Tag Archives: WA

AI’s Role in Higher Ed

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Higher education is at an interesting inflection point. While there has been much talk about the increasing cost for students, educational institutions are not necessarily reaping the benefits of these higher prices. Colleges and universities are seeing enrollment numbers decrease due to affordability concerns and a general decline in population. Additionally, the rise of the gig economy and online degree options, as well as the willingness of employers to hire and train people without college degrees for in-demand jobs in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI), are all impacting the perceived necessity of advanced education.

Show Me the Data

While AI careers may no longer require a four-year degree, AI technology is proving to be invaluable in supporting the growth and success of higher education institutions. With all of the outside pressures, colleges and universities need to take a serious look at all the data they hold to determine the cost and ROI of the programs they offer, from degree options to sports teams to housing options. Information about student demographics, student performance, program revenues, and operational costs are all held in siloed systems. AI can help collate all of these disparate data sets, making connections that would take teams of humans months or years to discover. Continue reading →

How the Federal Government is Implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Practices

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Diversity, equity, and inclusion are key focus areas of the Biden administration's President's Management Agenda (PMA). Additionally, the administration issued an executive order in June 2021 directing agencies across government to implement more diversity training, rethink the use of salary history as a basis for pay determinations, and supply gender non-conforming and nonbinary and transgender employees with credentials that reflect their current names, pictures and pronouns. Finally, in November 2021 the administration offered a strategic plan to help guide agencies in diversity efforts, asking for the submission of agency-specific Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) plans by March 2023.

Diversity Today

This focus is starting to show results. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released a first-ever report on the diversity of the federal workforce. It looked at hiring and retention across agencies and gave a snapshot of the administration's efforts to remove barriers for applicants from underrepresented communities. The report finds small but encouraging gains in racial diversity between 2017 and 2021 with Black employees rising from 18.15 percent to 18.19 percent of the federal workforce. Latinx made a much larger jump rising from 8.75 percent to 9.95 percent. Women's representation grew from 43.38 percent of the workforce in 2017 to 44.44 percent in 2021. Future reporting will look at nonbinary workers. Continue reading →

Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022: See Yourself in Cyber

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Since 2004, The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) have led a collaborative effort (at the direction of the President and Congress) to raise cybersecurity awareness nationally and internationally. Marking October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month, individuals and organizations are given the tools to ramp up their cybersecurity education efforts. The theme for 2022 is "See Yourself in Cyber," putting the people aspect of cybersecurity front and center.

This focus on people is two-fold. First, there is the individual and personal responsibility each of us has to understand good cyber hygiene and conduct ourselves online in a way that protects the networks we depend on. Second, there remains a huge gap in the number of cybersecurity professionals and the number of roles that need filled. The "See Yourself in Cyber" theme invites more people to see their roles and skills in a cyber light, creating a bridge across the cybersecurity skills gap. Continue reading →