This latest event in the IT Extended Education Technology Series featured an analyst briefing from Gartner’s higher education blockchain expert. Covering core concepts, use cases, and disruptive power for universities, the presentation examined this emerging technology from a top-down leadership perspective, outlining practical benefits alongside the risks and challenges. We anonymously surveyed the briefing attendees for feedback.

A Quality Presentation
Of the surveyed participants, 93.8% marked the overall quality of the event as Good, Very Good, or Excellent. Some of the respondents provided actionable feedback. One wrote, “I would love to have the a copy of the slide deck. It was extremely informative.” We contacted Gartner that day to get a copy of their deck and forwarded it out to all attendees by the next day. The presenter herself received high marks, as all respondents marked the quality of the presentation as Good, Very Good, or Excellent. “Terri [the presenter] went to details when needed/asked. Very professional. I learned new use cases for Higher Ed.”

One area we can do better is making sure the presentation fits the technical skill level of the room. Only 66% of respondents marked the relevance of the material as Very Good or Excellent with the remaining 34% marking Good. While some commented that the presentation jumped in without enough foundation, others said that it wasn’t advanced enough.

Adding Value
Respondents valued how the presentation supplemented existing or academic knowledge of Blockchain, with 93.8% of them saying they valued it Highly, Very Highly, or Exceptionally Highly. One commented, “I’m starving for this kind of material. Very important to helping us think forward.” Exploring these kinds of cutting-edge technologies and evaluating how they could be applied to our campus is a core goal of these workshops. After the presentation, 66.6% of surveyed participants said they would support future university blockchain initiatives. Though the question was left up to interpretation, respondents were still excited about the possibility of bringing blockchain to campus, with one participant saying, “Easing processes and access to information? Heck yeah.”

Moving Forward
The best barometer for success, however, is the likelihood of participants to attend another similar briefing, workshop, or presentation in the future. When asked if they’d come to another IT Extended Education Technology Series event again, 94% said yes. The most requested topic for a future event was Artificial Intelligence, with 60% of those responding choosing AI. Other popular responses were Cloud Service and Cybersecurity.

Watch your inbox for information on upcoming IT Extended Education Technology Series events as we look to bring more industry experts and enterprise-grade tools to San Jose State University.

Thank you,
Bob Lim