Here Are The Changes That AI Tools Bring To Campus Business Processes

Many institutions have started experimenting with AI to form boilerplate emails to respond to common questions in core comprising deferring a semester, changing campuses or reenrolling.

FREMONT, CA: Educational institutes comprise of many manual actions ranging from assisting students with course selection to handling the request to change majors. To address the issue, many administrators have made Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the part of the solution. 

Many organizations are employing AI to see how technology supports them in increasing their enrollments and provide better service to learners on an individual, timely, and quality basis. From most outcomes, it is noticed that AI sped up the response time. Now, advisors spend less time crafting emails and looking up data in files and have more time to meet with students individually.

The market for AI in higher education will be augmenting to almost 48 percent before 2022, according to a 2018 report. Teaching and learning with AI-powered software have attracted the attention of more senior education administrators. At present, they are also investing significant resources in machine learning, chatbots, and biometrics to enhance efficiencies in their business processes.

Following are three rules to facilitate AI make a difference in business operations.

Highlight Efficiencies

Many institutions have started experimenting with AI to form boilerplate emails to respond to common questions in core comprising deferring a semester, changing campuses or re-enrolling. The quick responses assist in streamlining operations, plummeting the administrative time spent answering frequent inquiries.

The process of providing students with accurate information takes several clicks on different screens to gather the data. With the AI trained to retrieve the data from the database, examine it, and provide a summary on the user interface, the processing time is decreased from 15 minutes to just a few seconds. In the meantime, to ensure that AI responses are accurate and efficient, academic advisors need to make sure that quality assurance reviews are in check.

With chatbots, the staff can now avoid navigating through multiple screens on their current administration system to access a pay stub. To check available vacation time or to perform other human resources functions, they can instead command the chatbot to show them their pay stub.

Prioritize Privacy

Allowing a chatbot or other AI tool to collect and analyze mass quantities of data, particularly sensitive information like student and staff records raises privacy concerns. So, many organizations believe that AI can reduce their personal privacy.

Additionally, a data protection officer can be appointed to collaborate with the chief information security officer on employing the privacy standards and mapping the location of the data in the systems.

Potential Outlook

Information security is a big concern for organizations and CIOs, so one needs to explore new ways to use AI to make business processes more protected. Institutions can integrate cloud-based wireless AI solution, which monitors all computers on the network for abnormalities, as well as malware that might put information at risk. If the problems are identified, then the tool fixes them as AI can respond a million times faster than a person. It solves the problems before even one notices them and makes the network much more dependable.

The technology also has the potential to improve information security. Administrators can talk to providers if the tools can monitor standard computer operations and flag irregularities. For example, if an admissions executive regularly uses a desktop to access test scores and enter information into student files, schedule tours, and book travel attempts to log in to a safe server containing financial information. Then a behavior-based AI tool can send a notification to a predetermined campus contact or shut down the computer.

Department staffers can monitor key performance indicators to determine if their current AI tool is successful. Additionally, one can hope for added tools that can be deployed to take over more business functions. If an organization gains confidence in the device, wherein it provides accurate information and saves time for academic advisors freeing up time. The advisors can work more closely with every individual, which alternatively determines the success of the system.

What to do Before Investing in AI

Assess Options: AI has the potential to address several business issues, so it is essential for institution to establish specific goals. Many administrators believe that lacking a clear vision can make it harder to see the value of AI. So, automating the key areas and process mapping helps institutions in providing more positive pupil interactions.

Ask Questions: Technology providers may not have experience working with higher education institutions. Also, the organizational team may lack sufficient expertise in AI to cope with the institutional needs and available technology options. Therefore, to overcome the issue, organizations can look for alternatives and employ the technology as per the requirements and ask questions to the providers on its use and other features.  

Understand Cultural Issues: Rolling out AI tools for business processes can be challenging as staff and faculty may not be as comfortable with the devices as students. Thus, incorporating systems that are simple, safe, and have a lower risk profile to enhance what the overworked faculty is already doing is crucial for organizations.

AI has the potential to automate business processes giving insight into the requirements and behaviors of pupils, enhancing recruiting, streamlining back-office operations, and retention of faculty, students, and staff. For administrators to adopt the technology and realize its value, it is necessary to scale AI-powered applications across the organization. The development in the field of AI helps to simplify the process throughout the student life cycle and to administer better the overall business of running a university, including its workforce, finances, and program offerings.