Most
colleges and universities anticipate a big bump in enrollment for online
courses in 2017, according to a University Business survey of campus technology administrators.
About
75% of survey respondents said their institutions expected to enroll more
students in online classes in the coming year and 60% forecast their schools
will add more options to their online programs. As a result, almost half of the
technology administrators are looking to build up the online learning
infrastructure this year.
Where
will institutions be spending their tech dollars? The largest group of
respondents (49%) said they’ll be investing in improving academic technologies,
such as lecture capture and audiovisual equipment. Of those, 30% plan to
enhance technologies that instructors can access from anywhere on campus, while
29% will be boosting tech equipment within classroom and lab spaces.
In
response to some campuses experiencing hacking attempts on their networks, 47%
of survey respondents will be increasing network and data security in 2017, a
big jump from 28% in last year’s survey. Forty-seven percent also intend to put
more budget money into cloud computing and storage, up from 30% the prior year.
As
students and staff consume ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth, 45% of campus
tech administrators also expect to expand their Internet and Wi-Fi
infrastructure.
