The education system around the world was growing at a steady pace. But with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, the digitalization of ERP transforming education has happened rapidly.
UNESCO says that about 1.6 billion students, representing 91% of all the students in the world, are unable to gain quality education due to the virus. Conventional University education has taken a massive toll. Enrolments in premiere engineering and business schools have plummeted.
Thanks to mobile app development companies that are providing quality education during times of crisis. Statistics show that Coursera has registered a staggering 10.3 million enrollments in the last 30 days.
Remote teaching, a revolutionary way of offering high-quality course material in the form of video lectures, ebooks, and peer to peer discussion platforms have proven their mettle. It has been possible due to ERP systems that act as repositories of educational material and provide a safe and sound medium for students and teachers to connect.
The pandemic is going to end sooner or later. Higher education institutions should pull up their socks and upgrade their virtual learning ecosystem. They should hire iPhone and Android app development services to future-proof their institutions for the long term.
But the problem is that many teachers have either never designed or delivered an online course. Therefore, universities need to take a few calls urgently such as:
1. What content can be published and offered online?
2. How to train the faculties effectively?
3. How can existing online courses be redesigned, keeping in mind that students cannot join the university any soon?
4. How to make digital infrastructure more robust by including guided projects, virtualization, and gamification?
How is ERP transforming education?
1) Digital starters
These institutions have less than 3% of their courses available online. Also, the teaching staff isn’t adequately trained to create online courses, and the management has assigned a meagre budget for expanding online content.
Talking about students, they have limited access to hardware — including laptops, tablets, internet — and software such as video conferencing and other collaboration tools.
The good news for Digital starters is that it’s easy and inexpensive to go digital in the present day and age. Had the pandemic hit it in the 90s or the early 2000s, it would have been devastating.
Today, reliable communication tools and intelligent smartphones are ubiquitous. It’s easier to gain licenses for students and getting engaged online.
If you are facing problems setting up a student-teacher friendly online ecosystem, you should purchase a high-quality ERP software that makes online learning capable on a large scale. Also, take help from peer institutions and companies that provide free training for the same.
2) Emerging adopters
These institutions have successfully conducted online learning in small pockets and are ready to expand further. The students and teachers have access to the necessary collaboration tools and participate in online learning frequently.
If you fall into this category, you need to expand your horizons. And you can do this easily by having a robust ERP system in your institution. It will empower your faculty and management with resources, authority, and better decision-making ability.
Also, focus on creating more online courses supplemented with first grade free content from world-renowned institutions. If you think human curation is a time-wasting activity, you can use machine learning solutions like CourseMatch to map top-quality courses to your University curriculum.
For courses that require hands-on problem solving, you can explore virtual and take-home labs. In times of pandemic, when there is uncertainty around access to physical labs, the best alternative is a virtual lab where students can conduct experiments under the supervision of their teachers from the comfort of their home.
3) Advanced institutions
These institutions have the required technical infrastructure, an extensive repository of popular online courses, and teachers that are up-to-date in delivering digital content.
They have academic innovation centres where teachers and students mutually decide an online strategy beneficial for both. If you lie in this category, you should invest in multiple ERP systems that will help you scale your digital infrastructure.
They will store a large number of digital textbooks and conduct various live classrooms simultaneously. Besides, it also helps hold group discussions, virtual happy hours, study groups, student presentations, and live stream events seamlessly.
Some institutions, such as Imperial College London, are now exploring immersive technologies like Web Application, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in engineering and medicine.
“Education is one of the largest industries interested in adopting AR and VR, but there are still many obstacles that prevent the full implementation of these technologies in education, from lack of funding to lack of knowledge,”- says Bridgette Hernandez, a contributing writer from TrustMyPaper, an essay writing service where you can get custom research paper help.
Earlier when institutions thought of online learning, they focused on providing greater access to education to deprived communities and those who couldn’t afford to study in high-priced universities.
But now, when students across the globe cannot attend face-to-face classroom sessions, universities need to take a different approach. Risk mitigation is one of them. Those universities that build robust ERP transforming education will effectively sail through the times of crisis and any future calamity as well.
