Survey - Future of Higher Education and ICT in Higher Education

The survey organized within the project “Access, Equity and Quality: Envisioning the Sustainable Future of Postsecondary Education in a Digital Age” run by the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education in collaboration with the UNESCO Headquarters is aimed to identify how the technological change in relation to the development of the social and economic context is changing the learning needs and opportunities as well as the organizational and institutional settings of postsecondary education and what are the key implications for policy makers in governments, universities, companies and civil society. The main topics of the survey are: The questionnaire was tested and discussed with the UNESCO Chairs in ICT in Education and during the Global High-Level Policy Forum and is now online. We kindly invite you to contribute to our project by answering the questions in the survey and to further discussions that will be announced when we have preliminary results of the survey in September 2015.

General information about the respondent

Please answer several questions to specify your background.

Section 1: Validation and credentialing of learning results and open educational resources

The internet offers an overwhelming amount of open educational resources and open digital courseware (OCW, MOOCs and WIKIs) that crosses national borders and may increasingly offer alternatives to the present curricula-based focus of higher education. The IITE expert meeting concluded that this development may cause institutions to rethink the system of awarding credits and even revise the concept of locally-bound curricular learning.

Crucial questions are arising about the need for formal degrees and qualifications when knowledge and learning are abundantly available. Other related questions include the way in which institutions will accept formal and informal learning credentials (such as degree attainment or course completion) from elsewhere and the increasing need for lifelong learning, rather than a single point-in-time, immersive educational experience. These issues raise the possibility of a fragmentation (or unbundling) of learning activities and credentials, particularly when lifelong learning dimension is concerned.

Section 2: Questions to Board Members/policy advisors of higher education institutions

If you are Board member or policy advisor of a higher education institution or faculty (or fulfil similar functions) please answer this section. If not, please go to the next section

CT offers many opportunities to provide access to education for people with disabilities. Some of these opportunities require little or no additional investments, like distance learning for people with mobility problems. Other solutions, like oral provisions for blind people and additional visual support for people with hearing impairments may require additional investments.

Section 3: Curriculum change /Institutional development and teachers

Open digital resources and courseware can be used in many locations around the world, while ICT opens up the possibilities for international cooperation of learners through the internet. These developments create the opportunity for institutions and faculty to offer a larger variety of new learning experiences at low cost to their students.

3.1. Future curricula and the expanding formal learning opportunities

3.2. Fast changing contents

Technology (in particular ICT and other technologies) changes our society and economy. The amount of available data is increasing enormously along with technologies to process and apply the data). Thus, it is increasingly possible to exchange thoughts, ideas and information and knowledge across the world and to build networks and shared expertise systems that far exceed individual capacities. For example, some experts expect systems like "google translate" to surpass the capabilities of professional translators within the coming decades. Such developments suggest that curricula in higher education have to change much faster than ever before.

3.3. Learning to use expanding technological possibilities

Curricula in higher education are focused on the use of advanced technologies that are changing at an accelerating pace. These technologies tend to take over more and more work that requires high-level cognitive skills that are taught to students. Some experts stress therefore the necessity to learn using these expanding technological possibilities and to foresee their future development and potential rather than focusing on skills that will be obsolete within a foreseeable time scale.

3.4. Changing role of higher education institutions

3.5. Future role of institutions and faculty

Due to the fact that ICT is changing the society and economy, as well as the way the (new) knowledge is created and learned, the experts foresee that institutions will have to reflect on their role in the societal and economical ecosystem changed by ICT. Possible different roles might include basic knowledge creation (incorporating new ways of knowledge creation), elite education, translation and creation of knowledge for regional development, and mass education. Another possibility is that institutions will specialize in either open distance education or campus-based learning.

3.6. Business models / access and quality

ICT provides the possibility to offer education over large distances and even throughout the world in different language areas. Some developers offer courses (MOOCs) for free or reduced prices to an enormous audience (but often with very low completion rates)? In the meantime there is an enormous difference in the prices that students have to pay for education around the world.

ICT offers many opportunities to provide access to people with disabilities, some of these opportunities require none or little additional investments as, for example, distance learning for people with mobility problems, but others may require additional investments, for instance, oral provisions for people with visual impairments and additional visual support for deaf.