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

Comment to the article 'Setting policy agenda for the social dimension of the Bologna Process' by Yasemin Yagci (2014)

Reply to: Setting Policy Agenda for the Social Dimension of the Bologna Process, by Yasemin Yagci doi:10.1057/hep.2013.38 (published online 7 Jan 2014

Social and Economic Conditions of Student Life in Europe: Synopsis of indicators - Final Report - Eurostudent III 2005-2008

The EUROSTUDENT report is based on a unique dataset covering more than 120,000 students in 23 European countries. The surveyed students provided information on the social and economic conditions of their life. In essence, the EUROSTUDENT dataset describes a biography from entrance into a higher education system, to study conditions during studies, and finally to exit from the higher education system. Additionally, it covers temporary international mobility. The analysis offers the chance to review common practices and their effectiveness in the light of European trends and with the insight that alternatives are possible and, in some cases, actually being practiced by neighbouring countries

Social and Economic Conditions of Student Life in Europe: Synopsis of indicators - Final report - Eurostudent IV 2008-2011

This publication is a compendium of key indicators on the social dimension of higher education. It presents the findings of the 4th round of the EUROSTUDENT project, to which 25 countries forming part of the European Higher Education Area have contributed. With a view to obtaining internationally comparable data on the social and economic conditions of student life in Europe, more than 200,000 students were surveyed by the 25 national partners between 2008 and 2011. The thematic design of this report reflects a lifelong learning student's course of study, from transition into higher education to a forecast on future studies. It concentrates on 3 main topic areas: access to higher education and the organisation of studies, students' resources and expenses as well as international student mobility. The Synopsis of Indicators intends to contribute to the ongoing process of establishing a European-wide monitoring infrastructure on the social dimension of higher education, thereby inspiring policy debates and further research in the field. "This Synopsis of Indicators, together with the associated national reports and the online data base, provide an important resource for higher education policy makers and researchers." (Extract from Foreword by Prof. Patrick Clancy

How is Digitalisation Affecting the Flexibility and Openness of Higher Education Provision? Results of a Global Survey Using a New Conceptual Model

The adoption of open, online, flexible and technology-enhanced modes of learning (in short: of OOFAT) differs by higher education institution, despite the general cries of revolution and disruption due to digitalisation. This paper presents a new conceptual model for framing difference in three key educational processes (content, delivery and recognition) related to the potential of digitalisation to make these processes more flexible and more open. It is based on the results of a global survey of 69 higher education providers. The findings reveal six distinct archetypes of technology-enhanced higher education which vary according to the extent to which digitalisation is harnessed for content, delivery and recognition, and suggest different institutional strategies of digital adoption. It is hoped that this contribution will support comparative analysis of digitalisation strategies and peer learning between institutions

Open Educational Resources: A Catalyst for Innovation

Foreword: Open educational resources (OER) are rapidly becoming a major phenomenon in education across OECD countries and beyond. Initiated largely at the level of institutions by pioneers and technology advocates, the OER community has grown considerably over the past ten years and the impact of OER on educational systems has become an issue of public policy. The open education community is increasingly well organised and enjoys support from various institutions and foundations. National governments have developed, or are in the process of developing, open policies to support access to and use of OER. It is the task of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) and the OECD Directorate for Education to help policy makers and other stakeholders to confront challenges and benefit from new developments in the educational domain for better policies on improving teaching and learning. This report follows earlier work by CERI on OER, which resulted in the publication Giving Knowledge for Free in 2007, and an OECD country questionnaire on OER-related policy and activities in 2012. It seeks to provide a state of the art review of evidence on OER practice and impacts, and evaluate the remaining challenges for OER entering the mainstream of educational practice

Die Finanzierungsmethodik im englischen Universitätssektor: Eine verfahrensanalytische Untersuchung ihrer Implikationen und Folgen

In der vorliegenden Publikation wird die Entstehung der leistungsbezogenen Hochschulfinanzierung im englischen Universitätssektor untersucht. Leistungsbezogene Hochschulfinanzierung wird in vielen Ländern als geeigneter Lösungsansatz für das Problem der gerechten Verteilung von staatlichen Finanzmitteln an individuelle Hochschulen diskutiert. Das englische Beispiel zeigt sich als sehr lehrreich für die Diskussion um die Umsetzung und die Konsequenzen eines solchen Lösungsansatzes. Der größte Teil der staatlichen Finanzmittel wurde den Universitäten seit Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts als globale Zuweisung zugeteilt. Die Entscheidung über die Höhe der Summe dieses Geldes wurde ursprünglich von einem nicht-amtlichen Organ, dessen Mitglieder mehrheitlich Akademiker waren, bestimmt. Veränderungen der Mitgliedschaft und Verfahren dieses Organs und dessen Nachfolger-Organe haben wesentliche indirekte Implikationen und direkte Folgen für die Universitäten in England hervorgebracht. Die Verfahren zur Bewertung der Qualität der Leistung einer Universität sowie zur Verteilung von Finanzmitteln entsprechend dieser Leistung stellen das Instrumentarium für einen neuen steuernden Einfluss des Staates dar. Da die Höhe der staatlichen Finanzmittel für die Universitäten indessen seit Anfang der 80er Jahre stark abgenommen hat, müssen die Universitäten sich gleichzeitig erfolgreich auf dem Markt behaupten können. Die Universitäten müssen also innerhalb eines gestalterischen Raumes agieren, der zwischen Markt und Staat -- als die wesentlichen Einflussgrößen -- aufgespannt ist. Das Grundverhältnis zwischen dem Staat und den Universitäten zeigt sich entsprechend als höchst komplex. Dabei müssen die Universitäten eine Managementkompetenz entwickeln, die eine Maximierung an Finanzierung verspricht, während sie gleichzeitig die Grundaufgaben der Lehre und Forschung vor allzu negativen Konsequenzen dieser Wirtschaftsorientierung bewahren soll. Die Publikation belegt anhand einer Fallstudie, dass nicht alle Universitäten hierzu in der Lage sind und, dass die Implikationen und Folgen des sogenannten "Finanzierungsregimes" für deren Aufgabenerfüllung nachteilig sein können. Es wird deutlich, dass die konkreten Verfahren der Hochschulfinanzierung und, hier insbesondere, leistungsbezogene Ansätze nicht allein als technische Lösungen betrachtet werden können, sondern sie sollen nur im Zusammenhang mit einer Vorstellung von der idealen Universität gesehen werden, denn diese Verfahren beeinflussen die Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten einer Universität in direkter und indirekter Weise.This publication investigates the emergence of performance-based funding in the English university sector. Performance-based funding of higher education institutions is discussed in many countries as an appropriate solution to the problem of distributing public funding to individual universities in a fair manner. The English example proves to be very instructive to the discussion with regards to the implementation, and then the implications, of such a proposal. From the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of public funding was distributed as a lump sum to individual universities in England. Decisions on the amount of funding were originally determined by a non-governmental body, whose members were mainly academics. Changes to this membership and to the procedures of this body have had a number of indirect implications for and direct effects on universities in England. Procedures for assessing the qualitative performance of universities, together with procedures which distribute funding according to this assessment provide the instruments of a new steering-influence utilised by the State, a new form of Public Management. As the amount of public state funding for universities has been reduced drastically since the beginning of the 1980's, universities have had to strive concurrently for funds on the open market. Universities are thus being forced to act within an area defined by the market and the State - the two strongest influences on the university sector. The fundamental relationship between the State and its universities has accordingly become highly complex. Universities, for their part, must develop management competencies, which promise a maximisation of funding, whilst at the same time aiming to protect a university's vital tasks of teaching and research from the more negative consequences of business-orientation. In a concluding case study, some evidence is provided which shows that not all universities are in a position to do this and that the implications and effects of the so-called "funding regime" are disadvantageous, in such cases, for their fulfilment of this entrepreneurial challenge. It becomes clear that the concrete procedures for funding higher education institutions and, in particular, performance-based models cannot been seen solely as technical solutions, but must instead be seen in combination with an idea of the ideal university, since these procedures influence the strategic options of a university both directly and indirectly

Behavioral Neurogenetic Studies of a Circadian Clock in Drosophila melanogaster

The circadian clock controlling the locomotor activity of the adult fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, is studied in one wild-type and five clock mutant strains. Locomotive activity of individual flies are monitored using arrays of infra-red beams and detectors. It is found that the temperature compensation mechanism is intact in the mutants And and ClkK06, is slightly defective in the mutant pers and is grossly defective in the mutants perl1 and perl2. In the pers and perl1 mutants, this defect is enhanced when both eyes and major parts of both optic lobes are eliminated by a genetic mutation (sine oculus). The inter-individual variation of periods in a strain is found to increase much more than linearly with the average period of the same strain. The interaction between the And and the per loci and that between the And and ClkK06 loci are found to be either very weak or non-existent (effects of mutations additive), whereas the interactions among the various alleles in the per locus are found to be strong (effects of mutations non-additive). Ten 'Phase Resetting Curves' (PRC) obtained with saturating light pulses for six strains of flies at various temperatures are presented. All the ten cases exhibit basically 'type-1' resetting behavior (average slope = 1). Comparisons of the PRC's for pers, perl1 and wild-type at 17°C suggest that the mutations pers and perl1 change the period of the circadian clock by differentially shortening and lengthening, respectively, the duration of the 'subjective day' phase of the oscillation. Comparisons between the PRC's for pers at 17°C, 22°C, and 25°C and comparison between the wild-type PRC's at 17°C and 22°C do not reveal major changes in the temporal structure of these two circadian clocks over the stated temperature ranges. The responses of one wild-type and five mutant circadian clocks to sustained dim light of the range 5 x 10-4 lux to 50 lux at 22°C are studied. In each strain, a critical 'window' of light intensity is found within which a variety of unstable clock features, including arrhythmia, are observed. The light intensity at which this critical window occurs in each of the mutant is 5 to 10 times lower than that in the wild-type. Responses from a ERG-defective mutant (norpA) are found to be qualitatively, but not quantitatively, similar to that of the wild-type. Responses from an eyeless and ocelli-less mutant (sine oculus) indicate that both period changes and arrhythmicity can be elicited by light in the absence of the compound eyes and ocelli. However, the sharp dependence of the occurences of these phenomena on light intensity is lost in this mutant. Arguments are presented to suggest that none of the four mutations -- And, ClkK06, pers, and perl1 -- cause changes of period by mimicking the effects of tonic light on the Drosophila circadian system. The phase resetting curves (PRC) and the dim light responses described above are found to be incompatible with a particular model of the Velocity Response Curve (VRC) theory to inter-relate the phasic to tonic effects of light, in which the tonic effect of light is assumed to be the result of a summation of the effects of a contiguous series of single Light pulses, taking into account adaptation.</p

PopSparse: Accelerated block sparse matrix multiplication on IPU

Reducing the computational cost of running large scale neural networks using sparsity has attracted great attention in the deep learning community. While much success has been achieved in reducing FLOP and parameter counts while maintaining acceptable task performance, achieving actual speed improvements has typically been much more difficult, particularly on general purpose accelerators (GPAs) such as NVIDIA GPUs using low precision number formats. In this work we introduce PopSparse, a library that enables fast sparse operations on Graphcore IPUs by leveraging both the unique hardware characteristics of IPUs as well as any block structure defined in the data. We target two different types of sparsity: static, where the sparsity pattern is fixed at compile-time; and dynamic, where it can change each time the model is run. We present benchmark results for matrix multiplication for both of these modes on IPU with a range of block sizes, matrix sizes and densities. Results indicate that the PopSparse implementations are faster than dense matrix multiplications on IPU at a range of sparsity levels with large matrix size and block size. Furthermore, static sparsity in general outperforms dynamic sparsity. While previous work on GPAs has shown speedups only for very high sparsity (typically 99\% and above), the present work demonstrates that our static sparse implementation outperforms equivalent dense calculations in FP16 at lower sparsity (around 90%). IPU code is available to view and run at ipu.dev/sparsity-benchmarks, GPU code will be made available shortly