Top Technology

Trends in Higher
Education for 2022
By Glenda Morgan, Robert Yanckello, Terri-Lynn Thayer, Tony Sheehan,
Grace Farrell, Saher Mahmood, Charlie Winckless, Neil MacDonald
Top Technology Trends in Higher Education for
2022
Published 11 February 2022 - ID G00763121 - 27 min read
By Analyst(s): Glenda Morgan, Robert Yanckello, Terri-Lynn Thayer, Tony Sheehan, Grace
Farrell, Saher Mahmood, Charlie Winckless, Neil MacDonald
Initiatives: Education Digital Transformation and Innovation

Higher education CIOs leading their institutions in innovation and

transformation should use this trend analysis to identify the
technology trends driving the global higher education industry in
2022. CIOs should weigh our recommendations in light of these
trends as they shape their IT strategy.

Overview
Opportunities
■ Business models: The growing importance of continuous learning and the growing
popularity of alternative credentials is prompting the adoption of new offerings
requiring continuing education and workforce development platforms.

■ Learning environments and the student experience: New models of instruction and
the need for new forms of support for students are driving investments in classroom
technology, specialized web-conferencing tools, tutoring platforms and an increased
focus on career support.

■ Operating models: Zero trust security, robotic process automation and low-code
applications provide the opportunity to reduce risk and improve efficiency in
operating models.

Recommendations
Higher education CIOs driving digital transformation and innovation should:

■ Balance maintaining key systems, while enabling emerging and innovative

technologies, by pursuing a bimodal approach and creating a special unit that can
explore innovation. This is true even when implementing technologies that are more
about efficiency and when changing operating models that affect day-to-day work.

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■ Create a balanced portfolio of new investments in technology by focusing on tools
that address all three categories, including business models, learning environments
and student success, and operating models.

■ Gain stakeholder buy-in when investing in tools that impact learning environments
by crafting a strong and intentional communications strategy around the rollout of
new tools.

■ Invest in technologies that impact learning environments, the student experience and
guarantee stakeholder buy-in by soliciting and responding to key stakeholder input,
and crafting a strong and intentional communications strategy around the rollout of
the new tools.

What You Need to Know

This research focuses on the technology trends affecting higher education globally. A
partner piece, Top Business Trends Impacting Higher Education in 2022, focuses on
business trends in higher education. CIOs naturally look at how technology can optimize
operating models, and new technologies are helping them do this. Increasingly, they are
also examining how technology can enhance competitive advantage, support emerging
business models, provide new types of learning environments and support the student
experience. For institutions to thrive in the current challenging and changing environment,
they must become more innovative while improving their stakeholders’ experience. It is
often technology that will facilitate that innovation.

Trends, such as zero trust security, robotic process automation (RPA) and the growing use
of low-code applications will have a broad impact on higher education. Other trends, such
as specialized web-conferencing tools, and continuing education and workforce
development platforms, may be more circumscribed in their reach. As in 2021, many of
the trends in the 2022 list are new, representing a break from years prior to 2021. This is
hardly surprising given the tumultuous events of 2020 and 2021, and the challenges and
change to which they gave rise.

These technology trends, along with the business trends in Top Business Trends
Impacting Higher Education in 2022, can be grouped into three categories (see Figure 1):

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■ Business models: Many higher education institutions are being prompted to
examine, and potentially modify or change, business models in response to
challenges in the environments in which they operate. Changes to business models
often require new technologies to support them, such as continuing education and
workforce development platforms to enable new types of credentials.

■ Learning environments and the student experience: Many of the technology trends
allow for and support new learning environments with a goal of improving the
student experience. New classroom technologies, specialized web-conferencing
platforms and tutoring platforms all facilitate learning in ways designed to be more
engaging and satisfying for students.

■ Operating models: CIOs face many challenges in the current environment including
funding and staff shortages, as well as an extremely hostile security and risk setting.
Technology trends such as zero-risk security, RPA and low-code applications allow
CIOs to meet these challenges more effectively and efficiently.

Figure 1: Top Higher Education Business and Technology Trends for 2022

Trend Profiles: Click links to jump to profiles

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 Business Model Trends Learning Environment and Operating Model Trends
Student Experience Trends

Continuing Education and Classroom Technology Zero Trust Security

Workforce Development
Solutions

Specialized Web- Robotic Process

Conferencing Tools Automation

Tutoring Solutions Low-Code Applications

Business Models
Continuing Education and Workforce Development Solutions
Back to top

Analysis by Terri-Lynn Thayer and Grace Farrell

Description:

Continuing education and workforce development (CE/WFD) solutions are purpose-built

software designed to support the management of students enrolled in noncredit, non-
degree-seeking courses and programs. Courses and programs managed by these
platforms can range from personal enrichment to professional certifications. These
platforms support the admission, registration and payment for these systems. They
feature lightweight admission processes and credit card payment capabilities. They often
include functionality for employers and other third parties by providing bulk registration,
reservations, contracts and employer portals. Integration with the student information
system (SIS), learning management system (LMS) and identity and access management
solution (IAM) are typically provided.

Why Trending:

■ Higher education disruption, including the shrinking 18-to-22-year-old demographic

(in many mature education markets) is driving institutions to seek alternate revenue
from new programs targeted at nontraditional students.

■ According to Modern Campus, in 2020, 68% of adults considering enrolling in an

education program preferred non-degree, alternative programming. 1

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■ The pace of change for work is dramatically decreasing the half-life of employee
skills, driving both employees and employers to seek additional learning experiences;
thus, making continuous learning a growing reality for the future of work.

■ Classic SISs don’t support the business requirements for these nontraditional
offerings especially:

■ Lightweight (or no) admission criteria, application or decision processes

Ability to accept credit card payment simultaneous with registering for the course
■
or program
Employer bulk purchasing and insight into student achievement and outcomes —
■
Many LMSs provide the functionality to deliver a portfolio of these offerings, but
lack the comprehensive administrative features to support nontraditional students

■ New SISs that support both nontraditional and traditional programs have been slow
to develop, leaving many institutions with no option, but to deploy and integrate
distinct, purpose-built solutions to support these initiatives.

Implications:

■ More institutions are implementing purpose-built CE/WFD solutions.

■ Gartner is seeing significant shifts in this market, which include vendor consolidation
and new partnerships between CE/WFD vendors and traditional SIS providers.

■ CE/WFD solutions, once implemented, are being used to support other revenue
streams within an institution, such as summer camps and conference and event
registrations.

Actions:

■ Review the roadmap of your existing SIS provider to understand if and when they
plan to support these nontraditional programs. Determine if they have partnerships
with existing CE/WFD providers. This may influence your plans by, perhaps,
influencing your interest in being an early adopter of emerging solutions or tipping
the scales toward a partner provider.

Gartner, Inc. | G00763121 Page 5 of 23

■ Determine the short- and long-term revenue projections for the programs you plan to
manage with this platform. This may be an essential consideration in your vendor
negotiations. Unlike traditional SIS solutions, student counts are not always the
license metric, your revenue may be a more representative metric of your use of the
platform and some vendors may factor that into the costs.

Further Reading:

Higher Education Ecosystem 2030: Planning in the Face of Radical Uncertainty

Learning Environment and Student Experience

Classroom Technology
Back to top

Analysis by Glenda Morgan and Tony Sheehan

Description:

Gartner is seeing greater attention to, and significantly higher spending on, classroom
technology in the form of classroom video, audio, presentation and content capture. Many
colleges and universities have invested substantial amounts on new classroom
technology over the past year, with many continuing to make plans to do so over the next
year.

Why Trending:

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■ Many higher education institutions have shifted to remote synchronous or hyflex
models of teaching to satisfy demands for in-person instruction while still
accommodating social distancing and students who were unable or chose not to
attend in person. 2 These models of instruction required significant new investment
in classroom technology in the form of, but not limited to:

■ Classroom cameras (including pan-tilt-zoom [PTZ] or PTZ capable) to follow

and capture video of instructors and often students in the class, 3 as opposed
to fixed-focus cameras, and separate from the web conferencing or lecture
capture system used

■ Enhanced audio including beam-forming microphones in the classroom to

capture participation by students in the room and share it with remote
participants 4

■ Increased investment in presentation technologies such as digital whiteboards

and document cameras

■ Increased emphasis on synchronous streaming of classes using web

conferencing and lecture capture technology

■ Many institutions needed to make a lot of new investment for this type of instruction
to occur. Institutions have also had to invest significantly in training instructors how
to use these classroom designs as they require new approaches and impose a big
cognitive load on instructors.

■ A considerable amount of the investment in classroom technology over the past year
has been fueled by the availability of pandemic-related funding, rather than need.

Implications:

Some of the new spending on this classroom technology was funded by COVID-19-related
government infusions of funds. But the investments pose some challenges:

■ They have prompted some institutions to consider using a remote synchronous

mode of instruction in the longer term, which will have some implications for student
learning, student success and what campus might look like in the future.

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■ Much of this new spending on classroom technology was funded by one-time
money related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Classroom technology typically requires
maintenance where costs average around 20% of the initial outlay per year. 5 The
new investments will require ongoing funding, which has often not been allocated by
colleges or universities.

■ Many of the new classroom designs place large burdens on instructors as they try to
manage students in two locations simultaneously, as well as the additional
equipment. Some institutions have ameliorated this by assigning classroom
assistants to each class. This has the potential to substantially increase classroom
costs. 6

■ As normalcy returns, there are additional questions about whether instructors will
choose to keep teaching in remote synchronous or hyflex modes, as they can be
difficult to do well. This may mean that the equipment in some of these classrooms
will not be fully utilized.

Actions:

■ Retain balance in your classroom technology portfolio and keep classroom

technology budgets sustainable by not overinvesting in synchronous capable rooms.
In the medium term, most institutions are likely only to need a few of these rooms
per academic building. Temporary needs could be addressed by mobile or portable
solutions.

■ Ensure that active learning and participation by all participants is fully captured by
paying close attention to audio quality as you build out new classroom
configurations. This is especially true for learning spaces that will support
synchronous remote instruction.

■ Seek ways to reduce the cognitive load on instructors using newly equipped
classrooms by standardizing equipment as much as possible.

Specialized Web-Conferencing Tools

Back to top

Analysis by Tony Sheehan and Glenda Morgan

Description:

Gartner, Inc. | G00763121 Page 8 of 23

Following the initial pandemic-induced pivot to online teaching for learning continuity,
levels of student engagement were recognized as undermining teaching and learning
quality. In response, institutional use of established web-conferencing solutions has
expanded, but higher education has also seen an influx of specialized web-conferencing
solutions with sector-specific features to support more collaborative synchronous
teaching.

Why Trending:

■ Higher education needs for synchronous hybrid and online teaching have created
strong demands for technologies to enhance screen sharing, live lectures,
whiteboarding, discussion, polls and group activities.

■ Synchronous, fully web-based teaching has the potential to be more effective than
dual mode or hybrid teaching. Visibility, interactivity and breakout rooms can be
easier to deliver with less facilitation and technical support. 7

■ Institutions have leveraged both the technologies available within their LMS
ecosystem and also explored specialist web-conferencing platforms such as Webex
and workplace collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

■ Demands for sector-targeted functionality (such as grading, group management and

assessment to support learning) have led to the development of education-specific
features across many platforms. However, specialist web-conferencing platforms
geared to education, such as Class Technologies and Engageli, have also emerged.
These are being heavily marketed and have attracted significant levels of investment
over the past year. 8

■ Individual preferences and social norms within web-conferencing environments are

still evolving. The large volume of visual cues and distractions can reduce
effectiveness, and any misalignment of image and voice can also undermine
9
effectiveness.

Implications:

■ The pandemic has helped web conferencing to evolve from an occasionally used
tool to a key enabler of the education experience. Multiple platforms are now
available with similar integrations to core systems such as the LMS, and with similar
ability to, for example, share screens, poll learners, and launch and manage breakout
rooms.

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■ New platforms designed for education may offer additional functionality. In
particular, this includes visualization (such as table seating arrangements) and
management of activities and content in breakout rooms. The ability of faculty to
fully leverage such features, however, remains variable. Not all faculty are yet
embracing core functionality of online learning design and web conferencing, let
alone demanding more.

■ There are risks in assuming a novel technology can compensate for weaknesses in
pedagogy and learning design. Evaluation of teaching needs and evolving student
experiences should define product selection in the near term.

■ Reliance on exclusively synchronous classroom delivery must also be questioned.

Designing classes with a balance of synchronous and asynchronous elements may
both enhance student engagement and allow a broader range of technologies to be
successfully leveraged.

■ Although specialist education players will continue to build features (like

streamlining breakout room activities), the parallel evolution of mainstream web-
conferencing vendors may well provide sufficient functionality for faculty in the near
term. Major vendors provide the additional advantage of familiarizing students with
tools that will be used in the workplace, rather than relevant purely within education.

Actions:

■ Avoid technology-push adoption of web-conferencing solutions by evaluating learner

needs, faculty teaching preferences and the effectiveness of current systems as part
of wider blended learning strategy review.

■ Encourage better teaching practice by consolidating web conferencing systems and

cultivating a faculty community of practice to share lessons learned and good
practices.

■ Ensure all students are able to learn from web-conferencing sessions by providing
recordings of sessions by default within the learning management system.

Further Reading:

Hype Cycle for Higher Education, 2021

Blended Course Playbook

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Tutoring Solutions
Back to top

Analysis by Saher Mahmood

Description:

Tutoring solutions are online marketplaces where learners can seek one-on-one or group
tutoring from private tutors from around the globe, to meet and supplement their learning
requirements.

Why Trending:

■ Tutoring software has been around for more than a decade, but the demand is
surging post-COVID-19. Instructional continuity was different for different
institutions and spiked the demand for online tutoring to close gaps in learning. The
demand continues to grow as comfort with digital technology increases.

■ Tutoring can be available on-demand or scheduled, and offers flexibility to be

consumed live, asynchronous as recorded lectures across time zones or as written
responses to specific questions. Payment is usually on a per-use basis or via a
subscription model.

■ Most platforms cover K-12 ( Vedantu) or higher education ( Chegg) subject needs,
especially for standardized examinations with many like Brainfuse, Smarthinking
and TutorMe covering both.

■ Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and languages are the most
popular subjects, followed by tutoring on standardized examinations. Many
providers also offer professional certification courses and/or short capsule courses,
expanding their audience beyond students to the corporate workforce and general
public. 10

■ Government support for digital infrastructure including bandwidth and devices has
facilitated increased access to such portals, especially in developing countries.
Asia/Pacific (APAC) is the fastest growing market, with China and India leading in
consumption. 11

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■ Increased access via mobile devices coupled with vernacular and self-paced support
in remote areas has made them a favorable supplement to formal education,
particularly in developing countries, many of which faced challenges in pivoting to
online education. 12

■ Data suggests that the online tutoring market is expected to grow by over $153
12
billion at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16% between 2020 and 2025.
The market has an equal mix of large global providers such as Tutor.com and
Wyzant, as well as smaller, regional providers such as RareJob, which specializes in
the Japanese market. 13

Implications:

■ The one-to-one instruction means students learn in ways tailored to their personal
pace and requirements. This potentially addresses post-COVID-19 concerns around
“learning loss.” 14

■ The popularity of online tutoring can be seen in growing partnerships. Platforms like
TutorMe have partnered with universities, (often with direct integration with LMSs),
libraries and course providers. 15,16 The additional insights and data that can be
gleaned from learner activity and responses on these platforms is positioned as an
advantage that educators can seek through these partnerships.

■ As solutions mature, we are beginning to see the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to
supplement personal tutoring to reduce wait time and suboptimal user experience. A
good example is doubt resolution products, which address common student queries
without human intervention. 17

■ Amid general concerns around increased potential for cheating with the switch to
online, many tutoring solutions that offer the option of time-bound written response
to questions have come under scrutiny for breaching the fine line between tutoring
and cheating.

■ Many people, worldwide, took to online tutoring jobs as supplemental income. For
example, those with strong advantage in a language or location (such as English
speakers in the Philippines) cashed in on the increased demand from students and
professionals in other regions (like China, and Japan) amid the lockdown. 13

Actions:

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■ Prepare for future adoption of tutoring solutions at your institution by exploring the
market, and identifying the major vendors partnering with institutions, their licensing
models and technology requirements. Work with academic leaders to run focused
pilots with a solution to get a clear understanding of benefits and implications.

■ Establish a clear understanding of the quality and volume of learning data that can
be accessed through such partnerships by discussing frequency, formats and
requisite integrations.

Operating Models
Zero Trust Security
Back to top

Analysis by Bob Yanckello, Charlie Winckless, Neil MacDonald

Description:

Gartner has adapted the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition
of “zero trust” to the following. “Zero trust is a security paradigm that replaces implicit
trust with continuously assessed, explicit risk and trust levels based on identity and
context supported by security infrastructure that adapts to risk-optimize the organization’s
1 8
security posture.”

Why Trending:

When institutions moved to primarily online learning and remote work as a necessary
response to the pandemic, they extended their trusted network via VPN and became easy
targets for attackers. In most instances, university networks were not designed for such
scale or the support of such a modern business model. They were unable to defend
against attacks found in environments where both users and data may be outside of any
physical office or network perimeter. 19

■ Gartner inquiries on this topic of zero trust network access (ZTNA) have grown 127%
2 0
in the first four months of 2021, as compared with the same period in 2020.

■ From 14 August 2021 to 12 September 2021, educational organizations were the

21
target of over 5.8 million malware attacks, or 63% of all such attacks.

■ Zero trust principles can better position institutions to secure sensitive data, systems
22
and services across increasingly dispersed and complex enterprise environments.

Gartner, Inc. | G00763121 Page 13 of 23

Implications:

The fundamental purpose of zero trust is to understand and control how users, processes
and devices engage with data; as zero trust principles will increase the resiliency against
cyberattacks. This means that the likelihood of a business-impacting event (such as
ransomware or a data compromise) can be reduced, with an associated reduction in risk
to the institution.

Identity is a critical aspect of any good zero trust model. Leveraging context and identity
(“contextual identity”) as the foundation for access decisions is a key factor for ensuring
granular access policy enforcement based on user context and data sensitivity. This helps
23
to limit the impact any security incident can have on an organization.

The future of higher education will be hybrid, so a modern learning and working
environment has to be flexible and adaptive. It must support remote learning, remote
workers, remote data (such as infrastructure as a service [IaaS]) and remote applications
(such as SaaS). The architecture should restrict access to the minimum required, but it
must be flexible enough to support an increasingly interconnected university. It must
adapt to the needs of the business while allowing the institution to thrive despite the
threats enabled by being so connected.

Actions:

■ Start with Identity by ensuring your Identity infrastructure is federated and provides a
consistent source of truth.

■ Prior to embracing a zero trust model, identify the strengths and gaps of your current
security plans by using a variety of frameworks (e.g., COBIT, ISO/IEC 27001/27002,
ITIL and NIST) or third-party providers for assessing the current state of your
program.

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■ When designing a zero trust approach:

■ Define mission outcomes — Derive the zero Trust architecture from institution-
specific mission requirements that identify the critical data, assets,
applications and services (DAAS).

■ Architect from the inside out — First, focus on protecting critical DAAS.
Second, secure all paths to access them.

■ Determine who/what needs access to the DAAS to create access control

policies — Create security policies and apply them consistently across all
environments (such as LAN, WAN, endpoint, perimeter and mobile).

■ Inspect and log all traffic before acting — Establish full visibility of all activity
across all layers from endpoints and the network to enable analytics that can
24
detect suspicious activity.

Further Reading:

Quick Answer: How Do Access Management and Zero Trust Network Access Tools
Work Together?

Architecting an Agile and Modern Identity Infrastructure

Quick Answer: How to Explain Zero Trust to Technology Executives

Robotic Process Automation

Back to top

Analysis by Terri-Lynn Thayer

SPA: By 2026, RPA and AI will improve the student experience while reducing staff and
faculty by over 20% per full-time student.

Description:

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RPA is a productivity tool that allows a user to configure one or more scripts (which some
vendors refer to as “bots”) to activate specific keystrokes in an automated fashion. The
result is that the bots can be used to mimic or emulate selected tasks (transaction steps)
within an overall business or IT process. These may include manipulating data, passing
data to and from different applications, triggering responses or executing transactions.
RPA uses a combination of user interface interaction and descriptor technologies. The
scripts can overlay on one or more software applications.

Why Trending:

Universities are increasingly turning to RPA solutions to automate back-office, hybrid and
student-facing processes with the objective of reducing labor, cost and human error by
reliably performing high-volume human tasks. Often the objectives and outcome include
25
an improved student, faculty and staff experience. RPA is converging with other
technologies such as AI, analytics, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning,
low code and optical character recognition (OCR) into hyperautomation solutions. The
2022 Gartner CIO Agenda Survey found that 11% of higher education respondents plan to
increase their investment in hyperautomation in the coming year (see 2022 CIO and
Technology Executive Agenda: A Higher Education Perspective).

Implications:

■ Market offerings are rapidly increasing. Multiple products and vendor promises can
make technology selection difficult.

■ Departmental and siloed approaches may result in redundant and overlapping

technologies on campus, requiring governance to ensure the tool portfolio is
rationalized and the optimal tool for each task is employed.

■ Extensive business process analysis will be essential. This will require business
analysis skill and the availability of sufficient data to identify patterns and train the
automation solution.

■ Institutions implementing RPA typically progress through a series of challenges

from, “How do I get started?” onto issues of “scale” and how to “prioritize” what
becomes an onslaught of opportunities and requests.

Actions:

Gartner, Inc. | G00763121 Page 16 of 23

■ Define desired business outcomes and identify process redesign opportunities prior
to choosing and applying RPA (or any other hyperautomation technologies).

■ Track the business value of automation by assessing the resulting impact on:

■ Revenue

■ Cost saving

■ Cost avoidance

■ Error reduction

■ Increased compliance and risk reduction

■ Increased student, faculty and employee satisfaction

Further Reading:

Predicts 2022: Education — Review, Refocus, Rebuild

How to Select the Right RPA Service Provider to Achieve Success

Infographic: Which Technologies Should You Use for Hyperautomation

Low-Code Applications
Back to top

Analysis by Bob Yanckello

Description:

“A low-code application Platform (LCAP) is used to rapidly develop and deploy custom
applications by abstracting and minimizing hand coding. At a minimum, an LCAP must
include low-code capabilities (such as a model-driven or graphical programming approach
with scripting) to develop a complete application consisting of user interfaces, business
26
logic, workflow and data services.”

Why Trending:

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Institutions can leverage LCAPs for their increased application development productivity
with reduced skill set requirements. LCAPs provide and support UIs, business processes
and data services, which are critical components of a modern and composable education
technology platform in higher education.

Higher education is interested in LCAPs for rapid application development and

democratizing application development. Low-code capabilities can assist with many
automation and application needs across the organization and provide enterprise backing
for use cases such as:

■ Citizen development

■ Business unit IT

■ Enterprise business processes

■ Composable applications

■ SaaS applications

Empowering employees with low-code development technology (i.e., citizen development)

is part of the digital workplace expectation for supporting modernization of both
customer-facing and internal business process applications. 27 The present and future
depend on holistic and collaborative delivery of digital products and services by joint IT
and business delivery teams, and on the elimination of separate enterprise IT and
“shadow IT” operations. Low-code development is a pivotal enabler for collaboration
across the institution. Low-code application platforms are attractive and growing in use
because they help address the:

■ Need for increased productivity and output of application modernization

■ Widening gap between availability and demand for IT development skills

■ Necessity for IT and the institution business offices to align closer and cooperate in
quick, continuous and agile development practices

Implications:

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The low-code movement continues to gain momentum as institutions continue to scale
online learning, remote work and introduce new digital capabilities in response to the
evolving pandemic. 28 The demand for digitizing business processes and the demand for
technology staff continue to clash and strain the IT organization’s ability to keep up with
the demand to improve enterprise business capabilities. 29 Although typical coding
requires a rudimentary knowledge of a computing language, low-code tools and platforms
simplify development with easy-to-use, drag-and-drop structures that can easily enable
non-IT staff or students to create digital processes and services. Leveraging LCAPs
enables institutions to:

■ Effectively manage their capacity for change

■ Deploy modern and collaborative development tool standards across the

organization

■ Scale automation and process improvements quickly and easily at an affordable

price

■ Enable citizen developers while allowing IT departments to centrally coordinate and

focus on other operational needs like systems administration, complex integrations
or security

Actions:

■ Assess the institution’s need to rapidly renovate or compose business processes by

engaging with business teams to understand their automation needs and identify to
what extent these tools can improve their responsiveness and productivity.

■ Deploy low-code tools and platforms to mitigate shadow IT risks. This can be done
by working with business unit leaders to solicit citizen developers, establish trust,
and define an enterprise approach to support optimized business practices, new
skills development and a community of practice (CoP) across the institution.

Changes Since Last Year

As with last year (2021), many of the trends in this year’s list are new. This represents a
break from previous years where there tended to be a substantial amount of carry-over
from one year to the next. But the pace and extent of change is hardly surprising, given the
events of 2020 and 2021 and the challenges and change to which they gave rise.

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Nine trends from 2021 are no longer on this list. Trends such as remote proctoring, the
move to the cloud, chatbots, cross-life cycle CRM and faculty information systems have
become widely adopted and part of business as usual. The trend of the COVID-19 campus
has not gone away, but the practices associated with it have been adapted and absorbed
into the way campuses are and will be run. Instead of seeing a trend around cyberthreats
as we did in 2022, we are seeing more of a trend around the response to these threats in
zero trust security. In 2021, we saw a strong trend around hybrid classrooms, which has
continued, and even intensified, but increasingly, the focus is on equipping the classrooms
with technology — for better or worse. The classroom technology and specialized web-
conferencing tools trends have, thus, replaced the trend of hybrid classrooms.

Finally, in 2021, we saw a burst of interest in virtual experiences associated with trying to
bring engagement to remote experiences. Gartner still sees some activities in this space,
but they tend to be isolated and in many cases, short-lived, especially outside of very
focused applications such as virtual campus tours or medical school applications. This
trend is not in the 2022 list.

Evidence
1
The State of Continuing Education 2021, Modern Campus.
2
Spotlight on Brandeis University — 8 AV/IT Tech Directors Share: Fall 2021 — The
Hybrid/HyFlex Higher Ed Campus, AV Network.

3
Spotlight on Indiana University — 8 AV/IT Tech Directors Share: Fall 2021 — The
Hybrid/HyFlex Higher Ed Campus, AV Network.

4
San Diego State U Upgrades Microphones for Hybrid Learning, Campus Technology.

Shure’s Microflex Ecosystem Empowers Hybrid Learning, Installation.

5
State of Facilities in Higher Education, Gordian.

6
Podcast: Students Supporting Faculty in the Shift to Hybrid Learning, Campus
Technology.

7
The Effects of COVID-19 on Learning Space Rating System Scores, EDUCAUSE Review.
8
Softbank Leads a $105m Investment in Class, an Edtech Startup That Enhances Virtual
and Hybrid Classrooms by Adding Teaching and Learning Tools to Zoom, Tech Startups.

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 Engageli Nabs $33M More for its Collaborative Video-Based Teaching Platform,
TechCrunch.

9
How to Combat Zoom Fatigue, Harvard Business Review.

Nonverbal Overload: A Theoretical Argument for the Causes of Zoom Fatigue,

Technology, Mind, and Behavior, American Psychological Association.

10
Top Tutoring Subjects in Demand, Modaris.

11
Online Tutoring Market Size to Increase by $153.07 Billion, PR Newswire.
12
BYJU’S IAS 2022 (Pre & Mains) Online Classroom Program (Hindi), BYJU’S.
13
Covid-19: Online Tutors Boosting Incomes as Demand Surges Due to Coronavirus

Lockdowns, The Star.

14
Dealing With College Students’ Learning Loss: The Key Podcast, Inside Higher Ed.
15
Free Virtual Tutoring for Seattle Students Now Offered by The Seattle Public Library,

The Seattle Public Library.

16
McGraw Hill and TutorMe Partner to Offer Free On-Demand Tutoring to Millions of

College Students, McGraw Hill.

17
Doubt Resolution, Embibe.

18
Let’s Talk About HyFlex: Fall 2020 Classroom Solution and Beyond, rAVe [PUBS].

Zero Trust Architecture, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

19
Logistics of Online Learning Offer Challenges for Higher-Ed, Govtech.com

The Coronavirus Has Pushed Courses Online. Professors Are Trying Hard to Keep Up,
The Chronicle of Higher Education.

As Coronavirus Concerns Rise in US, Colleges Look Online for Continuity, Higher Ed Dive.

EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: Post-Pandemic Plans for Remote Work, EDUCAUSE.

Gartner, Inc. | G00763121 Page 21 of 23

 20
Best Practices for Implementing Zero Trust Network Access

21
Cybercriminals Use Pandemic to Attack Schools and Colleges , The Coversation.

22
Embracing a Zero Trust Security Model, National Security Agency.

23
Quick Answer: How to Explain Zero Trust to Technology Executives

24
Embracing a Zero Trust Security Model, National Security Agency.

25
How Universities Are Using Robotic Process Automation, EY.

26
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms

27
Low Code Delivers High Productivity, IDG Connect.

28
Research: Increased Use of Low-Code/No-Code Platforms Poses No Threat to Developers,

TechRepublic.
29
Low Code Platforms Begin Their 2021 March, TechMarketView.

Recommended by the Authors

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

2022 CIO and Technology Executive Agenda: A Higher Education Perspective

Predicts 2022: Education — Review, Refocus, Rebuild

Gartner, Inc. | G00763121 Page 22 of 23

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Business Model Trends Learning Environment and Student Operating Model Trends
Experience Trends

Continuing Education Classroom Technology Zero Trust Security

and Workforce
Development Solutions Specialized Web-Conferencing Tools Robotic Process Automation

Tutoring Solutions Low-Code Applications

Gartner, Inc. | G00763121 Page 23 of 23

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