Named after the hundred-eyed watchman of Greek myth, Argus watches the education landscape: spotting new opportunities, pressure-testing the ventures we're building, and tracing every read back to the real-world signals behind it.
The evidence library: the raw signals the pipeline is watching across the education ecosystem. Every idea is built from these.
Deepfakes have become a serious security and trust problem for colleges and universities, blurring the line between cyberattacks, fraud, misinformation and student harm. Artificial intelligence (AI)-generated voice clones and fabricated media are used to impersonate university leaders, manipulate employees into transferring funds and steal credentials through increasingly convincing social engineering attacks. Students and faculty are confronting a growing wave of manipulated audio, images and video used for harassment, reputational damage and disinformation. Click the banner below to…
Students increasingly judge institutions by the quality and feel of their learning environment: Do they feel innovative, aspirational, collaborative, modern and high-tech? Increasingly, IT leaders are asking questions akin to those of admissions offices more often now than they did even two years ago: does our campus environment look like the future our students are trying to get to? These questions used to be about residence halls and dining. Now they’re about the classroom and learning spaces. And the answers are having a direct impact on whether students choose to enroll, whether…
Ambient artificial intelligence is being hyped as a new wave of AI with the potential to make today’s tech-enabled classrooms even smarter. Compared with the transactional nature of traditional AI, ambient AI “fades into the environment rather than sitting in a visible tool waiting for someone to type a prompt,” explains Narmeen Makhani, founder of AIxecute, a strategic advisory and consulting firm. The technology is already being employed in medical settings, helping clinicians with note-taking and after-visit summaries. To pick up on engagement and classroom interaction in real time,…
Higher education has spent the last decade optimizing for the student experience with everything from enrollment funnels to retention analytics and personalized dashboards, while largely overlooking the people responsible for keeping it all running. And all of that optimization matters. But there’s a conversation that can’t wait any longer: the employee experience — specifically, what happens when the higher ed IT staff who keep institutions running don’t feel like institutions are keeping them. This isn’t a soft HR concern. It’s an operational risk. EDUCAUSE’s 2026 Workforce Report found…
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how businesses operate, how students learn and how communities solve complex problems. From predictive analytics to generative design and autonomous systems, AI is becoming foundational to innovation across industries. What was once a competitive advantage is quickly becoming a baseline expectation. Recognizing this shift, the Center for Entrepreneurship at the College of Charleston created the AI Innovation Challenge to empower students to leverage AI in tackling real-world societal issues. This momentum is especially powerful among younger…
In May, a cybercriminal group executed the largest educational data breach on record, targeting Instructure, the company behind the Canvas learning management system. The breach impacted 275 million students, teachers and staff across approximately 9,000 education institutions. Many took quick action. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, for example, issued real-time alerts warning faculty and students: “If Canvas prompts you to perform any action — such as clicking a link, logging in, resetting your password or completing any tasks — do not proceed.” For universities, the incident…
Community colleges serve as a bridge between education and employment, helping students gain the skills needed for local and regional jobs. But with workforce needs evolving more rapidly, these institutions are under pressure to ensure programs remain aligned with labor market demand. Data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) are helping community colleges leverage labor market intelligence (LMI) to make more informed decisions about program creation, student success initiatives and workforce development strategies. However, overcoming organizational challenges, fragmented systems, data…
It’s not a matter of if, but when. This cybersecurity maxim is true for almost any organization, but it is especially true for higher education institutions. They are continuing to experience a significant uptick in attacks, numbering about 4,200 per week in 2026 across higher education institutions, according to Randy Rose, vice president of security operations and intelligence at the Center for Internet Security (CIS). “We’re holding steady for 2026, but that’s not necessarily a good thing,” says Rose. “Depending on who’s measuring it, higher education saw anywhere from a 20% to 40%…
Every board wants to know the AI plan, but AI readiness starts with a question most institutions haven't answered: is your data ready? Simply put, AI readiness starts with data readiness. You don’t build a house without a solid foundation. The stronger your data as your foundation is, the greater opportunity that you have to build, and we are all building right. Our goal is not to be static. Our goal is to help our organizations grow, be more effective for our students and achieve the outcomes that higher ed is there to provide. Click the below banner to explore building data governance…
In addition to CIOs establishing themselves as leaders when it comes to a unified data strategy and university leadership understanding that data governance is the foundation of AI readiness, there is a growing understanding that data governance is a required discipline, essential to data-centric transformation on campuses. However, there are other data considerations to be mindful of, as well. Click the banner below to explore how to build a foundation for scalable AI at your higher ed institution.
Earlier this year, an agentic artificial intelligence tool called Einstein caused an uproar in higher education. Einstein offered to log autonomously into the learning management system Canvas every day, watch lectures, write papers and submit homework on students’ behalf — without their professors knowing. Einstein exposed a core problem in higher education IT: There’s no reliable way to distinguish students from AI agents acting in their place on any major LMS. “The Einstein tool was a big wake-up call,” says Josh Callahan, CISO for California State University. “It echoes the…
The job market is often perceived as tough: too few jobs and too many applicants. Newly graduated college students trying to secure their first jobs in the cybersecurity industry have it tough for another reason: Employers want experience. “One of the biggest challenges in cybersecurity is that employers want people with experience, but students need somewhere to get that experience before they can land those jobs,” explains James Lanham, director of operations at Marshall University’s Institute for Cyber Security. Thanks to a partnership with Intuit, Marshall University is helping students…
Technical debt is the accumulation of future costs that come with every IT product in your portfolio. For many IT managers, managing technical debt is a careful balancing act to ensure expenditures are predictable and problems are avoided. Security debt is a variation on technical debt — and a bigger problem in higher education. Click the banner below to read the recent CDW Cybersecurity Research Report.
Leaders at the State University of New York’s 64 campuses have until the end of the year to establish or update artificial intelligence guidelines, including standards for bias evaluation, student data privacy and responsible AI use. The mandate comes from a binding AI governance policy passed in May, leaving higher ed IT leaders at SUNY campuses to devise ways to evaluate AI vendors, implement governance workflows, protect institutional data and support responsible AI adoption at scale. The framework is already having an impact beyond the Empire State, with CIOs and IT leaders across…
Artificial intelligence promises big gains for faculty in higher education, including greater efficiencies and elevated learning outcomes. To realize the wins, professors need to get up to speed on the tools. While many are experimenting on their own, some institutions are taking steps to accelerate that learning. At Ventura College, a California community college, leaders recently stood up communities of practice around AI use. A CoP brings together individuals with a shared interest in a topic or technology; in this case, AI. The group then works together to learn more about the topic or…
“The premise that cybersecurity is a back-office or administrative expense and that something might not happen — that needs to be changed,” says Fadi Fadhil, field CIO and director of field strategy at Palo Alto Networks. “CISOs and CIOs can steer that change by engaging in simplified conversations with university leadership. It’s a strategic effort, helping them understand how the investment reduces institutional risk.” When it comes to budgeting for their cybersecurity programs, higher education CISOs must overcome some unique hurdles, ranging from the federated nature of university IT…
On any given Tuesday afternoon, a dean at Morgan State University can pull live enrollment trend data without submitting a ticket, waiting for a report or following up with the IT department. At most higher education institutions, that same request can take about three weeks. The difference isn’t the data platform, however. It’s how the historically Black college is prioritizing data literacy. Timothy Summers, vice president of IT and CIO at the Baltimore-based institution, is betting the university’s artificial intelligence strategy on employees’ ability to effectively interpret, question…
The landscape for specialized colleges and universities such as art schools is shifting as higher education continues to evolve to fit emerging job markets and student interest. Founded in 1882, Cleveland Institute of Art continuously challenges itself to stay modern and relevant. Years ago, the school’s leadership had the vision to partner with the city to revitalize an area due for reinvigoration. The result was the Interactive Media Lab, which brings together the university, the city and private industry into a satellite campus that gives students and the community a space to…