Blog Post - Bringing together a connected campus [Published October 2023]

Bringing together a connected campus enhances collaboration

The connected campus, a broad-based transformation that leverages information-centric services such as Big Data and AI, is a tool for differentiating institutions of higher learning. The connected campus offers a means of prioritizing student experience that engages people on a deeper level while increasing enrollments.

The end goal of a connected campus is creating a place where students and faculty accomplish more with seamless collaboration.

One glaring challenge for universities is how often understaffed IT departments at colleges and universities will get a handle on so much transformative change at once, while simultaneously maintaining existing service needs.

Successful institutions are doing this by not doing it alone. Instead, they augment their digital infrastructure with collaboration from a managed solutions provider.

Making it possible with managed services

The emergence of the connected campus began in the classroom, with remote learning. Over time, connectivity has become a prerequisite for an institutional-level uptake of networking solutions built around synergetic efficiencies.

Many colleges are finding novel uses for their connectivity. Today D’Youville University in Buffalo, New York fields a Division II esports program and competes with top programs across the country. In just two years, D’Youville has found esports to be a reliable tool for recruitment, for building recognition and for engaging the community. All this is made possible with high-capacity fiber circuits and managed services support from Spectrum Enterprise.

Connectivity at D’Youville University also leverages a campus-wide television services solution, SpectrumU. Today’s students routinely expect video streaming and portability as part of their on-campus video experience. More colleges and universities are responding with technology that gives them what they want.

In order to capture these and other digital innovations facilitating the connected campus, colleges and universities are foregoing the “do-it-yourself” approach and reaching out to managed services providers.

The concept is a natural fit for understaffed IT departments, which often experience a high level of turnover. A Campus Technology white paper explains: “Managed services effectively enable institutions to augment their IT staff by leveraging a pool of talented professionals with years of experience across a broad range of technology domains.”

By embracing managed solutions that place much of the oversight and maintenance responsibilities with a trusted technology partner, IT departments at institutions of higher education can pursue holistic campus transformation while removing issues like capital equipment cost and staff training from the equation.

What makes a connected campus?

A Fierce Education article reports: “The ability for students and faculty to seamlessly engage and have complete access to information regardless of where they are located physically is key to the future of higher education.”

Some of the most exciting connectivity initiatives at campuses are the implementation of smart spaces. By combining the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) with cameras, sensors and network-edge technologies, colleges are creating smart spaces at lecture halls, dormitories, research labs and even waste management facilities.

According to Fortinet, 46% of education IT professionals anticipate IoT having a major impact on school operations.

Another connectivity focus is around cloud technology. As regular users of Big Data, colleges and universities are tapping into a knowledge bonanza in the cloud. This includes the safe storage of information as well as access to highly specific software solutions built around educational programming, improved communications and more effective assessment tools.

Connected campuses are prioritizing cloud service uptake by offering seamless and secure access to cloud services from decentralized locations.

Connectivity as a differentiator

A myriad of opportunities exist when connected campuses are combined with managed services support. These include opportunities to integrate a multitude of education-specific networking tools, like learning management systems [LMS] and student information systems (SIS).

These and other systems are designed to give college administrators a faster and more reliable means to track student progress, financial aid coverage and other key institutional metrics. This oversight is made easier when baseline connectivity is managed or co-managed by a technology partner.

Scalability is also critical to any college or university. As a university’s mission begins to expand, so will its need for connectivity, particularly around WiFi and bandwidth.

Bandwidth is especially important in accommodating remote learners. Many institutions of higher education are finding robust outreach to remote learners can expand a university’s overall mission (by supporting non-traditional students) and help counter a recent downward trend of college student enrollment.

A managed service provider should work with campus IT leadership to devise workable solutions highly customized to a specific type and size of campus. Network and connectivity needs can be aligned with use patterns as identified through analytics.

A second set of eyes for cybersecurity

Managed services offer colleges and universities more than affordable, low-stress solutions for connectivity and networking. They also provide a safeguard in addressing cyberattacks and data breaches, by managing critical oversight and mitigation tools and offering robust reporting features.

As campuses migrate to the cloud, college IT leaders need security platforms that migrate with them. Secure Access with Cisco Duo and Cloud Security with Cisco+ Secure Connect are designed to give IT staffs a heightened level of vigilance, combined with detailed tracking and immediate response.

The attraction of campus environments for cybercriminals is well documented. “In 2022, 65 individual ransomware attacks affected 1,436 schools and colleges, potentially impacting 1,074,926 students.” Colleges and universities also offer cyber-criminals vast repositories of personally identifiable information and variable levels of password hygiene.

In such environments, central oversight is a must. “As smart environments grow, so do the number of endpoints and the risk of compromise,” EdTech magazine reports.

The time to act is now

Increased digital fluency is driving both student and teaching populations to new paths of learning and collaboration. A connected campus is critical to fostering and harnessing their capabilities.

Managed solutions can make safe and effective networking solutions readily available to any institution. Just as importantly, they can help keep a connected campus aligned with principles and outcomes that best serve its students, faculty and community.

To learn more about how a managed workplace package can help start or build a connected campus initiative grow, as well as improve security across its network, view all the solutions offered by Spectrum Enterprise.