When was the last time you did a spring clean on your laptop? We all get frustrated when we start running out of space and can be guilty of deleting files haphazardly without looking at what data is actually causing the problem.
While you might be able to sustain this approach on your personal devices, imagine the chaos it would cause in a much bigger environment.
Higher education institutions are a prime example – they’re now dealing with a much a higher rate of internet-connected devices on campus with BYOD, resulting in a deluge of data that their current methods of coping can’t handle.
Higher education institutions have data flooding in from all directions via online applications, software-based and online classroom exercises and testing, social media, blogs, and student surveys.
There is also a surge from public data – with online benchmarking of students, professors and curriculum performance becoming increasingly popular. All of this data is placing strain on existing IT infrastructures, causing CIOs to demand new architecture and CEOs to ask why.
Established software solutions, which have been around since the 70s, are not engineered to cope with the data demands. That’s why many higher education institutions have yet to harness big data – they lack the tools to take advantage of it and this problem will only get worse as data volumes continue to mount.
Institutions that fail to embrace big data as an opportunity will to be left behind by those that do as the power of data-informed strategic decisions fuels them forward in the league tables.
So how can high education institutions stop fire-fighting and get to the point where they can actually apply big data insights?
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