The 2018 digital university Staying relevant in the digital age

www.pwc.co.uk/publicsector

Talking Points

The 2018 digital

university

Staying relevant in the digital age

Contents

Introduction 3

The game has changed. Permanently 4

The power of emerging technologies 5

What are the barriers to going digital? 6

How to successfully harness digital 7

The digital blueprint 10

Digital in ‘everything we do’ – embedding digital

across all university departments

Conclusion 14

About PwC 16

Contacts 16

The very nature of Higher Education, how

it is delivered and the role of universities

in society and the economy is changing,

and will continue to change signiﬁcantly

in the next decade. Universities are

competing globally for students,

academics and funding, and only those

that stay relevant and leverage new digital

capabilities will beneﬁt in this digital age.

Our recent Talking Points, ‘The 2018

university – making the right choices,

making it happen’

considered how, in an

increasingly competitive Higher Education

sector, universities need to dierentiate

themselves through new and emerging

business models – one of which was to

become a Digital Leader.

Many universities are developing speciﬁc

digital strategies in reaction to the massive

shift towards using new technology, yet

lack the vision, capability or commitment

to implement them eectively. As a result

many institutions then invest heavily in IT

systems that don’t deliver the anticipated

beneﬁts and outcomes. These universities

fail to appreciate that they don’t need a

digital strategy – just a business strategy

that is ﬁt for the digital age.

Staying relevant in the digital age requires

a strategic vision for the whole institution,

a vision that is led by senior management

with support from many departments, not

just IT. A lack of digital literacy amongst

academics, students and sta means that

early engagement and interaction to build

the right support networks is essential to

achieving sustainable change across the

entire institution.

Universities that are not equipping

themselves to adapt to this new digital era

will be left behind. Whether you want to

be a digital leader or simply stay relevant

in the digital age, the time to act is now.

1 PwC, 2015, The 2018 university – making the right choices, making it happen www.pwc.co.uk/2018university

Introduction

Digital is here and it’s here to stay. For

example: always connected mobile devices

are ubiquitous; social media is the primary

communication channel for many; new

cloud computing capabilities allows the

creation of new tools and products at a

rate not previously seen; geolocation

sensors create new tracking and targeting

opportunities; digital is now the ﬁrst

choice for media consumption – the list

goes on. This disruption is impacting and

changing Higher Education and academia

and the change is set to continue.

Students have become customers who

bring their own digital world expectations

to university. These customers are more

savvy, better connected and more vocal

than ever. Many have preconceived ideas

of how universities will engage directly

with them and what outcomes they can

expect in return for their investment.

Students increasingly see universities as

the main means of securing their future

employment rather than simply learning

and self-development. The value

proposition for universities is therefore

changing and this means that

employability and the student experience

is more critical than it has ever been.

Although MOOCs (Massive Open Online

Courses) have yet to gain the traction that

many anticipated, a new wave of

innovative teaching techniques has

arrived and academics are exploring new

methods of teaching that are underpinned

by digital technologies. MOOCs are far

from being the end of the line for digital

disruption in teaching methods. As a

generation that is more digitally

sophisticated than any previously,

students expect to be taught and to learn

using methods that suit their personal

preferences and at a pace that they have

chosen, not one that is mandated to them.

This rapidly evolving young audience

takes on new tools and apps at a pace that

even the most agile university struggles to

keep up with. And as competition from

credible substitutes to Higher Education,

such as Higher Apprenticeships, continues

to grow, as does the ﬁerce competition to

attract the best students in both the UK

and internationally, universities need to

demonstrate that they are able to provide

the digital experience that students now

take for granted. In today’s digital age

where the voice of the customer is more

prevalent than ever, turning your

customers into advocates for your

university is one of the most powerful

marketing tools available.

The game has changed. Permanently

The power of emerging technologies

New and emerging technologies such

as smart mobile/wearable devices and

sensors, cloud-based IT and advanced

analytics are changing business and

operating models across all sectors

including Higher Education. These

technologies present new opportunities

to improve or redeﬁne the university

experience and campus through

activities including teaching and

learning, research and working on

complex projects with other universities

and partner organisations.

For instance, imagine a ‘Digital Campus’

that senses when students, tutors,

professors and other university sta are

on campus and then provides them with

relevant interactive information on their

devices to help them do their jobs better.

Or, imagine a scenario where virtual and

augmented reality is used to give

prospective students a richer digital

experience before and during an open

day or to make dierent campus

environments digitally explorable for

students in their everyday lives.

Alternatively, consider a university in

which telepresence solutions are routinely

used to support better remote working

or where artiﬁcial intelligence is used to

intelligently, accurately and rapidly

respond to queries coming via the web

or by phone.

Advanced analytics is also transforming

what universities can do for students,

professors and tutors. A wealth of data is

now being collected from a range of

internal systems and external sources

such as mobile and wearable devices that

can be analysed and presented back to the

user in an interactive and highly visual

fashion. Universities that are able to

harness the potential of data by analysing

it intelligently and using it to deliver

outcomes, such as improved academic

performance, employability rates or

student retention, will give themselves

a considerable advantage.

Finally, cloud-based IT is transforming

the art of the possible and is delivering

a step change in terms of agility for those

organisations that are able to adopt the

modular and scalable approach to IT that

it oers. New ideas can now be tried out

with a minimum of upfront investment,

and this reduction in the ‘cost of curiosity’

means that trying to predict the future is

becoming almost impossible. It is far more

important to invest in gaining the true

agility that comes as a result of being able

to rapidly respond to changing market

conditions and take advantage of the new

opportunities presented in the digital age.

All of this can be the dierence between a

20th century university and a 21st century

one. We expect that over time, the most

desirable students will be attracted to

those universities that embrace the digital

age on their terms rather than being

overwhelmed by it. This means that being

aware of new trends in emerging

technologies and having the ability to

rapidly harness their potential to drive

improved outcomes will become a key

dierentiator within Higher Education.

What are the barriers to going digital?

Many universities lack a clarity of vision

on the disruptive impact of digital on

Higher Education or are unable to respond

eectively. Common reasons can be:

• Understanding that universities have a

new breed of customers that they need

to engage with, and competitors that

they need to compete with, in new and

dierent ways

• An inability to simultaneously evolve

existing ways of working whilst adding

new techniques, tools and capabilities

• A culture that inhibits the rapid

development and release of new

technology

• A lack of trust in digital services and

cloud technologies, or concerns about

their reliability, security and resilience

Another major inhibitor to digital uptake

in universities is digital literacy. By this

we mean the knowledge, skills and

conﬁdence to use the available technology

and devices to deliver the outcomes you

want. Academics and sta can be fearful

of using tools in which they lack

conﬁdence and are nervous about

engaging in digital spaces where they can

feel at a disadvantage to students (or

‘digital natives’, who have grown up

around technology). Despite these digital

natives being always-connected, with

mobile devices to hand, they seldom

possess the skills to use this technology

eectively in a learning context. So

universities have a real responsibility to

embrace digital, particularly when

teaching, to ensure students are getting

the most from new technology.

Digital technology has enabled many

innovative teaching techniques such as

ﬂipped classrooms, richer distance

learning experiences and hybrid (a

combination of online and face-to-face)

teaching models. However, even though

they don’t always like to admit it, many

universities and academics view teaching

as being secondary to research.

Getting the most out of learning

platforms such as Blackboard, Canvas or

Moodle requires a signiﬁcant investment

of a university’s time – an investment

that is only made when teaching is

recognised as a valued activity. As a

result, many learning platforms have

simply become repositories where lecture

notes are stored for download, delivering

little beneﬁt for the student or the

provision of data for use in analytics.

With the government announcing the

imminent introduction of the Teaching

Excellence Framework (TEF) the need to

improve is now even more heightened.

In addition, university IT departments

who need to support digital initiatives are

not always well equipped to do so.

Inﬂexible policies, aging infrastructure

and inexperience working with digital

agencies can delay or prevent new digital

initiatives from taking shape. Academics,

sta and students that try and use digital

technology in new and innovative ways

can often be ‘shut down’ by IT

departments fearing a loss of control or

with concerns about risk and compliance.

It’s not just all about barriers to

embedding and using new technology

though. Having the right voice on existing

social media platforms and being able to

respond quickly, consistently and in the

right tone can be a signiﬁcant

dierentiator in this space. Many

universities though are unsure of how to

leverage these communication channels

eectively and what the appropriate

controls should be. Often this results in an

over-complicated approval process for

social media postings, deterring

academics and sta who have interesting

or unique points of view. The social media

postings that do make it through the

bureaucracy can often be stale or overly

corporate, creating a jarring social media

experience for many.

2 Link all digital activity to the

university’s overall vision

and strategy

All successful change programmes need

to be underpinned by a clear vision and

strategy deﬁned by senior management.

Digital is no dierent and clarity on the

anticipated beneﬁts and how these tie

back to the overall strategy is necessary

for success.

A lack of overall vision can lead to

disjointed programmes and this siloed

thinking leads to siloed IT systems

creating an infrastructure that is complex,

inﬂexible and unable to react quickly in a

changing marketplace. Before sta and

academics can buy into new strategic

programmes to improve digital

capabilities, they need to understand why

the programme exists and what their role

is in achieving the strategic outcomes.

Open and transparent communication is

essential to building trust, as is the need

for those involved to feel part of the

change – not that the change is being

‘done to them’.

3 Invest in communities built

around willing and capable

digital innovators

To make digital a success, universities

need to invest in giving sta, academics

and students the right training in

digital technologies and combine this

with eective support networks. This

is an ongoing commitment, and those

institutions that, for example, simply

provide students with an introduction to

a series of software applications during

Fresher’s Week with no follow up, should

not expect to achieve a signiﬁcant uptake

in digital technologies from those students.

Sta and academics need to be given the

freedom and ﬂexibility to try innovative

new ways of working, using digital

technology without fear of criticism or

retribution. Peer groups that provide

support on digital technologies and

techniques are necessary to embed digital

literacy for academics, sta and students.

Innovative thinkers who are pushing the

boundaries of what can be achieved

through digital technology should be

encouraged to act as ambassadors for

these support groups so they can act as a

catalyst for change and feel that their

actions are appreciated and encouraged.

1 Understand that digital

transformation aects

every part of the university,

not just IT

The idea that digital is all about

technology is a common misconception.

Of course, technology plays an important

role, but it is simply the canvas upon

which the digital experience is created.

Many universities looking for a digital

quick ﬁx, procure new technology

platforms via their IT departments

without ﬁrst understanding the wider

role of digital across the institution.

IT-led programmes seldom deliver the

anticipated beneﬁts and can disadvantage

universities while they wait for outcomes

that never materialise.

IT departments need to be involved,

but involved in the right way. Cross-

department transformation programmes

that are driven primarily by those

who will receive the beneﬁt, with

support from IT and the right enabling

technology, are necessary to achieve

sustainable outcomes.

How to successfully harness digital

4 Adopt a design approach

that focuses on customer

needs, not the university’s

internal structure

Delivering a great customer experience

means listening and being agile enough to

react to criticism and feedback. Designing

the digital experience around the way the

university is currently structured and

behaves rather than focusing on the

needs of the end user can lead to out-

dated behaviours, such as issuing email

addresses to students who don’t use email

regularly and already have an email

address anyway. Seeking honest opinions

through surveys, forums and opinion

polls brings valuable insight as does

information obtained from ocial and

unocial social media groups. Monitoring

what people are saying about your

competition can also be highly revealing

and can identify new opportunities for

dierentiation.

Capturing and analysing this information

and using it to challenge the status quo

can identify areas where customer service

could be improved and how a unique

position within the market can be

developed even if this requires innovation

and the creation of new team structures.

The power of social media – are you managing it eectively?

Academics and sta don’t automatically

know how to use social media for the

beneﬁt of the university without the

appropriate guidance and support.

Academics can be wary of entering

‘personal’ social spaces, such as groups

set up by students on Facebook, and

university representatives who appear

defensive when negative comments are

made on social media platforms, can

give the wrong outward impression.

Unintentional side eects of well-

intentioned actions can have a similarly

negative impact. For instance, an

academic or tutor entering a lively and

interactive social media community of

students discussing course content, can

bring the debate to a premature end as

they can be seen as a subject matter expert

rendering further debate unnecessary.

Senior management and marketing

departments fearful of the lack of

control resulting from allowing

academics and sta to post in social

channels or blogs can impose rigid

regulations, or review processes that

inhibits and stiﬂes creativity.

Universities that have embraced the four

principles we have outlined are aware of

the power of social media and the

positive impact that it can have on

potential students, current students and

alumni. A university with a rich social

media presence can keep followers

up-to-date with relevant information,

and provide an alternative means of

interacting with the institution.

A strategic approach to embedding

social media will look dierent for each

individual institution. Removing

barriers and empowering individual

university departments to create their

own voices on social media can help

bring those departments to life digitally

within the context of the university’s

overall vision. This acts as a catalyst for

the further uptake of new digital tools

and techniques.

A community is needed to support and

maintain this transition and those

universities that are leading on this

digital initiative have created Digital

Hubs or Social Media Command Centres

at the heart of the campus to act as a

central point for the digital community.

In turn this provides the support and

advice necessary for academics and sta

that are less comfortable with the use of

social media in an academic context.

This approach embeds best practice

policies and behaviours without the

need for an overly bureaucratic process

or for individuals to feel that they are

being watched and monitored.

A digital blueprint for the

future

The modern university has to play many

dierent roles but must also have a well-

deﬁned focus that sets it apart from the

competition. Finding the right balance is

the key to survival and success.

For example, students have changed

dramatically. They are now paying

customers and bring with them a set of

demands and expectations that modern

Higher Education providers must meet

and exceed. For sta working in Higher

Education, the digital age has created

huge new challenges and opportunities.

Teaching and learning, research,

working conditions and reward are all

changing fast.

Our digital blueprint considers how

being digital in everything you do will

connect a university directly to its

customers and sta.

There are many aspects to becoming a

successful digital university, and there is

not a single ‘one size ﬁts all’ answer. There

are however, a number of key themes that

we see over and over again in those

institutions that are leading the way on

the digital agenda.

The digital blueprint

Students

What to study?

Prospective students can easily ﬁnd information about courses and drill down into

richer course content and communities

Where to go?

Students have a range of options about where to learn and how to consume learning materials

Simplify enrolment

The enrolment process is clear, and progress can be easily tracked. There is not a

‘communications gap’ between oer acceptance and the course commencing

Maximum impact in the ﬁrst 100 days

Makes queries easy and reduces uncertainty for new students

Academic student support

Supports students with academic attainment and achievement using digital channels

Insight & analytics student support

Students understand their performance and potential from collated data

Postgraduate research support

PGR students track their progress and collaborate with other PGR students

Student life platform

Highlights student communities, extra-curricular activities and discounts in the local area

Employability and further academic options

Students are prepared for life after their undergraduate degree

Sta and academics

Professor/tutor support

Supports the professor/tutor with teaching activities

Insight & analytics professor/tutor support

Professor/tutor understands their students’ performance and

potential from collated data

Professor support

Supports professors with publications and research activities

Funding & collaboration support

Encourages collaboration across disciplines for research

opportunities and publication production

Professional services support

Enables sta to manage the ‘business’ of the university eectively

‘My portal’ self service

Provides all sta with a digital way of managing their key tasks

University

Branding

The university brand is used eectively in digital channels to

give the institution a ‘personality’

Attracting students

The best students are attracted by understanding how the

university can help them achieve their goals

Attracting professors

The university attracts the best academic talent by being seen as

a leader

Attracting professional sta

Enables the university to attract the best professional

services talent

Attracting partners & funding

Builds and manages partnerships with other institutions

Co-creation with business

Establishes mutually beneﬁcial partnerships with business

Alumni support & community

Alumni maintain a connection and sense of community

with the university

Content management

All content is digitised and stored securely

Digital in ‘everything we do’ – embedding

digital across all university departments

As well as embracing a digital blueprint for

customers and sta, thinking digitally also

means taking a whole departmental

approach across an institution – this is the

only way that the levels of innovation and

cultural change required to become a

digital university can be achieved.

The digital agenda needs to be driven by

senior management who in turn need the

support of individual departments to take

ownership for their own contribution

towards achieving the necessary outcomes

and tying individual activities back to the

overall strategy and vision.

Estates & Facilities:

• Create ﬂexible digital collaboration

spaces with access to video screens and

power and provide good wireless

connectivity on campus and in halls of

residence

Procurement:

• Support a range of contracting models

and frameworks that give media agencies

scope to work using new ﬂexible delivery

and implementation techniques

IT:

• Become a forward-looking department

that tracks new technology trends and

advises on how these can be used to

deliver new capabilities and outcomes

for the university

• Revise policies and procedures so that

the innovative use of digital technology

by sta, students and academics can be

encouraged

• Make access to information and systems

as open and accessible as possible so that

data can be consumed in new and

innovative ways

• Leverage cloud technologies to drive

innovation and the fast turnaround of new

digital capabilities, products and systems

HR:

• Develop employment contracts and

Continuing Professional Development

(CPD) programmes to support the ongoing

development of digital literacy skills

• Support teaching as a valuable role on a

par with research to help drive innovation

in new teaching methods and techniques

that leverage digital capabilities

Faculties & Schools:

• Develop optional or mandatory modules

within courses that promote digital

literacy to students

• Support those academics that are

leading the way in the development of

digital skills and developing new

innovative teaching techniques, to

become advocates that support the

promotion of digital literacy within the

wider academic community

• Encourage the advanced use of learning

platforms by academics to deliver better

outcomes for students and the university

and to capture valuable learning data for

use in analytics

• Help to build support networks for

academics who are less conﬁdent with

digital technologies

Marketing:

• Engage with sta, academics, students,

potential students and alumni across a

range of social channels, web sites and

apps to deliver a personalised service

that represents the university’s culture

• Determine how the university’s brand is

perceived in its target markets through

surveys and monitoring social channels

and react accordingly to reﬂect the

preferred perception of the institution

• Relinquish some control on social media

channels to encourage innovation and

the creation of digital communities.

Support the creation of digital

communities between individuals at

dierent stages of their academic

journey (such as applicants and alumni)

to help provide insight of life at the

university or on speciﬁc courses

• Use captured data and analytics to

identify target customer segments and

develop personalised marketing

messages for each

Library:

• Help the creation of digital literacy

support networks for students by

providing input and a space for students

to collaborate

International Oce:

• Use digital channels to help overseas

students build a better sense of the

university environment

• Engage with overseas students and

international agents through social

media and other digital channels such

as dedicated apps

Admissions:

• Use digital to engage with and inform

applicants on progress of applications and

maintain contact with applicants after

they accept and before they enrol, to give

them a sense of what to expect at the

university and how they should prepare

• Use insight and analytics to identify

and increase conversion rates of the

most desirable applicants, particularly

when it is anticipated that they will

accept an oer

Finance:

• Help to develop budgets that support an

Operational Expenditure budget model

that is required to strategically leverage

cloud technologies

Student Services:

• Develop insight and analytics that can

help to identify struggling or disengaged

students so that targeted interventions

can be made and in turn improve

retention rates

1414

Conclusion

Although the transition into the digital age can be daunting,

universities that develop the right business strategy that

includes responsibility for digital technologies within every

department can open up a host of exciting new opportunities

to engage with students, academics and sta.

There is no single way to deliver particular outcomes through

digital technology, but by listening to end users, valuable

insight can be gained and acted upon. By empowering

individuals across the institution to try new ways of working

with digital technologies and providing them with the

support and guidance they need, a university can transform

itself from a faceless organisation into a vibrant institution

with its own digital personality.

The opportunities are out there and universities are

learning how to survive and thrive in these changing

times. How will you take advantage of the digital age and

stay relevant for your academics, staff, and current,

former and future students?

1515

Contacts

About PwC

At PwC we focus on three things for government and the public sector: assurance, tax and advisory

services. Working together with our clients across central government, local government, health,

education, charities, transport, housing, social care, defence and international development, we

look for practical, workable solutions that make a dierence in solving the pressing challenges that

are being faced every day.

As well as bringing our insight and expertise to this sector, we contribute our thinking and

experience to the public policy debate through our Public Sector Research Centre. To join this free

online community, go to www.psrc.pwc.co m and register today for regular updates on our

research and analysis.

Caitroina McCusker

07764 331 623

caitroina.mccusker@uk.pwc.com

Dan Babington

07715 034 892

dan.p.babington@uk.pwc.com

This publication has been prepared for general guidance on matters of interest only, and does not constitute professional advice. You should not act upon the information contained in this publication without performing appropriate due

diligence and/or obtaining speciﬁc professional advice. No representation or warranty (express or implied) is given as to the accuracy or completeness of the information, and, to the extent permitted by law, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP,

its members, employees and agents accept no liability, and disclaim all responsibility, for the consequences of you or anyone else acting, or refraining to act, in reliance on this information contained or for any decision based on it.

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The Public Sector Research Centre is PwC’s online community for insight and research

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The PSRC enables the collaborative exchange of ideas between policy makers, opinion

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To register for this free resource please visit www.psrc.pwc.com

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