3 Technology
Technology is vital when it supports valuable course content and programming; but the technology itself should not be the product offering.
Key Questions
Does your institution have appropriate technology for offering fully online courses (LMS, A/V equipment and software, captioning services, remote proctoring, etc.)?
Are your learning spaces hy-flex enabled?
Are non-academic (support) offices like registrar, regulatory and accreditation, examination center, attendance, and student engagement attuned to digital pedagogy? Are they ready to go paperless by use of SAP or other Data Management Systems? Are these offices competent to collate data and rely on data-driven dashboards to take decisions? In short, are all departments in the institution equipped with data science skills?
Examples
EGYPT
American University in Cairo is currently developing wrap-around services and examining the student experience roadmap. AUC uses Moodle for all current online programming and is investing in developing it further. Two spaces on campus have been identified for hybrid flexible learning.
UNITED STATES
The State Board of Education in Idaho has recently established a statewide contract to provide the Canvas Learning Management System to all eight institutions of higher education. This provision will allow for all online courses to be offered using the same LMS, which will simplify and unify the teaching and learning experience for instructors and students.
INDIA
Blackboard and instructional design is not new to faculty in Global University Systems India organisations. During the pandemic, the CourseraforCampus programme was adopted by all 800 faculty and the entire community did Virtual Teacher Specialisation within 60 days. Faculty were so charged up that on an average each one completed five online courses under this programme. GUS is undergoing a data-driven transformational training starting from top management. Learner Analytics is a skillset that all faculty are getting trained at by mid-next year. Evidence-based decision making is the culture that is being adopted by the organisation. This required a lot of energising communication and vision sharing by the CEO as well as other strategic leaders. Change management strategies are being ably handled by the HR team. IT team is walking the talk, slowly and steadily with all.