Funding constraints hold back digital transformation – survey

Universities across all four nations of the UK have strong digital infrastructure but funding and staff capacity are holding back further progress, a report says.

A survey of 83 providers suggests that insufficient funding or investment is the single biggest barrier to digital transformation, cited by 33 per cent of all respondents.

A fifth (20 per cent) said staff capacity and time was the greatest challenge to their ability to employ technology across organisations, speeding up processes, enhancing the learning experience and lowering costs.

And a tenth of all responses suggested organisational culture and “resistance to change” were to blame, with the same proportion saying legacy systems and infrastructure were the problem.

The findings, compiled by Jisc as part of the education and research organisation’s digital maturity assessment, show that on average, the UK’s universities have moved beyond “reactive investment” in digital infrastructure.

Instead, universities are working to make their use of technology more strategic.

But issues including fragmented processes and organisational activity, alongside uneven digital capability and employee time, are “fundamental constraints affecting progress”.

Across the survey, universities were more likely to rate their artificial intelligence capability lower than their digital competency on aspects such as teaching and learning platform infrastructure.

Multiple learning modes – allowing students to access learning digitally as well as in person – are well established across much of the sector but the practice of preserving research findings digitally is not as well embedded, although the report is careful to note some universities are less research-minded than others, which could partly account for this.

Positively, high digital maturity ratings exist across the sector when it comes to the safety and security of infrastructure.

In recent weeks, experts have warned universities that they are seen as “juicy targets” by cyberattackers, following attacks on platforms including the University of Nottingham’s student records site.

Jisc chief executive Heidi Fraser-Krauss described the findings as “encouraging” but noted that “we know digital transformation is about much more than just the technology, and there are clear challenges ahead”.

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com