When Ed Tech vendors come calling...

Mark D. Porcaro, Executive Director of Online and Adult Learning, Wichita State University

Mark D. Porcaro, Executive Director of Online and Adult Learning, Wichita State University

Just about every day, I get an unsolicited email from a new ed-tech company. They promise to help us retain more students, support them academically or in non-academic ways, improve classroom participation, etc.

Here’s the struggle: many of these issues are things that we earnestly want to address. However, we must balance what processes need to be managed by our own teams and current systems, what can sincerely be addressed by innovative technologies, and what our budgets can sustainably support. Let me address each of these issues and how I approach them and unsolicited vendors.

First, we constantly evaluate what services we need or what we can do on our own. Faculty, staff, and administrators bring information to me about vendors and services outside of the direct contacts I regularly receive. When I am asked to evaluate new vendors, one of my concerns is to determine the vendor provides a service that we already have access to other means. Many times, vendors provide a specialized service or software that might be managed by one of the enterprise systems, like our Student Information Systems (SIS), Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM), Content Management Systems (CMS), or Learning Management Systems (LMS).

We all know that enterprise solutions are not as agile and adaptable as they can be, but they might be able to do a specific job when needed (though often poorly, as Maslow said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail”). When there are gaps in their service where we need additional support, we may turn to another service. However, that is still a MAY and doesn’t yet warrant my attention.

My next step is to look at what my colleague, John Jones, and I jokingly call the Jones-Porcaro Index: it is a scale that indicates the gap between what the sales team promises a service or software will do and how it actually integrates and works when delivered. Often the promise is a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale, and the reality is a 2 or 3. This creates a real gap that we will be left to fill. Of course, there are always things that need to be tweaked or addressed to fit our unique situations, but more often than not, the work to get to the promised level of service is substantial.

Most importantly, we must see whether this service is essential enough to reallocate budgets to sustain it. As we all know, higher education technology budgets are squeezed on all sides: rising annual maintenance costs, lower revenues, and changing priorities due to student, leadership, or regulatory needs. That means every dollar has to be well spent. Higher education institutions rarely have budgets or employee time for skunkworks or pilot projects that are not sustainable. Suppose I am going to allocate part of my budget (which lies on the back of student tuition and fees). In that case, I must carefully evaluate whether it will support the widest variety of students, faculty, and staff as possible, in addition, the service must meet rigorous accessibility, security, and privacy standards before we can consider implementation.

“I approach each vendor relation as a partnership. I am paying them to do something that we can’t do. And because of that, I expect as much out of them as I would from our own teams. The relationship has to be managed, or the experience won’t be as rich as it can be”

How can higher education administrators cope with these realities while trying to find the right mix of helpful tools to support the institution? My advice is simple: don’t fall for fads. Just because other schools are using technology a, b, or c, that doesn’t mean you have to also.

When a vendor calls or emails out of the blue, you don’t have to take their call. You don’t have to reply to their emails. And don’t worry; this isn’t rude. The sales teams representing these products are making dozens of calls and sending hundreds of emails a day – they have to, given the work they do. They cast a wide net. If you engage with them, even just to reply to an email to let them know you’re not interested, you are not being kind to them – at best, you’re wasting their time and yours by continuing the conversation, and at worst, you’re giving them a reason to believe that you might be interested if they just push you a little. Non-engagement frees up their time and resources for other clients and frees up your time as well.

Ask your students, faculty, and staff the best way to find out what you should be doing and where there are gaps. What tools do they want and need they don’t have? How much of your community could you impact if you could provide a budget to support these vendors (don’t forget those costs will likely rise regularly, even with multi-year contracts). As you search for vendors that meet these needs, or you do an RFP, carefully evaluate whether they are accessible, meet your needs for privacy concerns, are built on sound digital security principles, and lastly, will actually do what you need them to do; remember your Jones-Porcaro Index!

With as complex as ed-tech systems can be, I would also caution against being drawn into services or products through the alluring sales pitch, “we’ll give you a chance to pilot our systems free for six months.” Remember, there are no free services. These companies often hope that you will fall into the sunk-cost fallacy: “We spent six months working on this, and we have a handful of people who now rely on this, we now have to find a way to scale this up.” Pilots are a great way of determining whether a service you can support will actually meet your needs, but it shouldn’t be something that gets you stuck on paying for something you are not ready to support.

Lastly, enter every contract with eyes wide open. Whatever a third party provides your institution, it will never solve all of your problems. Students will still drop out of school, faculty may not have the learning environment they want, and administrators will not be able to cut costs adequately. I have had many good relationships with vendors that function as we need, mainly because I approach each as a partnership. I am paying them to do something that we can’t do. And because of that, I expect as much out of them as I would from our own teams. The relationship has to be managed, or the experience won’t be as rich as it can be.