With over 55 million students attending elementary and secondary schools in fall 2017, and with unprecedented EdTech spend projections through 2020, it’s easy to see how K-12 IT departments are under tremendous pressure to deliver and maintain the classroom of the future with the resources of today.
For 2018, TeamDynamix set out to get a better sense of IT maturity within K-12 education and to determine which key challenges are preventing districts from reaching their organizational goals.
Resource Constraints and Cybersecurity Listed as Top Challenges
Of the over 100 participants in our survey, 45% indicated resources constraints as their top challenge over the next 18 months, while 29% cited cybersecurity as their top challenge.
By improving IT maturity in five key areas, districts can use their existing resources more efficiently, while improving response times and service levels. This in turn allows them to focus their attention on key EdTech trends and emerging requirements, such as 1:1 classrooms, blended learning environments, virtual and mixed reality, and makerspaces that support STEM initiatives.
Five key areas for improving IT maturity:
- Self-Service Portals: 59% of participants rank their ability to provide self-service on the low end of the IT maturity scale. Imagine having a hub where students, parents, teachers, and staff can access service catalogs, easily find answers to common questions, and submit online request forms for all types of district and school-level services.
- Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS®): 47% of participants rank their ability to share knowledge through a centralized repository as poor. By leveraging KCS, new content is created as a byproduct of group problem solving where popular content is reviewed and expanded based on collective experience and knowledge.
- Endpoint Control / Security Standards: 27% of participants rank their ability to provide comprehensive cybersecurity and endpoint control as low. With the number of reported cyber incidents on the rise, having unified visibility and control for on- and off-network devices and users is critical for supporting your entire environment.
- Use of the ITIL Framework: 44% of participants rank their IT service’s adherence to ITIL standards on the low end of the IT maturity scale. As a set of practices that imparts practical and strategic guidance for IT service management, the overall goal of ITIL is to improve the business service. The business service will be improved when its support system—the specialized capabilities of the process, people, suppliers, and technology—is optimized.
- Change Management: 41% of participants rank the effectiveness of their change management process as low, and according to the IT Process Institute, 80% of unplanned downtime is caused by IT Itself. Implementing ITIL’s change management process helps mitigate unforeseen consequences that stem from improper planning and resource management.
The TDX 2018 K-12 Pulse Study is now available and you can get your copy here!
KCS® is a service mark of the Consortium for Service Innovation™.