Education and the Economics of Inference

 If history is our guide then we go forward through the rearview mirror, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan. There are many metaphors that help us make sense of the present. I like the skeuomorph, mostly because, as a practitioner of human centred design having worked on many projects involving UI, UX and behaviour change, these help orient ourselves to the present use case by mapping past grammars of action into the future. January is a fitting time to reflect on how the past informs the future. And we are at a critical junction in postsecondary education, and depending on your perspective this is either a beginning or an end. 

Education going forward will be defined by new ways of thinking that promotes better access and accessibility – using AI in teaching and learning, better credit mobility, a focus on affordable learning and open education, modular and micro-credential learning, including more effective use of physical space, and increasing the porosity between the private and public sectors. We are in the middle of redefining the business model of higher education. Here are some observations from last year that will help inform this year as eCampusOntario continues to support Digital Transformation – in Ontario and across Canada through our network of partners and Digital Campus Canada. 

Access: Accessibility

This year marks the full implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). There is a still a lot of work to be done to meet the aims of the AODA, but there has been a lot of great work on accessibility across our sector.

Last year we worked with partners to produce two excellent resources to support accessibility. 

The Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University is a global leader in accessibility. Check them out – these have many useful resources, including this one: Framework for Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education. This report offers great guidance on AI – it is “a practical guide to the dizzying domain of artificial intelligence within the education ecosystem, with a particular focus on the impact on equity and accessibility. AI and accessibility are beginning to have an interesting conversation.” 

We also worked with the Business Higher Education Roundtable (BHER) on a roadmap for supporting Accessibility, Digital Transformation, and Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) – watch for this to drop soon.

Artificial Intelligence: AI

AI is a pharmakon: it is either a remedy or a poison. As such, it too is a fitting way to frame our discussion as with those described above. And AI is a resource extraction industry. It uses the raw materials of the Internet to build inference – the process by which harvested data produces meaning. Eventually the full cost of this will be apparent. But for now, beyond the hype cycles AI adoption is the big push – and education will be no exception.  Here are a couple of excellent resources on using generative AI in teaching and learning:

• York University: https://www.yorku.ca/teachingandlearning/gen-ai/  
• University of Toronto: https://ai.utoronto.ca/ 
• Contact North has a great suite of AI tools.

A credit granted anywhere is a credit granted everywhere 

Humber Polytechnic demonstrated leadership on seamless credit transfer by announcing late last year that there will be “Automatic and no fees for credit transfers and prior learning assessment and recognition starting Fall 2025.” This is a game changer for Ontario. It is the first domino to drop as Ontario continues system evolution toward a bigger focus on learners and value for money – for learners and for the system. Bottom line: Learners should be provided with “no wrong door” into the educational system that will enable credential completion across all areas of the economy. 

Affordable Learning: OER Uptake at Scale

The Ontario Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS) invested $35M in open education. As the Minister Nolan Quinn of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities said in his opening remarks at the eCampusOntario annual Teaching and Education Seminar and Showcase, OER saves students money. Our Open Library has a student savings tracker that includes an opportunity to learn how much faculty can save their students and to share an adoption.  And there is good news from across the sector: Check out this story from Trent University Open Educational Resources Pilot Project Saves Students an Estimated $390,000 in Textbook Costs. And from Fanshawe College the OER Design Studio enlists students to work and learn that saves students millions in annual costs. Both of these were supported by funding from the VLS.

Want to learn more about open education in Ontario? Check out these two recent reports:

• Brock University’s Inclusive Education Research Lab and eCampusOntario have released On a Path to Open, a new report detailing key results from a study conducted with Ontario’s publicly-supported colleges, universities, and Indigenous institutes about their capacity to support open educational practices (OEP)
• Affordable Learning, Lasting Impact: How OER and Partnerships Save Students Money, a new report detailing how Open Educational Resources (OER) are emerging as a critical tool in addressing education affordability, promoting equity, and fostering innovation across Ontario’s higher education sector.

Modular and Micro-Credential Learning

Here’s two excellent examples of leadership and the future of learning. We recently had the opportunity to visit Dario Guescini and Radha Krishnan at Seneca Polytechnic. Among other highlights they showed us the Hyflex Classroom design. This digital by design space enables full hyflex learning – it does not matter if the students are in the class or attending remotely. A significant percentage of classroom at Seneca Polytechnic are outfitted this way. They started building these during the pandemic. That’s foresight in action.

And on a recent visit to College La Cite I learned about their approach to modular curricula: all courses across all programs are modularized and translated to outcomes based learning. This gives them enormous flexibility on supporting multiple and myriad learning pathways, including the potential to create micro-credentials. This is a great example of future-focused extensibility. Again, exceptional foresight that future proofs learning design forward.

And on the topic of micro-credentials, eCampusOntario continues to support our members to align programs with local labour markets to fill specified labour market gaps.

The official Ontario upskilling platform – the Micro-Credentials Portal operated on behalf of the Ontario Government by eCampusOntario supports Ontario’s Micro-Credential Strategy. The MC Portal continues to provide members with innovative labour market tools to ensure program alignment. It is also an example of AI in action.

The AI back end of the Micro-credentials portal helps institutions assign labour market information (LMI) to their courses and programs with a click of a button. Institutions can be supported in aligning their courses/programs at scale with NAICS, NOC, and CIP data, as well as structured skills taxonomies, associated job titles, and local job market data by geographic region, to ensure local labour market alignment of programs prior to international recruitment. The AI front end provides learners with clarity on eligible programs and job market alignment and easy to use features to find the right program at the right time in their career. 

These tools can be expanded to support targeted international student recruitment. Institutions gain clarity on how their programs align with labour markets and IRCC regulations, and MCU gains clarity on the scale and scope of programs offered as part of fulfilling local labour market openings. New program development can also be supported with these data.

Please reach out if you are interested in learning more and being part of our national expansion in providing a LMI-informed upskilling platform that provides incremental new revenue to PSE institutions. 

Private:Public 

A while ago I explored some educational ratiocinations – some reasoned random thoughts (and linguistic ratios) on the future of education. The takeaway for me there is how we position the sector to address Canada’s three-legged productivity problem, which is helping employers to:

• Conduct research and innovation
• Derisk new technology adoption, and
• Engage in education and upskilling.

Postsecondary education is a primary enabler of the innovation economy. Private:public partnerships are key to realizing the benefits of both private and public investments in education. eCampusOntario supports partnerships through micro-credentials and upskilling and through research and innovation via the Ontario Collaborative Innovation Platform. 

Within this discussion we should be asking ourselves: is PSE a public or a private good?

Most working in the sector would say it is both. York University President Rhonda Lenton nicely outlines the public value of postsecondary education in supporting personal resilience, the ability to continue to learn and to use technology systematically through disruptions and career changes. Higher education is no longer a scarce resource for many. And the current no- and slow-growth economic context has made the public value of postsecondary education more diffuse and difficult to define for a generation reared in an environment that has seen reduced per capita incomes, housing expense volatility and strained public services like healthcare. Or, to put it in Nate Silver’s terms, the river is washing away the village. 

In this context, it is incumbent on us all to continue to take what is usefully learned from the past while remaking the postsecondary education system for the future. Partnerships and porosity of institutions are paramount, as is the need for new models and ways of doing things. We have pedagogical and technological debt to amortize. We can do this without mortgaging our future any further.

Our past informs the value of our credentials. Our future is meeting learners at every age and stage of life. Our present is adapting how we deliver our credentials.

At eCampusOntario, we are focused on supporting our members to leverage foresight, embrace digital transformation, drive affordable learning, all while pivoting to the new normal of supporting our learners for the future. This includes supporting the economy with reskilling, upskilling and micro-credential learning, supporting economic resiliency with international learners and local workers, and scaling digital transformation and digital by design education.

Being Explicit about Skills will Help Solve Canada’s Productivity Problem

Originally posted here.

Concerns over Canada’s low productivity have grown louder with many writers positing paths to improved productivity and innovation performance. Canada has lagged other advanced economies for decades. To fix this long-standing problem we need to simplify the discussion. The root cause of our productivity challenges can be traced to how we teach–and learn–new skills. It’s convocation season: do new graduates know what skills they have learned in their programs? Do employers know how to make use of these skills? Making tacit knowledge explicit will help new graduates–and their employers–improve Canadian productivity.

The Three-Legged Stool of Productivity: Investment not a Cost

One challenge with the productivity discussion is that it is opaque. It seems possible that most business owners, if they think about productivity at all, have only a vague notion of what it means to their bottom lines. We need to reframe the issue in ways that are meaningful.

To simplify things, imagine productivity as a three-legged stool. The three legs represent Canada’s investments in:

• Research and Development (R&D);
• New equipment/technology; and
• Education and Training.

Canadian firms under-invest in all three compared to international averages. Canada has a short stool, but other countries (and their firms) have a highchair. Raising the legs of our stool will help us compete internationally. The most important leg of the stool? Education and training. Firms cannot effectively perform R&D or adopt new technology without properly trained people.

Think about AI: its use depends on the three legs of the stool. AI is both a subject and a product of R&D. It is also a new technology that we need to adopt at scale in the economy. Figuring out how to leverage new technology like AI requires education and training. Skills in product design, project management, and presentations, alongside the human skill of adaptability, are at the heart of successful R&D. These same skills underlie the ability to integrate new technologies into workplaces.

Teaching these skills is imperative. Upskilling the workforce through targeted education and training will support businesses to investigate new technologies, create products and services and uncover innovations in sales and marketing to help Canadian companies compete.

Skills are at the Root of Productivity

Even more important is ensuring learners recognize when they practice and acquire these skills. This means being explicit about the specific skills people gain from any program or curricula. Some programs already do this; colleges in particular are good at ensuring program outcomes are clearly stated. Indigenous institutes excel at infusing competencies with cultural context. But exit outcomes from an undergraduate program are entry level in the field of study. This means employers need to invest to ensure employees continue to develop their skills in situ.

When learners are clear about the skills they have acquired they are better able to quickly put these into action. Transforming tacit knowledge about acquired skills into explicit awareness helps career entrants make better use of the skills they’ve gained. It will help them put these skills to use more effectively, and more rapidly. Skills are at the root of productivity. Ensuring graduates can more rapidly enact the skills and competencies they have learned is central to solving our productivity problems.

Supporting Risk-Taking, Innovation and Entrepreneurship with Private+Public Partnerships

Canada’s Indigenous institutes, colleges and universities are teaching our next generation of skilled citizens. These institutions have access to cutting edge equipment and can make this available to companies. Businesses that partner with postsecondary institutions gain access to new technology, and to those who learn with it. Research partnerships–across the spectrum from basic and applied research to experimental development–let businesses take calculated risks, and learn by doing with students and professors who are doing exactly the same thing.

Business-higher education partnerships help foster a culture of supported risk-taking, innovation and entrepreneurship. These partnerships create incentives for collaboration and commercialization; they support the growth and scaling of Canadian firms. When students engage in research partnerships through work integrated learning they gain crucial innovation literacy, while helping businesses to grow and thrive. From intrapreneurship to entrepreneurship, the skills for innovation are best gained in an applied context. These students graduate and become job takers and job makers.

From Digital Transformation to Derisking Innovation

eCampusOntario helps our members embrace Digital Transformation to meet the challenges of education in the 21st century. Our AI-driven micro-credentials and R&D partnership platforms enable Indigenous institutes, colleges and universities to help employers derisk all three legs of the stool. Learn more at digitalcampus.ca.

Canada has strengths and opportunities in emerging sectors, such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, and clean energy. These sectors have the potential to create jobs, solve societal challenges, and drive economic growth.

We need to be explicit about the skills that will get us there. Doing so will help Canadian firms address longstanding productivity problems and compete more effectively in the global economy. Helping Canadian firms to invest in the three-legged stool of productivity will enhance innovation.

“Your talent strategy is your business strategy.” Notes from the D2L Executive Summit

Originally posted here.

The D2L Executive Summit, held last week in Toronto, was an excellent series of discussions on the future of education and work.

The day kicked off with a fireside chat with D2L CEO John Baker and Chief Strategy Officer Jeremy Auger.  John mentioned that at the Business Council of Canada  learning one of the top three priorities: “If we are not sharpening skills of employees each year we are holding back our companies. And our people.”

This really set the tone for the day’s discussions. The keynote speaker was David Autor, Ford Professor of Economics at MIT who spoke on “Expertise, Artificial Intelligence, and the Work of the Future” David provided many insights, including stating that “we’re not running out of jobs. We are running out of workers.” This is an important point to think in terms of the supply and demand of the workforce that fuels our economy. David also had some really great pull quotes in his deck, including from “We know more than we can tell”, from Michal Poyani on rules versus tacit knowledge and the nature of competencies that are used to guide work. I subscribe to the need to make tacit knowledge explicit, including in supporting skills development as I wrote recently.

Another useful quote was this: “The future is not a forecasting problem. It is a design problem” attributed to Josh Cohen of Apple University. I like this because it gives us agency – in determining the future – of education, work, AI disruption. It was also a good segue into the panel of presidents, which included Humber College President and CEO, and eCampusOntario Board Chair Ann Marie Vaughan, Ed.D..

On the development of the Humber Strategic Vision, Ann Marie quipped that “Strategic planning is like trying to nail the fog to the wall.” What is important, she reminded us, is that we advocate for the value of public education and the inherent value to society that public education provides.

On this topic, in the next panel Soulaymane Kachani, Senior Vice Provost, Columbia University's Columbia Plus: lifelong learning at Columbia for all graduates for the rest of their lives. This is an excellent model that aligns well to some of the initiatives eCampusOntario is supporting around subscription models to higher education as part of alumni and industry engagement. This is all part of supporting the three-legged stool of productivity in Canada.

Fundamentally, providing faster routes to credentials is a productivity issue and challenge. Rethinking – and intentionally designing – how higher education can support our society and economy is imperative. Extensible learning that leverages the application of new knowledge into the workplace such as through work integrated learning is even more important today to future proof our economy for tomorrow. As Malika Asthana, Senior Manager, Strategy and Public Affairs at D2L reminded all: “Your talent strategy is your business strategy.”

A big shoutout to Malika Asthana, Jeremy Auger and John Baker and the D2L team for putting together an excellent agenda.

As an added bonus it was great to see many friends and colleagues at the Summit, including Saskatchewan Polytechnic President Dr. Larry Rosia, Fanshawe College President Peter J Devlin, CMM, MSC, CD, ICD.D, GCB.D, Laura Jo Gunter, President and CEO of the NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology).  And in the photos below: Business + Higher Education Roundtable Valerie Walker and Matthew McKean and University of Waterloo President and Vice Chancellor Vivek Goel.

Thanks to D2L for providing the space for thought leadership.