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What The Digital Shift Means For Higher Education

Roy Zur is the founder and CEO of Cybint, a cyber education company. 

The pandemic is said to have served as a reset button for many industries and human behaviors. In the case of higher education, it has vastly accelerated a shift toward digitization and remote learning — one that was long overdue in my opinion. This digital shift isn’t a temporary reaction to a global crisis. Rather, the blended approach where presence on campus is no longer a requirement for students will likely continue even when “normalcy” returns.

While this shift does present many benefits for students regardless of their locations, it doesn’t help universities distinguish themselves from the online offerings of other universities. In order to stay relevant in the post-pandemic world, universities will need to brush up on their “it factor.” I think the new “it factor” for universities is collaboration and partnerships to employ graduates. As the CEO of an online cyber education company, I've seen how bootcamps-as-a-service and online professional education are among the more popular partnerships that play a role in amplifying the impact of the distributed learning model. 

Bootcamp Partnerships

Bootcamp-as-a-service refers to short and intensive vocational programs. (Disclosure: My company offers these programs.) In many cases, the bootcamps themselves can be career changers. Upon graduation from the immersive program, students qualify to apply for entry-level jobs within new disciplines.

There are three different types of bootcamp models: some offer college credit, others that are in partnership with a university’s continuing education department, and yet others that are managed by a program manager. Bootcamp programs can be online or in-person.

I think the biggest benefit for universities that partner with bootcamps is the go-to-market advantage, considering the fact that the university brand can lower customer acquisition costs. For students, the benefit is the immersive hands-on learning experience that is current and makes them more employable in a matter of weeks or months. There are many elements that go into the whole value chain of educational bootcamps, including research into market demand, the acquisition of students, design and delivery of the program, and career support for graduates. 

When picking their partners, universities must consider a plethora of factors, including, first and foremost, whether the bootcamp provider puts the appropriate effort into keeping their program up to date with the industry standards. Another thing to keep an eye out for is whether the prospective partner’s curriculum comes equipped with enough practical exercises and the digital tools necessary for running them, as well as its graduate placement rate. In my experience, content delivered live is better than bootcamps only offering recorded lectures, as it brings in the live interaction between the educator and the audience. In order to make their offering stand out among those of other educational bodies, universities should consider working with the local industries to tailor the curriculum to their specific needs, while also expanding the opportunities for internships and job placements for their students. 

Online Professional Education

As the name suggests, online professional education providers help universities move their education offerings online. The programs themselves are specially structured for professionals and corporations that provide the programs for their employees. By comparison, bootcamps are for anyone seeking a career change, or those looking for acceleration into an entry-level career. The role of the provider is to deliver incremental revenue by integrating the online professional programs into the university’s offering. These professional programs allow the university to acquire a sizable number of learners from the industry that the university would not have previously reached. 

To make such programs work, universities must make sure to carefully review the industry credentials of their partners and evaluate the quality and relevance of the educational content they offer. The metrics to use largely depend on the specifics of the course. Those focusing on soft skills, like leadership and management, must feature a robust interactive component, with workshops and case studies that will have students working and learning together. The courses bringing hard skills to the table, be it coding or data science, must take into account the needs of their specific audience and include multiple hands-on tasks. A good way to make the most of such courses would be to offer them to students as part of the university’s career support programs.

Collaborations between third-party industry partners can take many nuanced forms, and they can each be used to quickly generate ROI with minimal upfront investments. A university's involvement with third-party industry partners can also be impressive for students. Collaborating with partners can help universities gain the edge they need to cast a wider net, to draw in more students and learners across all demographics, and have a greater competitive advantage.

Looking Toward A Fast-Pace Future

This pivot toward partnerships with third parties is likely to be part of the wider change in the era of digitized education. As the development of new technologies marches forward, industries will continue to evolve at a faster pace, and universities must keep their fingers on the pulse of employer demands. Anything short of that would be a failure to their students. Furthermore, it is reasonable to expect a higher emphasis on digital skills across the board, including in fields that may not necessarily have required them before. Students in medicine, for example, could benefit from a course on statistics coupled with an introduction to a coding language.

Another trend likely to materialize is an influx of continuous learning students, driven by two key factors. The first is that to succeed in our fast-paced and competitive job market, an established professional has to keep up the pace with the trade, learning new technological stacks or practices. The second is the increasing automation of work, which threatens to eliminate jobs based on routine procedures and practices, forcing the workforce to seek re-training to remain competitive. The silver lining for universities here is that, by extension, this would push companies to see more value in in-depth, professional competences that machines cannot replicate (yet, at least), meaning their core offering — a deep and comprehensive overview of the theory and practice in a specific field — is set to remain sought-after.


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