Expanding the Scope of Postsecondary Education

Where, when, with whom and what we learn is changing

Here are a handful of education trends worth watching as we embark on the new calendar year:

Digital First Design.

Today’s learners are digital first. Meeting the evolving learner needs means providing effective and high-quality digital experiences in all aspects of higher education, with programs that are career-focused and that support job-readiness.

Our postsecondary education system was designed to support learners coming from secondary school. These are now the minority of learners when you consider the system as a whole. The non-traditional student is now the norm. With Canada enjoying one of the highest tertiary education attainment rates in the OECD the majority of learners are now returning to education to upgrade skills and competencies in support of career and wider lifestyle engagement. As outlined in the (excellent) CDLRA’s 2023 Pan-Canadian Report on Digital Learning Trends in Canadian Post-Secondary Education, all learners expect greater digital by design learning options. These options render extensible learning location: online, hybrid and fully face to face – all oriented to supporting skills and competency acquisition. These options also reinforce the importance of digital transformation: using technology to empower trailblazers, improve learner experiences, strengthen resilience to sustain growth across the sector and prepare the workforce of the future to thrive.

Competency over content. 

And speaking of competencies, 2024 will mark increasing progress of competency over content. Higher education as we know it today is largely based on learning content. Vocational programs in professional faculties (medicine, law, skilled trades) focus on developing competencies, but generally speaking our model of higher education produces content experts based on programs of study (majors). The focus on skills that has arisen the past two decades has slowly disrupted this; the advent of generative AI has accelerated this disruption. In a world where Artificial Intelligence helps mobilize the widespread public availability of content (with many downsides given baked-in biases in this public content) we will see a renewed focus on competencies emerge. These competencies may well be in the effective use of AI, but themselves will be AI-proof. And by making content more context-aware, AI provides the scaffolding to support learning by doing at scale. Work integrated learning is the best fulcrum for learning competencies and legitimate peripheral participation in communities of professional practice. 

Missions not majors. 

Content knowledge is still going to be important even as we shift more to focusing on competencies. It is the operationalization of content that is key, and this will be important as we support a much greater emphasis on mission-oriented education instead of focusing on majoring in subject areas. Think learning ecosystems linked by shared values that enable learners to obtain credentials in a subject area that is defined by a social or economic purpose versus the content area itself. We already have this in the form of entrepreneurship education, where learners can stand up their own social venture or company as part of business school curricula. But it will become increasingly common, particularly as new generations of (re)learners seek to participate in addressing social, cultural and economic priorities such as climate change through social purpose and business incubation. Significantly, this trend helps to promote the increased porosity of postsecondary education institutions, for work integrated learning and research partnerships. This is part of a broader embrace of demand-driven innovation across the postsecondary environment. 

Micro- and bespoke credentials

Commensurate with an increased focus on competencies and the mission-oriented education model sketched above is the continued growth of micro-credentials, including stackable micro-credentials that cohere into larger credentials over time. This includes innovative pathways for credential completion and support for lifelong learning comprised of fast-track educational pathways in areas of critical need for the economy (healthcare, AI/ML, automotive innovation, climate change mitigation, entrepreneurship). Features of this theme include: employer partnerships; easy credit transfer and stackability of micro-credentials into degrees comprised of courses from any participating institution; newcomer credential recognition and scaffolding into Ontario credentials; digital access to a suite of supports, skills transcripts and industry engagement. À la carte curriculum journeys will enable broader engagement with education contiguous with personal career management. Providing the tools to do this will support social and economic resilience. eCampusOntario is supporting the development of AI tools that enable learners to identify competencies obtained via content-oriented credentials, figure out gaps in career mapping, and find micro-credentials to scaffold these gaps. 

Subscription models of education.

The economics of postsecondary education are under significant pressure. The mission of higher education – creating informed citizens capable of navigating increasingly complexity – is more important than ever before. 

The business model of education is evolving to meet the current and future social, economic and cultural demands of society. Some will decry focusing on the economics or using terms like business models in education, but the reality is that educational institutions must balance public funding, public missions and mandates, the need to embrace digital transformation and the reality of meeting rising costs. The trends outlined above are part of this evolution. The evolution of subscription models as applied to education will mark a significant step forward in helping institutions realize new and different models of educational delivery with revenue diversified streams.

It is fair to say that majority of people today stream music, movies and other media. I read various news sources to which I subscribe. Doing so lowers the per item cost and provides the media organizations with (relatively predictable) recurring revenue. Subscription models make sense.

Applying subscription models to education takes advantage of the evolution of micro-credentials that disaggregate learning into more discrete bits that scaffold learner engagement over time. More people need to access higher education in ways that better fit their lives with family care obligations, working, and lifestyle considerations that complicate the ability to spend 2 or 4 years dedicated to full time study. This is still important, but not the norm going forward. By providing subscriptions to education our institutions can help frame lifelong learning within current contexts and paradigms of curation and consumption while fostering affective investment in learning itself. These models are effective for companies – large and small – seeking to future proof their workforces, as well as for individual learners seeking to grown and manage their careers. Engagement of alumni networks is one simple step to realizing the value of subscription models for lifelong learning. 

Disruption, digital by design.

Education in the digital by design era is going from anywhere, any time, to everywhere, all the time. Disruption is ubiquitous. Higher education is increasingly focusing more on experiential and work integrated learning, and on more bespoke educational paths and credentials. Experiential and work integrated learning can be aided by AI that can also help us make better sense of the competencies we gain from our content-based curricula by analyzing what we learn and how the credentials we confer also infer competencies. We can help learners to make sense of what they learned, but also what they learned how to do.

Dx and Strategic Foresight: innovation you can implement.

As technological, social and contextual changes emerge higher education is embracing Digital Transformation to more fluidly engage with learners. You can learn more about how eCampusOntario supports the Six Dimensions of Digital Transformation with our Digital Transformation Guides:

• Explore digital futures: Co-design the future of education with Strategic Foresight.

• Empower digital leaders: Engage academic teams with professional development.

• Investigate digital technologies: Discover, Pilot, Review, and Adopt educational technologies.

• Find strategic partners: Build capacity with partners and access new networks.

• Expand Open Education: Adapt, Adopt, and Create Open Educational Resources.

• Develop tomorrow’s workforce: Align new programs to labour market demands.

Stop by our Strategic Foresight practice to tap into the wealth of knowledge included in the excellent series of Foresight reports: tools to support the navigation of uncertain and complex futures. 

Reach out to engage and learn with us. 

digitalcampus.ca

Intentional Innovation

Much ink has been spilt in Canada regarding our lacklustre innovation capacity as a puzzling counterpart to our international excellence in basic research. I won't be retrying these arguments. Rather, I want to point out an excellent article on the need for intentional innovation and the absolute necessity of updating our approach to how we integrate research and industrial innovation ecosystems. 

In Canada needs a new approach to science, research to stay competitive, Robert Asselin does an excellent job of articulating the need for "The modern application of science and technology is the new frontier of economic competitiveness." This statement will alienate some who might prioritize the approach to publicly funded research outlined by Vannevar Bush in Science: The Endless Frontier, in which public funding was exchanged for autonomy to pursue basic research. Applied research and experimental development were thought to emerge naturally from market-facing actors who would create value from the fruits of basic research as they realized a vague downstream potential. That was good when this was first articulated in the 1945. But as Asselin points out "The arms-length science model we adopted after the Second World War does not provide an adequate framework for today’s economic paradigm."

As Asselin says, "the road to innovation is long and hard," and it requires us to think and act in new ways. This means being intentional about creating and protecting intellectual property (IP), and helping to foster collaboration across the public and private sectors. Below I've put a logic model that outlines such an approach, reposted from earlier. 

And we have successfully piloted this model in Toronto as part of an orchestrated COVID-19 response where the 8 colleges and universities in Toronto worked together to support City of Toronto research priorities. eCampusOntario is supporting all of our 53 members to bring this model to fruition across the province. 

Watch this space for more, but in the meantime, read this article. And while you are at it, check out this one From Dan Breznitz and Daniel Trefler.

An Integrated Model for Intentional Innovation: From Idea to Impact

On marketing and micro-credentials

I had the great pleasure of being a guest on the Marketing News Canada podcast with marketing and  podcast expert Darian Kovacs from Jelly Academy. We talked about

• How the rise of micro-credentials is similar to streaming music 
• The importance of micro-credentials in upgrading and upskilling one's career, and how it serves as a form of continuing education 
• The demand for both a combination of technical and soft skills

It was a great discussion about the importance of micro-credentials and the role of collaboration and innovation in post-secondary education. 

And in an esprit de l'escalier I am really interested in discussing and learning more about the role of marketing and education more broadly, particularly as it relates to partnerships that support collaborative innovation, upskilling outcomes and work integrated learning. 

My thanks to Darian and Jelly Academy for the opportunity to join the discussion. 

Logo of Marketing News Canada

Instructional Design for Extensible Online Learning

"In those tumultuous and kinetic times, the time of actualised desire, I myself had only one desire. And that was, for everything to stop.”

Angela Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

Angela Carter’s fin de siècle science fiction novel presages an approximation of where we now find ourselves. The COVID-19 crisis has led to physical distancing and isolation from social context, with a concomitant social media “exercise in status display” taking hold in some quarters.

For postsecondary education we are told that “Universities, colleges face potential budget crunch as they assess impact of COVID-19 on international student enrolment.” This is an important reminder to the fragility of the economic basis in which we operate, namely the reliance on international student recruitment to fund the enterprise.

There is some hope: “time spent in an online course would count toward the time in Canada required to earn a work permit.” This is an important development that will aid our modelling of how we emerge from the current constraints, and into the mesocosm--an experimental enclosure--that will mediate and mitigate physical distancing in the time it takes to create a COVID-19 vaccine.

Scenario modelling could use a 50% probability basis for unpacking how we will return to in situ work. That is: we have a 50% chance of returning to face-to-face learning in September. And within this, that we will have to accommodate 50% less students on campus. This latter could be because of declining enrolments or physical distancing rules.

Basically this means we don’t know, but this should not stop us from modelling out the differing types of scenarios. We should do this while standing up the learning supports to enact a more flexible, distributed learning. Because either way, more remote learning is in our collective future.

Government and health leaders are advising that the current physical distancing practices will last months. This uncertainty, coupled with the COVID-19 experience of other jurisdictions, suggests that universities and colleges need to prepare not just for the long-term impact of the current physical distancing practices, but also for shorter-term approaches to address the continued need for physical distancing and isolation. Responsible, responsive curricula development necessitates significant changes to and adaptations of curriculum delivery, such as this is feasible within our programs, and which ensures that we collectively continue to provide positive teaching and learning experiences. This can be done while supporting and protecting faculty autonomy and prioritizing effective pedagogy.

Flexible learning is an approach that blends online (synchronous; asynchronous) teaching and learning with face to face (F2F) or in situ learning. While F2F learning will not be feasible in the short to medium term, we can start to anticipate a gradual return to this as it is imperative to reifying skill and competency development.

Alex Usher offers a good take on a post-pandemic collective effort in which the sector has an opportunity to collaborate on wider online learning development. This is smart--and optimistic--thinking. More and effective cooperation will help us build a system in Canada that can ensure students are provided with the appropriate scaffolding for learning now coupled with the ongoing iteration and development of a more robust realm of learning across sectors and levels. (As an aside, the National Research Council once had a whole research unit dedicated to e-learning, including the development of technologies, metadata standards; it was disbanded in 2006 or so).

Think of this as a way to offer a seamless student experience and a single point of entry into learning capable of bridging initial engagement to learning to employment to community building through alumni. Effective online learning as a core component of the larger pedagogical support structure will help us teach the skills and competencies that our learners will put into practice. This is the essence of “extensible online learning, where the goals of skills transference are made explicit in relation to online learning, and these skills are in fact transferred into practice” (Luke et al 2009).

There are various components to consider in the migration or transition into flexible learning:

1. Determining courses and course components that can be accommodated online
This will highlight curricula strengths, and it provides an opportunity to disaggregate programs and courses into microcredentials that can be stacked in potentially creative ways to achieve learning outcomes. This disaggregation will be important for our 50-50 scenario modelling.

2. Sequencing / Flexibility to continue delivering small–group f2f learning 
A modular, flexible learning approach will not only support new modes of teaching and learning but also allow us to continue to deliver core curricula. Online components of courses can be staged or sequenced to work in conjunction with in situ learning. This extensible online learning will help us achieve learning outcomes in a staged way, and also help us stage in situ learning with less people in one place at one time as need be.

3. Matching just-in-time remedial detours to support in situ learning
Having online content readily available and accessible and shareable via a robust learning object repository will enable learners to access content when and as needed to support in situ learning.

4. Exploring integration with other curricular models and systems provincially, nationally and even internationally 
By supporting an expanded set of learning approaches and curricular options for students, there is significant opportunity to explore integration of other systems, learning objects, courses, media etc, as per Usher’s point about collaborating to compete together. eCampus Ontario's Extend is one good example of this.

5. Ensuring iterative, agile development and evaluation
Develop and deploy evaluation instruments within courses that conduct formative and summative assessment on learning outcomes, in addition to faculty and student satisfaction, for continuous quality improvement. Online learning has been around for three decades at least. This is an unprecedented opportunity to not only leverage the research and insights gained through this time, but also to conduct ongoing research and evaluation of how best to stand up flexible learning.

Doug Saunders, writing in the Globe and Mail, reminds us of another science fiction writer, William Gibson, and the premise of “The Jackpot” that underwrites Gibson’s stories: “It’s not a big bang, but rather a lethal spiral of preventable disasters abetted by incompetent leadership and economic contraction.” “But there is hope” Saunders reminds us, in that “During this crisis, and in its long recovery, it would be a terrible waste if we did not spend in ways that also make the world a cleaner and more resilient place. If we have these higher goals in mind, though, we can turn a fatal spiral into a hopeful one.”

From anytime, anywhere, to all the time, everywhere

Many years ago (2001 in fact) I read a very insightful piece by Phil Agre: Welcome to the Always-On World. This piece has been on my mind of late as the world transitions into remote work. I am reminded of something a student once said - or rather posted in an online course I was teaching back in 2003 or so (in which I was referencing the above article). We were discussing the pros and cons about online learning, and talking about the phrase being bandied about then of the Internet enabling learning anytime, anywhere. This student said online learning is more like all the time, everywhere. 

While we all realize that working from home brings its own challenges - not to mention that it has amplified issues of accessibility, access and broader digital literacy - we are all realizing that it is important to have some boundaries, mostly time-based, but habitual as well. And in many respects learning all the time everywhere is what we do anyway. It is an apt representation of what we now call experiential learning. What the Internet adds is the connection to wider communities - communities of learning, communities of interest, and communities of practice. We are all engaging in some form of "legitimate peripheral participation" in which learning happens with our peers.

For those of us in post-secondary education making a wholesale transition into more online learning, as much to enable students to salvage current semesters as to scaffold the current reality into the new normal. In making this transition we have to recognize that not everything can be taught online, but we can - and we should - leverage the wider capabilities that online learning affords in order to support skills development and digital literacy more broadly.

This means we need to engage the cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning modalities, to help learners move from head, to heart to hand - to link thinking, with doing, and to do so with care.

I've been working on updating a model of flexible learning developed via research on this topic over the past couple of decades.

Diagram showing a circular model of flexible learning, connecting the conspicuous contribution of the academic enterprise with community learning and in situ making.

The skills that are in high demand are those most difficult to teach online

Global pandemic planning has led to emphasis on online learning to ensure that students can continue to learn and finish the current term. But maker skills, which are now more than ever in demand, are the most difficult to teach online. This conundrum underlies the transition to a new, social-distancing normal.

The current crisis has amplified a downside of globalization: the interconnectivity of market production has for the past several decades led to the hollowing out of manufacturing capability. Since the early years of the last decade there have been calls for and moves toward a reshoring of manufacturing--largely a result of a lack of jobs and the social risks of insufficient employment for large swathes of the population. This in turn has led to a commensurate focus on the skills and competencies associated with being able to build and make things. And herein lies the main irony of where we are in education: the skills that are in high demand are those most difficult to teach online.

As the global community starts to grasp the magnitude of the challenges we are collectively facing those of us in universities and colleges are starting to plan for unknown event horizons, including when to restart in-person instruction. While it is not feasible to think that whole societies can remain in socially distant quasi-isolation indefinitely, we are witnessing a wholesale move towards more online, distributed, or flexible teaching and learning. This means thinking through how we can translate educational outcomes adapted for distributed teaching and learning. It also means figuring how we might prioritize programming to account for and accommodate those whose programs have been disrupted. We'll need to work out the best means to stage online back into in-person engagements, and to adapt in situ learning to the inevitable new guidelines or rules around social distancing.

Throughout this it occurs to me that those same goals of globalization--of distributing the means of production to lower cost regions--has led to precisely some of the problems we face in online education. Everything from engineering to design to health care will have to adapt in the short term, which may lead to positive changes over the long term. Now is the time to focus on how effective pedagogy can drive the use of any technology, and to heed the decades of research into teaching and learning, particularly as mediated through technologies like the Internet.

Building capacity for Indigenous research

OCAD University's new Strategic Research Plan (SRP) received Senate approval last November, after a two year process of consultation and co-design. The themes and priorities of the new SRP build on the history of research excellence at OCADU while opening avenues to expand for the future.

During the development of our new SRP I benefited from conversations with many faculty on issues pertaining to Indigenous research and OCAD University’s commitment to decolonization. This was a key topic discussed by the Research Committee. In discussions with Professors Ryan Rice and Jason Baerg they advanced the idea that the new SRP affords a unique opportunity for the University to demonstrate our commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action.

The SRP has articulated our commitment to “Nothing about us without us,” as outlined in our Academic Plan 2017-2022. This principle stipulates that research involving Indigenous peoples must be led by Indigenous peoples. It is supported by the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2 2014) which outlines our responsibilities in Chapter 9: Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada.

Within this context the University can ensure that Indigenous faculty are supported to advance their own research agendas as we continue to build capacity for Indigenous research to grow. Suggestions for how we can enact our commitment include:

• Validating and valuing different paths to academic preparation and accumulated knowledges, not always vested in specific degrees;
• Developing capacity for Indigenous researchers to meet the dedicated funding opportunities offered by funders;
• Ensuring that Indigenous faculty and communities lead research involving Indigenous peoples and communities;
• Providing the space and support for Indigenous research at the University;
• Asking applicants to internal research funding and to our Research Ethics Board to indicate if their research will help OCAD U address the TRC Calls to Action, as one way to build capacity and awareness.

There will be other suggestions for how we can achieve the goals outlined in the SRP that we can take into account. Taking steps such as these our SRP Implementation will help to ensure that the TRC Calls to Action do not fade from research and practice. Enacting suggestions like these as part of the SRP Implementation will send a clear signal about our commitment to decolonization, help us educate the broader research community with whom we interact—faculty, students, communities and partners alike—on the importance of the TRC Calls to Action, and help us track progress over time against these goals. 

I look forward to supporting the University community as we embark on this exciting next step in our research journey.

This is Research at OCAD University

Check out our new poster campaign: This is Research at OCAD University - and see the breadth and depth of research OCADU faculty are undertaking. From the visual to the virtual, and the prototypical to the physical, each poster shows how our faculty are engaging with new forms of knowledge, materials and ideas at the forefront of research and creative practice. And, importantly, they demonstrate to our publics, our students and our partners, the value of ideation, exploration, knowledge and artistic creation.

https://www2.ocadu.ca/news/this-is-research

Advancing Research and Research-Creation: New Developments

Just in time for the new year are two significant developments for Canada from the Tri-Agency.

The first is the release of the new draft Canadian Research and Development Classification; the second is a new Toolkit with an Accompanying Guide for the Responsible Conduct of Research-Creation (RCRC).

The draft Canadian Research and Development Classification is significant in that it represents the first update to the research taxonomy since the inception of the Tri-Agency. This is important for several reasons, chief among these is the fact that new disciplines have arisen in the past 40 years. OCAD University has been advocating for this change for several years. Design and design research, for example, were not locatable within the previous (extant) taxonomy, despite the more than 500 disciplines and sub-disciplines supported by SSHRC. This was a key feature of our submission to the Review of Fundamental Science. See a summary of our position here.

Key here is upcoming consultations on the implementation of this new classification taxonomy. It will be important for all scholars, but importantly those in Art, Design and Media, to provide input as to how the new standard meets (or does not) their disciplinary needs. The OCAD University Research Office will be coordinating responses.

The launch of the  Toolkit with an Accompanying Guide for the Responsible Conduct of Research-Creation (RCRC) is important as it represents a significant step forward in accounting for the conduct of research as it intersects with artistic practice. OCAD University's Senate approved our new Strategic Research Plan last November, and during the 2 years of consultations on this new document our community had extensive conversations about the issues attendant on research and art - what is referred to as research-creation. During the formation of our new Policy on Research Integrity Policy, a requirement for the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (2016), the OCAD University community recognized that research in Art, Design and Media contexts resists easy classification and creates many grey areas where a policy has difficulty in addressing. This new Toolkit will go a long way to addressing these issues.

On science and diversity

There are many things to celebrate about Canada's commitment to both science and diversity of late. Canada recently appointed a scientist and astronaut, her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, as Governor General of Canada. And Dr Mona Nemer is Canada’s new Chief Science Advisor. Having women in these high profile roles sends an important and positive signal to Canada and the world regarding the value of gender diversity and science-based inquiry.

The importance of gender diversity is highlighted in the Statement by the Prime Minister on Global Entrepreneurship Week. And two articles in yesterday's Globe and Mail support the need to ensure more women are engaged in the technology industries, and that panels at conferences are inclusive.

The Governor General has received a lot of press for her recent remarks on the importance of science and policy, and has been unfairly subject to criticism for talking about the importance of science. One wonders if the editorial comments would have been different had a male delivered these remarks.

And this is an important point to underscore. Prime Minister Trudeau's famous remark "Because it is 2015" stands as a watershed marker in gender parity and diversity for the federal government cabinet. The Canada Research Chair program has specific diversity targets under the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan. It is worth noting that OCAD University is a leader in this area given our focus on diversity and equity as core to our Academic Plan; decolonization and diversity & equity are the first two principles of this plan.

We all have a responsibility to support and promote diversity and inclusion. Advancing this in accordance with a shift toward science-informed policy will help us foster inclusive social and economic development.

GradEx 102 and the importance of art, design and creativity

OCAD University's 102nd annual Graduate Exhibition - #GradEx102 - concluded on this past Sunday, having seen over 45000 visitors to our campus to take in over 900 graduating students' exhibitions. It was impressive. Graduates from across our programs - from Drawing and Painting, Environmental and Industrial Design and Digital Futures to name a few - presented their final projects in a variety of media, from tangible to digital. I had the opportunity to tour through GradEx many times, and I was consistently impressed with not only the quality of the projects on display, but also the ability of the students to articulate the purpose of their work, and what skills and competencies they learned throughout their education at OCAD U. From gorgeous works of art through to industrial designs that address healthcare and wearable computing, and video games that help people cope with mental health issues, GradEx offered an intensely personal insight into the people that fuel innovation and the creative economy.

Here is my take-away on what I learned from GradEx102:

Art, design and creativity are everywhere. All around us we see the benefit of the arts, and the importance of design and creativity to social and economic inclusion and productivity. 

OCAD U is art, design and creativity. Particularly at events like GradEx it is abundantly clear that our graduates exemplify how art, design and creativity help us to imagine not just a beautiful world, but one that seeks to change the world around us for the better. 

OCAD U is everywhere. Our graduates work in every sector of the economy. This is because the power of the imagination benefits all.

The students at GradEx102 - all OCAD U students - are the highly qualified and creative makers of the world. If the goal of education is to make one privately happy and publicly useful, then it is the goal of art and design education to make the public happy.

Design is Everywhere; OCADU is Design; OCADU is Everywhere