The digital tipping point is about to hit Higher Education!

We in Higher Education are woefully ill-prepared for the disruption that lies ahead. We've seen other industries in tumult.  Our researchers have published papers about the 'Digital Future' as it pertains to them. Yet our own world remains a bastion.

I see four tipping forces coming together.  As these strike with simultaneous impact, the University as we know it may have to change rather fast.

1. Tech 

The technology now works! A limitless cloud of stuff and apps really is available from any device, anywhere, any time.  Innovations are coming faster than ever.   

2. Pedagogy

We now understand how learners learn online.  The best MOOCs have shown that it really is possible to educate at scale - for peers to help each other towards mastery - for online relationships to be real and meaningful.

3. Culture

Bright young people are increasingly resentful of the debt associated with their 'boarding school degree'.  They want more choice and flexibility as they move on and up. They advise others - their younger siblings - to seek different routes to career fulfillment.     

4. Regulation

The HE bill is opening up the UK market to new entrants - new suppliers of degrees.  And employers will want value from the big new Apprenticeship Levy they now have to pay.  Will they start bringing in the talent through this different door?

We had better hold on tight! 

A digital strategy for Nottingham!

We've made it! IT Strategy Board has approved our strategy. It's been 18 months in the oven but is all the better for the slow cook.

The vision will be unsurprising for generation Z. Indeed they may be surprised this needs saying at all - so immersed are they already in the digital world.

But it does need saying, because funding this is going to take a radical shift of investment from the physical to the digital. There are some XXL items here. Once we've delivered our immediate priorities - Project Transform , the Research Information System, the move to Office 365 and our Smarter Computing Programme we'll be ready for the next big thing. Where should our focus turn next?

'e-strategy' has become 'digital strategy' but that's not all that's changed in 16 years!

So it's 16 years since I joined the University of Warwick to write it's 'e-strategy'.  The new century had started and the age of the internet was upon us.  What did this mean for Universities? 

 

I recently found a dusty old copy of that e-strategy.  Reading something you wrote 16 years ago can be uncomfortable - such naiveté!  We missed some things that now seem obvious (there's no mention of WiFi) but we made some good guesses too:

 

• Ubiquitous mobile devices
• Any time anywhere learning
• Tools for rich collaboration
• Video streaming and On demand multimedia content 
• Student portal
• Digital library
• Dynamic web presence
• High performance computing and large data - (not 'big' data!)

 

And we certainly have seen huge evolutionary change in all of these areas.

 

Now of course, we have a 'Digital Strategy' but this is more than a name change.  It predicts much deeper change.  It responds to the 'why's not just the 'how's of University life. 

 

The real disruption - the big revolution - is still ahead and my life in Higher Education could be about to get even more interesting!