COVID-19 has caused the closure of university campuses around the world and migration of all learning, teaching, and assessment into online domains. The impacts of this on the academic community as frontline providers of higher education are profound. In this article, we report the findings from a survey of n = 1148 academics working in universities in the United Kingdom (UK) and representing all the major disciplines and career hierarchy. Respondents report an abundance of what we call ‘afflictions’ exacted upon their role as educators and in far fewer yet no less visible ways ‘affordances’ derived from their rapid transition to online provision and early ‘entry-level’ use of digital pedagogies. Overall, they suggest that online migration is engendering significant dysfunctionality and disturbance to their pedagogical roles and their personal lives. They also signpost online migration as a major challenge for student recruitment, market sustainability, an academic labour-market, and local economies.
Elizabeth E Charles's insight:
Insightful findings re the digital pivot "The impacts of this on the academic community as frontline providers of higher education are profound."
Last fall, professors told us about their plans to experiment this year with technology-enabled teaching. Now they reflect on the successes and shortcomings.
1.Social media companies cannot hide behind the claim of being merely a ‘platform’ and maintain that they have no responsibility themselves in regulating the content of their sites. We repeat the recommendation from our Interim Report that a new category of tech company is formulated, which tightens tech companies’ liabilities, and which is not necessarily either a ‘platform’ or a ‘publisher’. This approach would see the tech companies assume legal liability for content identified as harmful after it has been posted by users. We ask the Government to consider this new category of tech company in its forthcoming White Paper. (Paragraph 14)
[This blog entry is written to accompany the release of University Futures, Library Futures: Aligning library strategies with institutional directions. This is a collaboration between Ithaka S+R and OCLC Research, and is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. There is a companion blog entry by Deanna Marcum and Roger Schonfeld. The report looks at … Continue reading University Futures are shaping Library Futures →
One of the OfS’ core priorities will be to ensure that all students receive ‘value for money’ from their ‘higher education provider’. Value for money is enshrined in the regulatory framework for higher education that the Office for Students will operate. Value for money is also a key student concern. In a survey of Students’ Union election candidate manifesto pledges last year, ‘value for money’ was the second most mentioned issue.
Despite this, the definition of ‘value’ and ‘value for money’ in higher education is contested. Some believe that it is about the quality of the student experience itself, while others focus on outcomes like the ‘graduate premium’. While the focus tends to be on the home undergraduate fee, the OfS also has a responsibility to ensure value for money for postgraduates, for international students, and in relation to other fees and charges levied by a provider.
The NMC has released the 2017 Digital Literacy Impact Study: An NMC Horizon Project Strategic Brief to uncover the learner’s perspective of how digital literacy training influences work life after graduation. As a complement to the definitions and frameworks outlined in the NMC’s 2017 strategic brief on digital literacy in higher education, this new study examines digital literacy in action as learners enter the workforce. More than 700 recent graduates from 36 institutions responded to an NMC survey that addressed the experiences they gained at colleges and universities, and how their proficiencies or lack thereof have affected their careers. Funding for this independent research endeavor and publication was provided by Adobe. Below are some key findings from the publication.
The Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2016 examines strategy and leadership issues from the perspective of academic library deans and directors. This project aims to provide academic librarians and higher education leaders with information about chief librarians’ visions and the opportunities and challenges they face in leading their organizations.
In fall 2016, we invited library deans and directors at not-for-profit four-year academic institutions across the United States to complete the survey, and we received 722 responses for a response rate of 49 percent.[1]
This report provides new evidence on the effects of digital technologies on the demand for skills and discusses key policies for skills development adapted to the digital economy. Workers across an increasing range of occupations need generic and/or advanced ICT skills to use such technologies effectively. More fundamentally, the diffusion of digital technologies is changing how work is done, raising demand for complementary skills such as information processing, self-direction, problem solving and communication. This report discusses measures that can help to ensure that the diffusion of digital technologies is accompanied by the development of the skills needed for their effective use, an increase in the responsiveness of national skills development systems to changes in skills demand and of new learning opportunities created by digital technologies.
Laura Czerniewicz presents an overview of findings from a study on the practices of university students accessing learning resources at a research-intensive university in South Africa. There is a g…
The report and data from the fifth ALT Annual Survey have now been published and shared openly in the ALT Repository. As with previous years the Annual Survey is designed to:
understand current and future practice;
show how Learning Technology is used across sectors; and
help map the ALT strategy to professional practice to better meet the needs of and represent our Members.
With the survey in its fifth year we are able to record and report and number of changes and the results provide a useful oversight of priorities for our Members and the sector in general. Responding to the survey is an important way for Members to inform the priorities for ALT as part of the wider aims set out in ALT’s Strategy 2017-2020 and we are grateful to everyone who took some time to complete the survey.
The survey highlights very good awareness of the Senior and Associate CMALT pilots, which have been announced as launching on 28 February 2019. In terms of ALT activities that support research, practice and policy there is greatest awareness of day events and webinars run by local Member Groups, which were also indicated as one of the top priorities for 2019. This area will in part be supported by the new ALT Assembly which met for the first time on 20 February 2019.
Teens credit social media for helping to build stronger friendships and exposing them to a more diverse world, but they express concern that these sites lead to drama and social pressure
The expert predictions reported here about the impact of the internet over the next 10 years came in response to questions asked by Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center in an online canvassing conducted between Dec. 11, 2017, and Jan. 15, 2018. This is the ninth Future of the Internet study the two organizations have conducted together. For this project, we invited nearly 10,000 experts and members of the interested public to share their opinions on the likely future of the internet, and 1,150 responded to at least one of the questions we asked. Their answers to our main question about the future impact on digital life on people’s well-being were reported here.
The growth of online communication, media, and gaming is driving dramatic changes in how we learn. Responding to these shifts, new forms of technology-enhanced learning and instruction, such as personalized learning, open online courses, educational games and apps, and tools for learning analytics, are garnering significant public attention and private investment. These technologies hold tremendous promise for improving learning experiences and outcomes. Despite this promise, however, evidence is mounting that these new technologies tend to be used and accessed in unequal ways, and they may even exacerbate inequity.
The Academic Support Group has carried out regular surveys on the use of technology enhanced learning in the higher education sector. In addition to reviewing the technology in use, the survey looks at the drivers behind the adoption of technology enhanced learning in institutions.
Creating an effective eLearning program is no easy task. It takes hard work, commitment, continuous trial and error, and making LOTS of mistakes along the way before you hit the mark.
In this post, we wanted to share some of the lessons we've learned the hard way and give you some valuable pieces of advice, so you don’t make the same mistakes we (or our clients) did. We can only hope that walking you through these lessons-learned can help begin your eLearning design endeavor the right way.
I wonder how many people could actually read the report and comment it since it seems to be only available to paying members... I went through the whole registering process until dead end of "Sorry for the inconvenience, this item is available to members only"... quite frustrating :((
The UKCES Employer Skills Survey 2015 is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Based on interviews with over 91,000 UK employers, it offers a comprehensive insight into the state of skills in the UK.
In the first of two animations, we look at what findings from the 2015 survey reveal about skills, recruitment, and the impact these have on the economy as a whole.
For more information, and to view the findings in full, visit www.gov.uk/ukces
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Insightful findings re the digital pivot "The impacts of this on the academic community as frontline providers of higher education are profound."