The 2024 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report profiles the trends and key technologies and practices shaping the future of teaching and learning, and envisions a number of scenarios for that future. It is based on the perspectives and expertise of a global panel of leaders from across the higher education landscape. For more than a decade, EDUCAUSE partnered with the New Media Consortium (NMC) to publish the annual Horizon Report.

EDUCAUSE is a higher education technology association and the largest community of IT leaders and professionals committed to advancing higher education. Technology, IT roles and responsibilities, and higher education are dynamically changing. Formed in 1998, EDUCAUSE supports those who lead, manage, and use information technology to anticipate and adapt to these changes, advancing strategic IT decision-making at every level within higher education. EDUCAUSE is a global nonprofit organization whose members include US and international higher education institutions, corporations, not-for-profit organizations, and K–12 institutions. With a community of more than 100,000 individuals at member organizations located around the world, EDUCAUSE encourages diversity in perspective, opinion, and representation.

Increasingly, data collection and analysis are core functions of higher education institutions. However, an EDUCAUSE QuickPoll revealed that just one in four (25%) of respondents believed the structure of data functions at their institution was ideal for their analytics needs, and only 16% of respondents indicated that their institutional data functions operate cohesively. This misalignment of strategy and resources within higher education institutions is becoming an urgent issue, with implications for data privacy and security, student recruitment and retention, and the holistic student experience.

This report summarizes the results of those discussions and serves as one
vantage point on where our future may be headed. This project was grounded in a modified Delphi methodology that seeks to elevate  the collective perspectives and knowledge of a diverse group of experts, and the panelists’ activities were facilitated using tools adapted from the Institute for the Future. Building on the trends, technologies, practices, and scenarios described in the horizon reports, expert panels were charged with envisioning the preferred future of unified data models in higher education and creating an action plan targeting that future. This year’s reportis also including a list of “honorary trends” focused on AI.

Read more about the Horizon Report and check out our video summaries of each chapter of the Horizon Report at Educause Library (https://library.educause.edu/resources/2024/5/2024-educause-horizon-rep…)