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How UCaaS is Shaping Education

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Executive summaryWhere challenge meets opportunity—that’s the nexus point facing higher education CIOs today as a wave of next generation technologies promises to upend all the conventional ways that many IT departments currently staff and deliver their services.

Despite these whirlwind technological changes, the mission of these institutions has not changed. They want to be known as student magnets—attracting the best and the brightest with quality academic curriculum and innovative learning experiences. CIOSs are well aware that their current IT staffing model is unsustainable. They will gravitate to the service providers that can help them leverage the opportunities that emerging technologies offer while helping them cut costs and increase efficiencies.

It’s all about connections and collaboration—integrating all their voice, messaging, and Webex conferencing into the seamless fabric that becomes synonymous with their brand.

Forward-looking CIOs are increasingly turning to UCaaS solutions to control an IT environment which has become unwieldy to manage, finance, and evolve. Rapidly changing technology demands IT expertise that most higher education schools cannot afford to staff and a large upfront capital outlay that few institutions can finance. Additionally, security compliance and protection issues, without expert support, can quickly erode the trusted bonds that they have carefully created over a long period of time with their stakeholders (students, parents, board members, faculty, and staff).

UCaaS offers integrated cloud-based communication products and services with 24x7x365 expertly-trained staff, predictable monthly pricing and the ability to scale up to multi-campus locations, be they physical or virtual. This type of robust support frees a school’s limited IT staffing to shift focus from upkeep to developing customized services that focus on unique student and faculty needs.

With over 17 years in the enterprise sector, CBTS UCaaS remains the ‘go-to’ provider for CIOs who are ready to make the transition from legacy to cloud-based solutions.

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IntroductionA disruptive sea of change is reinventing the traditional role of technology in the higher education sector. No longer relegated to the role of a bit player on the larger stage of campus life, strategic technologies now perform the lead roles front and center—CIOs rely on them for boosting academic quality, fostering innovation, attracting and retaining students—all critical goals on most CIOs’ wish lists. And doing all the above while cutting costs and delivering a favorable ROI.

But CIOs are quick to share that the rollout of these digital learning technologies comes with considerable challenges. The data-hungry initiatives that these technologies support have put higher education IT departments on notice: Burgeoning data retention needs, security risks, proliferation of collaborative platforms, to name just a few, can put severe pressures on these department resources, especially if they are still tethered to legacy technology platforms and practices.

Increasingly, forward-looking higher education CIOs are recognizing the benefits of moving to cloud-based solutions. Unified communication as a service (UCaaS) offers an enterprise-based business model that integrates such services as voice, web and video conferencing, unified messaging, e-911, mass notifications and paging and contact center into one 24x7x365 package that works across multiple locations. UCaaS addresses their current needs as well as a future when higher education trends indicate that effective collaboration, strategic analytics and feature-rich classroom experiences will be the differentiating hallmarks of competitive schools.

“Educause’s 2018 ‘Top IT Issues’1 list includes their greatest concerns—information security, student

success and repositioning IT strategy. It is a story of the convergence of higher education’s biggest

concerns with technology’s greatest capabilities.”

1 https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/1/top-10-it-issues-2018-the-remaking-of-higher-education

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Obstacles to bringing UCaaS to campusHistorically, the higher education sector, compared to other sectors, has been slow to adopt new technologies. And this is also true for the paradigm shift that is associated with migrating from its legacy IT infrastructure to cloud-based solutions. CIOs who understand that the long-term benefits of cloud migration outweigh the short-term disruption necessary to restructure their existing IT staffing and services will be the ones who are most likely to adopt a successful business model and mindset that takes advantage of this trend.

In so many ways, the future is now—rapid technological advances ensure the type of obsolescence that can wreak havoc to the most carefully-planned budgets. And few higher education budgets can afford to continually retrain their IT staff to keep abreast of these changes. An ever-changing student population offers another moving target—where analytics can play an important role if their IT staffs are expert enough to leverage demographic data to take advantage of an increasingly diverse and wide-spread student body.

Like evaluating any other major change that calls for major expenditures, CIOs understand the importance of due diligence. Not every vendor who touts the value of their cloud-based solutions can be trusted. That’s why CIOs are choosing CBTS UCaaS products and services when they are ready to commit to carefully-planned and strategically-staged cloud migrations that deliver continuously updated technologies, strategic analytics, and 24x7x365 tech support from anywhere on the globe.

“An institution that employs some means of managing and supporting change, whether administrative or pedagogic, is more likely to succeed—protecting its resources, financial and human,

and positioning itself in an educational ecosystem where changes are becoming more frequent and more pervasive.”

– The Remaking of Higher Education

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Why campus leadership should adopt UCaaSAn Educause IT Issues Panel report—“Top Ten IT Issues 2018”—lays out the challenges succinctly: “The 2018 Top 10 IT Issues list is a story of the convergence of higher education’s biggest concerns with technology’s greatest capabilities.” In short, at perhaps no other time since the Industrial Revolution, has the higher education sector faced so many opportunities saddled with so many hazards.

Here’s why:

• Information security remains the top issue for higher education IT staff—where not keeping pace with security threats as well as a failure to be PCI-compliant represent not only an IT risk but also an institutional risk. CIOs have to manage not only the financial risks but also blowback from the whole spectrum of school stakeholders—students, parents, board members—when a breach occurs. Additionally, insufficiently-trained inhouse staff may actually increase institutional exposure.

The UCaaS/NaaS Service remedy:The CBTS UCaaS combined with Managed Cloud Network as a Service (NaaS) reinforces a clients’ PCI compliance tool-set with state-of-the-art Intrusion Detection (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention (IPS) systems. Its expert staff uses state-of-the-art anti-malware products to guard against online threats to a school’s data integrity. By using network segmentation, CBTS creates a more secure network—limiting attack options and thus lowering the potential for an assault on an entire network.

• Making the campus environment safer is a priority—CIOs also identify campus security as an ongoing challenge. They understand the value that smart technologies can bring to this challenge.

The UCaaS/NaaS Service remedy: - Mass notifications capabilities for safety – UCaaS - Video surveillance cameras – NaaS

- Remove security monitoring – NaaS

- Emergency response capabilities and empowerment for students to quickly notify where a threat exists

• Improving the student experience is paramount—A phrase that is continually bandied about. But when polled, students reveal that they are quick to apply the smell test to those institutions that brag about their student interaction but are not truly student-centric. The Educause report shows that students expect the ‘campus to come to them’—whether it’s with feature-rich active classroom experiences, versatile online collaborative tools and platforms, remote learning options, and student-friendly applications that make enrollment easier or policies that make using their own devices (BYOD) a viable alternative to conventional school procedures.

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The UCaaS remedy:Active learning classrooms use such features as polling and think-pair-share tasks to keep students engaged. With its integrated communication package that includes unified messaging, voice and Webex and other collaborative applications, UCaaS is ideal for on-site as well as distance learning. Additionally, the CBTS Wi-Fi analytics can analyze student traffic patterns to improve Wi-Fi availability, bus schedules, class offerings, identify best locations for new food courts as well as where to put emergency notification stations.

Most of the higher education schools who are still on the fence when it comes to allowing students to use their own devices (BYOD) on their network, do so at their own peril. While they may have legitimate security concerns, a Bradford Networks ‘Impact of BYOD on Education’2 survey notes that these schools will eventually have to address these concerns as more and more of their higher education counterparts allow students to use their own devices on campus networks. Using UCaaS solutions, CBTS experts can help CIOs design a win-win BYOD policy that satisfies both student and faculty’s desires to use their own devices and protects IT resources as well.

• The traditional IT staffing model is unsustainable—it’s a realization that is driving forward-looking CIOs to look for alternative ways of structuring their IT departments. Rising salaries, the need for continuous training and stretching staff to ‘do more with less’ are major parts of the equation when managing costs and ROI.

The UCaaS remedy:Few schools can afford to continuously train their inhouse IT staff. Investing in the CBTS team of highly-trained professionals recognizes the reality that a consistent level of expertise plus staff on duty 24x7x365 is needed to effectively manage the complex technological needs of today’s cutting-edge higher education institutions.

“IT leaders should consider how to make technologies frictionless and should permit easy technology transitions throughout students’

life cycle for a more meaningful experience.” - Educause Review, The Remaking of Higher Education

2 https://www.bradfordnetworks.com/new-survey-finds-85-percent-of-educational-institutions-allow-byod-despite-security-concerns/

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What UCaaS can do for you

Streamline every support structure

Part the curtain behind every student experience and you will find a support structure that, when operating smoothly, is basically transparent to the user. That’s the way it should work. But every single department—from Finance to Human Resources to External Relations, to name just a few—has been affected by the disruptive sea change that characterizes the modern campus.

Effective communication is key across all departments. UCaaS integrates communication channels so that all voice, teleconferencing, and messaging are seamlessly woven into the student experience—wherever and whenever they are needed.

Understanding how UCaaS is able to streamline their overall experience is key: from utilizing online sources and class notes to communicating easily with classmates and professors to improving the way they submit and juggle projects. UCaaS integration provides the campus with a singular solution, rather than the mosaic of solutions, vendors, software and devices currently used. It’s all about presenting a more efficient way to encourage and promote collaboration and communication.

Leverage the data being collected

No higher learning school can ignore the potential of business intelligence (BI) and data analytic tools to find and retain students as well as to track trends that will help lead them into the future world driven by next generation technologies. But these tools are only as good as the policies that form the foundation for gathering and interpreting data. It’s a job for the kind of experts that CBTS offers. Their analytics can identify not only student demographic trends but also business practices that give institutions their competitive edge.

Seamlessly connect an expanding universe

As campus footprints expand—both physically with multiple campuses and virtually with distance learning options—seamless connectivity is the glue that keeps this whole universe operating as one unit. UCaaS offers the digital tools in an integrated package that scales to not only current needs but also future expansion.

It’s all about the data

Now that you have it, what are you going to do with it? That’s the question every higher education CIO is eventually asked. It’s a valid one since storing data can be expensive. But not leveraging it may be even more expensive in the long term—strategic data analysis is helping institutions parse out the motivators for student enrollment as well as the reasons for waning admissions. And expect artificial intelligence to increasingly provide adaptive resources that create better communication between faculty and students.

But it doesn’t stop in the classroom. At the governing level, business intelligence tools provide insight for better decision-making about every aspect of managing and sustaining a higher education enterprise – as well as providing the evidence that supports funding strategic business initiatives.

To maximize an environment that requires complex decision-making based on the best possible data, CBTS UCaaS and NaaS business intelligence tools come with a single-pane management design—providing CIOs with up-to-the-minute analysis of their operations via dashboards and real-time displays. Their IT staff are trained to customize the best business intelligence tools that identify areas for improvement as well as for growth.

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Legacy vs CloudWhile the case for using UCaaS to satisfy the burgeoning technological needs of higher education is compelling, some CIOs who still use legacy systems have a difficult time visualizing the factors that will build the evidence and arguments for their business cases. They ask just how different from their current configurations are cloud-based solutions?

Here’s a breakdown:

Legacy systems UCaaS cloud services Legacy systems UCaaS cloud services

Costs Unexpected emergencies as well as scheduled upgrades drive costs higher. Need to continually invest in evolving technologies

Monthly predictable costs.

No large upfront capital outlay.

Data retention/compliance/security

Managing data storage, compliance and security is the prime concern of CIOs. Few higher education institutions can afford the reputational and expensive blowback from a data breach.

UCaaS solutions use the highest standards of security experts to protect enterprise data. They also offer network segmentation to wall off potential assaults to an entire network.

Vendors Use a patchwork of vendors and service agreements; greater danger of conflicting technologies.

Single point of contact with vendor whose products integrate. Single partner ensures no service overlaps and product contentions.

Staffing Few institutions have a full-blown IT department that is available 24x7x365.

UCaaS offers 24x7x365 support by certified IT professionals.

Locations Multi-point campus locations may use redundant products and services.

Same integrated suite of products and services offers ‘anywhere’ ‘anytime’ operational flexibility.

Training Few institutions have budgets that can keep their IT staff continuously up-to-date on next-generation technologies.

UCaaS package is supported by experienced and trusted IT professionals who receive continuous state-of-the-art training.

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How CBTS UCaaS services stack up:Global footprint: U.S., Canada, and the UK

Longevity: Over 17 years hosting UCaaS

Client base: Large and mid-sized companies

Data centers: Staffed by 24x7x365 IT professionals

Tools and services: State-of-the-art security, analytic, network and management products that include:

• Local and long distance

• Peer-to-peer video

• Unified messaging

• IM&P—Instant messaging and presence

• Mobility applications

• Mass notification and paging

• Analytics

• E911

• Additional offerings: Hosted Enterprise Contact Center, Webex Meetings, Webex Teams

• Cisco partnerships

- Cisco Gold Partner

- Master Unified Communications Provider

- Master Service Provider

- Master Cloud Builder

- Master Security Partner

- Top 3 HCS Partner Worldwide

• Dedicated deployment team

• Single bill

• Monthly predicable pricing

• Call detail reporting

• No cost for moves, adds, changes or disconnects

• Include auto attendants and hunt groups

Asking the right questions

Deciding to ‘move to the cloud’ requires careful evaluation of current and future needs. Here are some questions to consider when reviewing UCaaS providers:

• What is their track record for delivering reliable services?

• Which of their tools, services and applications will not only mesh with but also advance your institution’s mission?

• How well do they understand the unique IT challenges of higher education institutions?

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ConclusionMigrating to UCaaS cloud-based services is a smart move for higher education institutions that understand the considerable ongoing challenges that rapidly-changing technologies present for schools that want to sustain a competitive edge. Not seizing that opportunity can be a serious mistake that few CIOs can afford.

To discover how UCaaS can benefit your institution, contact the experts at CBTS.

About CBTSCBTS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell (NYSE:CBB) that serves enterprise and midmarket clients in all industries across the United States and Canada. From Unified Communications to Cloud Services and beyond, CBTS combines deep technical expertise with a full suite of flexible technology solutions that drive business outcomes, improve operational efficiency, mitigate risk, and reduce costs for its clients.

Contact us today at cbts.com