Leah Lang, EDUCAUSE
Judith A. Pirani, Sheep Pond Associates

Higher education institutions rely on a core set of enterprise applications to run the business, support students, manage research, sustain connections, and so much more. EDUCAUSE has been tracking the evolution of market spaces for 20 of these system areas since 2012. Over the past five years, changes in these markets have reflected shifts in institutional strategic focus, responses to regulatory compliance, and changes in IT service delivery strategy. As institutions meet and conquer today's challenges, the next five years will reveal additional shifts as they work to replace aging infrastructure and prepare to support the next-generation digital enterprise.

A key indicator of system areas with substantial change is the system area rate-of-change ranking. The rate-of-change ranking is a composite score based on several data points that indicate shifts in system area markets: average year of implementation, plans to implement new systems, and plans to replace existing systems. Systems with the highest rate of change typically have been implemented recently or are expected to be implemented or replaced soon. In 2016, as institutions moved beyond challenges with web content management, room scheduling, facilities management, student e-mail, learning management, procurement, and postaward grants management, the rate-of-change ranking for these system areas decreased (figure 1). The focus has shifted to four system areas in which the rate-of-change ranking has increased as compared to 2015: IT service desk management, human resources information, faculty/staff e-mail, and undergraduate admissions systems.

In this report we focus on changes in 10 system areas:

1. IT service desk management
2. Web content management
3. Human resources information
4. E-mail: faculty/staff
5. E-mail: student
6. Room scheduling
7. Grants management: preaward
8. Grants management: postaward
9. Advancement
10. Library

Each section of the report provides an analysis of rate-of-change for that system area, a look at trends over time, a view into current market share, and a case study to highlight opportunities and challenges encountered by peer institutions in their replacement or implementation of that system. Data in this series were derived from responses to the Information Systems and Applications module in the 2016 CDS survey. Responses from 530 U.S. institutions were analyzed.