Dive Brief:
- The University of Cincinnati has created a five-committee umbrella structure to test ed tech products for campuswide use.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that the university is building a “learning ecosystem,” called Canopy, made up of a group of tools approved by student, faculty, and administrative representatives.
- The committees bring quality control to the wave of ed tech options flooding the market, providing guidance for faculty and departments, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
The University of Cincinnati’s Canopy initiative strives to reverse its reputation as being behind on IT planning. Inside Higher Ed reports that both of the university’s last two accreditation reviews — in 1999 and 2009 — showed shortfalls in IT use and governance. Colleges and universities across the country are struggling with ways to make quality education technology tools easier to understand and adopt by faculty and students, weeding out the tools that aren’t worth their cost. Cincinnati’s effort is still in the early stages and it takes quite awhile for tools to be reviewed by all five committees but future students and instructors can look forward to more intentional and vetted IT initiatives.