https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/ en https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/higher-ed-it-leaders-must-balance-ai-innovation-secure-core-systems Higher education IT leaders are caught in a bind. Campuses face institutional and cultural pressure to move fast on artificial intelligence and digital transformation. But that ambition collides with the reality that faculty and students still depend on core systems, such as registration, identity verification and learning platforms, that cannot afford to fail. ListEdTech, an education market research firm, calls this dilemma “the stability paradox.” A 2026 ListEdTech report found that the top IT investment priorities at 55 universities include data and storage, identity and access management… Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:12:59 -0400 Novid Parsi https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/higher-ed-it-leaders-must-balance-ai-innovation-secure-core-systems https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/why-higher-eds-pandemic-playbook-blueprint-ai-infrastructure Higher ed IT leaders grappling with integrating rapidly accelerating artificial intelligence throughout their campuses need only flip back a few pages in their playbooks to the pandemic. Institutions that invested in hybrid cloud flexibility and business continuity before 2020 pivoted to remote work and hybrid learning far more quickly than those still in legacy environments. Universities that leaned into early modernization in the age of AI find themselves equally well positioned now. The mindset shift that serves college and university IT teams — and one that Nutanix is built around — is… Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:02:53 -0400 Akeya Dickson https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/why-higher-eds-pandemic-playbook-blueprint-ai-infrastructure https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/centralizing-workflows-across-campus-reduces-bottlenecks As many universities face budget pressure, staffing constraints and growing administrative demands, California State University has built a centralized approach to managing workflows across the nation’s largest four-year public university system. “With 22 campuses, it’s always a struggle to achieve continuity and consistency across the board,” says Karen Malone, operations analyst in the CSU Chancellor’s Office. Like many higher education environments, CSU faced “decentralized decision-making, deeply siloed departments, legacy processes that have been in place for decades, and staff with a… Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:48:32 -0400 Nancy Mann Jackson https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/centralizing-workflows-across-campus-reduces-bottlenecks https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/translating-higher-education-cybersecurity-business-value For years, cybersecurity has been treated as a technical problem and an unavoidable cost of doing business. In higher education, that framing is no longer workable. Universities are competing for students, grants and reputation in an environment where outages and breaches have direct consequences on retention, research dollars and institutional credibility. The conversation has shifted. Cybersecurity is now fundamentally about business value — and the institutions that recognize this are starting to pull ahead. Cybersecurity Goes From Cost Center to Strategic Growth Driver Higher education… Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:47:18 -0400 Aaron McCray https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/translating-higher-education-cybersecurity-business-value https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/future-ready-strategies-technology-leaders-higher-education Higher education technology leaders face an increasingly difficult balancing act. Enrollment pressures, tighter budgets and rising expectations around artificial intelligence (AI) are forcing institutions to modernize while proving the value of every technology investment. At the same time, aging infrastructure, fragmented data and staffing constraints leave little room for missteps. Research from EDUCAUSE shows institutions are increasingly prioritizing data modernization to improve operational efficiency, student success, decision support and institutional research, while Deloitte’s 2026… Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:00:20 -0400 Nathan Eddy https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/future-ready-strategies-technology-leaders-higher-education https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/managed-security-service-provider-higher-education-strategy Managed Security Service Providers used to be seen as a way to “outsource the pain” of monitoring and incident response. For many universities — where small teams are tasked with protecting sprawling, open and highly connected environments — that was reason enough to consider them. But in today’s threat landscape, simply shipping logs to a vendor and measuring them by ticket closure rates is no longer enough. The question for higher ed leaders is not, “Do we have an MSSP?” It’s “Is our MSSP helping us achieve our institutional outcomes?” Why Managed Security Service Providers Matter More Than… Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:46:17 -0400 Aaron McCray https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/managed-security-service-provider-higher-education-strategy https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/4-critical-security-considerations-ai-higher-education Generative artificial intelligence is revolutionizing how colleges and universities operate, streamlining workflows, supporting research and enhancing learning. But as adoption grows, so do the risks. Higher education institutions manage sensitive student data, proprietary research and intellectual property. Without the right guardrails in place, AI systems can expose this information or violate compliance standards, putting institutions at risk for reputational damage. For CISOs and CIOs, securing AI environments must be a strategic priority. Here are four key security considerations when… Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:57:47 -0400 Jessica E. Bright, Steve Thamasett https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/4-critical-security-considerations-ai-higher-education https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/5-questions-about-security-debt-higher-ed-institutions Technical debt is the accumulation of future costs that come with every IT product in your portfolio. For many IT managers, managing technical debt is a careful balancing act to ensure expenditures are predictable and problems are avoided. Security debt is a variation on technical debt — and a bigger problem in higher education. Click the banner below to read the recent CDW Cybersecurity Research Report. Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:40:23 -0400 Joel Snyder https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/5-questions-about-security-debt-higher-ed-institutions https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/can-ambient-ai-make-classrooms-smarter Ambient artificial intelligence is being hyped as a new wave of AI with the potential to make today’s tech-enabled classrooms even smarter. Compared with the transactional nature of traditional AI, ambient AI “fades into the environment rather than sitting in a visible tool waiting for someone to type a prompt,” explains Narmeen Makhani, founder of AIxecute, a strategic advisory and consulting firm.  The technology is already being employed in medical settings, helping clinicians with note-taking and after-visit summaries. To pick up on engagement and classroom interaction in real time,… Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:36:49 -0400 Suchi Rudra https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/can-ambient-ai-make-classrooms-smarter https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/06/higher-ed-it-professional-development-staff-retention Higher education has spent the last decade optimizing for the student experience with everything from enrollment funnels to retention analytics and personalized dashboards, while largely overlooking the people responsible for keeping it all running. And all of that optimization matters. But there’s a conversation that can’t wait any longer: the employee experience — specifically, what happens when the higher ed IT staff who keep institutions running don’t feel like institutions are keeping them. This isn’t a soft HR concern. It’s an operational risk. EDUCAUSE’s 2026 Workforce Report found… Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:02:17 -0400 Nori Barajas-Murphy https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/06/higher-ed-it-professional-development-staff-retention