EDUCAUSE 2022: How Data Collection Can Improve Student and Faculty IT Support

Working directly with the student body can be another way to gain insights into their experience. Student governments, for example, typically have a more direct line of communication to the student population than the IT department, said Jason Beaudin, executive director of educational technology at Michigan State University.

Charlie Collick, director of IT accessibility and academic technology at Rutgers University, said data is best used to support meaningful campuswide change when it’s shared across departments.

“For us, it’s less about the data that we’re collecting, because we certainly are collecting a lot of it. But when it ends up in a silo, and strategic decisions are made in that silo based on that data set, that’s where we’re falling short in meeting the needs of our students and faculty,” he said.

Combining centralized and distributed data collection methods can provide insights with wide-reaching implications. At Michigan State, campus departments and organizations are collecting data independently, but in Beaudin’s experience, these organizations are increasingly asking to share their data across the university.

“We’re getting requests coming from all these other groups,” he said. “They approach us with data that they have or request data they’re missing, and then they use it to navigate dialogues with other stakeholders.”

Ongoing Communication Will Lead to Meaningful Outcomes

Anecdotal data is important, Collick said, but should be collected and analyzed effectively to make real change. Faculty and student input should be used not only to prioritize projects, but also to validate the efficacy of how feedback is implemented.

“Often, it’s the loudest voice in the room or the first or last ones to come to us that we’re acting on, jumping on technologies they’re requesting or changes to the technology we’re using,” he said. “I think we need to do a better job of aggregating the information that’s coming in and using it to justify what actions we’re taking, whether that’s selecting a new technology, consolidating technologies or putting policies around the ways our technologies are used.”

This involves a level of communication with students and faculty to ensure their needs are being met.

Click the banner below to access exclusive EdTech content as an Insider.

At Indiana University, Gladdin said, to make life easier for students and faculty, they implemented a course template for the Canvas learning management system. In a follow-up faculty survey, results were split: They either loved it or hated it. Faculty advisory committees were able to provide more insight into the division, leading to further enhancements.

Beaudin’s communication tactic is to cross the boundaries between his role and the rest of the university, showing up to meetings and asking about the concerns of the campus community. From there, maintaining an ongoing relationship helps him better engage long-term.

“Even as IT becomes that central contact point for teaching and learning technology and support, we can’t just be a shuttle for information,” he said. “We have to be able to connect those stakeholders with each other and with ourselves to have more robust dialogue across constituencies.”

Implementing End User Feedback to Meet Long-Term Needs

IT support shouldn’t end with a survey or an initial discussion, Collick said.

“How are we keeping faculty and students engaged throughout the entire process? We get these anecdotal stories about what’s working and what’s not working, and then that’s it,” he said. “They don’t see us again until something is implemented.”

Rutgers is starting to include students and faculty on steering committees and in other advisory roles, but Collick said long-term, permanent governance structures with strategic oversight over all projects can ensure no one is competing for resources, time or staff.

LEARN MORE: Check out all of EdTech's EDUCAUSE 2022 Annual Conference coverage.

Faculty support is also going to be key for long-term success of these digital environments.

“Technology is great, but how are we supporting faculty in using that technology?” he said.

In most cases, the IT teams designing the classrooms, selecting equipment and providing support are not the end users, so getting this feedback from faculty who use the equipment to teach and students who use the technology to learn is vital to improving the experience for both groups.

At Michigan State, Beaudin said this currently happens as they consider changes to their classroom design methodology.

“We design it in IT, we build it in IT, and we fix it in IT when it turns out we missed the mark because it doesn’t do what faculty needed it to do,” Beaudin said.

Bringing student and faculty voices in at the onset will ultimately help the team standardize classroom design properly from the beginning, rather than having to make changes when the project is finished.

“How do we standardize our designs based on input from faculty and students who are in those conversations up front?” Beaudin said. “Because on the tail end, we don’t want to be bolting another camera in place on a system that was never designed for two, but that’s what faculty told us they needed, or that’s what students who are remote are telling us they need to be able to see content.”

Keep up with EdTech: Focus on Higher Education’s coverage on our EDUCAUSE event page and via Twitter with the hashtag #EDU22.