another area to consider.By allowing the entire portfolio of academic solutions to be on the cloud, secured and highly available, it provides the opportunity for IT organizations to focus more on some key strategic areas, student-centric initiatives and forward thinking, such as:• Implementing a “Mobile” solution for students. More and more students are using their digital devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) for accessing content, classes and other academic tasks through their mobile device and tablet. • Student experience is another area that has traditionally been left behind in particular by some of the larger academic solution providers. They haven’t focused on delivering a simple, minimalistic and great user experience through the “User Interface” that should be consistent across the student life-cycle from acquisition until alumni. • Providing accurate and simple Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s ) through the use of a “Dashboard” to the academic community and the university’s administrators in order to better understand the overall health of the institution. This can range from financials, enrollment, retention, graduation, placement, academic quality and other key data points.• Enabling the various academic and student servicing groups with powerful and accurate “Predictive Analytics” that can help determine a student’s potential future behavior and prevent them from either leaving their college or university or helping them improve their academic performance.• Providing students with the “Network Infrastructure” speed and redundancy for fast internet and Wi-Fi throughout their campuses (for brick-and-mortar students) in a consistent manner. Students today walk around with an average of three devices (laptop, tablet and mobile phone). This should include the ability to students to have seamless access to the university’s resources consistently and transparently as they move within campuses (in and out of buildings) from any of their mobile devices through Wi-Fi and cell carriers.• For universities and colleges that are highly research oriented, putting together a “High-Performance” computing environment strategy and plan that is elastic in nature (cloud) and conducive to exchanging and collaborating research work, analytics and computing power among the various disciplines within the institutions as well as with other universities and colleges through “high-speed” interconnected networks.The cloud is not the solution to all of the challenges to technology in higher education as each platform needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Leveraging the cloud as a repository for the bulk of an institution’s application portfolio can certainly alleviate resources and capital, which can then be focused on other strategic, value-added and student-centric initiatives that should eventually yield the best student education experience. At the end of the day, we are here for one primary reason, and that is to provide students with the best quality education possible and prepare them for the work-place and their future. Leveraging the cloud as a repository for the bulk of an institution’s application portfolio can certainly alleviate resources and capital
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