Adapting to changes in technology is an important part of an educational institution’s growth and continued success. These days, the gap between a student’s ability to learn and the technology available to them is almost nonexistent.
With university IT assessments, technology best practices can be upgraded to improve user experience while maintaining the institution’s reputation by reducing cybersecurity risks.
Technology moves fast, and the associated risks move just as quickly. The office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) states that an average data breach will cost an educational institution $3.79 million. In higher education, IT risk assessments can provide a range of opportunities to improve practices beyond avoiding fines.
There are several strategic organizational benefits of implementing a university IT assessment framework, including:
For your students, faculty and administrators, university IT assessment frameworks offer a range of benefits, including:
An assessment framework provides a systematic blueprint for ensuring that your technology and data are compliant, consistent and resilient. Components of a successful framework include:
Research information must adhere to ethical standards and legal requirements to comply with data protection. It’s important to only collect the personal data necessary for the research objectives. Those individuals have a right to request corrections to their data, or to have it completely removed from your system.
Due to the risky nature of handling research information, a data classification IT assessment in higher education may measure your data by its level of sensitivity and appropriate security measures. These levels will usually fall under the following categories:
A research compliance IT assessment helps to safeguard this information while ensuring compliance with regulations like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).
Identifying who needs access to digital resources is a key part of a university’s network. Controlling and monitoring access privileges for students, faculty members and guests while preventing cybersecurity threats can create gaps in user experience and security measures.
An identity access IT assessment for a university helps to streamline this process, offering potential automation alternatives that have robust detection methods for suspicious activity.
Your campus network security covers a vast infrastructure of buildings and devices, while the endpoint security will defend individual devices. Both are equally important to implement a robust security plan to protect both perimeter and individual devices from data breach risks.
For example, a campus network IT assessment for labs and dorms will assess how your current network meets user needs. It will also assess your security and its ability to protect sensitive information that’s stored on endpoints and sent across networks.
Your learning management system (LMS) should be scrutinized regularly. Can it host a range of assessment formats? Does it combine data to track and analyze with ease? Can admin teams easily run reports to identify achievements and progress opportunities?
The user experience is an important component of a good LMS, though the security of the system itself should always be the priority. An LMS IT assessment helps you comply with data protection while ensuring data security and privacy.
The transfer of data and IT systems from an on-premises infrastructure to a cloud environment can be appealing. It can reduce costs while keeping sensitive research secure in the cloud. While this can be beneficial, the data migration requires a lot of planning to manage and execute safely.
A cloud migration IT assessment for universities will include determining the readiness of your hybrid cloud architecture by:
Ransomware — malware that encrypts files on a device and demands a ransom for their decryption — is a common threat to educational institutions. It can cause the loss of sensitive data, financial harm and significant reputational damage to a University.
A ransomware readiness IT assessment for a university can expose vulnerable security areas and potential issues before cyber criminals can exploit them.
Incident response playbooks ensure a fast and effective response to security breaches. Unfortunately, with data breaches in universities reaching crisis levels, it’s important to scrutinize your processes. An IT assessment will check your guide for time frames, processes and the names of the people who need to be contacted. The playbook should also include incident responders, law enforcement protocols and procedures for data breaches, ransomware attacks and even threat detection tips.
Good data is a vital currency in higher education. Overlooking the governance of that data can create corrupt models that unknowingly break the law. The sheer volume of data available can make managing a data governance capability plan difficult, but it’s an essential part of good security and compliance practice.
Data governance’s fluidity means it operates across many functions. This presents an opportunity to form a strategic roadmap that considers what you want to achieve and what needs to change to achieve it. For example, a roadmap may be broken down into the following metrics.
A third‑party vendor IT assessment for higher education requires innovation, attention to detail and a focus on compliance matters that align with your current and future goals.
Crowned Grace International is a trusted name in delivering integrated solutions through our IT assessment services for higher education institutions. Our experience in IT assessments, research compliance reviews and cloud readiness provides higher education with insights to improve security, user experience and compliance.
Reach out to schedule a discovery session to scope your assessment and receive a prioritized roadmap today!
