‘For things to remain the same, everything must change’

– principle attributed to Italian novelist Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in his 1958 novel ‘The Leopard’ 

UK Higher Education is at a critical juncture.  

While the vast majority, if not all institutions are carefully reviewing their financial position with a view to ensuring long-term sustainability, some of those same institutions are feeling the effects much more starkly – and it is not necessarily going to be the case that internal restructures, portfolio reviews and voluntary severance schemes will sufficiently address the issues. 

Given that these challenges will continue into 2025 and beyond, EdTech Leader and Kortext CEO, James Gray took some time to chat with me about his views on some of the factors HE may need to consider to ensure their long-term sustainability. This write up of our conversation explores how technology is advancing teaching and learning, and how data may help drive new strategies for success.

Masters of destiny 

The considerable hope placed in the new government to reset the mood music about UK higher education both within the UK and internationally has only been partially realised thus far. While there are positive indications regarding international student recruitment, there is still a long way to go. And while the government has announced an inflationary uplift in fees from this September, this will make little to no impact on financial deficits due to the increase in employer National Insurance Contributions. 

Tensions between institutional autonomy and the use of or access to public funds continue and the promised government spending review isn’t due until (late) spring 2025. Gray argues that:

at this critical juncture, universities need to be masters of their own destiny – collectively and individually – if the lauded autonomy and independence that the sector values are to remain and if they are to address these challenges in line with government objectives. 

Precisely how UK higher education needs to evolve is up for discussion given the evolution towards lifelong learning, the ongoing pressures from the cost-of-living crisis and the need for students to work, coupled with the desire to reskill sectors of the workforce impacted by the disruptions of AI agents and bots. 

Independent thinking within siloes is not good for the overall student experience. 

Irrespective of the new path that is forged, the student experience remains a focal point around which to structure provision and cut across institutional silos. Gray identifies to a range of institutions that are carefully (re-)considering their use of digital infrastructure and software purchases across all functional areas including learning and teaching, to join all aspects of provision, taking advantage of the increasingly ubiquitous affordances of AI, guided by meaningful, data-informed strategic decision-making. Kortext is already partnering with several universities to create an end-to-end technology portfolio that incorporates data on the learner as well as on their academic engagement activity to provide deeper and more actionable insights on student learning across the board. 

Technology has a key role to play in delivering an excellent student experience, improving decision-making and supporting efficiencies in workflows. Universities need to clearly define their ‘offer’ to students and deliver it in a way that is sustainable, that delivers value … and then get on with it!

Collaborate to innovate 

Through Kortext’s ongoing partnership with Microsoft, it has become clear to Gray that ‘if universities want, for example, to make best use of AI, then good data and information is essential for AI applications to function effectively in the context of an institution’s digital knowledge estate’ (emphasis added). To support academics, the AI ‘needs to understand more than the contextual framework for a subject discipline. AI also needs to understand the pedagogic approach adopted by the academic and the ways in which learning has been designed to support student engagement’. 

Gray identifies Kortext Fusion as an essential starting point for universities starting their data aggregation journey. Fusion is a unified data solution built on Microsoft Fabric that provides robust, secure and scalable data aggregation functionality to bring learning content and student engagement data together for the first time. Fusion enables the personalisation of both student study and student support through the controlled use of AI and sophisticated study tools, building on the breadth of data sources used within Kortext’s StREAM student engagement analytics platform. 

Fusion enhances the range of actionable insights available to institutions by incorporating academic content and associated analytics.  

Fusion thus creates a significant opportunity for universities to expand their use of previously siloed data sources to create an understanding of the contextual framework for learning and enables extrapolation of insights on how students are learning … in real-time! 

Bringing learner and learning data together in new ways – as will be possible with the increasingly integrated Kortext product range – is thus the foundation for everything else that a university wants to do:  

Our approach is to partner with institutions to provide ways of putting this foundation in place more quickly, more cost-effectively, more efficiently and with a quicker time to value.  

Additionally, the range of options open to a university on how to use their aggregated data offer maximum flexibility to meet a range of different use cases, depending on institutional priorities. 

With Microsoft, we are providing universities with a significant partnership opportunity to accelerate their data aggregation activity, enabling AI to be leveraged for academic activity, for student support and for students themselves, based upon robust, secure data infrastructure and management capability. 

Simplification driving multiple use cases 

Picking up on the point above, the inclusion of additional data points within Fusion provides universities with a set of options over how best to make use of the insights arising from the data. Many universities who use the StREAM student engagement analytics platform do so to support student retention through accurately identifying those students at risk of disengaging with their studies and then supporting them to access the right kind of support and to re-engage with their learning. In addition to helping maximise every student’s potential to succeed in their studies, retention also helps protect fee income – a genuine driver in these financially straitened times. Keele University have shown the pivotal role played by StREAM in the work their Foundation Year team have done to protect over £100K in fee income.

Gray summarises the value of the Kortext approach as follows: 

Student engagement data helps support multiple other initiatives, from improving the international student experience and ensuring UKVI compliance, to better understanding work to address risks to equality of opportunity through access and participation activity. Student wellbeing is increasingly on the agenda too.  

The Sunday Times recently reported that university spending on mental health has risen by 73% on average in the past five years and one institution has increased their spending on student mental health support by 600% in the last 5 years.  

Having built a foundational data layer, we can quite simply take a university’s agreed proxies for wellbeing and deliver an add-on capability that would highlight potential issues, but also provide a depth of context to colleagues reaching out to offer support.

StREAM is already proven to accurately and efficiently identify risks to student continuation and success. While data can never explain the reasons why an individual may be disengaging from their studies, it can provide opportunities for early intervention, before an issue becomes a crisis: 

Combining the flexibility and optionality to deploy these capabilities with the robustness of our Fusion infrastructure and advanced data management capabilities therefore provide a real moment to grasp the nettle and realise what has, until now, been the holy grail in terms of understanding what works in the realm of wellbeing analytics. 

Partner with us 

Finding answers to these questions within a truly digital world that prioritises high quality student experiences through a seamless digital infrastructure in a time when the use of AI is becoming evermore ubiquitous is both complex and complicated. Here at Kortext, we’re proud that our digital tools support higher education with many of their challenges, and are excited to continue working with our university and sector partners to innovate our suite of education technology, so that university students have the best possible chance of success.