campusreview . com . au policy & reform
mode where students who couldn ’ t make it into the campus that day , or had some particular accessibility challenge that we put in front of them , that we could break down that barrier .
What happened with COVID was that every student on earth was faced with an accessibility challenge , and isn ’ t it great to be prepared for that ?
How well prepared were others , in the way that you were well-prepared , for what happened in 2020 , do you think ? I think there ’ s a pretty big spectrum . There were people who were saying , ‘ Oh , I ’ ve been teaching fully online for years , and it was just another day in the office ,’ and there were some people who were stressed to near breaking point , with not only the pressure that was placed upon them , but the pressure they placed upon themselves .
I often refer to it as a challenge of getting the basics right in the digital environment , as opposed to the physical environment , and I think we saw a lot of people suddenly thinking that they had to be video editors or create all of these digital activities , rather than realising that what we actually needed to do was just connect people together digitally in a really communicative and inclusive way .
You wrote an article for Times Higher Education where you commented on how many academics were perhaps becoming content creators , and the article commented on how challenging this was , for them and their students . What are the issues there as you see them ? The habit was to think , ‘ Okay , well , we ’ re doing these Zoom calls . Maybe what we need to start doing is packaging content up into video ,’ and all of a sudden we ’ ve got academics desperately trying to learn video editing software and make these punchy 15 minute videos , and they ’ re just probably not going to be very good .
There are , of course , some academics who do an amazing job , who were really YouTubers on the side , but it ’ s just not what education is . We ’ ve got a tradition of saying to students , ‘ Go buy that textbook .’ It ’ s proof that the content was never really what we were offering . It was the community and the engagement and the environment of higher education . That ’ s what really changes people ’ s lives .
And today we have all of these digital certifications , a Google certification in something or other , and that ’ s fine . That ’ s a piece of knowledge , or a piece of learning , or a capability , but it ’ s not an education .
How do you think our universities have handled the introduction of technology into the activities of academics over the longer term , and particularly with the disruptions caused by the pandemic ? If I ’ m going to be brutally honest , I don ’ t think that universities did much more than survive in 2020 , and I ’ m still not really seeing or hearing any substantial changes in the higher education sector to adapt to what is coming , which is hybrid education .
I saw very little in 2020 that I thought was particularly good . I know that a lot of people were patting themselves on the back saying , ‘ Yay , we survived the pandemic ,’ but I actually just don ’ t think people have done a very good job . I don ’ t think universities have done a very good job . I don ’ t think that the necessary investments have been made , and I don ’ t think the level of thoughtful leadership necessary to do that has been put in place either .
The content was never really what we were offering . It was the community and the engagement and the environment of higher education .
We ’ ve seen longstanding claims by universities that they have great commitment , to varying degrees , to digital innovation and a focus on the student experience , yet it could be argued that the business model of our universities still appears to focus on rankings and reputation , that perhaps are more researchbased than anything else .
Do you believe there ’ s any misalignment between how universities currently compete in terms of rankings and reputation and what they ’ re saying about their commitment to digital innovation and the student experience ? Yes . There ’ s a huge misalignment . Education remains the golden goose , the cash cow , of universities and research . While it is bolstering our reputation , it is often actually costing us money . So there ’ s a huge imbalance and we are seeing QILT and other measures like that increasing in relevancy .
We ’ re seeing university rankings like Times Higher Education slowly adjusting their metrics over time , to bring educational quality up in terms of its relevancy . I think that there is something of an equilibrating force occurring , but not as much as there should be .
Do you think that business models and competition on real digital innovation and the experiences that we provide for our students will emerge as the replacement for some of those research rankings ? Now when we teach a fantastic course , and we have students who go out in the workplace , who fill out their QILT surveys and say , ‘ I had a great educational experience … my educational institution changed the course of my life ,’ that is real direct impact . So it is actually crazy when you think about it , that we ’ re holding these universities up on this idea of people citing people in a circle , not necessarily to any meaningful output .
Continued over page
13