A 2019 study found that 67% of educational software product licenses go unused. In some schools, that number jumps to 90%.
Which brings up the question: What’s your educational organization’s percent of unused licenses? If it’s 1%, it’s too much. Every cent you spend counts, and you need to get your money’s worth, not continue paying for licenses that aren’t being used.
With the pandemic wreaking havoc on in-person instruction, schools were forced to develop educational continuity plans on the fly to ensure students could learn in-person or remotely. This required a digital transformation and the deployment of even more software solutions to keep the learning happening—which means more licenses to keep track of.
But tracking software licenses is difficult for school administrators. Often, there’s no centralized purchasing or management of these programs. Schools or departments buy them themselves, leaving licenses here, there, and everywhere. Of course, some duplication will occur.
With devices being loaned out to teachers and students for distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic—meaning you’re not even getting your hands on the devices to check the apps—tracking software licensing and use can be especially problematic.
But it doesn’t have to be this difficult. If your school can deploy software analytics, you can maximize your ed-tech investment.
With the right analytics solution, you can:
• Get reports on every app—free and paid—across all schools
• See adoption and engagement by app
• Explore the cost of unused licenses overall and by app
• Break down by classes and users where an app is used and not used
• Examine if your attempts to drive adoption are working
One analytics solution that offers all those insights—and more—is Lightspeed Analytics. Analytics is part of the Lightspeed ecosystem of cloud-based solutions that provide schools worldwide with reliable filtering, analytics, and device management tools. With Lightspeed Analytics, schools get robust data to inform ROI, track licenses, compare similar applications on usage, and identify redundant and underutilized apps.
That’s why Lenovo partnered with Lightspeed Systems to provide you with the seamless, flexible student-safety tools you need to build the modern classroom for continuous education, both in-person and remote.
Track use of rogue apps and non-use of approved apps
Lightspeed doesn’t just ensure you’re using every license—it can also help you ensure you’re only using approved apps.
According to Lightspeed, the first time a user logs into Lightspeed Analytics, they typically discover they have more than twice as many apps in use as their tech department thought. Often, those extra apps haven’t gone through the organization’s vetting and deployment processes, which could put your network, devices, and sensitive information at risk to hackers, not to mention the compliance issues it creates.
Lightspeed Analytics helps you root out these rogue apps by presenting a comprehensive report on all apps and web tools in all schools, operating systems, and browsers. With that information, your IT team can drill down to show who is using unvetted apps and then block them with Lightspeed Filter.
Lightspeed Analytics also includes critical information on app privacy certifications and potential concerns, so you’ll know which apps are compliant with governmental privacy mandates, Student Privacy Pledge, and other privacy requirements.
Classroom analytics, too
Beyond tracking app usage, school leaders can track student engagement in your learning management system and get geolocation for where learning is happening with a map view based on the IP address of the student. So you can determine if, when, and where students are attending virtual classes.
Together with Lenovo laptops, Chromebooks, and desktop computers, Lightspeed makes sure you maximize your ed-tech investment and protects your IT ecosystem from rogue apps introducing security vulnerability. They help you keep students safer and keep them learning, whether they’re in the classroom, the library, or at home.
Read more about Lightspeed’s best-in-class solutions suite and customer experiences in the Lightspeed Solutions for Education Catalog.
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