EDUCAUSE

Looking ahead, embedding data analytics as a core component of strategic planning ensures programs are more responsive, effective, and tailored to the evolving needs of educators and students alike. From Data to Decisions: Enhancing Faculty Development with Analytics by Hua Zheng and William Shay

Colleges & universities can leverage data analytics to gather & analyze faculty feedback, using these insights to shape faculty development & ensure that faculty members' needs & interests are at the forefront of planning. Check out this EDUCAUSE Review article to explore more

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EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 Main Stage Live! October 28 - 30, 2025 Dr. Joy Buolamwini 2026 EDUCAUSE Top 10 Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III Register for Free

We're streaming our #EDU25 Main Stage Live! – and it's FREE to register. Join us October 28–30 to experience the main stage energy. Register now to secure your virtual seat and tell your friends!

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2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Data and Analytics Edition Building Institutional Capacity for Data Literacy Taking Action

Create resources all stakeholders can easily access. Develop guides, dashboards, glossaries, & other resources to help users understand & interact with data. Build a data literacy program that meets your community’s unique needs. Consider your users’ level of comfort using data, their daily work, & their modality & format preferences.

Collaborate with professional learning staff. Staff who have expertise in designing learning experiences can help identify learning objectives, develop programming, & evaluate your data literacy program. Teach users to take a human-centered approach to data literacy. Help your community use data for the benefit of all people, mitigating the risk of reinforcing biases & other barriers to success.

Create a community of practice for pros who are building capacity for digital literacy. Such networks help professionals share best practices & find opportunities to collaborate. Embed data literacy into the design, delivery, & governance of institutional data products. Include intro pages that provide key definitions, describe assumptions behind data collection & analysis methodologies, embed microlearning, & host office hours.

In the 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Data and Analytics Edition, our panelists prioritized six key technologies and practices with the greatest potential to transform data and analytics in higher education

Curious about other aspects of tech use in data and analytics? Read more:

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2025 EDUCAUSE Socks EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025

The will be socks! Get your pair at the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in Nashville later this month. There's still time to register to join us.

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2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Data and Analytics Edition Social Trends

The need for effective data governance is growing. Institutions will need to focus on key efforts such as developing policies for the use of data in AI, addressing ethical & privacy concerns, clarifying data ownership, & managing both structured & unstructured data sources.

Critical data-related literacies are persistently lacking. Institutions should clearly define data literacy, embed it into governance frameworks, & integrate it into professional development & learning opportunities. Moving forward, investing in people will be just as critical—if not more so—than investing in analytics platforms.

Concerns about the need for human oversight in AI are growing. Policies that define when & how human oversight is needed & discourage reliance on tools & systems that lack transparency will be essential. AI should augment—not replace—human decision-making. Institutions that embrace this balance will be better equipped to ensure the ethical, equitable, & accountable use of AI.

In the newly released 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Data and Analytics Edition, our expert panelists identify and examine the most influential trends shaping teaching and learning in higher education across five categories: social, technological, economic, environmental, and policy

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EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online Tuesday October 28 Dr. Joy Buolamwini Artificial Intelligence Expert, ARtis, Founder of Algorithmic Justice Leage & Author of National Bestseller Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski STEM Education Leader, President Emeritus of UMBC, Co-Founder of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program & Author of The Resilient University

AI and Resiliency are to words that go hand in hand with higher ed today. Lucky for you, we have amazing general session speakers at the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference that will speak on both!

Dr. Joy Buolamwini and Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III

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In our EDUCAUSE Review article, A More Human University: The Role of AI in Learning, we discuss the ways in which education has been built for scale, not for quality, and how AI can help us tackle that paradox.

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Connect with the best thinkers in higher education technology EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online

What are you most looking forward to at the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference? Is it the informative and invaluable sessions? The networking opportunities? Or the genuine connections you'll build? We can't wait to see you in Nashville October 27-30!

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2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Data and Analytics Edition Key Technologies Building Institutional Capacity for Data Literacy AI-Powered Assistants AI-Powered Decision Intelligence Mixed Methods Research for Student Learning Data Data Mesh Architecture Federated Data Governance

What key tech & practices are anticipated to have a significant impact on the future of data & analytics?

In the 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Data and Analytics Edition, we discover that universities are turning to data, analytics, & AI to create personalized learning

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Building Trust and Rigor in Microcredentials: Synthesizing Standards, Taxonomy, and Frameworks by Sherri Braxton Castanzo TrustEd Microcredential Framework EDUCAUSE Review

Knowledge microcredential: This type of microcredential is issued when learners demonstrate foundational knowledge through a validated assessment. This ensures that the microcredential accurately represents the learner's knowledge & remains consistent across learning domains.

Application microcredential: This is awarded when learners demonstrate their ability to apply knowledge in practical, real-world scenarios, such as projects or labs. By validating skills through performance assessments, these microcredentials provide trusted evidence that learners can apply their knowledge effectively.

Recognition badge: A recognition badge is issued for participation or attendance without requiring assessment. The recognition badge aligns with the principle of transparency by explicitly acknowledging engagement without validating a specific competency.

By integrating rigorous standards, a unified taxonomy, & an established framework, microcredentials can be designed & implemented as credible, transparent, & valuable indicators of learners' skills & competencies across various sectors. Check out this new EDUCAUSE Review article!

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In this episode of EDUCAUSE Shop talk, we unpack the 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report’s findings, noting that higher education continues to wrestle with low levels of data literacy and weak data governance foundations. er.educause.edu/podcasts/edu...

Hotline Cybersecurity and Privacy September 2025 by Michael Corn EDUCAUSE

As AI becomes more prevalent & cybercriminals become increasingly sophisticated, how can AI be leveraged for both offensive and defensive purposes at higher ed institutions? It's the training and preparation of cyber professionals that future-proofs an organization. Preparing for the world we now face requires more than noodling with prompts; it requires dedicated study. I suggest forming topical study or reading groups.

What is your favorite activity that you believe changed user behavior for the better? Consider this: Why do we expect users to change? They didn't create this problem; it was created by the various applications. For an organization, mandating single sign-on (SSO) and supporting integrations with mobile technologies such as Face ID, combined with aggressive use of a password manager or passkeys, is probably the best you can do.

What is the most widely adopted cybersecurity framework within higher education: NIST CSF, ISO 27001, or CMMI Cybermaturity? There seems to be a trend to embrace NIST standards in general, and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) specifically. As more federal agencies try to harmonize their regulatory approach to cybersecurity, more universities and colleges are turning to NIST. To be honest, NIST is the gold standard.

"Hotline: Cybersecurity & Privacy" tackles the philosophical, moral, strategic, & organizational quandaries related to higher ed cybersecurity, privacy, & data. This month, we answer your questions about building cyber skills in the age of AI, shaping habits, & selecting a framework

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Connect with the best thinkers in higher education technology EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online

Braindates are now open! The 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is fast approaching. There's still time to join us in Nashville AND sign up for Braindates - where you can spark meaningful conversations either 1:1 or in small groups.

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2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Data and Analytics Edition

Higher ed is navigating financial pressures, shifting enrollment, evolving regulatory landscapes, & calls for ethical use of data

Our 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Data and Analytics surfaces both external forces shaping the field & innovations likely to define its future

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EDUCAUSE 2025 Horizon Report Action Plan: Building Skills and Literacy for Teaching with GenAI by Jenay Robert

Strategic foresight is only useful if we move from insight to action. That’s why our 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Action Plan | Building Skills and Literacy for Teaching with GenAI should be on your TBR.

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EDUCAUSE Cybersecurity Awareness Month - Small actions can make a big difference - educause.edu

Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit - The HECVAT is a tool designed to help college and university professionals more easily measure vendor risk. Created by leaders in higher education in collaboration with EDUCAUSE, Internet2, and REN-ISAC, the HECVAT is a comprehensive questionnaire that companies can complete to provide a detailed picture of their cybersecurity, privacy, IT accessibility, and compliance standards in one place–helping higher education leaders make better technology decisions, faster

2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Action Plan: Supporting Agency, Trust, Transparency, and Involvement - Our expert panel was charged with envisioning the preferred future of supporting agency, trust, transparency, and involvement in higher education and creating an action plan toward that future.

Cybersecurity Community Group - The purpose of the group is to provide a forum to identify problems and share strategies or solutions as colleges and universities continue to improve information security governance, compliance, data protection, and privacy programs.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is about more than setting up firewalls, penetration testing behind the scenes, and checking the required compliance boxes. Here are some resources from EDUCAUSE to help you reinvigorate your cybersecurity efforts!

er.educause.edu/articles/202...

EDUCAUSE Career Center Higher education jobs and candidates jobs.educause.edu

Check out the EDUCAUSE Career Center - it's a one-stop hub for job seekers and employers across higher ed IT. Search roles like CIO, instructional technologist, and more, explore career resources, post listings, or find your next great hire.

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EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online Learn Connect Explore

Ready to learn, connect, & explore with the higher ed tech community? Don’t miss the 2025 EDUCAUSE Conference October 27-30. Choose from program tracks covering AI, leadership, student success, & more, alongside interactive workshops & networking opportunities. Register now!

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Connect with the best thinkers in higher education technology EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online

Engage with higher ed peers at the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. With meetups, interactive sessions, networking events, and more, this is the place to build new and strengthen exisiting relationships. Register now!

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EDUCAUSE 2025 Horizon Report Action Plan: Building Skills and Literacy for Teaching with GenAI by Jenay Robert Goals for Our Future

Goals for our Future We assembled a global panel of experts to envision their preferred future of GenAI in higher education and create an action plan to get to that future. Asked to describe their preferred state of higher education 10 years from now, panelists collaboratively described the following:

Goals for our Future - Communities have renewed trust and belief in higher education. - Cross-institutional collaboration supports shared goals and values. - The institutional digital divide is closing. - The higher education workforce embraces digital transformation. - GenAI tools are meaningfully integrated into learning experiences. - Students, faculty, and staff critically evaluate GenAI tools.

In the 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Action Plan | Building Skills and Literacy for Teaching with GenAI, panelists were asked to consider the future impacts of social, tech, economic, environmental, & political trends on higher ed & what it will take to make that future a reality.

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It's October. You know what that means... Cybersecurity Awareness Month! This is your opportunity to reinvigorate your cybersecurity efforts so that you and your institution can stay safe all year long. We have some great sources at EDUCAUSE to do just that.

er.educause.edu/articles/202...

The latest episode of EDUCAUSE Shop Talk is a must-listen for anyone attending (or thinking of attending) the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in Nashville. Practical tips include wearing comfortable shoes, carrying a charger, and building in downtime. er.educause.edu/podcasts/edu...

"People decide how technologies are used and what they mean." An AI Plateau by Brian Basgen

If LLMs are nearing their limits, both curricular decisions and existential anxieties take on new significance, particularly when many AI implementation efforts have been failing.

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Advanced Registration Discount Ends September 29 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online

Today (9/29) is your LAST CHANCE to get the Advance Registration Discount for the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. We can't wait to see you there!

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EDUCAUSE Institutional Resilience Toolkit Operational

Operational and Workforce Efficiency Resource-constrained institutions should rethink institutional processes, structures, and workforce efficiencies that impact how resources are used.

The EDUCAUSE Institutional Resilience Toolkit offers resources & insights to help institutions optimize structures, streamline workflows, and make the most of the resources they have.

We are here to support you in strengthening operations and building a more resilient workforce.

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Advanced Registration Discount Ends September 29 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online

What’s next for AI and student success in higher ed? Find out at the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference October 27-30. General session presenters, Dr. Joy Buolamwini and Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, will explore AI, leadership, and the future of higher ed. Register today!

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"Higher education has spent two years reacting to AI. The time for reaction is over. The time for leadership is now." Beyond Tool or Threat: GenAI and the Challenge It Poses to Higher Education by Adam Maksl, Anne Leftwich, Justin Hodgson, and Kevin Jones EDUCAUSE Review

AI will not replace colleges & universities, but it will expose the aspects of higher ed that no longer serve our students or society.

In our latest Educause Review article, we explore tech & public confidence in higher education, plus where we go from here.

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EDUCAUSE Institutional Resilience Toolkit Technical

Technical, Institutional, and Specialized Expertise Technical, institutional, and specialized expertise are essential to institutional success in a resource-constrained environment.

Institutional leaders will need to build workforce skills across multiple domains, including IT, research, administration, and student services.

Technical & specialized expertise are critical to institutional success, especially with limited resources.

The EDUCAUSE Institutional Resilience Toolkit provides resources & insights to help strengthen workforce skills across IT, research, administration, & student services

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Advanced Registration Discount Ends September 29 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online

There's less than a week to get the Advanced Registration Discount for the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. Make sure to register by September 29!

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EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 October 27 - 30, Nashville, TN November 12 - 13, Online Tuesday, October 28 Dr. Joy Buolamwini Artificial Intelligence Expert, Artist, Founder of Algorithmic Justice League, & Author of National Bestseller Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines Thursday, October 30 Dr. Freeman A Hrabowski STEM Education Leader, President Emeritus of UMBC, Co-Founder of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program & Author of The Resilient University

Dr. Joy Buolamwini – AI Expert, Artist, Founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, & author of Unmasking AI.

Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III – STEM Education Leader, President Emeritus of UMBC, Co-Founder of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, & author of The Resilient University.

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