From the Human Performance Model¹ , one learns that people performing in systems have in common the fact that they are each someone, doing something, somewhere. That means, regardless of the industry or practice, each one of the elements of this model must be digitized for digital transformation to materialize. To digitally transform an institution, the context of the organization must be digitized first. Without that, digitized information cannot become relevant. Digitized processes will not be streamlined. Basically, context is king. Context defines roles and resources. Once context is digitized, delivery of the right information to the right person at the right time becomes possible and digital transformation has taken hold. When the three elements of this model are digitized, the organization has a digital grid in place for digital transformation and innovation.

Enterprises invest massive amounts of funds purchasing digital tools to realize digital transformation. What they end up with is a digital environment that is complex, disconnected, inefficient, and expensive to maintain and secure. That happens because their context is not digitized. Without the digital context, flow of information through roles becomes impossible because roles are tied to context, which specifically is the organizational structure and culture of an organization. The university is a unique organization, as it has a structure with significant segmentation (e.g., departments in colleges ) and a culture that reinforces that segmentation with a focus on distinct disciplines.  The challenge is to maintain this context while enabling the efficiencies that can flow through shared situational awareness. In order to keep the president, the provost, and the dean, the department head, faculty, and students informed, the university, campus, college and department must be digitized within the context of its hierarchy. Digital transformation must keep the hierarchy and roles, while at the same time network the flow of information through those roles. Networked hierarchy at first may appear an oxymoron, but in fact, it represents a paradigm change. Thomas Kuhn suggested two things must happen for a paradigm shift to occur. First, you have to have the realization that you are not achieving your desired outcome because you are thinking and doing the same old thing. Second, you must have a viable alternative. The Digitized Human Performance Model is the answer.

What makes universities unique is their context. Within the university structure many members will have multiple roles. For example, the faculty are core personnel, and the same person has multiple roles to achieve outcomes for the university—a user simultaneously is expected to be a researcher, a teacher, an advisor, and at times, an administrator or a  committee member. Each of these are distinct roles having distinct information requirements. Currently, huge inefficiencies will be experienced, when a person with multiple roles cannot quickly find the right information at the right time to make data driven decisions for that role.

What makes presenting the right information to the right person at the right time very challenging is that the technology data platforms of the organization do not recognize that people have multiple roles within an organization. That barrier is the root cause of enormous inefficiencies. Digital transformation must solve the problem.

Digital transformation must eliminate the inefficiencies by pre-positioning each member via the member's role to interface with the most salient information that is needed for that role with a click of a button. 

Digital transformation must allow each member who has multiple roles to switch roles easily and  to realize instantly that the system presents the information that is needed for that role. The person must not have to logout and login to another system to get the information for that role. The system must be smart enough to reconfigure itself to meet the needs of that new role.

Consider that a department head wears multiple hats during a day because that person is not only a department head but also is a faculty member, and perhaps a committee chair.  As a department head, such an individual must have easy and quick access to strategic data about enrollment. As a faculty with one click, the same individual should see classes he or she is teaching. The ideal system is aware of the context of a department, its programs and courses, as well as physical resources such as buildings, conference rooms, equipment, and more. It also knows the department's college and the campus where that department is located. The department head does not have to look at enrollment data through a drop-down menu of 14 colleges and then click on “my college” option. That undesirable approach simply would give the user 21 different departments from which to choose and after making a selection would require the user  to make several clicks to get to the current semester or to the next semester. Of course, during that onerous process, one mistake would require the individual to start all over again. That is not digital transformation. That is an awful user experience full of frustration and inefficiency for anyone with a busy and strategic role in the institution.

Digital Transformation must solve the inefficiencies of legacy systems. It must know each person's specific role and personalize the needed information for that role. Nothing should be generic. A department head with one click must have access to macro data. The system must know who the person is, where the person is and what  information the person needs immediately.

Most current enterprise type deployment gives each person a bunch of functions. Microsoft Teams provides the enterprise with these channels and everything else, but it does not organize any information based on those channels, based on the groups to which one belongs. The user must go there to feed it. The information is not being pulled for the user. Instead, the user must go and structure it.

In addition to knowing everyone's roles, digital transformation must reinforce community and the identities within that community. In Microsoft Teams, for example, if a unit head creates a channel to target undergraduates with a particular major, that unit head literally has to upload all those students to the channel and then manually adjust them, and it is not even clear whether the unit head can keep that same channel for the next year.

Digital Transformation turns dumb databases into smart information by pulling data from many disparate repositories and making them relevant and salient for each specific role with a click of a button. The information already is  organized for that role, enabling that role to do a lot more on the community building side.

Digital transformation digitizes the organizational hierarchy while networking it. It is intelligent because its digital context defines roles. It is the context that gives meaning to roles and not the other way around. Automatically, each object of the database is turned into a digital community.  Imagine each number coming back from a database query is becoming a community with many people networked automatically to work and perform tasks instead of being just a number. Profiles of each person dynamically and automatically reveal who is who. For example, when a student graduates, the system automatically adds the alumni role for that student. All of the free form and structured data generated by that person has relevance for that role. The global search function and recommendations engine provide amazing matchmaking capability. They facilitate bringing the right information to the right person at the right time.

Digital Transformation for higher education must have continuity across academic years for each role. The continuity that enables each role easily and fluently to compare previous academic years to current ones. Enabling each role to have continuous operations over multiple years and getting that data with a click.

Digital transformation in higher education unleashes the power of vast databases. It brings a paradigm shift into its operation instead of an incremental change. Digital transformation does not need to tear the structure down. It reorganizes information flow through that system by networking hierarchy.

Always Education has created a digital transformation model that accomplishes all of this by creating the only digitized human performance model that can bring digital transformation to hierarchically organized enterprises. Several digital transformation solutions have been built upon this model and have been used at the University of Cincinnati.

Let's listen to Dr. Richard Harknett, Professor of Political Science and Director of the School of Public and International Affairs, Co-Director of the Ohio Cyber Range Institute, and Chair of the Center for Cyber Strategy and Policy at the University of Cincinnati.

The digital transformation model that Always Education has created "...is revolutionary, and I use that word sparingly, people over use it. But, it truly is the networking of hierarchy, and that is a fundamental revolutionary moment at the organizational level that you can then do anything and everything that you want to do. Whether it is learning, whether it is the administration, whether it is delivery of classes, or whether it is any other vital function, it all then rests on a very different kind of platform."

Vali Tadayon

Associate Professor of Information Technology

University of Cincinnati

1) Human Performance Engineering, Third Edition, Robert W. Bailey, Ph.D.