Cloud and Big Data Are Redefining How Universities Learn

In the United States, nearly half of colleges and universities have adopted mobile services, more than 60% use cloud-based digital learning platforms, and close to half of institutions are already applying big data to analyze teaching and learning. These figures come from two reports, The Campus Computing Project and Information Technology in Higher Education: 2015 Survey of Chief Information Officers, which together illustrate how mature U.S. higher education has become in its use of cloud and data.

And Taiwan?

According to the 2015 Survey Report on the Organization and Budget Rationality of Information Units in Colleges and Universities, published by ISAC (Association for Information Service of Higher Education), only about 15% of institutions use a cloud-based digital learning platform. A survey by the Taiwan Digital Learning Association likewise shows that mobile learning has yet to be rolled out at scale in teaching and learning, and that the adoption rate for data analytics stands at just 33%.

This gap is precisely the issue that the Seminar on Cloud-Based Digital Learning Platforms and Data Analytics set out to address head-on. In June 2016, the Taiwan Digital Learning Association, ISAC (Association for Information Service of Higher Education), and the Office of Information Services at Tamkang University jointly hosted the seminar at the Alumni Club House on Tamkang University's Taipei Campus, running from 1:30 in the afternoon until 7:30 in the evening.

The most closely watched session of the day was delivered by Dr. Michael Cheng, Chairman of WisdomGarden and a board member of ISAC (Association for Information Service of Higher Education), on the theme "Trends in Learning Platform Development: Cloud, Mobile, and Data Analytics."

Drawing on front-line observations, Dr. Cheng argued that cloud, mobile, and data analytics are not three independent trends but an interdependent whole: the cloud frees schools from the burden of hardware and maintenance costs, mobile extends learning beyond the classroom, and data analytics is the key that turns the first two into real gains in teaching outcomes. He also noted that when Taiwanese campuses adopt these technologies, the real challenge often lies not in the technology itself but in how to persuade teachers to change their established teaching habits.

Cloud, mobile, and big data are now widely recognized as global trends in the education sector, yet between a trend and its implementation there is often a wall of practical reality: which platform to choose, how to deploy it, and how to convince teachers and administrative units to invest time in learning it—none of these steps is easy.

The value of this seminar lay precisely in bringing these practical questions out into the open. The attending heads of campus information units and representatives of teaching and learning development centers brought not only theory but the hands-on experience each institution had accumulated in the process of selecting and deploying a digital learning platform.

The next step for digital learning is not whether to adopt new technology, but whether schools can find a rhythm that suits them and turn that technology into a classroom that teachers are willing to use and that genuinely benefits students.