Hype Cycle For K-12 769790 NDX

Hype Cycle for K-12 Education, 2022
Published 19 July 2022 - ID G00769790 - 78 min read
By Analyst(s): Kelly Calhoun Williams, Saher Mahmood

Initiatives: Education Digital Transformation and Innovation; Government Verticals Digital
Innovation and Application Modernization
The impact of the pandemic on K-12 lives on, and we have other
significant crises impacting education. The growing global
shortage of faculty and staff may require permanent shifts in
practice. This year we highlight innovations for K-12 CIOs that will
mature into solutions needed for that future.
More on This Topic

This is part of an in-depth collection of research. See the collection:
■ Applying AI — Industries
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Analysis
What You Need to Know
The impact of the pandemic continues to reverberate throughout the field of education
globally, continuing to accelerate the momentum to digitalize education. K-12 CIOs are
increasingly being called upon to enable these changes in direction, while simultaneously
dealing with new challenges on the horizon.
The Hype Cycle for K-12 Education highlights key technologies and innovations that hold
potential for significant — even transformative — impacts on education. It includes those
designed to update and optimize instructional and business practices, freeing time,
money and people resources. But it also carries innovations that have the potential to
change how K-12 CIOs see their own role and that of their teams, influencing the digital
services they must and/or should provide (and those they should let go).
In several cases, the technology may not be new, but K-12’s adoption of certain
innovations lags behind that of other sectors. The Hype Cycle will identify those areas
appropriate to:
■ Evaluate for fit.
■ Accelerate adoption.
■ Expand the organization’s capabilities.
The CIO can explore the Hype Cycle for timelines to maturity, and can plan accordingly to
leverage those with the most impact.
The Hype Cycle

For more than 25 years, K-12 education leaders have been aware of how digital
technologies could significantly impact learning and business outcomes. However, for
early adopters, realizing that potential has been a painfully slow-moving (and expensive)
process, illustrating the complexity of this journey.

The pandemic vaulted many organizations forward in time, scaling up digital resources at
an unprecedented pace. For others, it provided the opportunity to begin the journey toward
digital that to date had been lagging. But today finds all organizations asking questions
about how to leverage all this momentum to build a road forward. How do we balance the
physical and the digital in learning environments? How do we avoid inertia from taking us
back to the status quo? How do we continue to leverage all these investments to create a
meaningful improvement in learning outcomes for our students?
As CIOs read through the innovations, they should remember to focus on several factors
when advancing digital capabilities:
■ Effective ways to scale learning (while personalizing it)
■ Relentless focus on improving learning outcomes
■ Optimizing business processes through automation and artificial intelligence
■ Leveraging data to inform decision making
CIOs exploring the Hype Cycle should note the phases where the innovations have been
placed:
■ In the Innovation Trigger, technologies like chatbots are familiar in most industries,
but nearly unused by K-12 organizations to date, missing a major opportunity to
automate and streamline services, support and even instructional applications using
intelligence.
■ Nearing or over the Peak of Inflated Expectations, technologies such as robotic

process automation: K-12 and adaptive learning for K-12 education are nearing the
peak, but still remain to be broadly adopted in K-12 education. Online tutoring has
made a major splash in light of the urgent need for more student support.
■ Heading into the Trough of Disillusionment, technologies such as immersive

technologies and AI in K-12 are where the hype meets the reality of challenges with
implementation.
■ On the Slope of Enlightenment, technologies such as digital credentials (whether for

teachers or more options for documenting specific student learning achievements)
and cybersecurity maturity assessments, have matured to the point where they can
be incorporated in K-12 education and used to address current, real challenges.

■ The Plateau of Productivity reflects innovations that have passed through the Hype
Cycle and are now in broad use. However, since this Hype Cycle for K-12 was started
only a year ago, items have yet to make their way to this section.
CIOs should also note those fast-moving innovations set to mature in the next two to five
years, like conversational user interfaces and 5G, which are quickly making their way into
K-12 education as they explode in use across industries.
Figure 1: Hype Cycle for K-12 Education, 2022
Source: Gartner (July 2022)
The Priority Matrix

This year’s cycle includes several innovations projecting high or transformational benefits
focused on impact. CIOs should note how these are all projected to reach full productivity
in five to 10 years or sooner. Three of these with maximal potential — adaptive learning
for K-12 education, AI in K-12 education and digital assessment in K-12 education — are
here, just with longer timelines to become fully mainstreamed and matured. K-12
education analytics continues to be a top priority, particularly as learning losses continue,
but the advent of AI-enabled analytics will likely create vastly improved opportunities to
discover new insights. Also note that smart campus has moved from beyond 10 years to
the five- to 10-year range to achieve full productivity.

The majority of innovations have a high benefit rating. CIOs attentive to transforming or
optimizing their organizations’ capabilities should focus their planning initiatives over the
next five years in these areas with the greatest potential for meaningful impact
academically, administratively and operationally.
We continue to incorporate non-industry-specific innovations (for example, edge

computing) to illustrate their overall standing in maturity and relevance to the education
community. The specific organizational context and general hype or maturity aspect are
important for CIOs to evaluate when these technologies are pervasive enough to build new
services on top of them.
Table 1: Priority Matrix for K-12 Education, 2022

(Enlarged table in Appendix)
Off the Hype Cycle

■ A few innovations will be coming off the K-12 Hype Cycle this year. Both AV over IP
and iPaaS for data integration are obsolete.

On the Rise
Bidirectional Brain-Machine Interface
Analysis By: Sylvain Fabre, Annette Jump
Benefit Rating: High
Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience
Maturity: Adolescent
Definition:
Bidirectional brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are brain-altering neural interfaces that

enable two-way communication between a human brain and a computer or machine.
Bidirectional BMIs not only monitor the user’s EEG and mental states, but also allow some
action to be taken to modify the state of the brain based on analytics and insights. Brain
state modification occurs via noninvasive electrostimulation through a head-mounted
wearable, or an invasive implant.
Why This Is Important
BMI wearables can be as simple as a noninvasive, affordable headband; yet they can
provide a massive net societal impact and benefit in terms of illness and accident
prevention, comparable to a simple vaccination program. Therefore, this is not only a
futuristic, expensive, invasive solution for the few, like Neuralink, but also a simple gadget
for the benefit of the many, provided adequate security and privacy measures are in place.
When connected, these enable the Internet of Brains (IoB).
Business Impact
Over the next three to 10 years, they will enable business use cases including
authentication, access and payment, and support immersive analytics and workplaces,
interactions in the metaverse, and control of power suits or exoskeletons. What is unique
about “bidirectional” BMIs compared to other classes of wearables/ingestibles is their
brain-altering capability. For example, stimulation can be applied to boost alertness in
response to a pilot’s EEG markers of fatigue; relaxing cortical currents can be applied to
the brain of a harried nurse.
Drivers

■ Industrial safety, sports performance, marketing and audience testing, as well as
consumer wellness, appear to be the most promising early drivers for bidirectional
brain-machine interfaces.
■ Demand is growing from large consumer-focused corporations and media

companies, as some of these solutions can measure the response and attitude of
consumers toward products, content and companies.
■ There are already applications of one-way BMI wearables, where the focus is about
monitoring the state of the user or using the user’s intent to operate some external
device. Examples include measuring fatigue and alertness in a driver without trying
to externally modify the user’s mood.
■ Further adoption of consumer and corporate wellness; for example, using

neurotechnology to both monitor and stimulate brain function, as well as improve
sleep.
■ Use of BMIs as a human-machine interface to interact with emerging metaverse

environments among consumers and business users.
■ Direct read-and-write access to brain activity creates many opportunities for

workforce enablement.
■ Facebook acquired the neural interface startup CTRL-labs for over $500 million, in
order to include the technology as a computer interface and in AR/VR consumer
products using Facebook Reality Labs.
■ Productivity and neurodiversity initiatives will increase the need for connections
between humans, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the IoB.
Obstacles
■ Early VC smart wearable investment trends underscored some issues linked with
smart wearable devices, such as high cost for early products, slow consumer
adoption, high drop-off rates for some smart wearables, and the complexity of
integration between various data systems.
■ Since bidirectional BMIs are a more advanced and extreme form of wearable (in
effect, an implant equivalent, with bidirectional connectivity), the above trend
provides some guidance as to what needs to occur to allow a wider adoption of
bidirectional BMIs. Namely, the way forward is for providers to offer more affordable
products with increased functionality, without added invasiveness.

■ Bidirectional BMIs create very specific ethical and security challenges, because they
directly interface with the human brain. This creates new vulnerabilities to
individuals and their companies by adding a vector of attack and human factor
issues such as altering users’ perception of reality or even their personality.
User Recommendations
■ Prepare for bidirectional BMI devices creeping into enterprises; “bring your own
device” (BYOD) may occur long before specific legislation is in place.
■ Ensure customer safety and business security by implementing data anonymity and
privacy (beyond current legislation such as General Data Protection Regulation
[GDPR]) for brain-wearable data collection and management.
■ Highlight trade-offs in wellness solutions: more data may not equate to improved
outcomes when looking at complex systems such as the human brain.
■ Set up an independent steering board to monitor products sold to consumers and

provided for employees. Preempt potential legal liability by regularly reviewing
implanted wearables’ features, data governance policies and their use cases, and
deciding on what is acceptable in terms of read/write from and to users’ brains.
■ Establish policies for unauthorized implantables: While they cannot easily be

removed, users may be prohibited from some roles such as operating vehicles or
machinery, or advanced security clearance due to increased hacking risk.
Sample Vendors
BrainCo; Facebook; Kernel; Neuralink; Neuroelectrics; NeuroMetrix; NYX Technologies;

Omron Healthcare
Gartner Recommended Reading
Maverick* Research: “Brain Malware” Returns to Target Wetware in the Internet of Brains
Forecast Analysis: Wearable Electronic Devices, Worldwide
Emerging Technologies: Venture Capital Growth Insights — Smart Wearables
Metaverse
Analysis By: Marty Resnick, Matt Cain, Tuong Nguyen

Benefit Rating: Transformational
Maturity: Embryonic
Definition:
Gartner defines a metaverse as a collective virtual 3D shared space, created by the

convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. A metaverse is persistent,
providing enhanced immersive experiences. Gartner expects that a complete metaverse
will be device-independent, and will not be owned by a single vendor: It will have a virtual
economy of itself, enabled by digital currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
A metaverse is the next level of interaction in the virtual and physical worlds. It will allow
people to replicate or enhance their physical activities. This could happen either by
transporting or extending physical activities to a virtual world, or by transforming the
physical one. Although the goal of a metaverse is to combine many of these activities,
there are currently many emerging metaverses with limited functionality.
Business Impact
Enterprises can expand and enhance their current businesses in unprecedented ways,
opening up innovative opportunities. The following are examples of opportunities that
metaverse offers to enterprises:
■ Spatial computing (e.g., real-time shopping recommendations)
■ Gaming (e.g., collaborative “serious games” for training)
■ Digital humans (e.g., customer service reps)
■ Virtual spaces (e.g., live virtual events)
■ Shared experiences (e.g., immersive meetings)
■ Tokenized assets (e.g., NFTs)
Drivers
There are three drivers for the metaverse:

■ Transport: The ability to “go and immerse oneself” in a virtual world. That world may
be a 3D simulation and/or in virtual reality.
■ Transform: Bringing digital to the physical world. This allows the user to have
access to real-time information, collaboration and experiences in the physical world.
■ Transact: The economic foundation of the metaverse through the use of

cryptocurrency, NFTs and blockchain.
Some of the main activities for the metaverse that will require one or more of these drivers
are:
■ Collaboration: Encouraging collaboration and participation from a diverse group of

stakeholders, wherever they may be located.
■ Engagement: Employees and customers are often disengaged. The metaverse

facilitates a feeling of presence (“being there”) as if the participants were in-person,
turning their focus to the task at hand with less distraction.
■ Connectedness: Metaverse enables us to connect in a more immersive way with

shops, work environments, schools and communities of interest — regardless of
where or if they exist in the physical world.
Ultimately, people desire to enhance and/or augment their lives in digital and physical
realities.

Obstacles
■ The adoption of metaverse technologies is nascent and fragmented. Be careful

when investing in a specific metaverse, as it is too early to determine which
investments have long-term viability. Furthermore, this is a time of learning, exploring
and preparing for a metaverse with limited implementation. Financial and
reputational risks of early investments are not fully known, and caution is advised.
■ Current manifestations of metaverses are siloed, app-based, noninteroperable

experiences that do not satisfy the decentralized and interoperable vision of the
metaverse. This current, walled-garden approach also strongly limits users’ control
of experiences.
■ While technology plays a key role in achieving a mature metaverse, another

challenge involves establishing user-centric guidelines for ethics and governance
covering different aspects of the metaverse. This must include topics like privacy,
data sovereignty, acceptable terms of use, accountability, identity and legal
protections.
Recommendations for strategic approaches toward the metaverse will vary. In general:
■ Task an innovation team to look for opportunities where metaverse technologies

could optimize digital business, or create new products and services.
■ Work with qualified agencies to evaluate the viability of metaverse technologies in

terms of user and customer reach, and engagement rates with new, early adopter
audiences.
■ Build metaverse products and solutions by building a pipeline of innovation based

on combinatorial emergent technologies, such as spatial computing, rather than a
“killer app.”
■ Identify metaverse-inspired opportunities by evaluating current high-value use cases

vis-a-vis your product or service.
■ Develop technology strategies that leverage the built-in infrastructure and

participants of the metaverse, and provide digital product or service opportunities.
■ Be careful when investing in a specific metaverse, as it is still too early to determine

which investments will be viable in the long term.

Sample Vendors
Animoca Brands (Sandbox); Decentraland; Linden Labs; Meta; Microsoft; Nvidia; Roblox
Predicts 2022: 4 Technology Bets for Building the Digital Future
Emerging Technologies: The Future of the Metaverse
Emerging Technologies: Critical Insights on Metaverse
Quick Answer: What Is a Metaverse?
Quick Answer: How Will the Metaverse Shape the Digital Employee Experience?
Chatbots
Analysis By: Kelly Calhoun Williams
Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience
Maturity: Emerging
Definition:
Chatbots are domain-specific or task-specific conversational interfaces that use an app,

messaging platform, social network or chat solution for conversations. Chatbots range in
use-case sophistication from simple, decision-tree-based, to implementations built on
feature-rich enterprise conversational AI platforms. Contrary to virtual assistants, they are
always narrow in scope. A chatbot can be text-based, voice-based (most commonly
referred to as a voice bot) or a combination of both.
Chatbots represent one of the primary use cases of artificial intelligence (AI) in
enterprises. Although most commonly applied to customer service, IT service
management (ITSM) or human resources — the long tail of chatbot uses is incredibly
diverse. K-12 education has been surprisingly slow in adopting chatbots to date,
especially given a long list of practical potential (and fairly mature) use cases.

Business Impact
Chatbots are the face of AI and will impact all areas with communication between
machines and humans. Chatbots are already common across other industries. In K-12,
common, repetitive question-and-answer based tasks like Level 1 Help Desk support and
common parent processes and questions for schools are a logical starting place. The
change to “the chatbot learns what the user wants” has implications for instruction,
productivity and efficiency inside K-12’s schools, business and administration.
Drivers
■ Staff shortages: The faculty and staff shortage crisis in K-12 suggests that the need
for streamlining and optimizing all practices possible will be an imperative.
■ Technology change: The sophistication of the enterprise conversational AI platform

market has led to enhanced tooling for enterprises to build and maintain chatbots
using non-IT resources.
■ Chatbot maturity: Predefined intents, entities and dialogue templates for common
use cases are accelerating time to market and increasing quality.
■ Convenience: Although we can still claim that there are more emerging practices
than established best practices, the experience of building high-quality chatbots is
increasingly being codified into educational resources.
Obstacles
■ Scaling and operationalizing still remains a challenge in some industries due to a

lack of dedicated internal teams to work on continuous improvements. K-12 will
benefit from planning ahead for this with products that let non-IT teams lead
projects.
■ The vendor landscape comprises a huge selection of vendors — by Gartner’s

estimate in the thousands. However, those focused on education’s typical needs are
few, but increasing in number.
■ Technology is improving at an astounding pace, but best practices for adoption and
use of these technological advancements are still trailing. K-12 will also likely
experience a lot of trial and error as it explores what works best.

■ Select an enterprise-grade platform to develop multiple use cases with orchestration

of the specific assets needed in your organization.
■ Focus on operationalization of chatbots as a product — with the necessary

organization and roles in place — to evolve and maintain chatbots for your
organization over time.
■ Look for capabilities where integration within a heterogeneous environment is

possible, especially where networking of chatbots is required.
Sample Vendors
Amazon; AtlasRTX; ChatBot.com (for Education); Google; IBM; K12 Insight; Microsoft;
Yellow.ai
Quick Answer: How Should I Use Chatbots in K-12 Education?
Reimagine Your “Contact Us” Page With Chatbots
Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms
Consolidate Your Chatbot Initiatives Into a Single Enterprise Strategy
AV Over IP
Analysis By: Terri-Lynn Thayer
Benefit Rating: Low
Maturity: Obsolete
Definition:
Audio visual (AV) over Internet Protocol (IP) refers to the ability to send video and audio
over conventional networks and the replacement of analog (and often proprietary) AV
infrastructure with IP-based infrastructure.

When AV over IP first appeared in a Hype Cycle, it offered a new approach for the design
of AV systems in classrooms and other settings. It also offered advantages over
conventional matrix-switching-based systems. However, this technology was incredibly
slow moving and has now become obsolete before reaching the plateau, as meeting
solutions software and streaming technologies have emerged and been highly adopted
during the pandemic.
Business Impact
The potential business impact of AV over IP for education was earlier high but is now low.
There are few use cases that are now better handled with other technologies. AV
technicians have been slow to adopt new skills and there are few vendors specializing in
this space.
Drivers
■ Low cost and versatility
■ Ease of system expansion
■ Compatibility with standard network cabling
■ Low signal loss between points
Obstacles
■ There are better solutions to the problem available today, like technologies that are
highly adopted and almost ubiquitous today, such as meeting solutions software
and streaming technologies.
■ Lack of agreed-upon open standards for AV over IP is making interoperability

between vendors challenging.
■ Lack of network expertise among AV workers is resulting in cultural resistance and

slow adoption.
■ Evaluate alternative technologies, such as meeting software and streaming

solutions, to support hybrid, blended and other remote learning needs.

Sample Vendors
Audinate; Christie; Crestron Electronics; Kramer Electronics; Matrox; Panduit (Atlona);

ZeeVee
Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions
Self-Integrating Applications
Analysis By: Keith Guttridge
Maturity: Embryonic
Definition:
Self-integrating applications will use a combination of automated service discovery,

metadata extraction and mapping, automated process definition, and automated
dependency mapping to enable applications and services to integrate themselves into an
existing application portfolio with minimal human interaction.
Integrating new applications and services into an application portfolio is complex and
expensive. Gartner research shows that up to 65% of the cost of implementing a new ERP
or CRM system is attributable to integration. The technology to enable applications to
self-integrate exists in pockets, but no vendor has yet combined all the elements
successfully. As applications develop the ability to discover and connect to each other, the
amount of basic integration work will dramatically reduce.
Business Impact
Business impacts include:
■ Improved agility, as the time to onboard applications and services is massively

shortened.
■ Cost savings of up to 65% when onboarding new applications and services.
■ Reduced vendor lock-in, as platform migration becomes simpler.

■ Greater ability to focus on differentiation and transformational initiatives, as the
“keep the lights on” burden is dramatically reduced.
Drivers
■ Cloud hyperscalers providing features such as service discovery, metadata

extraction, intelligent document processing and natural language processing
■ Automation/integration vendors providing features such as intelligent data mapping,

metadata extraction, data fabric, next best action recommendations, process
discovery and automated decisioning
■ SaaS vendors providing features such as process automation, packaged integration

processes, portfolio discovery and platform composability
■ A new era in which intelligent application portfolio management is placed on top of

augmented integration platforms in order to be where the challenge is finally
addressed
Obstacles
■ Embedded integration features within SaaS being good enough to enable

organizations to get started quickly, thus stalling investment in improving self-
integration capabilities.
■ A general lack of awareness of the availability of augmented integration

technologies to enable self-integrating applications. Many organizations still view
integration as a complex issue requiring specialist tools.
■ The lack of a clear market leader that is looking to push this technology forward as
the major application vendors look to protect their customer bases.
Software engineering leaders responsible for integration should:
■ Ask your major application vendors about the interoperability of applications within
their portfolios. This is the area where self-integrating applications are most likely to
emerge first.
■ Investigate integration vendors that have augmented artificial intelligence features to

automate the process of onboarding applications and services into a portfolio.

■ Manage your expectations for the ease of integration. Self-integrating applications
will provide just enough integration with the rest of the application portfolio to
enable a new application to work efficiently.
Sample Vendors
Boomi; Informatica; Microsoft; Oracle; Salesforce; SAP; SnapLogic; Workato
Innovation Insight for Self-Integrating Applications
Data Fabrics Add Augmented Intelligence to Modernize Your Data Integration
Learning Experience Platforms

Analysis By: Tony Sheehan
Benefit Rating: Moderate
Maturity: Emerging
Definition:
A learning experience platform (LXP) is the front-end layer that typically sits on top of a
learning management system (LMS). LXPs are used to enhance an individual learner’s
interactions and engagement via greater personalization, content curation, and expanded
breadth of content.
Education institutions are demanding learning platforms that are easier to use and offer
better personalization. LMSs have traditionally been perceived as focusing on scheduling,
registering and tracking of learner activities. LXPs are starting to deliver personalized
learning paths, channels and collections that allow learners to easily organize, access and
share relevant resources, plus gain visibility on additional learning assets that others find
valuable.

Business Impact
LXPs in corporate learning allow organizations to improve learner experience and

engagement by providing a more open, interactive, and effective way to learn. Education
institutions are now looking to enhance online and blended learning and seeking solutions
to provide enhanced learner engagement and stronger student performance. LXPs do not,
however, fully duplicate LMS functionality and are not a direct LMS replacement.
Drivers
■ Sharing content without personalization risks low adoption and engagement.

Especially when learners are spread across geographies and are made up of various
cultures, jobs and preferences, a more targeted approach is needed. LXPs have
emerged from the corporate learning space as a solution to address this challenge.
■ Remote/hybrid teaching environments and digital workplaces have changed

expectations for learners. While some are still happy to consume lecture-based
teaching experiences, others more familiar with workplace collaboration tools may
now expect more frequent and detailed insight on context. Institutions must blend
approaches to engage different learner preferences.
■ Students are demanding a wider range of resources and upskilling options beyond
traditional course design.
■ Some students are willing to learn with content purely from the institution. However,
others are seeking to supplement their learning through access to a wider range of
content sources to support learning and skills development for employability. This
opens up opportunities for new styles of content partnerships and credential
pathways.
■ Education institutions must develop a balance of structured pathways and

social/personalized approaches aligned to learning design. As online learning
design evolves, so do demands for evolution and expansion of LMS functionality to
incorporate LXP style solutions.

Obstacles
■ The provider landscape for LXPs is still maturing and evolving. At present, very few
corporate LXP vendors sell into the education space and currently there is no
commonly defined feature set. Consequently, it can be challenging to evaluate and
select vendors.
■ Education LMS vendors are evolving in response to market need to offer similar
benefits to LXPs. The boundaries between LXP and LMS in education are therefore
not clear.
■ Quantifying LXP return on investment is challenging in corporate environments and

even more so within education. Enhanced learner engagement can be tracked and
measured, but education institutions are currently faced with multiple paths and
potential systems to support improved student outcomes.
■ Institutions historically have provided students with structured pathways, learning

resources and academic ePortfolios. Shifting to a more open, personalized
environment requires a high-level investment in change management, content,
learning spaces and faculty teaching.
■ Evaluate the strengths, weaknesses and roadmap of the various LXP providers to
determine their advantages relative to existing systems and their fit for institutional
strategy, culture and context.
■ Assess their compatibility with existing education learning technologies to ensure

integration, appropriate functionality and continuity across platforms.
■ Acknowledge that corporate LXP products may not fully fit higher education
requirements.
■ Keep track of the evolution of existing education learning management system

platform providers toward LXP functionality.
■ Pilot any LXP for a small, targeted population of learners to clarify benefits prior to
major investment.
■ Prioritize any initial pilot on programs where the LXP can demonstrably enhance
programs and the overall institution.
■ Ensure thorough business case evaluation and change management

communications are carried out prior to any LXP initiative.

Sample Vendors
360Learning; Absorb LMS; Cornerstone OnDemand; Degreed; EdCast; Fuse; Learning

Technologies Group; Microsoft; Skillsoft
Quick Answer: 4 Key Steps Before Shortlisting LXP Vendors
Market Guide for Corporate Learning
Quick Answer: What Does Microsoft Viva Learning Mean for Corporate Learning Buyers?
Market Guide for Higher Education Learning Management Systems
Smart Campus
Analysis By: Grace Farrell, Kelly Calhoun Williams
Maturity: Emerging
Definition:
A smart campus is a physical or digital environment in which humans and technology-

enabled systems interact using gathered data and coordinated technologies. Multiple
elements, including people, processes, services and things, come together to create a more
immersive and automated experience for the students, staff, faculty and stakeholders of
an institution.
A smart campus can heavily influence many aspects of student life. Education leaders are
under pressure to retain students and staff, strengthen their reputation, and reduce carbon
footprint. Smart campus initiatives offer these institutions opportunities to personalize the
student experience, save money on energy-draining technologies and fortify security
measures on campus. As more students return to a physical campus, smart-campus
technologies can reinvigorate the education experience.

Business Impact
A smart campus will boost efficiencies for utilities, traffic, parking, safety, space usage
and campus navigation. As the digital campus matures, learning and student retention
will improve as an immersive and content-rich environment emerges. Mature smart
campuses are likely to support higher education research in new ways, and act as critical
sources of research data. And in K-12, a smart campus can free up critical funding and
people resources, given the current staff and funding shortages.
Drivers
■ The development of smart cities has yielded significant positive outcomes for local
governments and their constituents. These smart cities are partnering with local
universities to improve safety, reduce waste and enhance navigation in the area.
■ Like many other organizations, education institutions are being pushed to report on
their sustainability efforts. Smart-city-related measurement and data visualization
can be important ways of accomplishing these sustainability goals.
■ Where applicable globally, recovery funds that are focused on a shift to renewable
energy, building modernization, or greening and decarbonization will provide schools
with more funding to support smart-campus efforts.
■ There is a growing public concern that many institutions must bolster safety and
security efforts. The use of automated license plate readers, facial recognition,
gunshot sensors and location intelligence has helped to ensure that stakeholders
feel safer on campus.
■ The ability to measure and automatically adjust heating, cooling and lighting
presents potentially significant cost saving opportunities.
■ As the student experience demands more personalization, education organizations

are looking to differentiate by incorporating smart-campus technologies in stadiums,
laundry services, classrooms and food services.

Obstacles
■ Designing a smart campus takes significant time and resources. Institutions will
need to begin by upgrading their wireless and wired infrastructure, and improving
bandwidth and software-defined networks.
■ Many smart campus initiatives begin with a hyperfocus on one particular aspect,
rather than a holistic strategy for the ecosystem. Smart-campus goals can range
from traffic and parking to virtual health services. Cross-collaboration among
different departments is essential for interoperability, yet many institutions lack the
strategy to scale and get stuck at the individual project level.
■ Education leaders will need to think beyond technologies implemented, and look
toward the utilization of data and how it will impact the student experience.
■ Decentralizing large systems and securely using gathered data have proven to be
challenging for many.
■ Stakeholders may resist smart-campus initiatives due to unforeseen risk and privacy
concerns.
■ Identify the business purpose and specific objectives for developing a smart campus
first. Campus and organization stakeholders must be involved.
■ Investigate opportunities related to sustainability and recovery funding.
■ Create a strong data infrastructure by investing in robust data integration, data

mining and analytics capabilities. The underlying fundamentals of a smart campus
are solid integration, privacy and security.
■ Engage with facilities departments in the earliest possible stages of building design.
New buildings being planned on campus will need the appropriate infrastructure to
support smart-campus applications.
■ Prepare the institution for a future smart campus by planning for highly scalable
network availability, especially in high-volume areas, such as outdoor spaces,
classrooms and dorms.
■ Maintain satisfaction with student and faculty-facing smart-campus applications

through continuous feedback and development, which are critical.

Sample Vendors
CommScope; Honeywell; Johnson Controls; Microsoft; NTT Data; Quantela
Accelerating the Digital Campus in Higher Education
Smart City Funding Models: It’s Time to Get Creative
Hype Cycle for Smart City Technologies and Solutions, 2021
Case Study: An Intelligent Urban Ecosystem Approach to a Sustainable Smart City

At the Peak
Emotion AI
Analysis By: Annette Zimmermann
Maturity: Emerging
Definition:
Emotion artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (also called affective computing) use AI
techniques to analyze the emotional state of a user (via computer vision, audio/voice
input, sensors and/or software logic). Emotion AI can initiate responses by performing
specific, personalized actions to fit the mood of the customer.
Emotion AI is considered transformational as it turns human behavioral attributes into

data that will have a large impact on human-machine interface (HMI). Machines will
become more “humanized” as they can detect sentiments in many different contexts.
Furthermore, applying deep learning to computer vision or audio-based systems to
analyze emotions in real time has spawned new use cases for customer experience
enhancements, employee wellness and many other areas.
Business Impact
Contact centers use voice analysis and natural language processing (NLP)-based
algorithms to detect emotions in voice conversations, in personal chat conversations and
chatbots. Computer vision (CV) based emotion AI has already been used for more than a
decade in market research with neuromarketing platforms that test users’ reactions
toward products. In addition, we see the technology expanding to other verticals, such as
medical research, healthcare (diagnostic) and retail (customer experience).
Drivers
The increasing number of use cases we have identified indicates an increase in

commercialization as emotion AI finds applicability in new domains.

■ One of the drivers for detecting emotions/states is the need for a system to act more
sympathetically. For instance, it creates anthropomorphic qualities for personal
assistant robots (PARs) and virtual beings, making them appear more “human.” This
“emotional capability” is an important element in enhancing the communication and
interaction between users and a PAR. This can be an empathic avatar or an emotion-
detection-enabled chatbot. A person’s daily behavior, communication and decisions
are based on emotions — our nonverbal responses in a one-to-one communication
are an inseparable element from our dialogues and need to be considered in the
human-machine interface (HMI) concept.
■ Combinatorial technology solutions such as computer vision-based and audio

analytics or language-based and computer vision enable customer experience
enhancements.
■ Strongest adoption is currently happening in the context of contact centers where

voice-based emotion analysis supports multiple use cases such as real-time
analysis on voice conversations, emotion detection in chat conversations, emotional
chatbots and more.
■ Market research and neuromarketing tools are continuously leveraging emotion

detection in various user scenarios including focus groups and product testing.
Vendors have been extending their offerings toward remote/online interviews during
2020 — due to the pandemic.
■ In the creation of virtual beings in customer service or other consumer-facing

scenarios, emotional responses are a critical element.
■ As the metaverse unfolds, virtual beings will play an important role as business
models evolve and the entire ecosystem of this new digital world emerges.
Obstacles
■ Privacy concerns are the main obstacle to rapid adoption in the enterprise. This is
especially a concern in real-live situations (vs. lab/research environments) for both
consumer-facing (e.g., monitoring emotions in a retail environment via cameras) and
employee-facing situations. Research environments like product testing have the
advantage that the Emotion AI is used for this specific purpose and the user (product
tester) is fully aware that their emotions are being captured to improve usability or
other features.

■ Bias: when using facial expression analysis, models are likely to be retrained in
different geographies to get the system to detect the different nuances present due
to different cultural backgrounds.
■ Variation across modalities. Certain emotions can be better detected with one
technology mode than with another. For instance, “irony” can be detected using
voice-based analysis while this is close to impossible to detect with facial
expression analysis.
■ Review vendors’ capabilities and reference cases carefully. As the market is currently
very immature, most vendors are focused on two or three use cases in two or three
industries. At the same time, identifying and processing human emotion is currently
a gray area, especially in the EU. The EU Commission has started an initiative to
review the ethical aspects of AI technologies, and emotion AI will certainly be part of
this debate.
■ Enhance your customer analytics and behavioral profiling by applying emotion AI

technologies bringing your customer experience strategy to the next level.
■ Be use-case-driven. The use case will determine the emotion AI technology to be

used and vendor selection.
■ Appoint responsibility for data privacy in your organization — a chief data privacy
officer or equivalent.
■ Work with your vendor on change management in order to avoid user backlash due
to sensitive data being collected.
Sample Vendors
Behavioral Signals; Cogito; DAVI; Intelligent Voice; kama.ai; MorphCast; Soul Machines;
Superceed; Symanto; Uniphore
Competitive Landscape: Emotion AI Technologies, Worldwide
Emerging Technologies: Emotion AI in the Workplace
Competitive Landscape: Customer Analytics

Tool: Vendor Identification for Natural Language Technologies
Immutable Data Vault

Analysis By: Michael Hoeck, Jerry Rozeman
Maturity: Emerging
Definition:
Immutable data vault is an isolated secure backup storage solution designed to be

complementary to the existing primary and disaster recovery backup infrastructure.
Isolated from production in an air gap architecture, it mitigates impacts from malware,
ransomware or insider malicious attacks. Immutable data vaults are often a combination
of multiple vendor technologies and services, and can be a critical element of an isolated
recovery environment.
Against the backdrop of cyberattacks increasing in numbers and sophistication,

organizations are expanding their efforts to prepare for the need to recover from an
attack. With the latest round of attacks targeting backup systems, backup solutions are
advancing their ability to prevent backup data from being compromised. Immutable data
vaults provide additional levels of protection and security of backup data to increase the
opportunity of its availability for recovery after an attack.
Business Impact
Immutable data vaults safeguard backup copies by:
■ Creating a tertiary copy of backup data, separate from production and disaster
recovery copies
■ Isolating backup copies in a physically separate and secure environment
■ Restricting administration to physical console access to remove remote access
■ Using immutable storage to protect copies

■ Implementing physical or virtual air gap to separate vault copy from production
environment
Drivers
■ Threats and sophistication of ransomware attacks, and the potential risk associated
with rogue administrators, are increasing.
■ Ransomware-as-service offerings are being sold, increasing the threat of new

attackers and variants of malware.
■ Work-from-home demands have significantly increased the risk of attacks via

unsecured or poorly secured endpoints.
■ Reports of attacks taking over console operations of backup solutions to expire and
delete backup data.
■ Greater attention is being given to alternative backup strategies to protect, detect and
recover from ransomware.
■ Financial services organizations, led by industry-led initiatives such as Sheltered

Harbor, have been rapidly adopting immutable data vaults and focus on building out
cyber resilience capabilities.
■ Industries such as the government, education and healthcare have had a higher rate
of reported ransomware incidents.
■ The number of regulatory and executive orders advising implementation of

additional, highly protected copies of backup data is growing.

Obstacles
■ Implementing another solution to store backup data amounts to additional cost that
may not be budgeted.
■ Immutable data vaults not only require additional backup storage, but also are
recommended to be physically separated within a data center. This requires added
infrastructure, such as a new cage or area with limited access and being air gapped
from the production network.
■ Complexity of the backup environment is increased with the addition of a new

isolated copy of data, additional technologies like advanced networking and data
scanning, and requirement of new procedures, runbooks and potentially limited staff
to operate it.
■ Immutability and air gap are defined differently by vendors, and vary in
implementation and effectiveness by a lack of standards. Therefore, it’s important to
understand what each vendor means by “immutable” and “air gap” and how its
functionality is implemented to assess the risk that hackers can override it.
■ Conduct a thorough cost-benefit and risk assessment to align expectations and

acceptable risks to the current backup and recovery solution capabilities.
■ Plan for when, not if, an attack will occur in the cost-benefit analysis to gain
management buy-in to phase in costs.
■ Work with immutable data vaults, which are storage environments or products
intended to supplement existing backup infrastructure. These are physically secure
environments with physical access controls, a limited access list and two-person
authentication capabilities.
■ Deploy immutable data vaults in close proximity to production or disaster recovery

systems to optimize recovery speed.
■ Be mindful that the data stored within an immutable data vault may also contain the
agent or infectious code, as well as infected or encrypted data. Therefore,
incorporate other requirements to scan, cleanse and repair backup data into the
environment to prevent the reinfection of other systems during the recovery and
restoration process.

Sample Vendors
Dell Technologies; Kyndryl; Owl Cyber Defense; Rubrik; Unisys; Veritas
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions
2022 Strategic Roadmap for Storage
Research Roundup for Improving the Protection of Backup Infrastructure and Recovering
From Ransomware Attacks
Innovation Insight for Leveraging Isolated Recovery Environments and Immutable Data
Vaults to Protect and Recover From Ransomware
Detect, Protect, Recover: How Modern Backup Applications Can Protect You From
Ransomware
How to Prepare for Ransomware Attacks
RPA in K-12 Education

Definition:
Robotic process automation (RPA) is a licensed software tool for building scripts to
integrate any application via the user interface and a control dashboard/orchestrator that
automates routine, repetitive, rule-based, predictable tasks using structured digital data.
In their initial form (over five years ago), RPA tools predominantly focused on task-centric
use cases, automating manual, repetitive processes. End-user adoption has been growing,
and tools are expanding to automate more extensive process workflows, but this has yet
to gain substantial momentum in K-12 education.

Business Impact
Though not new, the concept of RPA is largely unfamiliar in K-12, where the struggle to
automate repetitive and inefficient tasks continues. Products are beginning to reference
their capabilities more effectively, and K-12 CIOs increasingly want to understand what
RPA can do.
If effectively combined with existing systems, RPA has the potential to drive down costs
and streamline tasks with potential organizationwide benefits. This can also redirect
resources (e.g., people and financial) to tasks not easily automated.
Drivers
■ K-12 organizations are still typically rife with heavily manual, paper-driven and highly
repetitive tasks — the kind that could benefit most from RPA. From administrative
(e.g., attendance, enrollment, scheduling and service improvement) to business (e.g.,
data collection, reporting and analysis) and instruction (eventually streamlining
learning data collection and analysis), use cases abound for RPA.
■ Though perhaps the earliest and most obvious targets, the potential exists to focus
on cost-saving opportunities and streamlining efficiencies, freeing up staff for other
tasks that cannot be automated. This could represent a major driver for
organizations typically struggling to make the most of limited revenue. This is
doubly true in light of the current serious shortages of faculty and staff being
experienced in K-12 around the globe.
■ Across industries, vendors have grown and made extensive R&D investments. K-12
vendors are starting to take note and are leveraging RPA to improve products.
■ There are also new entrants, such as SAP and Microsoft. Gartner estimates the
software market has reached over $1.3 billion and the services market is over $5
billion (with continued growth expected).

Obstacles
■ For other industries, RPA has rapidly matured, and it is on the verge of becoming
mainstream in the Plateau of Productivity. Its use will become even more common
with the sharp increase in a work-from-home environment, which requires the default
to be digital. By contrast, K-12 education is frequently known for being so
overwhelmed by inefficient processes that it often fails to invest time and money on
options that could actually reduce that burden.
■ In K-12, use of RPA by organizations is not rapidly advancing, leaving it short of the
Peak of Inflated Expectations. Given the rising and fast-moving nature of the
technology as a whole, we anticipate that, as new use cases are created and new
vendors appear to leverage it in their products for K-12, RPA use may accelerate in
this sector. However, K-12’s relative lack of doing its own application development
may mean this has to advance by way of vendors, not by K-12 organizations
adopting it on their own.
K-12 RPA investments should focus on the broadest array of use cases. Cost savings and
efficiency gains are the likely early targets, but as options are enhanced with the use of AI,
K-12 CIOs will find an even greater impact on possibilities across the organization. This
may start by finding vendors leveraging RPA to streamline their offerings.
To maximize the benefits of RPA offerings:
■ Stratify the overall portfolio of stakeholder demand and build a hyperautomation

roadmap. Determine the targeted purpose and outcomes for RPA offerings within
that strategic roadmap.
■ Form the foundation that will underpin workflow, efficiency, efficacy and agility, with
the overall approach and architecture designed for the automation of business and
IT processes.
■ Ensure the use of multidisciplinary governance and coordination across stakeholder

groups, IT, security and sourcing functions.
Sample Vendors
AntWorks; Automation Anywhere; Blue Prism; Kofax; Microsoft; NICE; Pegasystems; SAP;
UiPath; WorkFusion

Adaptive Learning
Maturity: Emerging
Definition:
Adaptive learning dynamically adjusts the way that instructional content is presented to
students, based on their responses or preferences. Adaptive learning is increasingly
dependent on a large-scale collection of learning data and algorithmically (and even AI-
derived) pedagogical responses.
Adaptive learning uses instructional content and integrated digital assessments to

determine what students have (or have not) learned with far more precision than has been
possible in the past. The application is designed to then take that insight and, often with
the enhancement of AI or ML, modify or adapt the curriculum in a way that addresses the
unique and specific needs of the learner. When fully realized, adaptive learning has the
potential to create personalized learning opportunities.
Business Impact
The ultimate aim of adaptive learning in education is to enhance the learning experience
and empower students by addressing their unique learning styles, preferences and needs.
It also allows targeting specific concepts to be retaught with a new approach as and when
needed, streamlining and filling in learning gaps. These changes can lead to tangible
results, such as improved learning outcomes, higher retention rates and better graduation
rates, all of which are important accountability measures in education.

Drivers
■ Adaptive learning is especially attractive as it enables instructors to quickly identify

learning gaps for individual students, groups or the entire class. It also provides
potentially multiple modifications to the curriculum that target specific needs, rather
than spending time on unnecessary reteaching.
■ Adaptive learning has been in place for several years in K-12 education. The ability
to leverage intelligence to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of the content has
been possible in the past few years, greatly elevating its impact and usefulness.
Obstacles
Adaptive learning is steadily progressing, but at a slow pace, still climbing the Peak of
Inflated Expectations, with broader availability and adoption needed to move it into the
trough. Adding AI to the equation has introduced new challenges:
■ There must be enough data to mine to produce valid insights. The data must be
available from a very large set of users using the product, larger than what would be
available in most organizations.
■ To achieve this, a publisher must have control over both the content and digital
assessments, enabling it to develop content adaptations that will work.
■ This limitation has to date largely restricted use to mainly digital publishers that
control both the content and assessments, and have large numbers of student users.
■ There are adaptive learning platforms on which K-12 organizations can customize
content and assessments, but this has evolved into an overwhelming undertaking.
CIOs should approach adaptive learning projects as large-scale curricular redesign

undertakings, rather than technology projects. To this end, CIOs should:
■ Identify curriculum and instruction champions early in the process.
■ Identify vendors experimenting with adaptive learning content. Establish pilots to

learn how these work.
■ Engage teachers and staff to participate in product evaluation, as they will have a
vested interest in ensuring that learning outcomes are improved with the product.

■ Obtain a clear understanding of adaptive learning and how each product functions
as it supports and supplements student learning.
■ Follow a four-stage process: (1) become educated about the products and educate
key stakeholders about them; (2) use your pioneer educators to identify and pilot
products that meet required learning standards; (3) review lessons learned; and (4)
move to larger-scale implementations.
Sample Vendors
ALEKS; CENTURY; CogBooks; DreamBox; MobyMax; Pearson (MyLab and Mastering);

Realizeit; Sumdog; Wiley (Knewton)
Online Tutoring
Analysis By: Saher Mahmood
Maturity: Early mainstream
Definition:
Online tutoring services are thriving online marketplaces where learners can seek one-on-
one or group tutoring from private tutors around the globe. These can be live or recorded
virtual sessions, and they help students meet and supplement their learning requirements.
COVID-19-induced disruption increased uptake by students (and their parents) as direct

consumers, as virtual schooling became a challenge for many. Federal funding for
recovery has also allowed organization-level use of online tutoring services, particularly in
North America, to address learning loss as well as other challenges like faculty shortages.
Unlike state-funded in-person remedial education programs, online tutoring is mostly
offered by private, for-profit companies.

Business Impact
Online tutoring can potentially address learning gaps among students, which were
exacerbated during the pandemic and could cost this generation of students close to $17
trillion in lifetime earnings, according to the World Bank. Collaborating with online tutoring
companies at an organizational level will require administrative and academic leaders to
do a needs assessment, understand its benefits and implications, and have a consensus
on the estimated ROI.
Drivers
■ With students already provisioned with laptops for remote learning and school
districts armed with stimulus funding allocated for learning loss, two major criteria
for facilitating online tutoring are already met.
■ The virtual-only model makes it an equalizer in access to learning, internet

connection being the only criteria. This ease of access to learning support will
continue to be relevant beyond the pandemic-induced disruption.
■ The additional insights and data that can be gleaned from learner activity and
responses to these services could be a potential advantage that educators can seek.
■ 24/7 services and a vast pool of vendor-vetted tutors (including university students
and faculty) offer the potential to lower tutoring costs.
■ With AI algorithms to connect students’ needs and tutors’ skill sets, the growing need
for more accurate and personalized matches has a greater chance of being realized.
■ Many platforms have diversified their offerings to include university counseling

services and exam prep, along with courses on coding, art and music, among other
skills.
■ To facilitate ease of adoption, most tutoring solutions offer single-sign on (SSO)

integration with learning management systems (LMSs). This allows school districts
to easily sign up and students to readily access the services within existing learning
suites, encouraging uptake.

Obstacles
■ Online tutoring as a tool to supplement classroom learning is relatively new. With no

precedence, it lacks the structure or benchmarks to measure outcomes. For example,
if it is adopted as a tailored program, how does the school decide which students to
prioritize? If it is adopted for districtwide consumption, what are the tools to define
and evaluate successful outcomes?
■ Because the market is driven by private vendors, there are no standardized

benchmarks and processes to vet the quality of the instructors.
■ Although data does not suggest any particular disadvantage with online learning,
online tutoring can lack the personal touch of an in-person teaching and learning
experience. While academic learning can take place via screen, overall human
interaction, including fine motor skills, which are an integral part of the K-12 learning
ecosystem, cannot be easily addressed by online tutoring.
■ Since online tutoring is entirely dependent on technology for delivery, it is not free
from glitches, especially as demand surges.
■ Prepare for future adoption of online tutoring services at your district by exploring
the market and identifying the major vendors partnering with institutions, their
licensing models and their technology requirements.
■ Work with academic leaders to do a needs assessment and run focused pilots to get
a clear understanding of benefits and implications. Use these pilots to establish
frameworks for assessing outcomes and estimating ROI.
■ Establish a clear understanding of the quality and volume of learning data that can
be accessed through sign-ups by discussing frequency, formats and requisite
integrations.
Sample Vendors
BYJU’S; GoStudent; Ostaz; Skooli; Tutor.com; Tutorix; TutorMe; TutorVista; Vedantu
Edge Computing
Analysis By: Bob Gill, Philip Dawson

Definition:
Edge computing describes a distributed computing topology in which data storage and
processing are placed in an optimal location relative to the location of data creation and
use. Edge computing locates data and workloads to optimize for latency, bandwidth,
autonomy and regulatory/security considerations. Edge-computing locations extend
along a continuum between the absolute edge, where physical sensors and digital
systems converge, to the “core,” usually the cloud or a centralized data center.
Edge computing has quickly become the decentralized complement to the largely
centralized implementation of hyperscale public cloud. Edge computing solves many
pressing issues, such as unacceptable latency and bandwidth requirements, given the
massive increase in edge-located data. The edge-computing topology enables the
specifics of Internet of Things (IoT), digital business and managed distributed IT
solutions, serving as a foundational element for next-generation applications.
Business Impact
Edge computing improves efficiency and cost control through processing close to the
edge, where the data is generated or acted upon (e.g., better automation and quality
control), and offers more business opportunities and growth (e.g., customer experience
and new real-time business interactions). Early implementations have succeeded at
enterprises that rely on operational technology (OT) systems and data outside core IT,
such as the retail and industrial sectors.

Drivers
■ Growth of hyperscale cloud adoption has exposed the disadvantages of extreme

centralization. Latency, bandwidth requirements, the need for autonomy and data
sovereignty or location requirements may be optimized by placing workloads and
data closer to the edge, rather than centralizing in a hyperscale data center.
■ Data growth from interactive applications and systems often cannot be

economically funneled into the cloud.
■ Applications supporting customer engagement and analysis favor local processing

for speed and autonomy.
■ IoT use cases are expanding from the industrial sector to other verticals, driving a
move toward a hierarchical and distributed model.
■ Edge computing’s inherent decoupling of application front ends and back ends
provides a perfect means of fostering innovation and enhanced ways to do
business. For example, using technologies such as machine learning and industrial
sensors to perform new tasks at locations where business and operational events
take place, or at the point of interaction with a retail customer, can drive significant
business value.

Obstacles
■ The diversity of devices, software controls and application types all amplify
complexity issues.
■ Widespread edge topology and explicit application and networking architectures for
edge computing are not yet common outside vertical applications, such as retail and
manufacturing.
■ Edge success in industrial IoT applications and enhancing customer experience in

retail are well understood, but many enterprises still have difficulty understanding
the benefits, use cases and ROI of edge computing.
■ A lack of broadly accepted standards slows development and deployment time,

creating lock-in concern for many enterprise users.
■ Edge physical infrastructure is mature, but distributed application management and

orchestration challenges are still beyond most vendor-supplied component
management offerings. The tasks of securing, maintaining and updating the
physical infrastructure, software and data require improvement before management
and orchestration can mature.
IT leaders responsible for cloud and edge infrastructure should:
■ Create and follow an enterprise edge strategy by focusing first on business benefit
and holistic systems, not simply focusing on technical solutions or products.
■ Establish a modular, extensible edge architecture through the use of emerging edge
frameworks and design sets. This will enable the mixing and matching of
technologies based on enterprise direction, not simply “what comes with the vendor
solution.”
■ Accelerate time to benefit and de-risk technical decisions through the use of
vertically aligned systems integrators and independent software vendors that
demonstrate an understanding of, and ability to, implement and manage the full
orchestration stack from top to bottom.
■ Evaluate “edge-as-a-service” deployment options, which deliver business-outcome-

based solutions that adhere to specific SLAs while shifting deployment, complexity
and obsolescence risk to the provider.

Cool Vendors in Edge Computing, 2021
AI in K-12 Education
Maturity: Emerging
Definition:
Artificial intelligence (AI) applies advanced analysis and logic-based techniques, including
machine learning, to interpret events, support and automate decisions, and take actions.
This profile looks at the use and impact of AI applications for K-12 education
organizations.
AI applications hold great promise in teaching, learning, business and administration. The
hype around AI in general is high, but we are starting to discern a better understanding of
the AI family of technologies and specific use cases for AI in education. At the moment,
two general use cases stand out: intelligent automation and intelligent insights.
Business Impact
AI is a general-purpose technology (having the potential to fully impact the entire system)
that will be used wherever there is machine-readable data:
■ AI will eventually touch every aspect of education. It has the potential to transform
not only the education professions that we prepare students to enter, but also
education itself.
■ Ultimately, AI will be a key component to enable delivery of scalable and affordable

quality education globally.

Drivers
■ Although still early, AI in K-12 education already has several use cases in all areas of
teaching, learning, business and administration. But these are at different maturity
and adoption levels.
■ A fast-maturing driver is “intelligent automation,” which frees up time for faculty and
staff for higher-quality interactions with students. A mature example centers on
simple chatbots, but other, much more complex tasks (such as advanced virtual
personal assistants [VPAs]) are in earlier phases. Chatbots include examples such as
basic question-and-answer chatbots for help desks, or streamlining help for parents
and students with common administrative questions. More-advanced, second-
generation VPAs have the potential to serve as intelligent tutors for students,
especially in a time with critical shortages of faculty and staff.
■ A more slowly maturing driver is the need for nonintuitive intelligent insights that
build on a classic need for data-driven decisions. Promising current use cases focus
on mining assessment data to identify areas needing rapid remediation (including
adaptive learning), particularly in these days of pandemic learning loss. These can
address the ultimate aim of increasing graduation rates, benefiting both students
and the organization.
■ Increasingly, vendors and education research organizations are focusing on

developing specialized curricula for K-12 students to learn the fundamental skills
involved with learning and creating AI at an age-appropriate level. This anticipates
students soon moving into a world where understanding how to work with and
develop AI will be critically needed.
■ In the most advanced cases, intelligent automation and intelligent insights are
combined into prescriptive analysis and action that streamline personalized support
and learning experiences.

Obstacles
■ Worries about ethical use of data and privacy, particularly when it comes to minor
children. This is adding pressure to carefully navigate and make processes and
algorithms in use transparent and trustworthy, sometimes expressed as “explainable
AI.”
■ AI efforts to date in K-12 have been hampered by the lack of access to a corpus of
machine-readable data large enough to be mined with any degree of reliability. For
now, uses are most often constrained to larger-scale content publishers with
curricula and assessments used across a very large number of users.
■ Define specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) objectives

by outlining specific outcomes — for example, improvements to specific success
metrics. Identify key questions or actions, such as, “What are identified early warning
indicators that correlate to identifying at-risk students?”
■ Create a data quality review, as AI requires machine-readable data of reliable quality

and sufficient quantity. Begin AI initiatives by connecting relevant data sources, as AI
thrives on new, complex data types.
■ Develop a clear data transparency policy regarding how data will be used (or not
used), to establish trust. Be transparent when collecting data for AI initiatives,
particularly data used for student personalization.
■ Build a team of diverse talent (internal and external) to ensure AI project success.
■ Get a “machine on the team.” Establish a commitment to this new capability by

pioneering a digital transformation team going after innovative possibilities.
Sample Vendors
Brainly; Grammarly; Hubert; KidSense; Querium; Tencent; Thinkster Learning
Making Sense of the Chatbot and Conversational AI Platform Market
Applying AI in Industries

Sliding into the Trough
Immersive Technology
Analysis By: Kelly Calhoun Williams, Marty Resnick, Tony Sheehan
Definition:
Immersive technology now describes the category that includes virtual, augmented and
mixed reality. These are different, yet related technologies. Virtual reality (VR) technologies
create computer-generated environments to immerse users in a virtual environment.
Augmented reality (AR) technologies overlay digital information on the physical world to
enhance it and guide action. Mixed reality (MR) blends the physical and digital worlds in
new ways.
Immersive technology represents an important, potentially transformational technology in

education. Its unique ability to create interactive learning spaces not possible in the
classroom is itself a compelling argument for its use, but requires a well-designed
curriculum. Prices of various platforms and hardware have continued to fall, but are still
too high for large-scale deployment, slowing its progress in education environments.
Business Impact
The new generation of immersive applications promises to support learning activities that
improve student engagement, such as:
■ Virtual field trips — Trips to remote (even historical) locations
■ Vocational or practical training — Simulated experiences with a digital overlay
■ Athletic experiences — For example, football training
Immersive technologies can be extremely engaging, though expert curricular design is

required to lead to improved learning outcomes as a result.
Drivers

■ Good examples of quality content being adopted can be found in fields such as
medicine and health, where simulations are particularly effective for student
understanding.
■ Increased sector adoption of online and blended learning has led to interest in
environments that can enhance engagement and impact.
■ Some poor online learning experiences from those institutions pivoting to online
during the pandemic have stimulated a search for more interactive learning
experiences.
■ The slow-but-steady progress of this content development continues the profile’s

march through the Peak of Inflated Expectations.
■ Popular use cases involve simulation and skills development (for example, in
medicine).
■ The overall costs of developing immersive technologies are falling over time,
however, the hardware and space constraints (particularly in schools) is a challenge
yet to be solved.
Obstacles
■ The bigger challenge has been the relatively small amount of high-quality, education-
specific (and standards-aligned in K-12) content to meet the broad range of
curricular needs.
■ Individual comfort in immersive environments remains variable and undermines

widespread adoption.
■ Once beyond the novelty of immersive technologies, education institutions need to

ensure the technology is actually being leveraged effectively to achieve results that
matter. Hence, education institutions should ensure that quality content comes first.
■ The issue of cost and scale continues to be particularly problematic in K-12, where
models for using a small number of very expensive immersive headsets in limited
physical classroom space are not very practical.
■ The technical challenges and the policy and pedagogical obstacles to be overcome
mean that it will be five to 10 years before these technologies reach the Plateau of
Productivity.

Both K-12 and higher education have been anticipating the large-scale adoption and
practical use of immersive technology tools for some time:
■ Ensure that users gain experience implementing and supporting smaller applications
of immersive technologies before moving on to large, classroom-scale applications,
given price concerns.
■ Strengthen network coverage to support large-scale use of these tools.
■ Find ways to manage the currently very consumer-oriented nature of many of these
tools that are in an enterprise environment.
■ Continue to track effective applications, and pilot and adopt those that really do
impact learning outcomes for the better. Immersive technologies represent
potentially powerful learning tools — do not neglect the pedagogical future that is
possible here.
Sample Vendors
Alchemy Immersive; ENGAGE XR; Google; INDYLAB VR; InstaVR; Microsoft; Nearpod;
Oculus; zSpace
5G
Analysis By: Sylvain Fabre
Definition:
5G is the next-generation cellular standard by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project

(3GPP). The standard targets maximum downlink and uplink throughputs of 20 Gbps and
10 Gbps, respectively. Latency is as low as 4 milliseconds in a mobile scenario and can be
as low as 1 millisecond in ultrareliable low-latency communication scenarios, down to 10
m precision positioning and massive IoT scalability. New system architecture includes
core slicing as well as wireless edge.

5G supports eMBB, URLLC and MIoT which play a vital role in supporting the digital
economy and enterprise transformation. 3GPP 5G standards releases deliver incremental
functionality: in R15, extreme mobile broadband; then, in R16: industrial IoT (massive IoT,
slicing and security) — this the latest commercially available release; later, in R17: MIMO
enhancements, sidelink, DSS, IIoT/URLLC, bands up to 71GHz, nonterrestrial networks and
RedCap. Finally, R18 is under definition.
Business Impact
The business impacts are:
■ 5G enables three main technology deployment, which each support distinct new
services for multiple industries and use cases of digital transformation, and possibly
new business models (such as latency as a service), namely: enhanced mobile
broadband (eMBB) for HD video; mMTC for large IoT deployments; and URLLC for
high-availability and very low-latency use cases, such as remote vehicle operations.
■ Promising applications include fixed wireless access, IoT support and private mobile
networks.

Drivers
■ Over 255 operators rolled out 5G (see GSA), 30% of public mobile networks.
■ 5G capability is penetrating lower cost smartphones in vendors’ portfolios.
■ Increasing device penetration: Gartner estimates that 5G-capable handset

penetration will reach 87% in 2023 in Western Europe, similar to North America.
■ Gartner estimates that 5G-capable handset share of sales will reach 83% in 2023 in
Western Europe from 51% in 2021. North America share will rise to close to 90%.
■ 5G capability is starting to deliver value in emerging always-on wearables use cases.
■ Increased data usage per user and device requires a more efficient infrastructure.
■ Operational cost savings and growth with new vertical industry use cases for
industry use cases.
■ Requirements from industrial users value 5G lower latency from ultrareliable and
low-latency communications (URLLC) and expect 5G to outperform rivals in this
area.
■ Demand for massive machine-type communications (mMTC) to support scenarios

of very dense deployments up to 5G target of 1 million connected sensors per square
kilometer.
■ Increased availability of industry-specific spectrum options (e.g., CBRS).
■ Competitive pressures, if one CSP launches 5G in the market others usually have to
follow or risk losing market share.

Obstacles
■ Availability and cost of spectrum, in particular for industrial private networks, in
some countries.
■ Security concerns when using 5G in critical industrial scenarios.
■ Availability and pricing of networks and modules for R16 solutions.
■ Need to upgrade to 5G SA (stand-alone) Core for more advanced R16 release (such
as slicing).
■ Use of higher frequencies and massive capacity requires denser deployments with
higher frequency reuse, which could raise network costs.
■ Uncertainty about use cases and business models that may drive 5G for many CSPs,
enterprises, and technology and service providers (TSPs).
■ Feedback from some industrial clients mentioned that the majority of their use cases
could be serviced by a 4G private network, Wi-Fi and/or NB-IoT, and other LPWA such
as LoRa.
■ While diverse networks can offer adequate and cost-effective alternatives to 5G for
many use cases (e.g., LPWA, NB-IoT, LoRa, Wi-SUN), overall TCO and future
proofness may not be as good.

■ Enable 5G for enterprise connectivity for mobile, nomadic and FWA

secondary/tertiary use cases for branch location redundancy, as long as 5G is not
the primary link for high-volume or mission-critical sites, unless there are no other
options.
■ Provide clear SLAs for network performance by testing installation quality for
sufficient and consistent signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio, video experience,
throughput and coverage for branch locations.
■ Ensure backward compatibility to 4G devices and networks, so 5G devices can fall

back to 4G infrastructure.
■ Focus on architecture readiness — such as SDN, NFV, CSP edge computing and
distributed cloud architectures, and end-to-end security — in preparation for 5G.
■ Build their ecosystem of partners to target industry verticals more effectively with 5G
and before competition.
Sample Vendors
Cisco; Ericsson; Huawei; Mavenir; Nokia; Qualcomm; Samsung; ZTE
Competitive Landscape: Emerging Providers of 5G Platform Infrastructure
Creating Your Enterprise 4G and 5G Private Mobile Network Procurement Strategy and
RFQ
5G Providers Must Grasp the Scope of Hyperscalers’ Announcements for CSP Network
Infrastructure
Top Technology Trends for CSPs in 2022: 5G as a Catalyst for Platform Strategy and
Culture Change
Digital Assessment
Analysis By: Saher Mahmood

Definition:
Digital assessment refers to the application of digital technologies to create, grade,

administer, report and manage tests and a variety of other assessment types, ultimately to
evaluate what the learner has learned. The use of technology enables intricate workflows,
increased faculty collaboration in creating and assessing, anonymized grading, and
enhanced question analytics. Use of immersive or AI-enhanced capabilities has expanded
the scope beyond traditional assessment formats.
Authentic assessments that reliably evaluate learning are a top priority for education.
Pandemic-induced learning gaps have made this insight mission-critical in K-12 schools.
Analog methods are expensive and time-consuming, increasing the reliance on a
standardized approach and the traditional, multibillion-dollar industry of high-stakes,
summative assessments. Digital assessments are allowing educators to innovate with
formative assessment practices to achieve quality insight at scale.
Business Impact
Digital assessment holds the promise of furthering education’s aim of moving from
assessment of learning to assessment for learning and possibly even assessment as
learning. New assessment platforms are a key component for the growing maturity of
online learning and the scalability of education. Digital assessment is foundational in the
growth of adaptive learning technologies and other pedagogical approaches that first
require an accurate insight into what was learned or missed.

Drivers
■ Assessment is a key part of learning trends such as analytics, adaptive learning

(leveraging artificial intelligence capabilities) and competency-based education.
Formative assessment using technology is surging in popularity in support of this
holistic data capture, allowing educators and students to receive immediate and
continuous feedback throughout the learning process. This, in turn, helps educators
meet the students where they are instead of imposing a standard benchmark for all.
■ Learning gaps that have emerged in the wake of the pandemic can be addressed
more effectively and rapidly by leveraging digital assessments. Technology has
allowed users to go beyond simply making traditional assessments digital, to using
interactive and adaptive technologies and observational, immersive or AI-enhanced
capabilities that collect this insight.
■ With an increasingly uncertain landscape in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,

digital assessments provide the ease and flexibility of being seamlessly deployed in
remote, hybrid and fully physical classroom settings.
■ Adopting digital assessments has shown abundant potential time savings; for
example, as much as 50% of the time to grade. Adding AI to the mix promises to
save even more for instructors with large numbers of students and/or subjects.
■ K-12 organizations are under increasing pressure to assess students in a scalable,

“any place, any time” manner, as well as to show evidence of student learning in
increasingly authentic and creative ways.
Obstacles
■ With the growth of online learning and ongoing concerns about integrity, especially
in assessments taken by students remotely, proving the validity of the results is key.
■ Even if the adoption of new assessment technologies continues apace, we still

anticipate that it will take as much as five to 10 years for the full array of
technologies to reach the Plateau of Productivity. Education is fairly renowned for its
slowness to change, and this category’s time to plateau reflects this.
■ Questions around how to develop a strategy both for new means of formative
assessment and managing high-stakes summative assessments need to evolve over
the next couple of years. The post-COVID-19 investment in digital devices will play a
significant role in this shift.

■ Focus on assessment data literacy and interoperability as critical enablers. Having

assessment data without insight into its meaning, value and actionability makes this
a hollow pursuit.
■ Work with partners in the instructional team to clearly establish use cases for their
assessment needs so they can identify the solution or mix of products needed.
Some districts are requiring that all purchased digital assessments must be fully
integrated with content.
■ Pay close attention to security, privacy and location, since most vendors are now
cloud-based. Seek clarity on how to store and manage data from these tools, as well
as about peak usage scenarios with bandwidth limitations, if any.
Innovation Insight for Digital Assessments in Higher Education
Market Guide for Remote Proctoring
Education Analytics
Market Penetration: More than 50% of target audience
Definition:
Education analytics is the collection and analysis of data in education to gain actionable
insight, with the goal of improving learning and learning outcomes, enrollment, services, or
business practices, as well as finding new efficiencies, cost savings or revenue streams.

K-12 (primary/secondary) education is under pressure to improve outcomes and

efficiencies in all aspects of its operations, with severe shortages in faculty and staff
adding to this pressure. The effective use of data and analytics offers a means to do so.
Increased and better use of data will be a key differentiator among organizations going
forward — between those who are resilient in the face of challenges and those who are
unable to respond effectively.
Business Impact
Exploring analytics for K-12 education requires thinking through its business impact:
■ The potential impact of educational analytics is huge. It can be used to improve

learning, business and administrative outcomes, and add efficiency in many areas.
■ It will require significant work in building a data culture throughout the organization,
and clarity on what the critical questions are that need to be answered.
■ The benefits will only be realized if the organization is able to generate accurate (and
useful) insight, make decisions, and take action as appropriate.
Drivers
■ K-12 education is under increasing pressure from legislative bodies, from parents
and from students themselves to improve learning outcomes and business
efficiencies.
■ Many K-12 education organizations, globally, are facing significant impact from
learning loss, starting with the closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Analytics will play a critical role in targeting where to focus to address this.
■ Many K-12 education organizations, globally, are facing severe faculty and staff
shortages, or will do so in the future. Educational analytics can provide a toolkit to
anticipate these challenges and respond to them accordingly.
■ K-12 education organizations produce a rapidly increasing volume of data. There is

a strong drive to more effectively use this data to improve the organization.

Obstacles
■ Although often rich, much of the data in K-12 education is not ready for use in
analytics, as it is neither clean nor complete, or lacks integrity. Analytics solutions
will often reveal problems with existing data and governance processes, which can
require significant time to clean up.
■ Using educational analytics successfully means working with a wide range of

stakeholders to effect complex change, and this can be challenging in K-12
education.
■ The data and analytics themselves are not enough, but require action to be taken
based on the insights provided. This step is crucial, but often overlooked. Many K-12
education organizations generate great visualizations of data, but fail to focus on
this critical final step, which means that there are often no tangible impacts. This
can lead to a loss of buy-in and support.
■ While a range of different technology solutions can be used for educational

analytics, the sheer number of solutions can be daunting and confusing.
■ Identify the problem you are trying to solve or question you are trying to answer.
Start small by identifying discrete projects you can execute in a short time frame for
some easy wins.
■ Build the organizational structures that will enable future progress by creating a data
governance process, and identifying and bringing together stakeholders for data
analytics in each functional area.
■ Make your data more usable by developing processes for identifying, standardizing
and cleaning data.
■ Ensure your analytics projects are successful by designing in accountability for

taking action on the findings, and building in evaluation for what worked.
■ Pay attention to data privacy and ethics, and work within your data governance
structure to develop policies and guidelines around the ethical use of data, including
opt out and informed consent provisions where appropriate.
■ Build a data culture by emphasizing organizational ownership of data and by

building data skills and literacy broadly in your organization.

Sample Vendors
Blackboard; BrightBytes; D2L; Edsby; IBM; Kiddom; Oracle; PowerSchool; SAS; Tableau
Top Trends in Data and Analytics for 2021: Data and Analytics as a Core Business
Function

Climbing the Slope
Digital Credentials
Analysis By: Robert Yanckello, Jan-Martin Lowendahl, Kelly Calhoun Williams
Definition:
Digital credentials are the digitalization of traditional diplomas, alternative

microcredentials, professional licensure, certifications, and informal credentials that
indicate an individual’s knowledge, specialized skills or qualifications via a secure
framework to digitally capture and visually present achievements that are verifiable and
portable.
Credentials issued by education institutions, organizations or employers are, at a certain

level, the only tangible evidence of education or skills achievement, and can be seen as an
“education currency.” Now, new forms of credentials are increasing the speed and
granularity of credential exchange. Digital credentials will:
■ Foster the decoupling of some K-12 and higher education business models.
■ Transform a portion of education outcomes.
■ Speed up time to market for job seekers and establish a new ecosystem of learning
opportunities.
Business Impact
Digital credentials, which can enable a secure, validated and expedient exchange of skills
and education, can impact student outcomes for employment, lifelong learning and career
advancement. The student learner will be empowered to own the credential and share
when they choose. The impact of digital credentials on K-12, corporate workforce
development and higher education will transform business models for learning, talent
identification and fluidity, while also enabling new entrants into the education ecosystem.
Drivers

■ The growing demand to address workforce needs and employability globally is
driving the credential landscape to be more dynamic and responsive and is
challenging the essence of traditional higher education.
■ As the acceleration of digital business continues at an unprecedented pace, the

delivery of all credentials in digital format is a natural progression.
■ Changing business models, the number of learners entering the workforce, and
length of time from graduation to employment, are influencing students and
employers to reconsider traditional paper-based job and talent search models.
Digital credentials enable employers to view student information quickly and easily,
offering students and learners a swift and agile approach to share validated
knowledge and skills with potential employers.
■ Employer-funded education is growing rapidly as organizations (such as Guild

Education) connect employees with many programs across a variety of institutions.
This employer learning market helps corporations educate and train employees with
high-demand skills. Additionally, it enables individuals to enter the workforce sooner
while they still have a trajectory for new career opportunities.
Obstacles
■ Currently, there is no widely used digital credentialing infrastructure or common
standards to easily store, share and display credentials that offer a comprehensive
picture of learning experiences with employers and training institutions.
■ Although digital credentials are gaining public acceptance, more education is still
needed, as progress is hampered by a relative lack of understanding of what they are
and how they are defined.
■ Until all institutions establish habits to deliver any credential (formal or informal,
traditional or new, badge or diploma) in digital format, they will struggle to
understand the true essence of digital society, and needs and expectations of their
students, partners and community.
■ Questions linger about the degree to which digital/alternative credentials can

displace traditional diplomas, and the extent to which they will gain employer
acceptance.

■ Gain familiarity with current digital credentialing technology and standards
organizations — such as Credential Engine, IMS Global Learning Consortium and
The Groningen Declaration Network — by participating in these organizations
regarding growing digital credential ecosystem and global standards.
■ Form a community of interest by establishing a team of academic leaders, faculty,

corporate partners and administrators to initiate organizational conversations and
build a foundation for digital credentials objectives.
■ Search for an appropriate use case of current digital credentialing technology at your
institution or organization, by initiating a pilot to help institution leaders consider the
policy implications, growing ecosystem and corporate readiness for this new digital
currency.
Sample Vendors
Accredible; Accreditrust; BadgeCert; Concentric Sky; Credly; Digitary; Edalex; Hyland;

Parchment; Smart Certificate
Changing Economic Conditions Impact How Education Delivers New Credentials
Higher Education Ecosystem 2030: Jobs U
Agile Learning: Use Progressive Layering of Skills to Upskill and Develop Employees
Cybersecurity Maturity Assessments

Analysis By: Claude Mandy, Sam Olyaei
Maturity: Mature mainstream

Definition:
A cybersecurity maturity assessment is the evaluation of an organization’s cybersecurity

program, and its underlying people, processes and technologies against a defined model,
with distinct levels of maturity. The maturity levels are typically determined based on
guidance from industry standards and frameworks. Maturity assessments are used to
guide priorities and highlight areas for improvement that may be required.
Cybersecurity leaders find it challenging to articulate the benefits of cybersecurity and

maintain support for further investment. Cybersecurity maturity assessments are a
common method used by CISOs to measure the capability of their cybersecurity program
against a set of predefined outcomes and desired capabilities. As a result, adoption is
widespread across all industries.
Business Impact
Cybersecurity maturity assessments are critical during initial cybersecurity strategy

planning, helping CISOs form an understanding of how well the security organization is
performing in its current state, and guiding priorities and investments to achieve the
desired target state. Increased maturity is an indirect measure of the reduction of risk from
immature capabilities. It can help transform the overall security function and optimize
investments based on dependencies between capabilities.
Drivers
Cybersecurity maturity assessments have become an essential tool to:
■ Inform the strategic planning activities in pursuit of the desired level of cybersecurity
capability.
■ Demonstrate the perceived effectiveness of the cybersecurity function against an

industry model by providing the ability to benchmark against similar organizations
and industries, and ensure that a minimum standard of care is met when compared
to peers.
■ Demand investment in cybersecurity and subsequently demonstrating

improvements over time, as a result of the investment.
■ Help reach internal consensus on actual and desired maturity levels over time as
expectations on the cybersecurity program increase.

Obstacles
■ Most assessments measure only the implementation of controls, with “maturity”
reflecting implementation tiers, such as the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s
(ACSC’s) Essential Eight Maturity Model or the National Institute of Standards and
Technology’s (NIST’s) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF). The NIST’s CSF explicitly
states that the implementation tiers do not necessarily represent maturity. A small
subset assesses people, processes and technology capabilities to determine overall
maturity.
■ Most maturity assessments claim to be based on the Capability Maturity Model

Integration (CMMI) method, however, there is no industry standardization on the
capabilities assessed, nor are there standard algorithms for assessing the maturity
levels. Hence, no meaningful comparisons can be drawn between results from
different assessments.
■ Maturity assessments are typically self-assessments or facilitated self-assessments

performed in conjunction with recognizable consulting firms. Neither is an in-depth
assessment of capabilities’ effectiveness.
■ Assess maturity regularly to guide priorities and inform strategic plans aimed at
desired levels of cybersecurity capability. Remember that the value of a maturity
assessment will diminish as maturity increases.
■ Select a maturity assessment that evaluates the broader security function and not
only the implementation of controls.
■ Avoid using a maturity assessment in isolation. Maturity neither translates directly

into reduction of specific risks or increased value nor does it replace an audit.
■ Validate the outputs with an outcome-driven assurance program, and supplement

with an assessment of external threats, value of the information assets being
protected, business objectives, vulnerabilities, risk appetite and risk profile to
translate maturity into an understanding of risk.
■ Interpret the source of the assessment correctly to avoid creating a false sense of
security based on a self-assessed maturity score.
Sample Vendors
Accenture; Blue Lava; Deloitte; EY; KPMG; PwC; TrustMAPP; V3 Cybersecurity; RealCISO

IT Score for Security and Risk Management
Frequently Asked Questions on the IT Score for Security and Risk Management
iPaaS for Data Integration

Analysis By: Ehtisham Zaidi, Robert Thanaraj
Maturity: Obsolete
Definition:
Integration platform as a service (iPaaS) technologies provide data integration

capabilities such as ETL/ELT, data replication, stream data integration and data
virtualization as cloud services. The use of iPaaS technology for data integration applies
to diverse use-case scenarios, including the integration of data in cloud, multicloud, on-
premises and hybrid deployments, between enterprises, and at the edge.
Increasingly, iPaaS acts as either a strategic component or as an extension to data

integration infrastructure. Organizations can use this technology to simplify cloud data
ingestion and integration and elastically scale computing environments for their
workloads. Since most data integration tools now support Paas delivery capabilities,
iPaaS for data integration is merely an extension of existing data integration software and
is now marked as obsolete before plateau on the Hype Cycle.
Business Impact
iPaaS for data integration brings the following benefits:
■ iPaaS relieves some of the common challenges concerning flexibility, developer

productivity, skills availability and entry cost.
■ iPaaS aims to bring application and data integration together under the same
platform. This allows developers to integrate data without having to work with
several tools.

■ Resource-constrained businesses can apply data integration capabilities offered in
iPaaS to targeted issues such as the synchronization of data between on-premises
and cloud applications.
Drivers
■ The increasing interest in cloud-based solutions for data warehousing and analytics,
as well as requirements for access to and delivery of datasets using cloud
environments, presents growing opportunities to leverage iPaaS for data integration.
■ The adoption of hybrid and multicloud deployment models, cloud data stores, and
cloud data ecosystems in general, as well as the movement of enterprise data into
cloud applications, fuels demand for using cloud services for data integration.
■ On-premises data integration tool vendors are actively competing in the iPaaS
market. These providers target specific data integration opportunities, such as
integrating SaaS endpoints and supporting IoT and multicloud solutions via a cloud-
native platform or by offering an iPaaS rendition of existing on-premises integration
platforms. In many cases, users of iPaaS favor offerings that support both data and
application integration within a single toolset.
■ Most data integration tools now have the ability to deliver data integration styles via
cloud services through a PaaS model. This is blurring the lines between a stand-
alone iPaaS tool to be used for data integration and a general-purpose data
integration tool.
■ Some SaaS providers embed an iPaaS to make it easier and faster to integrate their
services with the rest of the application portfolio that their customers use. As the use
of hybrid delivery models continues to grow, organizations are increasingly
considering iPaaS as either a strategic component or an extension of their data
integration infrastructure to enable a hybrid integration platform strategy.
Obstacles
■ The iPaaS market is flooded with providers that may specialize in one type of
integration and could be weak in other integration types. For example, some iPaaS
tools are mature at extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) and exhibit
weakness in application integration scenarios, whereas others may be strong in API
management but weak at ETL. Therefore, it becomes difficult for organizations to
evaluate and deploy an iPaaS technology as an organization standard.

■ Many deployments are for purpose-built integration problems involving cloud data.
This addresses data ingestion (extract-load-transform, or ELT) into popular cloud
object stores or cloud data warehouses, rather than extremely large-scale bulk/batch
workloads such as on-premises enterprise data warehouses.
■ Some iPaaS providers are limited in their partnering and metadata extensibility to
operate with broader data management capabilities. As a result, many iPaaS
deployments are not applied to data integration processes that must be governed
and traceable via data lineage or metadata management.
■ Use iPaaS for data integration as an extension of the organization’s data integration
infrastructure and as an enabling technology for hybrid integration platform
capabilities.
■ Use iPaaS to support data integration workloads involving cloud integration,

accelerating time to value and cost minimization.
■ Focus on those iPaaS tools that provide mature capabilities for data integration,
such as the ability to integrate data from on-premises data stores and applications
to cloud targets.
■ Most data integration tools are now able to provide data integration services through
a PaaS model. Therefore, for scenarios requiring access to on-premises data
sources, prioritize data integration tools that can be provisioned via a PaaS model,
rather than evaluate a general-purpose iPaaS tool that may not yet be mature in data
integration scenarios like ETL.
Sample Vendors
DBSync; Denodo; Informatica; Matillion; Microsoft; Qlik; SnapLogic; Talend; TIBCO

Software
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service
Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service
Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools
Critical Capabilities for Data Integration Tools

Appendixes
Figure 2. Hype Cycle for K-12 Education, 2021

Hype Cycle Phases, Benefit Ratings and Maturity Levels
Table 2: Hype Cycle Phases

Table 3: Benefit Ratings
Benefit Rating Definition
Transformational Enables new ways of doing business across

industries that will result in major shifts in
industry dynamics
High Enables new ways of performing horizontal

or vertical processes that will result in
significantly increased revenue or cost
savings for an enterprise
Moderate Provides incremental improvements to

established processes that will result in
increased revenue or cost savings for an
enterprise
Low Slightly improves processes (for example,

improved user experience) that will be
difficult to translate into increased revenue
or cost savings

Table 4: Maturity Levels
Document Revision History

Hype Cycle for K-12 Education, 2021 - 14 July 2021
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Table 1: Priority Matrix for K-12 Education, 2022
Benefit Years to Mainstream Adoption
Less Than 2 Years 2 - 5 Years 5 - 10 Years More Than 10 Years
Transformational Digital Credentials Adaptive Learning Metaverse

Edge Computing AI in K-12 Education
Emotion AI
Self-Integrating Applications
High 5G Bidirectional Brain-Machine

Chatbots Interface
Immutable Data Vault Digital Assessment
Education Analytics
Immersive Technology
RPA in K-12 Education
Smart Campus
Moderate Cybersecurity Maturity Online Tutoring Learning Experience

Assessments Platforms
Low
Gartner, Inc. | G00769790 Page 1A of 4A

Table 2: Hype Cycle Phases
Phase Definition
Innovation Trigger A breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or other event

generates significant media and industry interest.
Peak of Inflated Expectations During this phase of overenthusiasm and unrealistic projections, a flurry of
well-publicized activity by technology leaders results in some successes, but
more failures, as the innovation is pushed to its limits. The only enterprises
making money are conference organizers and content publishers.
Trough of Disillusionment Because the innovation does not live up to its overinflated expectations, it
rapidly becomes unfashionable. Media interest wanes, except for a few
cautionary tales.
Slope of Enlightenment Focused experimentation and solid hard work by an increasingly diverse
range of organizations lead to a true understanding of the innovation’s
applicability, risks and benefits. Commercial off-the-shelf methodologies and
tools ease the development process.
Plateau of Productivity The real-world benefits of the innovation are demonstrated and accepted.
Tools and methodologies are increasingly stable as they enter their second
and third generations. Growing numbers of organizations feel comfortable
with the reduced level of risk; the rapid growth phase of adoption begins.
Approximately 20% of the technology’s target audience has adopted or is
adopting the technology as it enters this phase.
Years to Mainstream Adoption The time required for the innovation to reach the Plateau of Productivity.

Phase Definition
Table 3: Benefit Ratings
Benefit Rating Definition
Transformational Enables new ways of doing business across industries that will result in
major shifts in industry dynamics
High Enables new ways of performing horizontal or vertical processes that will
result in significantly increased revenue or cost savings for an enterprise
Moderate Provides incremental improvements to established processes that will result

in increased revenue or cost savings for an enterprise
Low Slightly improves processes (for example, improved user experience) that will
be difficult to translate into increased revenue or cost savings

Table 4: Maturity Levels
Maturity Levels Status Products/Vendors
Embryonic In labs None
Emerging Commercialization by vendors First generation

Pilots and deployments by industry leaders High price
Much customization
Adolescent Maturing technology capabilities and process Second generation

understanding Less customization
Uptake beyond early adopters
Early mainstream Proven technology Third generation

Vendors, technology and adoption rapidly evolving More out-of-box methodologies
Mature mainstream Robust technology Several dominant vendors

Not much evolution in vendors or technology
Legacy Not appropriate for new developments Maintenance revenue focus

Cost of migration constrains replacement
Obsolete Rarely used Used/resale market only

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Hype Cycle for K-12 Education, 2022

Published 19 July 2022 - ID G00769790 - 78 min read

By Analyst(s): Kelly Calhoun Williams, Saher Mahmood

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■ Evaluate for ﬁt.

■ Expand the organization’s capabilities.

The Hype Cycle

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■ Effective ways to scale learning (while personalizing it)

■ Relentless focus on improving learning outcomes

■ Optimizing business processes through automation and artiﬁcial intelligence

■ Leveraging data to inform decision making

■ Nearing or over the Peak of Inﬂated Expectations, technologies such as robotic

■ Heading into the Trough of Disillusionment, technologies such as immersive

■ On the Slope of Enlightenment, technologies such as digital credentials (whether for

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Figure 1: Hype Cycle for K-12 Education, 2022

Source: Gartner (July 2022)

The Priority Matrix

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We continue to incorporate non-industry-speciﬁc innovations (for example, edge

Table 1: Priority Matrix for K-12 Education, 2022

Off the Hype Cycle

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Benefit Rating: High

Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience

Bidirectional brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are brain-altering neural interfaces that

Why This Is Important

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■ Demand is growing from large consumer-focused corporations and media

■ Further adoption of consumer and corporate wellness; for example, using

■ Use of BMIs as a human-machine interface to interact with emerging metaverse

■ Direct read-and-write access to brain activity creates many opportunities for

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■ Set up an independent steering board to monitor products sold to consumers and

■ Establish policies for unauthorized implantables: While they cannot easily be

BrainCo; Facebook; Kernel; Neuralink; Neuroelectrics; NeuroMetrix; NYX Technologies;

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Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience

Gartner deﬁnes a metaverse as a collective virtual 3D shared space, created by the

Why This Is Important

■ Spatial computing (e.g., real-time shopping recommendations)

■ Gaming (e.g., collaborative “serious games” for training)

■ Digital humans (e.g., customer service reps)

■ Virtual spaces (e.g., live virtual events)

■ Shared experiences (e.g., immersive meetings)

■ Tokenized assets (e.g., NFTs)

There are three drivers for the metaverse:

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■ Transact: The economic foundation of the metaverse through the use of