policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Digital transformation
A new report reveals the
priorities of students and
educators in relation to the digital
transformation of higher learning.
By Loren Smith
N
avitas Ventures – the innovation
arm of global higher education
provider Navitas – has been
pondering digital transformation in higher
education. After realising that universities,
students and edtech venture founders
were too, it solicited their views on
the matter.
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“We wanted to enrich the conversation
with data,” chief executive Patrick Brothers
explained.
These anonymous voices were
compacted in a report, Digital
Transformation in Higher Education, which
showed that the tech priorities of 26
leaders from Navitas partner universities
from Australia, the US, Canada and the
UK differed to those of 100 students and
recent graduates, which again contrasted
with those of 42 edtech startup founders
and leaders.
Among the groups, ideas about how
close the university sector is to disruption
were also discordant.
DISRUPTION IMMINENT?
All groups agreed disruption is a given. Yet
the students, from universities in Europe,
North America, Africa, Asia and Australia,
and edtech leaders from Australia, the US,
the UK, Asia and Israel thought it would
happen much sooner.
One in four said it would happen within
the next three years. This is distinct from
the vast majority of university leaders’
views: 90 per cent of the vice-chancellors
surveyed thought it would only occur
by 2030, the year current kindergarten
students would enter universities.
“It’s not going to be as fast as everybody
says, it’s not going to be as transformative