We had our first-ever live stream last week as we announced that the institution portal would be free for college/university users. Justin Menard, CEO of ListEdTech, and I talked about the origins of ListEdTech and the rationale for moving the portal to a free service. Here’s the full conversation:
ListEdTech LIVE https://t.co/lmqXjwoU5W
— ListEdTech (@Listedtech) August 30, 2022
Our First Live Show Question
One of the questions we received during the live stream of our as-yet-to-be-titled show was how we keep track of multiple products within the same category at an institution. It was a terrific question as it reflects the complexity of keeping track of edtech systems.
Having worked at (and with) universities with multiple systems that do the same or similar thing, I completely understood how challenging it could be for university staffers to know what’s happening with edtech at their institution.
There’s almost always an enterprise-level solution for things like LMS, SIS, ERP, CRM, email, etc. However, sometimes a college or department within a school/faculty has the budget to purchase something else, and they buy another solution for their unit/sector.
This phenomenon could be described as the right hand not speaking to the left or vice versa. It happens more frequently at larger institutions (more budget/resources/students/etc.), and it can lead to overlapping contracts, multiple (but similar) systems, and sometimes, confusion.
In my experience, there can be legitimate reasons for multiple systems that do similar things. An enterprise-wide solution might not be flexible enough to match the distinct needs of a specialized department or college (e.g. on-campus experience vs. online-only). Or perhaps the campus-wide system is not as advanced as a newer, more innovative edtech offering. Communication between central IT and sub-departments/colleges can also come into play with this sort of scenario.
Primary + Secondary Systems
That is why we also collect data on secondary systems in addition to listing the primary (enterprise) edtech system/product within our portal. Secondary system data can be seen in the Institution lookup but is not yet accessible in the portal trends. As is the case with a lot of edtech data that we collect, rolling this information out onto the portal is an ongoing process.
Your Feedback Matters
This is another instance where feedback from our users is crucial in informing the data that we showcase in the institution portal, especially when secondary systems can be brought online long after a primary system has been established. If you’re looking at your institution within the portal and see something that needs to be removed or added, please let us know.
