Another challenge for universities is finding a way to support the new teaching and learning models needed to be competitive and future-ready. Increasingly, they are turning to industry and forging partnerships to gain the new capabilities and additional resources they need.
The key is to focus on being a “connected university,” said Professor Stephen Parker, Partner and Education Sector Leader at KPMG Australia.
“We see the connected university as joining up people, processes, and technology seamlessly,” he said. “Its people connect easily with each other, and they use technology as easily as stepping into a lift.”
Professor den Hollander thinks universities must partner with each other and industry more to foster innovation and leverage technology. She views blockchain as a potential tool to facilitate this as a secure global platform that could revolutionise training, collaboration, and accreditation.
“Blockchain has the potential to change how we value and fund education, and how we reward students for the quality of their work,” she said.
Cisco is working in partnership with Australian universities including Flinders, Deakin, Melbourne, Curtin, Victoria, and La Trobe. These partnerships have technology and innovation at the core, and focus on co-creating solutions to university and industry problems.
In addition, the Cisco Networking Academy certifies students in areas such as networking, the IoT, cybersecurity, and entrepreneurship. Flinders University includes Cisco modules in its undergraduate degrees so that students can simultaneously earn a Bachelor’s degree and an industry credential.
Chitkara University, a relatively young institution in northern India, has partnerships with Cisco and other leading companies and industry groups to develop industry-relevant curricula and assist with state-of-the-art equipment. It also has partnerships with more than 150 other universities, said Pawan Kumar, Director, Information Technology at the university.
Not surprisingly, communication and collaboration were challenging, Kumar said. However, that has greatly improved through the use of Webex for conferences, lectures, and long-distance learning.
The digital world is also opening up opportunities in primary and secondary schools. For example, technology is being used in Victoria to provide more equitable access to learning resources across city and regional locations, according to Elizabeth Wilson, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the Victorian Department of Education and Training.
“It’s really about creating a superior, intuitive user experience, and an adoption program that will enable teachers to apply technology to different ways of teaching—such as program-based learning and virtual education experiences with clear linkage to delivery of curriculum,” she said.
But new technology itself is not enough. Developing teachers’ skills in delivering education with digital tools is critical, Wilson said.
“Equipment and technology do not make a digital classroom. It’s how technology and digital resources are applied that is the key.”