Islamic girl studying with multiethnic students

Understanding the human-centered transformation design for universities: GCC edition

Dr. Vanina Torlo

EY-Parthenon MENA Education Leader

10 minute read 12 Feb 2024
Related topics
Digital
Digital strategy
Government and Public Sector

Purposefully putting human needs and expectations at the center of higher education digital transformation will improve university success.

Three questions to ask

  • Convince me, teach me, support me – how can university leaders meet student expectations and support their success?
  • Empower me, free me, enlighten me – how can digital technology help staff to create better content and seamless processes that improve student experience?
  • Equip me, connect me – how can researchers be better supported to conduct leading-edge research?

When embarking on digital transformation, universities often deploy strategies that serve the needs of the institution and its existing structures and processes. For many of the students and staff on the receiving end of such changes, the experience has been less than ideal. “Digital learning” is still often old content on a new platform, rather than being designed to enable optimal learning through personalized, digital self-access. On many campuses, staff and students still struggle daily with multiple systems to get simple administrative tasks done.

We contend that institutions would get a far better return on their digital investment by putting the needs of the people they serve at the center of technology efforts.

In a bid to understand what the people at the center of universities want from digital transformation, we undertook research with the people who experience it every day. Our latest study, conducted in collaboration with Times Higher Education (THE), includes more than 3,000 students and hundreds of teaching faculty and professional staff in eight geographies, and explores their wants and needs.

The research clearly shows critical areas where digital transformation needs to deliver a better experience for students and staff. This article surfaces a few of the ideas from the study. Read the report to learn what each cohort had to say and see the full body of our research and recommendations for university leaders.

Is your university’s transformation centered on tech or people?

As universities seek to create a distinctive experience, our report looks at what students and staff want from digital.

Download the report
1

Chapter 1

What do students expect from their universities?

Exceptional teaching, real-world career advantages, convenience and flexibility

Universities are underestimating student expectations

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed what students want from universities. Their educational norms and situations have shifted. In our survey, 45% of students are managing work or caring commitments alongside their studies. Partly for this reason, campus-based students expect to access content and administrative processes online, in their own time.

UAE/KSA students are happier with their choice of university (72% are happy/very happy, compared to the global average of 67%), but still, over a quarter (27%) told us they only feel neutral or are unhappy with their choice of university. This should raise alarm bells for university leaders who are tasked with delivering a positive experience for all their students. Not meeting expectations around improving career prospects or preparing students for the workplace are key drivers of overall unhappiness.

How happy are you with your university choice?
of surveyed KSA/UAE students feel neutral or unhappy.

In order of priority, the global research shows us that students are looking for their higher education institutions to deliver:

  1. High-quality teaching, including using digital technology
  2. Improved career prospects and workplace preparation
  3. Better support to achieve their learning goals

To meet these expectations, there are a number of actions that university leaders can take. We have looked at these through the eyes of the students that universities serve.

Teach me effectively and in a way that suits me

Globally, quality of teaching is the most-cited reason for both happiness and unhappiness with a student’s choice of university, indicating that some universities are offering better teaching experiences than others. Students also give low satisfaction ratings to the “quality of online learning”— putting it at the bottom of all surveyed aspects of university life — and “provision of learning support ”. Although, the amount of online versus in-person teaching is of little concern.

What’s missing from the digital learning experience is engagement. Although students rate the availability, quality of production and accessibility of digital learning materials reasonably well, they give low ratings to its ability to engage, enable collaboration or check understanding.

This reflects the fact that many universities are still simply recording lectures and posting lecture notes and reading lists online.

Students asserted that if funds were available for technology-related investments, they would prefer this to be invested in training teachers to deliver digital learning more effectively (45% globally, 41% in KSA/UAE) and in better digital learning materials (41% globally, 48% in KSA/UAE), rather than in upgrading the technology.

Student preferences if funds were available for technology-related investments:
of KSA/UAE students would like to have support with learning online effectively.
Student preferences if funds were available for technology-related investments:
of KSA/UAE students would like investment in developing better digital learning materials.

Convince me your university can improve my career prospects

Not meeting expectations around improved career prospects and preparing students for the workplace are key drivers of overall unhappiness with university choice globally. To win student choice, universities must better understand what students expect from higher education (HE) and offer programs that directly support their career goals.

Forty three percent of KSA/UAE students indicated that the main reason they chose their program was to qualify for a chosen career or improve their career prospects but a concerning 19% of final year undergraduates say their university experience does not meet their expectations regarding preparation for the workplace.

The main reason I chose my program
of KSA/UAE students chose their course to qualify for a chosen career or improve their career prospects.

Creating programs that provide students with the skills they need for the future workplace will require critical thinking.

Support me to succeed academically and find connection

The global survey found that almost three-quarters (74%) of students rate support to achieve academic goals as very or extremely important. This was also reflected in the KSA/UAE results (75%). Lack of support was also a key reason for students’ unhappiness with their choice of university, especially among mid-level and final-year students.

Importance of providing support to achieve my learning goals
of KSA/UAE students say it’s very or extremely important that their university support them in achieving their learning goals.

Students also need to find connections with each other. In the global survey, campus location remains students’ third reason for choosing a university – while it ranked second among KSA/UAE students, suggesting the campus experience is not over. But its role may need to be reimagined. Nearly two-thirds of students globally say the campus is where they prefer to access social events and networking. This is key to students’ wellbeing, sense of belonging and developing social skills in addition to reducing feelings of isolation in an increasingly online learning environment. Interestingly, KSA/UAE students were much more likely to express a preference for socializing online (34% would prefer an equal blend of in-person and online, while 28% would rather socialize mainly or fully online).

2

Chapter 2

What do university staff expect from digital transformation?

More time, better tools and quality data to help them deliver more value

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Universities misjudge the importance of the employee experience

While the student experience is fundamental to a successful digital transformation, university leaders must also pay attention to the staff (teaching faculty, researchers and administration) experience. The human experience includes all of the people involved in making a university work. To be successful, digital transformation needs to meet their needs and expectations, too.

 

Teaching faculty

Empower me to create quality digital content
 

Teaching faculty must be supported in carving out time to design and oversee the development of new curricula and learning materials that incorporate the best of digital and in-person learning modes. From our focus groups, we learned that many university teachers urgently need further training in blended teaching best practice. They need to understand how to both develop curricula and content for effective digital or blended learning and deliver teaching and learning support using the chosen modes.

 

Free me to focus on the important tasks
 

For teaching faculty, time is their most precious resource. Digital transformation should enable them to devote more time to their core missions of teaching and supporting students or leading research. Providing more asynchronous content will free them from needing to deliver in-person lectures, while using virtual meetings and online scheduling tools can help them provide one-on-one student support more efficiently.

 

However, simply implementing new tools and processes will not automatically lead to meaningful time savings. Faculty in our focus groups said they were faced with a myriad of new systems and tools, which were unintuitive, difficult to use or duplicative.

 

Enlighten me so I can better support learning outcomes
 

The higher education sector is currently grappling with improving learning outcomes. With the move to new modes of teaching and learning, faculty need to easily assess the effectiveness of their teaching and continuously adjust based on what is working well and what isn’t. As more systems move to digital, there’s increased potential to analyze the data and create meaningful insights around student interactions, their levels of engagement and their learning progress. By collating that information into progress dashboards, faculty can track learning progress at an individual, class or program level, as well as identify students who require more support or programs that need adjusting.

Researchers

Equip me to conduct leading-edge research

Universities have tended to under-invest in the digital transformation of research, as the focus shifted to teaching and learning. The investment needed is not just better equipment and computing power to support leading-edge research. There is also a real need to streamline and automate the significant level of administration surrounding research, to free up researchers’ time and help them be successful.

Processes ripe for digital transformation include grant applications and management, risk assessments, scheduling access to shared equipment, results disclosures, reviews, audits, publication and dissemination.

Connect me to other researchers

In many cases, research and innovation are not solo efforts but collaborative ones. The research community has a particular need to connect, share data and ideas, and work together to solve problems. The use of digital technologies for research is making collaboration within and across institutions much faster, more efficient and effective. This is greatly facilitating international research collaboration, widening the pool of potential research collaborators, which is particularly important in niche fields.

Administrators

Show me the data I need and save me from busy work

The focus groups with administrative staff revealed a cohort that feels increasingly overworked and overwhelmed, with many digital transition initiatives actually adding to workload pressures.

The most cited challenge for administrative staff is that the data they need to perform their jobs resides in disparate siloed systems and cannot readily be combined. As a result, universities end up with a patchwork of siloed systems with different access points, that are not integrated, cannot share data, and have a very different look and feel.

Digital processes generate a wealth of data that administrators are hungry to use to drive decisions, but insights cannot be generated when data resides in silos.

It’s about increasing the amount of time staff can spend making a difference to the students versus satisfying the system.

Paul LeBlanc

President, Southern New Hampshire University

In addition, many universities are looking at how to automate HR, finance and procurement processes across the institution. Automating routine student-facing tasks, such as processing applications, can continue to relieve the burden on administrative staff. As Paul LeBlanc, President, Southern New Hampshire University, puts it: “It’s about increasing the amount of time staff can spend making a difference to the students versus satisfying the system.”

For universities to truly survive and thrive in a digital era, university leaders need to maximize the value of digital transformation, focus on designing services and processes around the needs of the people they serve — from students to administrative staff, and deliver a distinctive student offering and digital experience that sets them apart. This means aligning the value proposition with evolving student and workforce demands, having a clear understanding of the end-to-end student experience and how to make it more convenient, engaging and supportive, using technology. It also means designing services and systems that enable faculty and staff to spend more of their time supporting students to achieve their learning and career readiness goals. And of course, the technology must be matched with investment in upskilling faculty and staff to deliver an exceptional student experience.

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    Summary

    Digital transformation in higher education is most effective when the individuals it serves are prioritized at the core of all transformation initiatives. This includes students, teaching faculty and administrative staff. By truly understanding their needs and expectations, university leaders can develop robust strategies, make informed technology investments, and enhance the student experience to ensure success in the digital age.

    About this article

    Dr. Vanina Torlo
    EY-Parthenon MENA Education Leader
    10+ years of experience in management consulting and a recognized associate professor in leading business schools. Has lived and worked in seven countries. Passionate about ballet, tennis and chess.
    Related topics
    Digital
    Digital strategy
    Government and Public Sector

    EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.