Toward a Human-Centered Digital Ecosystem: NJIT
A Q&A with Ed Wozencroft
Today, digital technology has a place in just about every institution's strategic plan. But at the New Jersey Institute of Technology — a prominent R1 known for its academic programs in fields of advanced technology — the strategic plan looks far beyond the technology, to the human-centered strategies that will build NJIT's unique values into its digital transformation.
NJIT's support for human-centered technology can be seen in its top-level administration: Ed Wozencroft moved from interim Co-CIO to his current role as NJIT's first vice president for digital strategy and chief information officer about a year ago, allowing him to focus much of his time on human-centered strategies for digital transformation. CT talked with Wozencroft about his experience in this role and about NJIT's purposeful steps toward human-centered technology strategies.
NJIT is home to many high-end research technologies. Here, researchers in Chang Yaramothu's vision lab are using visual and neural digital technology to understand brain injury. (Photo courtesy New Jersey Institute of Technology)
Mary Grush: Could you tell us about your goal to build a human-centered digital ecosystem at your institution? What do you mean by human-centered in this context, and why is it an important goal for the New Jersey Institute of Technology?
Ed Wozencroft: To preface, NJIT just released its 2030 strategic plan, "NJIT Makes An Innovation Nexus". And the most exciting part about my job right now, is that deeply embedded in that strategic plan is digital transformation. We call it out as one of our six key priorities, and it's one of two priorities that cut across everything we need to do.
We're a bit unique. NJIT is a highly diverse R1 public polytechnic, so we really put the emphasis on technology, whether it's engineering or any of the sciences. But there's a technology application for everything these days, right? It's hard to avoid any type of computer or system or automation in any field or trade. So, at NJIT we look way beyond the technology in all our strategic planning.
When I talk about human-centered, it's not just a question like, "Can I give you a good laptop?" I can give you IT services, but I'm missing the point if I'm not actually impacting your experience; if I'm not using technology to make your life easier, better, more productive, or simpler in some way so that you can focus more on the value add for whatever you do.
I can give you IT services, but I'm missing the point if I'm not actually impacting your experience; if I'm not using technology to make your life easier, better, more productive, or simpler.
Grush: What are some practical examples?
Wozencroft: If you're a researcher, I want to give you an experience in which you're not tied up with the question of "How do I get the technology to work for me?" Technology needs to work natively so that, for example, if you're doing something with high-performance computing, you don't need to be an expert in HPC. Instead, you can concentrate on being an expert in using HPC for your research purposes.
If you're an HR generalist, you don't want to have to chase down five different screens to figure out the story of an employee you're talking to. You should be able to see the employee data easily, along with any type of information you need to be able to provide a service.
And if you're a student, the days of struggling with the shifting availability of classes should be over, along with any confusion about how to meet requirements for your major. We want to de-mystify the progress toward a degree for students.
Grush: What are some of the basics, say for designing human-centered digital services for students that will support the advisory process?
Wozencroft: Administrators and advisors should be able to offer digital services that help a student prepare a class schedule and register easily, using all the data at our fingertips to monitor the student's progress toward their goals.
An example I always like to give is, imagine if you, as a student had a virtual AI assistant for student success that you could meet with at your leisure, online and virtually. You could talk through your goals with the AI assistant as the next semester is approaching, getting relevant information specifically tailored to you, such as, "Here's the latest on your map for the courses you need," or "Here are some suggestions, and answers to questions you may have." You might be considering a change of major or adding on a minor. You can run as many what-if scenarios as you want! You will be well-prepared for your next in-person conversation with your [human] advisor. If you only have 30 mins to meet with your advisor, let's make that the most meaningful 30 minutes imaginable.
So, when I talk about human-centered, it's really not about the actual technologies behind the scenes, it's about how we're employing them for the benefit of users — faculty, researchers, staff, students, and all our constituents. And if they're not using the systems and services in place, I'd say, in the old classic motto of IT, "You can build the best IT implementation in the world but if it's not used, what's the point?"
So, when I talk about human-centered, it's really not about the actual technologies behind the scenes, it's about how we're employing them for the benefit of users.
Grush: You've just mentioned some good use examples, especially in the area of student services. But many of the same objectives were proposed in light of ERP systems even a couple decades ago. What's different now?
Wozencroft: ERP has been a compelling market to follow and one that I have spent much of my career focused on. When you think of the purpose of an ERP, it serves as our central command system, much like the central nervous system. In the past we used to think of it as a silo, however today we need to recognize the importance of data that lives outside of the ERP, much like how the human body is connected. As we look at newer generations of ERPs, two advances are really helping us become more agile — the native cloud offering, which allows us to stop focusing on the tech and focus on the true business value; and artificial intelligence, which is going to help us move far beyond basic transactions and free up teams to focus on driving better value add services.
While we're accomplishing that, we need to remember other systems and data that have impact. Thinking about student success, the ERP is our pilot to help a learner chart a path to graduation, certificate achievement, and so forth. However that is one small fraction of their story — let's not shelve their admissions data, rather, let's use it to help chart a better path to success. And what can we tell from our campus infrastructure: Are they on campus often? How are they doing according to LMS data, and the like? When we combine all data sources, we can make much better decisions and recommendations. ERP is now just a fraction of that ability.
Grush: What else is coming up in NJIT's 2030 strategic plan, that could be supported with a human-centered digital ecosystem?
Wozencroft: Another part of a human-centered digital ecosystem that we're looking at in the 2030 plan is a challenge in the polytechnic space: How do we ensure that we're teaching the ethics and philosophical issues that prepare our learners for the digital transformation we expect to see?
How do we ensure that we're teaching the ethics and philosophical issues that prepare our learners for the digital transformation we expect to see?
This is a broader question representing not just traditional undergraduates; it's about anyone who's seeking added education and fulfillment at any point in their lifetime. How are we helping them to understand not just the technology at hand, but how to use it more wisely? How can our institution lead the way in this context and help our learners and colleagues not only leverage technology for good, but also catch and intervene when the technology's not being used for good? How can we model and prioritize core values and norms that will help society counteract misinformation and unethical practices in social media and on the Internet? We can start by finding a way to reinvigorate the core curriculum with ethics for a human-centered digital ecosystem.
Grush: Those are significant goals for the 2030 plan! Could you give me a simple example? Have you been able to integrate some of that into the curriculum already?
Wozencroft: As a brief example, when we're offering a class on generative AI, our faculty talk through the pitfalls of it along with the power and potential of it, and how to identify where things may be going well, or going wrong.
To achieve this, a lot of my own focus has been on how I partner with our academic teams, primarily our deans, our department chairs, and our associate deans, to say that we have all this technology at our fingertips and we want to help you integrate this into the classroom in an effective way. We want to focus on giving students the tools that they need, and the tools that they're going to use out in the real world given an understanding of the implications of doing so.
To achieve this, a lot of my own focus has been on how I partner with our academic teams… to say that we have all this technology at our fingertips and we want to help you integrate this into the classroom in an effective way.
To be more specific, one of the things that I think we can use a generative AI tool for today, very effectively, is to help our students figure out how to ask the right question, by experimentation with different strategies. You may even challenge them and incentivize them to construct the wrong input, to demonstrate an understanding of why it's wrong. Or give them an answer ahead of time and say, "Now you need to go ask Chat GPT, or Copilot, or you name the AI to help you build the question to achieve a similar result."
Because so much of what we do in learning, research, or other work involves asking the right question, we need to train better in that. And that could apply for anything: Help me solve this math problem. Help me navigate this really tricky HR-related situation… I think we're well on our way to figuring out such things.
Because so much of what we do in learning, research, or other work involves asking the right question, we need to train better in that.
Grush: How do you gear up, if you will, your strategies toward the goal of building a really great digital ecosystem? And how do you keep that human-centered element on track and get the trust and buy-in you need?
Wozencroft: The majority of my job is outward-facing. I can talk tech all day long, but my preference is to understand the needs of our community clearly and speak their language. And that's a big part of how we crafted our 2030 strategy and how the digital vision has transcended from that.
The majority of my job is outward-facing. I can talk tech all day long, but my preference is to understand the needs of our community clearly and speak their language.
We had to understand what's happening outside of NJIT, as well as figuring out what's happening on our own campus today. We consider, especially, the changing demographics of the learner. An important part of it for me was becoming very conversant in the overall business of education — especially higher education, of course.
We did a user experience study last year, in which we worked with more than 100 people on campus for one-hour interviews. And our methodology was about leading with empathy. It wasn't just "Fill out a survey so that I can generate a lot of quantitative analysis." It was, "Tell me about your experience. How was it to enroll in classes?" Or, "How was it to onboard as a new employee?" And what's great about this survey technique is that is you get raw human emotion out of it.
What we did with all that was amazing. We aggregated the data through one of our partners. We were able to put a map together that looked at the overall life cycle of students, employees, and others, to understand where the biggest pain points were. And now, when we're crafting strategy, we're trying to resolve those pain points first. So, I fix things from a human-centered approach — we're not just fixing technology.
I fix things from a human-centered approach — we're not just fixing technology.
That's where the buy-in really starts to come in, when I can tell people, "I know, because you told me, that this process is painful. I want to fix this, and here's how we can fix this, so we can give you a product at the end of the day that works for you."
Grush: So you're drawing heavily on the community as you design strategies?
Wozencroft: Yes, I'm inviting them to the table as a part of doing that, too, and I don't take on any initiative that I don't have some type of senior leadership backing on, as well as heavy community participation. We've changed the way we approach our committees. It's not just a group that you attend and we just talk at you for an hour and then you leave. It's actually a group that gets hands-on, doing things and showing us what they need: "Tell us about your issues. Give us an example and feedback right now. Let us iterate on this in real time."
The best example I could give of a product of this process — and we just unveiled it— is our new admissions dashboard, NJIT Insights, which will be available campus wide in the coming weeks as we push out our data literacy program. It was developed through this type of community participation.
We've also tried to make sure that we're launching multimodal conversations, so we have in-person conversations, meetings, lunches, e-mails, chat messages, announcements on our website. We're trying to get out everywhere.
We've also tried to make sure that we're launching multimodal conversations, so we have in-person conversations, meetings, lunches, e-mails, chat messages, announcements on our website. We're trying to get out everywhere.
Grush: You must spend a lot of your time out of the office. What's at the top of your to-do list every day?
Wozencroft: My team jokes that I have an office that I'm very rarely in, because I prefer to be out on campus talking with our students, with faculty, or with other leaders. I'm a big believer in going to their offices because I'm really trying to establish our team as a servant, offering, "How can I help?"
And that's top of my list every day… just figuring out how I can help NJIT move forward.