Andrew Bates, Chief Product Officer at Kortext, provides exclusive insights on Kortext fusion – our latest innovation, developed in partnership with Microsoft.
What is Kortext fusion?
Put simply, Kortext fusion is a single, strategic platform that enables a university to accelerate their digital transformation. It allows senior leaders in higher education to leverage content, data and AI at scale across their entire institution using a robust and secure infrastructure.
Technically, it’s a SaaS platform that connects to multiple datapoints within a university to support different user experiences that can be delivered through Kortext’s range of products along with an institution’s own applications.
For example, a senior leader could utilise our top-level analytics dashboard for insights into retention, progression and outcomes, while an academic could utilise Kortext teach to maximise the student experience through an AI-assisted, adaptive learning environment.
If you prefer to think of it visually, imagine you’re building a custom Lego® model. Kortext fusion is the base layer that provides the foundation for your model, while our products are the different coloured bricks that you stick onto that base layer, as needed, to build your structure.
How did the Microsoft collaboration develop?
Kortext has a long-standing relationship with Microsoft, and we’re proud to be a Microsoft Solution Partner.
Our partnership evolved when Kortext was exploring two key aspects of product development. First, we wanted to enhance our data management capabilities after Solutionpath joined the Kortext group in 2022. Second, we were already using OpenAI generative services, which became the basis for our AI-powered tools in Kortext study+, launched in 2023.
It was a no-brainer to partner with Microsoft on these areas, particularly given their relationship with OpenAI – we were both moving in the same direction.
For us, once we saw the pace and scale of their technological developments, it was an obvious choice to use Microsoft Fabric and their AI services as the basis for Kortext fusion. We bring our considerable subject matter expertise, our reputation as a trusted university partner, and our application of data and AI technologies to enhance higher education and the student experience.
Together, we offer a powerful synergy of skills and experience.
What areas has Kortext fusion been designed to address?
Fundamentally, those three pillars of content, data and AI that I mentioned earlier.
We understand that published, vetted academic content is central to higher education. From our research, we know that students want to feel confident that outputs from AI tools are reliable and reference high-quality materials recommended for the course they’re studying.
For data, we know it’s the linchpin of decision-making in higher education. On an institutional level, leaders need insights across cohorts to inform strategic planning. On a more granular level, academics need data about individual student engagement to help them gauge progress and deliver targeted support as needed.
AI has been incredibly disruptive across the higher education sector, and while it is increasingly demonstrating potential within educational settings, one of the challenges for institutions will be around providing equitable access to those tools for an inclusive learning environment.
Buy or build – what’s your view?
Certainly there’s a rationale around not having an ongoing cost of delivery of service for your institution. However, we can bring this platform to market at scale and the price point will reflect that. So one aspect to consider is whether the total cost of ownership for an institution to develop the same capability set will be higher than for an externally developed platform.
The other aspect is the rapid pace of technological change and the potential for increasingly sophisticated applications of that technology within higher education. With Kortext and Microsoft working in tandem, we can help an institution be at the forefront of innovation. Plus, we can ensure peace of mind regarding security, thanks to our platform’s robust infrastructure.
Understandably, an institution may value utilising in-house systems to leverage data according to their needs. As a result, one of the key capabilities we’ve incorporated into Kortext fusion’s design is institutional access to the data for additional purposes. It’s their data, after all – we’re just the gatekeepers, helping to aggregate and manage that data with integrity and vigilance.
Further, if an institution is in a Microsoft ecosystem, they can benefit from the data gathered by Kortext fusion from multiple university touchpoints using their existing applications. We can connect the dots from our platform to their workflows, as it were. For example, an institution might want to plug a specific data set into Power BI to answer an ad hoc query.
We can also help to unlock AI in different ways with more of a pluggable experience, providing different capabilities unique to each institution. Perhaps you want to generate responsive timetabling information for specific groups? We can enable an institution to drive that experience for their students and staff within their existing systems and interfaces.
Finally, what’s one key takeaway about Kortext fusion?
What Kortext fusion offers is flexibility. We can work with institutions within their timelines. Whether that’s moving at pace and scale to accelerate their digital transformation strategy or taking measured incremental steps to demonstrate value, we have a flexible approach and process.
Our goal is to establish a partnership to help institutions navigate the complicated technological landscape around AI, data and digital transformation.
