OHECC 2026 Proposal Submission

Call for Proposals
Proposals for presentation topics for the May conference will be accepted through February 28, 2026. Submitted proposals will be evaluated and notifications will be made regarding proposals in late March.

2026 OHECC Conference Theme
From Digital Innovation to the Next Frontier: Ubiquitous AI

2026 OHECC Conference Tracks
We accept any topic for submission. Tracks will be developed after submissions. A list of topic ideas are below.

Session Formats (All sessions, including time for Q&A, will take place in 50 minutes timeslots)

Standard Presentation Session (1-2 people)
A focused, interactive session is encouraged with clear objectives and learning outcomes for the audience.

Standard Presentation Session with Vendor (1-3 people)
Similar to the standard presentation but will include speakers from a college/university and a vendor discussing work on which they have collaborated. Note that the college/university must actually submit the proposal. Submissions with the vendor listed as the lead presenter will not be accepted.

Panel Session (3 people)
Rather than a series of short, individual presentations, panel sessions should be genuinely interactive among the panelists, and also between the panelists and the audience. The panelists can develop different perspectives or discuss various aspects of the topic.

Roundtable Session
Roundtable discussions will be moderated on predetermined topics.

Vendors registered at the Diamond or Platinum level may submit a proposal without a college/university member.

OHECC 2026 Channel Plan

Conference Agenda and Topic Ideas

The following topic ideas have been collected with a large number of interviews with senior IT leaders from many of the colleges and universities who will attend OHECC 2026. The purpose of this summary is to help potential presenters develop attractive ideas for their sessions. No presenter should feel obligated to only these topics, but hopefully they provide seeds for great sessions. Also, please feel free to propose joint sessions with peer institutions and/or tech firms supporting your topic.

This document is organized by major topics in the agenda (bolded) followed by subtopics.

Artificial IntelligenceAI Business Case and Adoption

Overall AI Issues

· Evaluating MS Copilot - value proposition

· Impact on organization and metrics/KPI’s, Cost/benefit – ROI

· AI Adoption Metrics

· Buy or build or partner AI initiatives

· Case studies – success/failures, pitfalls and lessons learned

· Business and AI Strategic objectives/Prioritization/Governance

· AI hype – bubble

· Large models – sustainability issues? Small/specific models – SLM’s and Quants.

AI Technology

· Data and infrastructure quality and readiness

· Comparing models – LLM’s, SLM’s or quant models

· Development platform experiences

· AI Dev/Ops and AI technology management/methodology

· Agentic AI Development and Orchestration

· Server technical trends – CPU/GPU/NPU HPC and OS

· Data Center infrastructure trends – power/HVAC/engineering issues.

· Emerging technologies foundations and trends – hype curve

· Key AI firms and comparison.

· AI Technology performance and hallucinations

AI Security and Compliance

· Privacy and Security with AI technology.

· Legal, regulatory and compliance around AI.

· Risk models including third parties using AI.

· Responsible AI and Ethics

Key AI Applications in Higher Education

· AI in curriculum – what is it? Where is it?

· AI as a tool in the classroom to teach – BoTs and Avatars.

· Digital Twin AI simulators.

· AI in Athletics

· AI for Enrollment

· AI Applied in the Back Office

· AI in the Legal team

· AI Maturity in Ohio colleges and universities

· Universities as an AI knowledge source and business relationship.

· AI Academies and skill development (survey)

Enterprise Systems

ERP Implementation Experiences

· Workday experiences and Workday panel - senior leader views.

· Oracle Peoplesoft experiences and Oracle panel – senior leader views.

· Ellucian implementation experiences and Ellucian senior leader panel.

· Academic ERP market, Roadmaps and Challenger ERP’s.

· Budgets, benefits and ongoing TCO.

· Decision triggers to move to change ERP.

· Impact on IT groups and business roles/skills.

· Impact on specialty third party academic technologies.

ERP Technology Platforms

· Workday roadmap and recent trends.

· Oracle roadmap and recent trends.

· Ellucian roadmap and recent trends.

· ERP market comparative technologies and trends.

· Financial/business systems with SIS and AI.

· Agentic ERP

· DevOps platforms, Low code – no code in ERP and citizen developers

· AI embedded into ERP systems and implementation experiences.

· Does AI change the ERP make of buy strategy?

· Can AI be used to reduce errors in enterprise systems?

· ERP Cloud, Hybrid or on-Prem and SaaS – experiences.

· Integration best of breed systems or monolithic, ERP in higher ed – directions.

· Specialty apps against monolithic ERP.

· Data Lakes and Data Management.

· Data governance and quality methods.

· Cryptocurrency or tokenization applied to financial systems.

Specialty Third-Party Academic Technologies

· CRM – enterprise wide and local.

· LMS and Learning systems.

· AMC’s and medical education platforms.

· Academic content and Games for teaching.

· Parking Systems – internal and outsourced.

· Campus Safety - door access and cameras.

· Institutional Research platforms.

· On-line systems.

· AMC's and College of Med applications.

· Advising systems and student success – AI used?

Research Technology

· Experience with current platforms.

· ERP relationship with Research admin systems

· New federal requirements re cybersecurity.

· Research Collaboration and Cybersecurity

· High-capacity data storage for researchers.

· AI Tools as a Research Enabler.

· TCO of maintaining tech and R1 status vs R2.

· Research in Ohio on technology platforms.

· OSC role and capabilities with roadmap.

Cybersecurity and Regulations

· Identity and Access Management platforms (IUC RFP).

· Cybersecurity platform roadmaps, hype cycles and roadmap options.

· Third party risk and supply chain, AI as a defense enabler.

· AI as an attack enabler and defender.

· Security technology components and strategic options.

· Best SecOps practices.

· Competing in the cyber arms race with low budget.

· Zero Trust architecture.

· Cloud security - what is unique?

· Password less strategies.

· Alignment with stakeholders and business leader risk profile.

· End-users want more or less security?,

· Regulatory Compliance trends - tighter?

· Attack surface trends and defense.

· End-user risks and cyber training – does it improve hygiene?

· Cost optimization and TCO of security

· Keeping up with security staff skills - talent management.

· Operational resilience and incident response,

· Risk Models/Management.

Cybersecurity and Regulations (continued)

· Forensics investigations best practices.

· Ransomware incident response planning.

· Ransomware negotiators vs in-house.

· End-user admin rights and options

· ID Verification - faux personas and identity loss.

· MFA/biometrics and external access,

· IAM and technology and facility access control.

· Does the business want function over security function?

· OAR-NET cybersecurity roadmap.

· Ohio DAS/IT and other agency tech support examples.

· Regulatory fabric - GLBA, FERPA. ADA,eyc.

Technical Infrastructure

· AI impact on the data center - power, HVAC, network, infrastructure.

· Cloud vs Hybrid vs On-Prem infrastructure.

· Perpetual vs Subscription Assets.

· AI impact on the network including utilization of AI.

· Identity and Access Management for technology resources.

· How is AI impacting infrastructure staffing – numbers and skills.

· Collaboration and shared service – infrastructure.

· Energy market trends and impact for infrastructure.

· Asset and License management best practices.

· Measuring the real-time user experience.

· Asset management, tracking, refresh planning and technical debt.

· Strategic integration platforms – trends and implementations.

· Google vs Microsoft experience.

· Centralized vs distributed client support – recent experiences.

· Six-Sigma utilization and tech infrastructure management.

· Wired and Wireless Network vendor war – recent experience.

· Hype cycle in Higher Ed and tech trends.

Technical Infrastructure (continued)

· Quantum computing and direction.

· HPC deployments and experiences.

· Blockchain initiatives and experiences.

· Data center virtualization in AI world.

· AI Hardware and direction – players/chip architectures and capabilities.

· BYOD strategies – phones/pads/computers and gizmos.

· IoT experiences, issues and solutions.

· Voice and data network implementations.

· Residence Hall network issues and strategies.

· Network implementation with AI.

· OAR-NET network strategy/roadmap and examples.

· OSC support and viability as a hyperscaler,

· Hyper scaler landscape and direction

Technology Organization and Operation

· Becoming the CIO - today and the future.

· IT Skills and impact of AI on technology teams.

· Reskilling IT with and around AI.

· The future tech organization in the land of AI – impact and changes.

· Evolving relationship between IT and business.

· Impact of AI on IT costs – such as who is paying the electric bill?

· How will IT suppliers be impacted by AI.

· Real world examples of AI impacting IT organizations.

· Technology Cost management and containment.

· Technical debt and risks.

· Staff development and training.

· Student employees and development.

· International student workers and staff – new challenges.

· Metrics and benchmarking.

· IT and corporate partnering/relationships.

· Leadership priorities in higher ed.

· IT Budget and Charge Models.

· IT Centralization – where/Issues/challenges and solutions.

· Technology Selection and Governance.

· Managing IT with AI and systems.

· PMO and project control methods/systems.

· Service Now AI and other service systems – benefits/costs – do they work?

· Tech fees and associated cost capture – real world experiences.

· Governance and prioritization – challenges and solutions.

· Corporate - University Partnerships and IT role.

· How does an ERP SaaS impact IT organization? - skills, mix, size, roles?