Director of education for SEEK Investments Joshua Nester joins Martin Betts in conversation at the March HEDx conference in Melbourne. As an industry leader in ed-tech, Mr Nester gives a global overview of investments currently being made in private universities, ed-tech companies, management systems and content aggregators. He outlines how this is changing the competitive landscape of global higher education.

The conversation is followed by a panel led by Sue Kokonis, chief academic officer at SEEK's parent company, Online Education Services. She is joined by CEO of Edugrowth David Linke, pedagogical evangelist at Adobe Manuela Franceschini, deputy vice-chancellor (education) at RMIT Sherman Young, and dean of Macquarie Business School Eric Knight. Together, they answer the question: how will technology change higher education for good?

Ernst and Young (EY) Oceania education leader Alison Cairns told Campus Review their student surveys have shown digital transformation – using new technology to improve learning and teaching experiences – needs to be led by vice-chancellors and boards. (You can read a summary of EY's survey results here.)

"It is absolutely about leadership. The difference between transformations that are successful and transformations that fail is around leadership and bringing people on that journey," she said.

"The ones that don't do so well are the ones that are purely technology transformations, and then they follow up with change management and it's a little bit challenging."

"[Then staff] say, 'Well actually I'm not sure I signed up for this'. Or 'I don't like the way this works'. Or, 'this doesn't really suit my faculty, doesn't really suit how I want to do it,'" she said.

EY recommends university leaders put humans at the centre of any tech or digital learning upgrade, instead of placing new online resources to 'tick a box'. Their approach is to ask different questions of the different humans who will be benefiting from the tech transformation.

Ms Cairns said universities that have used this style of digital learning innovation have seen an uptick in student enrolments and engagement, along with higher staff and researcher satisfaction.

She explained one of the most important aspects of university study for students is quality of teaching. If students can pick which format best suits them, they are likely to think the quality of teaching is much higher.

Students also care about career outcomes – what is going to get me the qualification I need, for the least amount of money, in the shortest amount of time?

What are the tech innovation limitations?

Layers of leadership in bigger universities might be a reason for slow change, some education thought leaders say, but EY says it hasn't found a difference in the ability to adapt between small and large unis.

"I think our universities are very positive about change. They're very positive about what the education sector does for our country," she said.

"Some of these businesses and universities have been around for 500 years, so they do something right."

She said universities have already shown what they're capable of, through the rapid switch to online learning in 2020.

"Universities did a fantastic job of moving from classroom teaching to emergency response teaching [during the Covid-19 pandemic]," she said.

"I just want to be really clear, that's not digital learning. It was emergency response teaching. And they did that so swiftly with just the resources that they had just so that students could keep learning.

"But that took leadership from the top, right? Obviously there was technology involved in that, but we had staff leaning in, we had academics leaning in, we had research leaning in and the students had to lean in as well."

For example, posting recorded lectures and tutorial slides fits into 'emergency response' online learning, but doesn't represent learning operations that reflect digital competency.

Asynchronous education, where students access course material on their own time, is the required next step.

"I might be an under-served learner, you might be a particularly bright student. I might need my learning slightly different," she said.

"So I might be someone who does well in case studies, gamification or video as opposed to text. And you might be someone who actually prefers text.

"[Asynchronous education] means that we can have all of that information and we can actually consume it as students in a manner that suits us best."

This approach is a real asset to universities, Ms Cairns said, because it promotes lifelong learning and attracts different cohorts, something all education sectors are looking to achieve.

"[Students] need to have the option of being able to consume in the manner that maximises their learning because a lot of them have either got care responsibilities or they have to work," she said.

"Or if you look at people who are career changes or job upgraders or lifelong learners, they might have family commitments.

"They cannot commit to being onsite on campus all of the time, even if that's their preferred method.

"If you think to the Universities Accord report and the under-served learner, and making sure there are plenty of opportunities for everyone to go through higher education, this is actually having a significant change."

How can universities put people at the centre?

The ones who are doing it well "are consulting, bringing people in from the faculties, bringing people in from executive, bringing people in from their council and actually saying, what is our 10-year vision? Where are we going to focus first?" she said.

"We've actually seen great acceleration in learning, and we've been able to see the fantastic content that the universities have being able to be shared to a much wider audience."

However, some university staff say they don't want to teach to half empty classrooms, and if students choose a more digital learning method where they don't have to show up to class, that might become the reality.

But, Ms Cairns said, a drop in class numbers could actually result in more engaged students, and called on universities to track that engagement.

"If you are replacing [face-to-face classes] with engaging learning and personalised learning and things that you like to learn in a manner that you like to consume, you're actually going to get increased engagement," she explained.

"It's not one or the other, right? It is not classroom or online, it is now hybrid," she said.

"Some things will still be in classroom, some things will be online, some will be asynchronous, some will be deep engagement.

"And if you think in Australia [there's] remote and rural; it's not practical, particularly with cost of living for some students to have to come to the city or come to a big regional campus in order to learn.

"They need that flexibility."

Even if universities are large and established institutions, the education leader said, they should be looking to set themselves apart through tech learning.

"We don't want any university to be homogenous. We actually want them to have their uniqueness and differentiation," she said.

"We're at the end of the industrial revolution, which was about mechanising labour. We're at the beginning of the information revolution. Where does information live? It lives in universities.

"How do we take the best of that into transformation and use the best and brightest minds to take education forward into the next century?"

At last week's HEDx conference in Melbourne, Michael Crow from Arizona State University shared the equity and inclusion initiatives his university has implemented to increase the number of disadvantaged student enrolments.

This was followed by an equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) panel on the feasibility of implementing these EDI strategies in Australia.

The panel included civil rights researcher and disability advocate Professor Paul Harpur, psychologist and expert on higher education equity Professor Marcia Devlin, peer mentoring app Vygo co-founder Joel di Trapani, Welcoming Universities coordinator Cate Gilpin, and university race equality advocate Mohamed Omer.

"I think we could all do more, and we could all realise the power that we have. There is no 'other'," Professor Devlin said.

"People used to come to me all the time when I was [a deputy vice-chancellor] and say, 'The university needs to do this, and the university needs to do that, and the university needs to do the other.'

"And I [would say], 'Well, who are you talking about? You are the university. I am the university.'"

Ernst & Young has recently released a report detailing research conducted with Times Higher Education. Here is the overview of their findings.

Why human-centred transformation design is critical for universities

Purposefully putting human needs and expectations at the centre of higher education digital transformation will improve university success.

Three questions to ask

• Convince me, teach me, support me – how can university leaders meet student expectations and support their success?
• Empower me, free me, enlighten me – how can digital technology help staff to create better content and seamless processes that improve student experience?
• Equip me, connect me – how can researchers be better supported to conduct leading-edge research?

When embarking on digital transformation, universities often deploy strategies that serve the needs of the institution and its existing structures and processes.

For many of the students and staff on the receiving end of such changes, the experience has been less than ideal.

“Digital learning” is still often old content on a new platform, rather than being designed to enable optimal learning through personalized, digital self-access.

On many campuses, staff and students still struggle daily with multiple systems to get simple administrative tasks done.

We contend that institutions would get a far better return on their digital investment by putting the needs of the people they serve at the centre of technology efforts.

In a bid to understand what the people at the centre of universities want from digital transformation, we undertook research with the people who experience it every day. Our latest study, conducted in collaboration with Times Higher Education (THE), includes more than 3,000 students and hundreds of teaching faculty and professional staff in eight geographies, and explores their wants and needs. 

The research clearly shows critical areas where digital transformation needs to deliver a better experience for students and staff. This article surfaces a few of the ideas from the study. Read the report to learn what each cohort had to say and see the full body of our research and recommendations for university leaders.

Chapter 1: What do students expect from their universities?

Exceptional teaching, real-world career advantages, convenience and flexibility

Universities are underestimating student expectations

The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed what students want from universities. Their educational norms and situations have shifted. In our survey, 60% of students are managing work or caring commitments alongside their studies. Partly for this reason, campus-based students expect to access content and administrative processes online, in their own time.

Concerningly, one-third of students told us they feel neutral about or unhappy with their choice of university. This should raise alarm bells for university leaders who are tasked with delivering a positive experience for all their students. Not meeting expectations around improving career prospects or preparing students for the workplace are key drivers of overall unhappiness. 

In order of priority, our research shows us that students are looking for their higher education institutions to deliver:

1. High-quality teaching, including using digital technology
2. Improved career prospects and workplace preparation
3. Better support to achieve their learning goals

To meet these expectations, there are a number of actions that university leaders can take. We have looked at these through the eyes of the students that universities serve.

Teach me effectively and in a way that suits me

Quality of teaching is the most-cited reason for both happiness and unhappiness with a student’s choice of university, indicating that some universities are offering better teaching experiences than others. Students also give low satisfaction ratings to the “quality of online learning” - putting it at the bottom of all surveyed aspects of university life.  Although, the amount of online versus in-person teaching is of little concern.

What’s missing from the digital learning experience is engagement. Although students rate the availability, quality of production and accessibility of digital learning materials reasonably well, they give low ratings to its ability to engage, enable collaboration or check understanding.

This reflects the fact that many universities are still simply recording lectures and posting lecture notes and reading lists online.

Students asserted that if funds were available for technology-related investments, they would prefer this to be invested in training teachers to deliver digital learning more effectively (45%) and in better digital learning materials (41%), rather than in upgrading the technology.

Convince me your university can improve my career prospects

Not meeting expectations around improved career prospects and preparing students for the workplace are key drivers of overall unhappiness with university choice. To win student choice, universities must better understand what students expect from higher education (HE) and offer programs that directly support their career goals.

Just under half (48 per cent) of students indicated that the main reason they chose their program was to qualify for a chosen career or improve their career prospects but a concerning 21 per cent of final year undergraduates say their university experience does not meet their expectations regarding preparation for the workplace. 

Creating programs that provide students with the skills they need for the future workplace will require critical thinking.

Support me to succeed academically and find connection

Our survey found that almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of students rate support to achieve academic goals as very or extremely important. Lack of support was also a key reason for students’ unhappiness with their choice of university, especially among mid-level and final-year students. 

Students also need to find connections with each other. Campus location remains students’ third reason for choosing a university, suggesting the campus experience is not over. But its role may need to be reimagined.  Nearly two-thirds of students say the campus is where they prefer to access social events and networking. This is key to students’ wellbeing, sense of belonging and developing social skills in addition to reducing feelings of isolation in an increasingly online learning environment. 

Chapter 2: What do university staff expect from digital transformation?

More time, better tools and quality data to help them deliver more value.

Universities misjudge the importance of the employee experience

While the student experience is fundamental to a successful digital transformation, university leaders must also pay attention to the staff (teaching faculty, researchers and administration) experience. The human experience includes all of the people involved in making a university work. To be successful, digital transformation needs to meet their needs and expectations, too.

Teaching faculty

Empower me to create quality digital content

Teaching faculty must be supported in carving out time to design and oversee the development of new curricula and learning materials that incorporate the best of digital and in-person learning modes. From our focus groups, we learned that many university teachers urgently need further training in blended teaching best practice. They need to understand how to both develop curricula and content for effective digital or blended learning and deliver teaching and learning support using the chosen modes.

Free me to focus on the important tasks

For teaching faculty, time is their most precious resource. Digital transformation should enable them to devote more time to their core missions of teaching and supporting students or leading research. Providing more asynchronous content will free them from needing to deliver in-person lectures, while using virtual meetings and online scheduling tools can help them provide one-on-one student support more efficiently.

"We are trying to give back time to pedagogy and teaching by making things quicker. It is now easier to design timetables and organise assessments."

UK/Ireland faculty focus group

However, simply implementing new tools and processes will not automatically lead to meaningful time savings. Faculty in our focus groups said they were faced with a myriad of new systems and tools, which were unintuitive, difficult to use or duplicative.

Enlighten me so I can better support learning outcomes

The higher education sector is currently grappling with improving learning outcomes. With the move to new modes of teaching and learning, faculty need to easily assess the effectiveness of their teaching and continuously adjust based on what is working well and what isn’t.  As more systems move to digital, there’s increased potential to analyze the data and create meaningful insights around student interactions, their levels of engagement and their learning progress. By collating that information into progress dashboards, faculty can track learning progress at an individual, class or program level, as well as identify students who require more support or programs that need adjusting. 

Researchers

Equip me to conduct leading-edge research

Universities have tended to under-invest in the digital transformation of research, as the focus shifted to teaching and learning. The investment needed is not just better equipment and computing power to support leading-edge research. There is also a real need to streamline and automate the significant level of administration surrounding research, to free up researchers’ time and help them be successful.

Processes ripe for digital transformation include grant applications and management, risk assessments, scheduling access to shared equipment, results disclosures, reviews, audits, publication and dissemination.

Connect me to other researchers

In many cases, research and innovation are not solo efforts but collaborative ones. The research community has a particular need to connect, share data and ideas, and work together to solve problems. The use of digital technologies for research is making collaboration within and across institutions much faster, more efficient and effective. This is greatly facilitating international research collaboration, widening the pool of potential research collaborators, which is particularly important in niche fields.

Administrators

Show me the data I need and save me from busy work

Our focus groups with administrative staff revealed a cohort that feels increasingly overworked and overwhelmed, with many digital transition initiatives actually adding to workload pressures.

The most cited challenge for administrative staff is that the data they need to perform their jobs resides in disparate siloed systems and cannot readily be combined. As a result, universities end up with a patchwork of siloed systems with different access points, that are not integrated, cannot share data, and have a very different look and feel.

Digital processes generate a wealth of data that administrators are hungry to use to drive decisions, but insights cannot be generated when data resides in silos.

"It’s about increasing the amount of time staff can spend making a difference to the students versus satisfying the system."

Paul LeBlanc, President, Southern New Hampshire University

In addition, many universities are looking at how to automate HR, finance and procurement processes across the institution. Automating routine student-facing tasks, such as processing applications can continue to relieve the burden on administrative staff.

For universities to truly survive and thrive in a digital era, university leaders need to maximize the value of digital transformation, focus on designing services and processes around the needs of the people they serve — from students to administrative staff, and deliver a distinctive student offering and digital experience that sets them apart. This means aligning the value proposition with evolving student and workforce demands, having a clear understanding of the end-to-end student experience and how to make it more convenient, engaging and supportive, using technology. It also means designing services and systems that enable faculty and staff to spend more of their time supporting students to achieve their learning and career readiness goals. And of course, the technology must be matched with investment in upskilling faculty and staff to deliver an exceptional student experience.  

Summary

Successful digital transformation in higher education is predicated on putting the humans that they serve at the centre of all transformation projects – from students to teaching faculty to administrative staff. By understanding their needs and expectations, university leaders can build strong strategies, invest in the right technologies, and strengthen their university’s student offering so they thrive in a digital era. 

This article is by Catherine Friday, the EY Global Education Leader and EY Oceania managing partner of government and health sciences. It is summary of an Ernst &Young (EY) Digital Transformation survey and report, which asked over 3,000 students around the world how they think their university performs in the digital learning space.

Mike Ilczynski is the director of education at SEEK Investment and a global investor in ed-tech and higher education. In this conversation with Martin Betts he shares why he invests in tech, and how that contributes to lifelong learning. Mr Ilczynski says significant growth is waiting for providers willing to be 'tech optimists', like SEEK has been. The episode also covers the opportunities for technology and partnerships to help address some of the challenges facing the Higher Education sector.

My mum was an academic and a hugely passionate one. Consequently, I spent most of my holidays, many evenings, and countless weekends perched beside her at her desk at the Queensland University of Technology Gardens Point campus.

Like any child of a shopkeeper or restauranteur, I spent holidays, weekends and evenings either helping in the family business or doing homework at the corner table. Our family business was academia.

My parents grew up in rural western Queensland, and are the first in their families to attend university. It was a slog for them to get there, and a slog for them to complete their degrees. But both did. They met each other during their years at the University of Queensland, and supported each other to complete their undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications, so they could each go on to build solid careers.

They’ve been divorced for 20 years, so it’s not an idyllic romantic tale. But, it is a love story about university. University was the making of both of their lives. It let them dream bigger and opened doors. For my dad, it was his ticket off the land. For my mum, it was her everything.

My mum’s profound appreciation for the transformative impact that university education had on her life led her into academia. This also meant that in her work as an academic, she was deeply committed to helping others have the kind of transformational university experience she’d had.

During my early years and into young adulthood, I would’ve met close to 100 students and colleagues my mum championed and for whom university unequivocally changed their lives. Higher education pulled them out of difficult circumstances and gave them social mobility, cultural capital, diverse connections, and opportunities that wouldn't have been available to them if they had not undertaken higher education.

This is why I thought universities were so magical. I saw first hand how life changing and truly transformative they could be.

I understood that accessing university was more challenging for some people. Still, I believed, for a long time, well into my university career, that once the barriers to access were removed, then the transformation could begin. I didn’t understand that for many people, opening the door to university is just the first barrier, and there are multiple other hurdles from there.

It won’t surprise you to learn that, to date, most of my career has been in universities. I worked for over 10 years in professional staff roles – positions focused on student support, international development, engagement, and events. I then into the academic space for several years as a casual research assistant and tutor.

Looking back now, I am deeply embarrassed at my naiveté and my blinkered, privileged perspective. I always existed in university culture, and tertiary study was just a given, natural next step in my life. I could live at home, work casually and study whatever I was interested in. For many of the early years of my career, even while working directly with students, I still knew very little about the complex, intersectional barriers people face in seeking the educational opportunities that were so readily available to me.

This doesn’t mean that studying at university was easy for me. It was just hard in the right way.

University is meant to be challenging. The content should stretch and provoke minds, expand knowledge, skills, and abilities. University often involves long hours, an annoying commute, and juggling study and work. But these are ‘normal’ challenges – the difficulty and complexity everyone faces when pursuing higher education.

This is not the inequity and systemic exclusion that equity groups - Indigenous Australians, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and people living with disabilities - face, that is intersectional inequity and systemic exclusion.

Universities are aware of inequity and exclusion. Most have substantial equity, diversity, and inclusion policies and committees. Many develop research on migration, social cohesion, economic participation, diversity, and inclusion. And most universities would argue that they exist for the public good.

However, students, staff, and communities from equity groups are not seeing changes from these policies, nor the beneficiaries of this research. They are still struggling to overcome barriers that go further than juggling a casual job and an annoying commute.

Paraphrasing Sally Patfield’s excellent article in The Conversation – access to higher education study is vital, the growing parity of equity groups numbers is ambitious, and developing policies and programs to connect with those equity groups is essential. Those connections might even open the door to a few more prospective students from underrepresented groups. Still, more policies and programs will have little to no impact on equity if the sector is not listening and responding to the needs of these cohorts. It's time to take appropriate action to remove barriers, address inequity, and change the university system.

I will further discuss this at HEDx's ‘Changing Higher Education for Good’ conference in Melbourne on Thursday, alongside my colleague, former University of Melbourne People of Colour Committee officer Mohamed Omer. We are appearing on a panel called ‘Accelerating in our pursuit of social justice and equity’ with several other excellent speakers, thinkers, and innovators who advocate for access and equity across different spaces.

Mohamed and I will speak on issues of systemic racism and exclusion that culturally diverse people (including international students) experience in university education; whether that be accessing uni, balancing studying or seeking post- study support and opportunities.

As universities and the broader higher education sector explore the recommendations of the inclusion-focused Australian Universities Accord, Welcoming Universities recommends that a culture of welcoming all students and cultivating a sense of belonging for disadvantaged cohorts is placed at the centre of all Accord reform efforts.

Welcoming opens the door, invites students in, and helps them overcome hurdles. Belonging is the next step. Belonging ensures that everyone “feels valued, connected and able to be their authentic self”¹.

Through extensive consultation with students and communities facing barriers to accessing, completing, and working in university education, the Welcoming Universities network offers actionable ideas, approaches, and measures of success that puts inclusion at the centre of universities.

My hope is that conversations like the one happening at HEDx next week, along with the work of Welcoming Universities, along with other equity work such as the disability-advocating Universities Enable initiative, will restore the magical possibility of universities I saw as a young person.

I truly believe that university and higher education can be even more transformative if people from all backgrounds and communities are welcomed and allowed to belong.

Cate Gilpin is the coordinator of Welcoming Universities, an organisation that advocates for an inclusive culture in tertiary education where every student is made to feel like they belong. Several universities, including Charles Darwin University, the University of Melbourne, UNSW, the University of Wollongong (UOW) and Western Sydney University have signed up to participate in Welcoming Universities initiatives.

"You are a spokesperson, not an answer person. You're there to answer questions and deliver your key messages."

Theresa Miller

How can academics excel in media interviews, gain success in grant applications, and better communicate at conferences or on panels?

Media and presentation skills trainer Theresa Miller and Campus Review education editor Erin Morley sit down to discuss how academics can best represent their research to the media.

Theresa Miller is the director of TM Media Training and has over 30 years experience in media. She is passionate about helping academics and subject matter experts share their stories and research with audiences, and wants to encourage more women to step up to the microphone, too. As an MC and panel moderator, author, former journalist and former media advisor, Theresa feels she has the experience to help academics and business leaders master their message and promote their cause. 

On this episode of HEDx Podcast, Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) director Shamit Saggar joins Martin Betts and co-host Paul Harpur to reflect on equity actions recommended in the Universities Accord.

ACSES is a newly rebranded centre that will collect evidence-based data on disadvantaged and low-socio economic groups, the cohorts the Accord strongly suggested need to have more opportunity to obtain a university qualification.

Strategies developed through its trials will be presented to universities, so they know exactly where to allocate funds to support and attract those student cohorts.

Professor Harpur leads Universities Enable (UE), a disability steering group that offers support to universities in developing disability action plans. UE submitted feedback to the Accord's interim report, advocating for students and prospective students living with disability.

Professor Saggar's and Professor Harpur's reflections on the Accord final report, and the prospects for its implementation in the months and years ahead, provide great insight into what needs to be done to carry out the review's mission of inclusion.

Chief executive of a United States leadership organisation, the Council on Competitiveness, Deborah Wince-Smith sits down with HEDx's Martin Betts in today's episode to discuss technological innovation.

She was a senior U.S. government official, as the first Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for technology policy in the U.S. Department of Commerce, and assistant director for International Affairs in the Reagan White House.

She is spearheading global efforts towards technological transformation in the Universities Research Leadership Forum of the Global Forum for Competitiveness Councils.

The Council on Competitiveness is a coalition of CEOs, university presidents, labor leaders and national laboratory directors, committed to driving U.S. competitiveness.

In this podcast chief executive of Year13 Will Stubley joins Melbourne Business School chief learning innovation officer Dr Nora Koslowski and Martin Betts in the HEDx studio to discuss alternative options to the traditional Year 12 to university pipeline.

With the skills the Australian economy needs changing, how can universities keep up to deliver education that is relevant to those changes?

For instance, assuming all bright young students want to study at university might be outdated, and could be one of the reasons why domestic enrolments are declining.

TAFE and vocational education are being mentioned more often in strategies that aim to improve the skills crisis, and their role will likely be discussed in the Universities Accord Final Report.

The vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University, Barney Glover, will begin his new role as the Commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia in April (whilst remaining VC of WSU).

His appointment has been criticised by some who question how relevant universities are to the future skills agenda.

The extent of the skills growth needed can't be delivered by universities alone, we discuss how the traditional 'Year 13' expectation might be changing for good.

Will Stubley is the chief executive and co-founder of Year13, a wellbeing and career advice website for young adults. The ed-tech company, that aims to improve the school-to-work transition, was founded after one of Mr Stubley's friends committed suicide due to pressures of finishing school. This tragic event motivated him and his co-founders to grow a business that now helps millions of young Australians plan their careers in a way that best suits them.

Dr Nora Koslowski is the chief learning innovation officer at Melbourne Business School. She is in charge of working with ed-tech startups and industry to power online programs and learning innovations at the school.