There are countless new education software products with new pricing packages. But we’ve heard many horror stories about educators trying to automate their education processes and failing. Here are the 10 most common pitfalls education institutions of all sizes should avoid when they use education software. Keep these 10 pitfalls in mind before you buy your product.
1. Don’t buy the hype
Everyone else has one; so should we. Don’t buy the hype that everyone else is using education software. Buyers make expensive mistakes when they look for standard software in a crowded space. They can create temporary growth in some metrics like notifications. Everyone will see some value when they buy solutions for your institution to solve your biggest problems and challenges.
2. Don’t be deceived by pricing quotes
Many educational institutions approaching software vendors take the most fatal risk of preferring face-value costs for the project regardless of the quality of the end product. All the software vendors are guilty of throwing fancy prices around their product to pitch their case. This can irrevocably ruin your project. If you develop a solution to meet your unique needs and also for future academic enablement, you are helping your institution to maximize your success.
3. Don’t buy software from large enterprises in the hope of higher quality
It is rather common that a large number of educational institutions easily get lost when they buy software from large enterprises in the hope of confidence and higher quality. They receive rather insufficient attention, which results in a decrease in quality of work delivered. It makes more sense to go with midsize development companies that develop unique product features and benefits that ensure a higher success rate and end-user satisfaction.
4. Don’t overlook academic complexities
There are a number of academic and technical challenges the development team encounters. From academic workflows to performance and scalability, the technical issues increase and become unmanageable, and eventually difficult to resolve.
5. Don’t buy on-premises, licensed software
Choosing obsolete, on-premises, licensed software is a potential security risk. If an education institution is serious about protecting its data and meeting the challenges of modern education, it should select cloud-based software. Many institutions don’t want to upgrade their technology; however, it makes no sense to stick to a more expensive, less secure and a harder-to-maintain software installation.
6. Never buy software without evaluating the system’s functionalities, ease of use and support systems
When selecting education software, don’t forget to evaluate the system’s functionalities and whether the software would accomplish your goals when you actually use it. It is important to check whether end users find the software easy to use and whether the software allows them to perform their everyday tasks. Sometimes software causes interruptions that can ruin the education processes. The software should have the capacity to easily perform automatic backups and proactive disaster recovery support in case institutions have a catastrophic failure.
7. Don’t overlook replacing legacy systems with advanced analytics tools
Legacy applications are difficult to cost-justify, cause poor network performance and can cause interruptions in service. If an organization replaces a legacy system and migrates to a cloud environment with advanced analytics tools that drive actionable insights, the problems become easier to address and typically lead to an increase in productivity. Protect your applications with technological obsolescence and create new source of revenues.
8. Don’t forget the need to future-proof your institution
The worst mistake organizations can make is to focus only on solving today’s challenges. By rejecting the need for future-ready software, many organizations miss out on reliable, flexible, cost-effective and scalable education solutions.
9. Avoid third-party application integration problem
Integrating third-party applications can help reduce the complexity of educational processes and can even improve its quality. But integrating data from an external source comes with its own set of hazards and hassles. Seamless third-party software integration with custom-built cloud application could easily fill the gap.
10. Not having a mobile app strategy
Keep pace with developments in the education industry by embracing mobile-ready solutions. This will improve user adoption, increase student engagement, strengthen learning skills, ensure anywhere, anytime access to study resources and improve learning outcomes. Mobile apps are the future of education and provide a range of capabilities to extend learning outside the classroom and campus.
Cloud-based software is a good substitute for higher education institutions
Cloud is quickly replacing traditional enterprise hardware and software. As a result, enterprise technology powerhouses are reporting massive decline in revenues. Cloud architecture is more reliable and the paradigm shift to the cloud will find system integrators struggling with less need for on-premises integration. Access and share study resources that leverage the power of cloud, mobile, analytics and social media to engage users with an elegant digital experience.
Selecting cloud-based software will help you avoid the pitfalls mentioned above and move forward, especially eliminating the risks of using legacy systems. The top academic and financial benefits from a cloud-based education management system include:
- Fully automate and streamline academic processes
- Reduce staff workload substantially
- Access academics like timetable, courses, assessments, fees, etc. and manage conflicts
S. Sriram is an education consultant with Creatrix Campus, cloud-based higher education ERP software. He focuses on helping higher education institutions with simpler, clearer and faster ways to automate and accelerate their entire academic and administrative processes using cloud and mobile-based education ERP solutions.