How Can Higher Ed IT Teams Improve Academic Resource Adoption Rates?

In today’s world, digital literacy and digital equity are being acknowledged as the main drivers of student success for any educational institution. While digital literacy is “generating a deeper understanding of the digital environment,”¹ digital equity is about “ensuring equal access to technology.”² As higher ed institutions work to leverage technology to achieve these two important goals, the main impediment to their success is the low resource adoption rate by students.

What is the cost of low adoption?

To promote digital literacy and equity, higher ed institutions either procure expensive licenses directly for use by their students, or will purchase premium enterprise software packages to receive additional benefits allowing students to access software on their personal machines for free. While these assets hold great value, few students end up ever acquiring them due to challenges in managing distribution. In addition to the monetary loss, there is also the opportunity cost to the Institution. Had they been able to provide the resources to their students, it could have greatly contributed towards achieving higher levels of digital literacy & equity, which in turn would have resulted in an improved student experience.

What are the reasons behind the low academic resource adoption rate?

According to a survey³, “41% of students would like easier administrative procedures and as many as 87% would prefer a single app/web application accessible from any device.”

In addition to the stats above, there are a host of factors that contribute to low adoption. Below are listed the main barriers to a more widespread use of academic resources by students.

1. The absence of centralized resources – What this means is that students are directed to multiple online locations to be able to acquire the assets. The process is too complicated to communicate to students resulting in a total lack of systematic information or assistance pertaining to accessing free resources.
2. A convoluted path – The end user must go through several verification and registration procedures before they can access a single asset. This can be a potentially time consuming and frustrating experience for the student.
3. Lack of awareness – Although it may be possible that a single department does possess knowledge about the asset, but the problem arises when they fail to communicate the benefit to others across the institution.
4. Poor accessibility – Certain assets require the end user to go to a physical location at a specific time to procure access. This can be a most inconvenient option that most students will simply let pass.
5. Complication in license types – Different types of licenses may apply to different groups within the university, each administered by their own terms and conditions. Managing multiple licensing processes is a tedious task and may result in complete in-action, the latter being the easier of the two options.
6. Lack of motivation to remove pain points – Indifference on the part of the department tasked with spreading the word about the resource simply because they have “better things to do” results in the asset remaining largely unused.

Achieving greater student engagement in acquiring licenses and removing friction in the acquisition process is the key to reversing this trend, and revamping student services may help in bridging the current gap. Providing user friendly platforms with easy, secure and centralized access to resources is the only way to promote higher resource adoption rates, which in turn would drive a better ROI for educational institutions.

“The best students, faculty, and staff need and want access to the best software tools available to help them learn, teach, or do their daily work. A university where these tools are ‘just there’ at minimal or no cost or just part of the basic infrastructure of the university is very attractive.” ⁴

How the Kivuto Cloud platform helps optimize student experience

Kivuto cloud integrates multiple cloud services and aggregates them with local downloads, books, and other digital assets to give users a smooth, stress-free experience. By partnering, with leading providers of software across the world, we have created a process to streamline end user access to resources. Here is how Kivuto can lead you towards becoming a more student-centered organization.

1. As all resources are centralized on a unified platform, access is easy. User simply signs into school branded webstore using their school username and password.
2. Single sign on integrations allow end user to safely and easily access the platform to see what is available. As Kivuto supports all the major software providers globally, institutions can manage resources from their vendors on one platform.
3. Acquisition and check out process is simple and intuitive, like any other common online shopping experience.
4. Having all assets in one portal makes it easy to communicate about its availability to everyone across the campus. No ambiguity caused by directing users to multiple locations – instead they are provided with a one stop shop for all their academic and administrative needs.
5. The cloud-based portal allows for 24/7 access by any verified user from any device anywhere in the world (export compliance laws may apply).
6. Proxy order functionality allows administrators to push orders to end users removing all end user friction and dramatically increasing adoption.
7. Easy to use admin portal and easy to use admin tools allow for any asset to be ingested and managed with any applicable terms and business rules. Also, multiple user groups with different business rules for the same asset can be accommodated as well.
8. Platform localization and school custom branding allows institution to customize webstore making it familiar to the end user, decreasing any apprehension over its use.
9. Email automation allows Program Admin to contact end users who have acquired licenses in the past and easily notify them about the availability of new products.
10. The “auto add to cart” feature allows for institution to add complimentary products into the cart automatically when the end user chooses a related product. (For example, end user chooses to procure Adobe, and Azure cloud storage credits are auto added so the user has a place to store their creations.
11. Set it and forget it – Once set up by the admin, the system continues to run in a seamless, integrated and compliant manner.
12. 24-hour monitoring means the system is secure and being continuously monitored for cyber-attacks and fraud attempts.

Make the most of Kivuto Cloud to boost your resource adoption rates

Kivuto Cloud has been the world leader in digital distribution for education for more than two decades. Its secure, centralized and user-friendly platform improves asset adoption helping your school maintain the affordability of higher education along with paving the way to achieving greater student success.

Kivuto combines its unique features to eliminate friction in the buying process and significantly boost academic resource adoption rates.

Features Used:

• SSO integrations
• Rules Engine
• User group management
• Email Automation
• Webstore customization
• Auto add to cart
• Proxy Orders

To learn more about how Kivuto can help your institution reach us by email at getstarted@kivuto.com or by phone at 1-855-526-3005.

Click here to learn more about Kivuto Cloud

Sources:

¹ & ² Six significant challenges for technology in higher education in 2017

³Survey conducted by DJS Research

⁴IT Service Management Board Campus Software License Proposal