Educause Reports on 2024 Higher Education Trends

From the Introduction

This report focuses on the workforce, cultural, and technological shifts for seven macro trends that are continuing or emerging in higher education in 2024. Across these three areas of shift, [the authors] report the major impacts and steps that institutions are taking in response to each trend. 

Of chief interest to the NISO audience are the following:

• Increasing need for data security and protection against threats to personal privacy
• Demand for continued hybrid and remote work arrangements
• More calls for data-informed decision-making and reporting
• Growing efforts toward digital transformation and institutional resilience

The following segment pertaining to data security and protection gives a flavor of the report:

Shifts in Technology: Institutions are continuing to tighten controls to secure their perimeters–some campuses are removing administrative rights from devices, excluding foreign countries from systems, and implementing mandatory operating system upgrades. Institutions are also continuing to strengthen and standardize their endpoint management by exploring new identity management solutions and by making multi-factor authentication and single sign-on more widespread (e.g., implementation across all applications and services). Some respondents noted that their institutions are adopting new frameworks such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework and security information and event management solutions to improve their risk management. Yet other respondents noted that they have not been able to adopt new and needed technology due to a lack of the staff and time required to safely implement new technologies.

The full text of the report may be found here.  A final section includes next steps with specific EDUCAUSE resources as well,