It seems that nowadays, universities around the globe are eager to include technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution into their school’s system, and Korea University (KU) is no exception to this slowly prevailing trend. Recently, KU signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with SAP Korea, a software company, to introduce the Student Activity Hub to students. The newly endorsed system is drawing expectations, as it is the first time that a Korean university has ever collaborated with an Information Technology (IT) solution company.

On October 2, Kim Jae-uk, the Vice President for Planning and Budget, and Kim Beom-jae, the Vice President of SAP Korea, signed the MOU that would allow cooperation between the university and the company at the International Center for Converging Technology. The Student Activity Hub is a machine learning platform that would provide students with personalized analyses that will help them avoid academic failures. The system even aims to aid students in their job search by incorporating technology from the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

According to the official data provided by KU Story, the Student Activity Hub will start collecting information from the moment that a student enters the university. Examples of the data that will be collected are the types of admissions by which the students were accepted and the students’ grade point average (GPA). It is expected that the data will be analyzed to discover answers to questions such as which major takes the longest for students to complete a degree in, and what traits are shown by students who give up studying in the middle of a course. It is anticipated that these answers will be useful in catering to individual students’ needs and maximizing the efficiency of their university lives.

However, the MOU has just reached its starting point and not much is known about the platform except for a brief outline. Currently, the system is in its preparatory stage of being introduced on campus. The school stated that it will only be able to specify its plans on the Student Activity Hub after the exact services are finalized later in December.

Nonetheless, it is possible to get more specific ideas about what the Student Activity Hub would do by looking at examples from other universities. Since the system was first introduced in United States (U.S.) in July 2017, universities around the globe have been following the trend. For example, according to the SAP News Center, the University of California (UC) San Diego installed the Hub in September this year.

The SAP News Center stated that the platform in UC San Diego strived to collect more complete and accurate student information from various key sources on campus, such as the Student Information Systems (SIS) and Academic Learning Management Systems (LMS). The platform will eventually help design courses and degree programs based on the collected data. Now, it is not certain that the same services will be provided in KU, as the school environment and the needs of the students are quite different from those of UC San Diego. Nonetheless, by examining the precedent, one will be able to gain a basic idea of what the Student Activity Hub will offer.

KU is marching ahead to incorporate the technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution into students’ lives. It is anticipated that the Student Activity Hub will be able to care for students in ways that will suit their individual needs and help them with their lives in the long run.