Models for online, open, flexible and technology enhanced higher education across the globe – a comparative analysis

Digital technology has become near ubiquitous in many countries today or is on a path to reach this state in the near future. Across the globe the share of internet users, for instance, has jumped in the last ten years. In Europe most countries have a share of internet users near to or above 90% in 2016 (last year available for international comparisons), in China the current share is 53%, but this has grown from just 16% in 2007, even in Ethiopia the share has grown from 0.4% to 15.4% in the same period (data from ITU). At the same time expectations of widespread adoption of digital solutions in higher education have been rising. In 2017 the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report predicted that adaptive learning would take less than a year to be widely adopted (Adams Becker et al., 2017). And projects such as ‘Virtually Inspired’ are showcasing creative examples of how new technologies are already being harnessed to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Furthermore, discussion of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals emphasise the key potentials that digital technology holds for achieving the goals for education in 2030 (UNESCO, 2017). These developments lead university and college leadership to the question of how they should position their institution. What type of digitalisation initiatives can be found practice beyond best practices and future potentials? This is the question that this study attempts to answer. It sets out to analyse how higher education providers from across the world are harnessing digitalisation to improve teaching and learning and learner support and to identify emerging types of practice. For this, it focuses on the dimensions of flexibility of provision (in terms of time, place and pace) and openness of provision (in terms of who has access to learning and support and who is involved in the design of learning provision), as both of these dimensions can significantly benefit from integration of digital solutions. The method of information collation used by the study was a global survey of higher education institutions (HEIs) covering all world continents, more than thirty countries and 69 cases. The survey found that nearly three-quarters of all HEIs have at least one strategic focus and typologies were developed based on this analysis to group HEIs with similar strategic focuses. Overall, the findings suggest that most higher education providers are just at the beginning of developing comprehensive strategies for harnessing digitalisation. For this reason, the authors of this study believe that providers can benefit from the outcomes of this study’s research, as it can be used by university and college leadership for benchmarking similarities and differences and for cooperative peer learning between institutions. The database of cases and the guidelines for reviewing current strategies, which accompany this study, aim to facilitate this learning and evaluation process

Broadcasting the science stories of BGS: The British Geological Survey communications strategy

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a world leading geological survey that focuses on public-good science for government, and research to understand earth and environmental processes. Prior to November 2006, the communications culture of the BGS had been largely driven by reaction to news events and managing media requests as they emerged. Since 2007, when greater emphasis was placed on more proactive communications, the public profile of the BGS was successfully raised. In 2014, the BGS released its new science strategy, Gateway to the Earth: Science for the next decade. This has the vision of BGS becoming a global geological survey with a focus on new technologies, responsible use of natural resources, management of environmental change and resilience to environment hazards. This has informed the development of a new communications strategy for the BGS, which is outlined in this report. The main audiences for BGS science and technology are the public, government and other decision makers, industry and private business, academia, BGS staff and the wider NERC community and the media. Communication with these audiences is largely through the broadcast media and the internet, with additional communication through the print media, and the public engagement activities of the BGS. The UK Governments communications plan for 2014-15 has as its vision ‘exceptional communications’, and the Government’s Digital Strategy aims to put more data into the public domain. The key messages in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills policy paper ‘Engaging the public in science and engineering’ are that new audiences need to be targeted outside those already interested in science and that engagement needs to be ‘where people naturally congregate, rather than expecting them to come to us’. The communication trends that have influenced the development of the new BGS communications strategy have included: mobile went mainstream; transparency and trust; social media; science stories; image is everything; and, analytics and evidence. The new communication vision is to Establish the British Geological Survey as a global authority for geoscience. The over-arching aim is to create the maximum impact for BGS science and technology by communication with the world through the media, web and public engagement. BGS will make use of traditional, new and emerging communication channels to communicate its research with the following overarching themes: • broadcasting – broadcast the science of the BGS • science – demonstrate the impact of BGS science • stories – tell the geoscience stories of the BGS. The following are the key communication objectives: • make BGS the ‘go to’ organisation for geoscience news events in the UK and globally • use broadcast quality video to communicate the research of the BGS • use infographics to illustrate the impact of BGS research • engage a wider audience by telling the science stories of the BGS • create a website that is the first port of call for geoscience information • create a positive reputation and strong brand image for the BGS using social media • create a novel digital publication channel to publish the research of the BGS • actively work to promote geoscience as a career choice and to explain BGS research • create a more successful research community in BGS by effective internal communication (both one-way and two-way)

How students can combine earning with learning through flexible business process sourcing: a proposition

Research by the Centre for Global Sourcing and Services at Loughborough University has highlighted an emerging skills gap between the entry-level of those professional careers that form the bedrock of business support services within organisations and the ‘talent pipeline’ to senior roles such as business partner. The reconfiguration, re-engineering and relocation of many back and middle-office roles through business process outsourcing (BPO) and shared service centres (SSC) is causing a serious career entry problem, because the training 'nurseries', where the skills, knowledge and behaviours of a life-long professional career, are forged. At present this trend is largely under the media radar because the SSC operates within company boundaries and migration to offshore locations is generally both piecemeal and phased. Economic effects are also masked by a 'honeymoon' effect of lower costs for organisations but little resistance from displaced workers as they retire, receive redundancy compensation or leave through natural wastage when migration is phased. However, portents of the future are already manifesting: Indeed, typical student debt has now risen to around £50,000, graduate entry jobs are now falling (Association of Graduate Recruiters, 2016) and at the same time there is evidence emerging that the 'talent pipeline' into mid-level career roles such as business partners and data analysis experts is drying up. More positively, our report suggests that it should be attractive for organisations to employ undergraduates in ‘middle-office’ work on an Earn-to-Learn basis throughout the course of their degree programmes. The idea is to enable students to access quality work-based learning which will allow them to improve their work-readiness and graduate with lower debt, and perhaps near to debt-free especially where schemes are able to access graduate apprenticeship funding. There are significant advantages for a range of stakeholders. Universities have an opportunity to widen access by encouraging those potential students who may be put off by high graduation debt and thus, improve employability rates. Organisations will have access to a new, intelligent, flexible workforce, at an attractive cost relative to many offshore destinations, especially with the lower Sterling exchange rate. Moreover, there is the opportunity to rebuild the talent pipeline and contribute to Corporate Social Responsibility by helping young people to get a career start. For government and regional economies there is a chance to stem the outflow of good quality service work and build capability in new knowledge work by designing programmes for data analytics and robotic process automation solutions. Moving forward will require a partnership between organisations, universities, professional bodies and regional policy makers and each group must be flexible in its demands; there are rewards for all parties but nothing will be achieved without co-operation

A National Dialogue on Health Information Technology and Privacy

Increasingly, government leaders recognize that solving the complex problems facing America today will require more than simply keeping citizens informed. Meeting challenges like rising health care costs, climate change and energy independence requires increased level of collaboration. Traditionally, government agencies have operated in silos -- separated not only from citizens, but from each other, as well. Nevertheless, some have begun to reach across and outside of government to access the collective brainpower of organizations, stakeholders and individuals.The National Dialogue on Health Information Technology and Privacy was one such initiative. It was conceived by leaders in government who sought to demonstrate that it is not only possible, but beneficial and economical, to engage openly and broadly on an issue that is both national in scope and deeply relevant to the everyday lives of citizens. The results of this first-of-its-kind online event are captured in this report, together with important lessons learned along the way.This report served as a call to action. On his first full day in office, President Obama put government on notice that this new, more collaborative model can no longer be confined to the efforts of early adopters. He called upon every executive department and agency to "harness new technology" and make government "transparent, participatory, and collaborative." Government is quickly transitioning to a new generation of managers and leaders, for whom online collaboration is not a new frontier but a fact of everyday life. We owe it to them -- and the citizens we serve -- to recognize and embrace the myriad tools available to fulfill the promise of good government in the 21st Century.Key FindingsThe Panel recommended that the Administration give stakeholders the opportunity to further participate in the discussion of heath IT and privacy through broader outreach and by helping the public to understand the value of a person-centered view of healthcare information technology

Decoding learning: the proof, promise and potential of digital education

With hundreds of millions of pounds spent on digital technology for education every year – from interactive whiteboards to the rise of one–to–one tablet computers – every new technology seems to offer unlimited promise to learning. many sectors have benefitted immensely from harnessing innovative uses of technology. cloud computing, mobile communications and internet applications have changed the way manufacturing, finance, business services, the media and retailers operate. But key questions remain in education: has the range of technologies helped improve learners’ experiences and the standards they achieve? or is this investment just languishing as kit in the cupboard? and what more can decision makers, schools, teachers, parents and the technology industry do to ensure the full potential of innovative technology is exploited? There is no doubt that digital technologies have had a profound impact upon the management of learning. institutions can now recruit, register, monitor, and report on students with a new economy, efficiency, and (sometimes) creativity. yet, evidence of digital technologies producing real transformation in learning and teaching remains elusive. The education sector has invested heavily in digital technology; but this investment has not yet resulted in the radical improvements to learning experiences and educational attainment. in 2011, the Review of Education Capital found that maintained schools spent £487 million on icT equipment and services in 2009-2010. 1 since then, the education system has entered a state of flux with changes to the curriculum, shifts in funding, and increasing school autonomy. While ring-fenced funding for icT equipment and services has since ceased, a survey of 1,317 schools in July 2012 by the british educational suppliers association found they were assigning an increasing amount of their budget to technology. With greater freedom and enthusiasm towards technology in education, schools and teachers have become more discerning and are beginning to demand more evidence to justify their spending and strategies. This is both a challenge and an opportunity as it puts schools in greater charge of their spending and use of technolog

Flexible Deep Learning in Edge Computing for Internet of Things

Deep learning is a promising approach for extracting accurate information from raw sensor data from IoT devices deployed in complex environments. Because of its multilayer structure, deep learning is also appropriate for the edge computing environment. Traditional edge computing models have rigid characteristics. Flexible edge computing architecture solves rigidity in IoT edge computing. Proposed model combines deep learning into edge computing and flexible edge computing architecture using multiple agents. Since existing edge nodes have limited processing capability, we also design a novel offloading strategy to optimize the performance of IoT deep learning applications with edge computing. FEC architecture is a flexible and advanced IoT system model characterized by environment adaptation ability and user orientation ability. In the performance evaluation, we test the performance of executing deep learning tasks in FEC architecture for edge computing environment. The evaluation results show that our method outperforms other optimization solutions on deep learning for IoT