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A great read to help reflections on ed tech decisions. Thanks for sharing @anda19

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Now is the time for academic technology decision-makers to close the gap between technology decisions and DEI concerns.

Credit: Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock.com © 2021

In higher education, processes for deciding which academic technologies to procure are often opaque, unclear, and idiosyncratic to everyone involved. The decision-makers for procuring particular tools can range from senior-level administrators to middle-level directors across divisions ranging from academic affairs to student affairs and, of course, to information technology. The decision-makers, in other words, are often removed from the classroom contexts by either a minor or a significant degree.

Meanwhile, technology procurement decisions in higher education have wide-ranging consequences and long-term implications. Rarely are technology procurements in higher education a minimal investment. Most technology procurements involve multiterm evaluation periods and, after that, are often locked into multiyear contracts for usage. On top of all the long timelines for procurement and tool maintenance, mechanisms for collecting student and faculty feedback about particular tools and technologies are often lacking. This means that after a technology contract has been signed and a tool has been procured, there may be minimal opportunities for institutions to reassess based on faculty and student experience.

We also know that technology decisions can have tremendous implications for concerns around access and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Certain tools and technologies may reinforce systemic biases or actively cause harm to students. Many remote proctoring tools, for example, rely on facial and body recognition, which has known negative impacts on disabled students and students of color. Yet the ability for an institution to quickly break a contract for a harmful tool is complex and time-consuming. With an interpersonal or classroom DEI conflict, the issue can be resolved by individual parties, but if a piece of infrastructure or software is at issue, an institution generally needs much more time to disassociate or end contracts involving that particular tool.

Closing the Gap between IT Decision-Making and DEI Strategy

Given that various hybrid, online, and blended learning experiences are on the horizon for higher education in the 2021 academic year and beyond, now is the time for academic technology decision-makers to do two things to close the gap between technology decisions and DEI concerns:

1. Create transparency around academic technology procurement workflows

2. Center DEI principles when making academic technology procurement decisions

The selection of the right technology for student accessibility and academic support is a critical decision and one that can have unintended and long-reaching consequences for the full campus community, from students to faculty to staff. Given that increasingly diverse groups of students will be using academic technologies into the foreseeable future, higher education leaders and faculty have an obligation to make procurement decisions that do not unintentionally exclude students from engaging in their learning experiences.

Situational Decision-Making and Reasoning: Establishing Motivations and Identifying Complexities

Human motivation influences decision-making. Decision-making about technology selection is no different. Keeping this in mind, we've outlined a few reasons that faculty and administrators select certain educational technologies.

Tractability and Compliance. Colleges and universities have legal responsibilities to comply with federal laws about students' privacy, specifically around grading and assessment. For example, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) intends to protect student information about grades and assessment. Keeping students' grades and feedback about their academic work secure drives many institutions to adopt solutions that focus on containing grades and class information within campus sign-on ecosystems, such as the learning management system (LMS) and other assessment-based tools (e.g., proctoring software). Many educators have concerns about using the LMS and proctoring software because these kinds of systems are often built with extensive surveillance tools that track students' engagement within the application. Proctoring tools in particular have come under scrutiny, rightfully so, because of their artificial intelligence (AI) features, which can accuse students of cheating even if students are not engaging in dishonest behavior. The ethics of FERPA-compliant tools are thus worth considering, to the extent legally possible, when approaching the acquisition of technology from an equity-based lens.

Operations Maintenance and Productivity. Given the ways in which educational and civic infrastructure have now largely been digitized, colleges and universities may choose to procure technology that fulfills distinct productivity and workforce needs. Most colleges and universities invest, for example, in an "office tools suite," which includes word processing, spreadsheet creation, slide-presentation creation, and file storage. The Google and Microsoft suites are among the most common of these enterprise-level office tools.

Novelty and Originality. Technology changes quickly, which means that many faculty and administrators may be attracted to solutions that reflect the latest developments in hardware or software. Some educational technology may be procured so that a college or university can demonstrate its commitment to adopting the most "cutting-edge" solutions. Many "innovation-driven" missions depend on an infrastructure that supports using new technology largely because it's new. Some faculty and administrators may also want to adopt new technology to be responsive to changes they see in their students' technology experiences or within their own experiences as users and consumers of technology. While novelty for novelty's sake may not be a pedagogically driven reason for technology adoption, it can be a large motivator to demonstrate responsiveness to technology-based trends.

Integration and Exploration: Some college and university decision-makers may adopt technology that better integrates and aligns with specific pedagogical strategies or techniques. For example, e-portfolios have long been popular because they are simultaneously an assessment instrument and an opportunity to showcase work online. E-portfolios can also align well with a variety of teaching styles and can be flexibly adapted to different sets of disciplines and curricula. Other technologies are essential for projects in specific disciplines. For example, geographic information systems (GIS) software is an essential tool to represent geographic and spatial data for scholars and students in geographic and environmental science disciplines. Faculty needs for specialized, discipline-specific data that can be integrated into specific curricula is thus a huge driving factor for procurement.

Alliance and Collaboration. Given that many means of communicating are moving online, colleges and universities may adopt technologies that promote better collaboration between institutional stakeholders. Videoconferencing tools, such as Zoom and Webex, were highly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic as meetings and live conversations moved to remote contexts. Other collaboration tools might be text-based "chat" tools that individuals can use to reach each other either within or outside of real time (popular examples include Slack and Microsoft Teams). Many colleges and universities may be interested in investing in these types of tools, which have the potential to increase interaction and connection.

This wide range of motivations for adopting specific technologies in higher education demonstrates the complexity involved in making a sound technology decision. It is impossible for any tool-procurement decision-maker to accommodate all of these possible motivations. However, given that the responsibility for procuring tools falls largely on a narrow and specific group of administrators, typically in the IT organization, strong communication about these motivations, which may directly overlap with campus DEI initiatives, is needed.

Ideally, administrators would work to gain the broadest insight possible into the various motivations that may be animating decisions to investigate particular tools. Yet IT decision-makers are often not directly part of DEI campus conversations. In fact, technology decisions are often removed from, or seen as operating separately from, campus DEI strategic plans. This means that procurement decision-makers often don't have visibility into DEI concerns and that they may not be able to fully anticipate the potential harm of certain tools and technologies, particularly for students with disabilities and students of color.

Where DEI and Technology Intersect: Recognizing Limitations in Access for Disabled Students

Technology implementation is not neutral, and when supporting students with disabilities and students of color, in particular, we need to be cognizant of the ways in which technology access (or lack thereof) can change students' experiences of engaging with their learning environments.

The numbers of students with disabilities on college/university campuses may be larger than technology leaders think. A survey conducted twenty years ago by the Department of Education National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation found that of the 1,414 respondents (33 percent with "some college" experience and 15 percent graduated from college or with post-graduate work), 64 percent used some assistive technology. According to Carol P. Kaplan and Emily Shachter, many adults who reach adulthood are never diagnosed with learning disabilities, but the lack of diagnosis is the core issue of barriers to those with learning difficulties. In fact, the Learning Disabilities Association of America found that as many as 60 percent of adults with severe literacy deficits have undiagnosed or untreated learning disabilities. Most recently, a 2019 book by Lynne C. Shea, Linda Hecker, and Adam R. Lalor suggests that learning disabilities-both diagnosed and undiagnosed-are often invisible, and students still choose not to request support via accommodations even if they rely on some form of technology.

This high number of undiagnosed or untreated learning disabilities stems from an arduous evaluation and documentation process. That is, if students need access to assistive technology, a psychological evaluation is required from a certified or licensed psychologist or in some cases a physician. This evaluation needs to be documented in order for students to receive campus-supported accommodations. Many students face financial hardships, which may prevent them from visiting such providers and gaining the necessary documentation to support securing accommodations to use assistive technology.

Learning disabilities also remain heavily stigmatized in many cultures and communities and even in some learning environments. In 2000, Myrna Orenstein wrote that individuals who are undiagnosed experience "imprisoned intelligence" while also experiencing shame and embarrassment within their learning experiences. Beyond basic financial barriers to accessing learning disability evaluation, then, many students may never seek evaluation because they may perceive the evaluation and subsequent diagnosis as a reflection of their own personal or familial failings. While educators can support students in their decision to seek out evaluations, the internalized stigma to doing so may be challenging for many students to overcome.

Where DEI and Technology Intersect: Reducing Negative Experiences for Students of Color

Intentional or unintentional racism within the technology diminishes experience for students of color the same way that lack of access diminishes learning for students with disabilities. This is known as techno-racism. The lack of awareness of the inherent bias within much of the coding found in proctoring software and other technologies can significantly contribute to negative outcomes for students of color. Moreover, administrators tasked with making procurement decisions are often unaware of the potential negative consequences embedded within much of the technologies currently available.

For some historical context, many individuals from minority groups mistrust the sciences and technology because of unethical research practices that led to negative outcomes, most notably within Black and Latinx communities. The Tuskegee Experiment is an infamous example of how unethical scientific practice betrayed the trust and endangered the lives of Black men. Between 1932 and 1972, researchers asked 600 Black men, without informed consent, to participate in a study that explored the effects of syphilis, while explaining to participants they were being treated for "bad blood." Researchers did not fully disclose the high risks associated with this study, and they exposed participants to significantly more risk than is ethically acceptable. The lack of transparency and informed consent led to a litany of negative outcomes for participants and their descendants. Beginning in 1946, the US government conducted similar experiments in Guatemala, also resulting in long-lasting health and emotional consequences for the more than 5,000 uninformed and unconsenting participants.

While both of these notable historical examples come from the context of the health and medical sciences, their ramifications have ripple effects in educational technology implementations. Specifically, building trust across the institution and offering transparency-about how educational technology solutions will be implemented, when they will be implemented, and who will be impacted by the implementation-are mission-critical.

The strongest attention to students' success with using educational technologies for their learning has been in the context of online education. In particular, researchers have explored the correlation between students' ethnic identities and their retention in online classes. With the exception of Black students, students of color tend to have significantly poorer retention in online classes than their White peers. As Papia Bawa described in a literature review of the research on retention in online learning: "Nuances of cross-cultural communication, coupled with technological impediments, can create untenable learning environments, leading to attrition." These nuances have been identified and analyzed by numerous online learning scholars, particularly through the lens of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT), which can improve community, humanize learning experiences, and build empathy.

What could use greater exploration is an understanding of the tools that may shape and impact the interactions within online learning environments. That is, given the rapid adoption of online learning tools during the COVID-19 pandemic, instructors and administrators selecting these tools would be helped by having an awareness of humanizing and culturally responsive teaching approaches that need to be facilitated with digital tools. This could lead to better decision-making about how tools can align with effective instructional practices. It's safe to say that the lines between online and face-to-face learning will continue to blur in the future and that, as a result, the relationship between teaching with technology and teaching in culturally responsive ways will become stronger.

To begin to reduce negative outcomes for students of color, educational technology leaders can connect with their DEI offices to discuss the role that technology has played in the past and areas where DEI intersects with the use of specific technologies on campus. The IT organization and the DEI office may want to work together to produce a commitment to DEI for IT departments. A good example is "IT's Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion," developed by the Division of Information Technology at California State University, Fullerton.

Encouraging Reflective Technology Decision-Making

Decisions about technology are often made with specific goals in mind. In other words, decisions about the use of technology and its application within an institution may be transactional in nature. Specifically, technologies may be meeting the criteria for goals and objectives within a greater strategic plan but may be misaligned with the practices of students and faculty. Self-reflection, a significant aspect of leadership, can support best outcomes for making decisions related to the selection of academic technology while also keeping goals in mind.

According to Sarah J. Donovan and her colleagues, "Self-reflective decision making requires decision makers to consciously and continuously reflect on themselves and the situation." Moreover, as Michael Reynolds has noted, leaders benefit from "a commitment to questioning assumptions and taken-for-granteds embodied in both theory and professional practice." This is also true of decision-making in higher education. Leaders responsible for making influential decisions about technology and the role that technology will play in the experiences of faculty and students will benefit from a self-reflective exploration of the theoretical and practical applications of academic technology.

The following are some questions that technology decision-makers may want to consider:

Who ultimately benefits from this decision?

How similar is this proposed technology to the technology we are currently using?

What is the most equitable way to implement this technology adoption?

If we made this change today, right now, what would that look like?

Faculty decision-makers may want to consider the following questions:

Historically, what is my personal relationship with academic technology?

How have I viewed the use of technology? Is the adoption of technology for the purpose of true access for all students, or is the implementation of technology more for compliance?

How might such views influence the learning of students within my courses?

Identifying a Heuristic

To center the procurement of tools that keep DEI and accessibility principles in mind, we need to develop academic technology decision-making heuristics that focus on these principles. Many heuristics are targeted either toward faculty members making individual educational technology decisions for their class or toward a collective of faculty and IT staff making these decisions. Where we aim to intervene in this conversation is in developing a heuristic that brings together faculty, IT staff, and the DEI office for choosing educational technology tools to make education moreequitable and accessible.

Table 1 shows equity-minded decision-making characteristics used in DEI contexts but often overlooked in academic technology procurement. We created this table as a general guide for higher education leaders to explore, discuss, and support the use of academic technology across an institution. The first column is a list of characteristics that can support a more equity-minded thought process. The second column is a list of considerations that can expand decision-makers' thinking about the technology and its potential applications in the learning environment. The third column lists action steps that a decision-maker can take for improving any academic technology procurement that may already be under way.

We anticipate that this table can be used in the following ways:

1. As a conversation-starter within IT divisions when new technology procurements are considered

2. As a tool to bridge conversations between IT divisions and DEI offices when collaborating on academic technology procurements that impact teaching and learning

3. As a heuristic or rubric for technology pilots in higher education institutions

4. As a tool for personal reflection on how past decisions have been made and what qualities might be needed to adjust for future decision-making

Table 1. Equitable Decision-Making for Academic Technology Procurement

Equity-Minded Decision-Making Characteristics

Considerations Prior to Taking Action

DEI Action Steps

Awareness: A healthy understanding of historical disparities of technology and its uses

Adopting technology through strength-based and needs-based perspectives

Include DEI officers in dialogue to understand currently unknown consequences of the technology adopted previously.

Understanding: The comprehension of boundaries and limitations of the technology

Orientation: The identification of origin for technology adoption

Clarity and transparency for all stakeholders about why technology was procured

Commitment: The level of dedication applied to the implementation of the technology

Identifying if technology is integrated into the capital project of an institution

Openness: The ability to lack restriction when exploring reasons to implement or reject technology

Development of growth mindset for IT leaders

Establishment of innovation with purpose

Identification of leadership values associated with technology implementation

Develop an appreciation for new ideas, discussions, and experiences with technology and its uses.

Collaboration: Working together to achieve intended outcomes

Consider the following when collaborating with stakeholders: What is more important, information giving or information gathering?

Actualization: Understanding the reality of technology for the stakeholders

Understanding the full potential of the relationship between stakeholders and technology selection

Next Steps

Centering DEI in academic technology decision-making goes beyond just picking tools; it must also include deliberate strategies for building awareness among all students and faculty. For example, many colleges and universities invest in tools that support a wide variety of students, but not all students and faculty may have knowledge of particular tools or understand how tools may best meet their needs.

Knowing that many students may not have formal accommodations for disabilities, faculty and staff alike should be aware of the accessibility features built into and accessible within everyday hardware and software. By understanding the range of accessibility features available within an existing tool suite, faculty and staff can point students to the resources that they might need to be successful in their learning experiences, regardless of their disclosure and documentation of disability. For that reason, before making a decision on a specific technology, administrators can review many of the no-cost technology options that are currently available (e.g., phone and computer apps) and any other technology that is readily available and applicable for students who may need the support but will not be able to access such services through official campus channels.

For example, most mainstream laptops, desktops, and mobile phones include accessibility tools, such as speech-to-text applications and color contrast modifiers that could impact viewing and use. Many students use a diverse array of software for their learning, and accessibility features may also be built into commonly used applications such as the institutionally supported LMS and office productivity tool suites. Yet not all students and faculty may be aware that these features exist and may not know how these features can help them and support their learning. Academic technology offices should partner with disability and accessibility centers to provide resources and workshop opportunities to understand these available features. Doing so could also mean working with peer and academic resource centers or peer learning centers to ensure that students can help other students understand these tools at their disposal.

A common misunderstanding of educational technology is that it is used enthusiastically and primarily by "early adopters" or by those who are "tech-savvy." However, technologies of all kinds, digital or not, are simply part of our learning environments, and we can help students realize how these technologies may enhance-or, in some cases, detract from-their lived experiences. In other words, we cannot assume that simply procuring tools means that faculty and students will understand how those tools work and how they matter. Awareness-building and deliberate training opportunities will be ways to drive adoption and also to allow for fuller and more meaningful conversations about technology usage on campus.

Making decisions about academic technology involves a complex tapestry of considerations. The process demands openness, decision-making skills, compassion, and an equity mindset. It also requires individuals to make long-range decisions while using the current contextual and practical experiences of students, faculty, and staff. By doing so, we can create an environment of equitable decision-making in academic technology.

Notes

1. For example, see Mitchell Clark, "Students of Color Are Getting Flagged to Their Teachers Because Testing Software Can't See Them," The Verge, April 8, 2021; Shea Swauger, "Our Bodies Encoded: Algorithmic Test Proctoring in Higher Education," Hybrid Pedagogy, April 2, 2020.

2. For the K-12 context, see Priya C. Kumar, Jessica Vitak, Marshini Chetty, and Tamara L. Clegg, "The Platformization of the Classroom: Teachers as Surveillant Consumers,"Surveillance & Society 17, no. 1/2 (2019). For the higher education context, see Sharon Slade and Paul Prinsloo, "Learning Analytics: Ethical Issues and Dilemmas," American Behavioral Scientist 57, no. 10 (2013).

3. Jeffrey R. Young, "Pushback Is Growing against Automated Proctoring Services, but So Is Their Use," EdSurge, November 13, 2020; Jason Kelley, "A Long Overdue Reckoning for Online Proctoring Companies May Finally Be Here," Electronic Frontier Foundation (website), June 22, 2021.

4. Dawn Carlson and Nat Ehrlich, Assistive Technology and Information Technology Use and Need for Persons with Disabilities in the United States, 2001 (Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, August 2005); Carol P. Kaplan and Emily Shachter, "Adults with Undiagnosed Learning Disabilities: Practical Considerations," Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 72, no. 4 (1991); "Your Chances of Knowing Someone with a Learning Disability Are Very Good: Did You Know?" Learning Disabilities Association of America (website), accessed September 10, 2021; Lynne C. Shea, Linda Hecker, and Adam R. Lalor, From Disability to Diversity: College Success for Students with Learning Disabilities, ADHD, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2019).

5. Pedro A. Willging and Scott D. Johnson, "Factors That Influence Students' Decision to Drop Out of Online Courses," Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 13, no. 3 (2009), p. 125; Youngju Lee and Jaeho Choi, "A Review of Online Course Dropout Research: Implications for Practice and Future Research," Educational Technology Research and Development 59 (2011);

6. Sarah J. Donovan, C. Dominik Güss, and Dag Naslund, "Improving Dynamic Decision Making through Training and Self-Reflection," Judgment and Decision Making 10, no. 4 (July 2015), p. 285.

7. Michael Reynolds, "Critical Reflection and Management Education: Rehabilitating Less Hierarchical Approaches," Journal of Management Education 23, no. 5 (October 1999). p. 538.

8. Michelle D. Miller, "How to Make Smart Choices about Tech for Your Course," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 26, 2019; Lauren Anstey and Gavan Watson, "A Rubric for Evaluating E-Learning Tools in Higher Education," EDUCAUSE Review, September 10, 2018.

Courtney Plotts is National Chair of the Council for At Risk Student Education and Professional Standards.

Jenae Cohn is Director of Academic Technology at California State University, Sacramento.

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Encouraging Equitable Decision-Making in Academic Technology

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Now is the time for academic technology decision-makers to close the gap between technology decisions and DEI concerns. In higher education, processes for deciding which academic technologies to procure are often opaque, unclear, and idiosyncratic to everyone involved.

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We pledge to make our intellectual property openly and freely available to the world to support educators, students and decision-makers, to help educational organisations survive and thrive, and to build a fairer and more resilient education system.

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"...just one possible scenario to inspire (possibly scare) and provoke discussion. "

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This vision for the future of has been created for the learning and teaching reimagined initiative. It's not what we think the future of higher education will - or even should - look like, but just one possible scenario to inspire (possibly scare) and provoke discussion.

This content represents an imagined scenario and is set in the future

It's 2030 at the University of the North...

The last decade has been dramatic for the University of the North. The university started the 2020s in a difficult situation thanks to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 but in 2030, it is celebrating a meteoric rise up the university league tables.

What is the secret to their success? The university's vice-chancellor believes that there are three reasons: a new approach to course design, well trained staff and a high-quality student experience.

Course delivery three ways

One of the first, and most important changes the university made in the early 2020s was to revamp their courses to ensure that every course at the university can be studied in one of three ways:

Online

​Students learn via the web

Popular with international students as its reasonably-priced but carries the full prestige of a face-to-face course

Popularity of the online courses has led to a big jump in student numbers

Earn while you learn

A three-year course

Student lives on campus and splits their time between paid work experience and studying

The work placements are organised by the university and count towards final grade

Accelerated face-to-face

​A faster version of the traditional university degree

The student attends the university and the course is completed within an intensive 18 months

This option is more expensive than the others and attracts lower numbers of students

The course content and structure are the same across the three routes, and most learning is done online, even for the accelerated face-to-face students.

Support and contact time

Contact time and support is a high priority for all types of study and the university has worked closely with teaching staff to release as much time as possible for one-to-one and small group contact time.

In addition, the university augments teacher contact time by enabling peer-to-peer support between students and using AI applications such as academic writing coaches to increase the feedback students get.

Investing in staff digital skills

Delivering courses this way is dependent on two factors that the University of the North has worked hard to get right.

The first is staff being highly proficient with technology and with the university's approach to course design and course delivery. The university has created a curriculum for all staff, to ensure they can deliver the student experience the university promises. This course consists of a series of micro-credentials that update annually which all staff are required to complete.

The second factor is ensuring that every student, no matter the study route, has a rewarding experience. There is no easy fix for this and the university has spent a lot of time doing the unglamorous but essential work to ensure that the campus, technology, data, teaching, assessments and processes all fit together to create a rewarding experience.

This starts before students join and continues after they leave, which is one of the reasons so many alumni are taking short lifelong learning courses at the university after they leave.

Student and alumni community

Where the University of the North really stands out is their focus on community for students past and present. A newly-created department focuses entirely on sustaining a sense of community among students and staff. The team ensures that all students, even those studying online, have a flourishing network of peers, mentors and potential employers.

While the team makes good use of technology, a lot of their time is spent organising and supporting physical events. All online courses include the option for a week on campus per semester to engage in practical skills development, face-to-face activities which are a mix of educational, wellbeing, social and employability.

Present day: who is already turning this vision into a reality?

The hyflex model has been a topic of discussion for several years in the United States 1. Some universities - such as Southern New Hampshire University - are already exploring this approach to course delivery.

There are a few startups focused on increasing the feedback students get. Peergrade focuses on students giving feedback to each other and Ecree is a virtual academic writing coach.

Companies like Studiosity aim to offer 24/7 support and Unibuddy focuses on linking prospective students with existing students to help them make their decision and to start to develop a network of contacts at the university.

Send us your visions

This is one of a number of visions of the future of , created as part of our learning and teaching reimagined programme.

We'd love to hear your visions for how learning and teaching in higher education will change over the next few years.
Submit your vision

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This vision for the future of HE has been created for the learning and teaching reimagined initiative. It's not what we think the future of higher education will - or even should - look like, but just one possible scenario to inspire (possibly scare) and provoke discussion.

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"I would recommend anyone working on remote exams to strongly consider how decisions will affect students.  Exams are stressful and stress exacerbates any difficulties faced.  People who are stressed are not good at prioritising, following basic instructions or feeling in control of their situations. "

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On one hand, I'd been genuinely excited at the prospect of experiencing real life proctored assessment from the student perspective. I would be sitting an exam in my home, using a specially downloaded 'lock-down browser' that would take over my computer, preventing me from accessing unauthorised information, while a remote invigilator watched me through a webcam to confirm I was following all exam regulations. On the other hand however, I was increasingly nervous. The PRINCE2 Foundation exam (taken at my department's expense after a 3-day course) may not have been comparable to university students' end-of-semester exams, but I was still anxious about failing. Would I be able to blame the stress of the proctored exam experience if I didn't pass?

I did pass. I probably wouldn't be writing this post if I hadn't. But the stress was real, on top of and interconnected with my already bad exam nerves. It was a useful, but overall unpleasant experience and I want to share just a few of my reflections on the process, in the hope that they will be useful to others working on proctoring policies, student support and exam set-up for remote assessment.

Once the exam was scheduled (in my case, 5 days prior to sitting)

I had to download the secure exam browser. I didn't really want to do this, because I've done basic cyber security training and am very uncomfortable about having such a controlling product on my computer. This is not helped by the fact that my Mac really didn't want to let me install the thing anyway because it was not from an approved developer and because Apple (rightly) thought it could do dubious things to my computer. I started to read the licensing agreement, but found it too depressing. It wasn't like I had any choice in the matter; if I wanted to do the exam, I'd have to download the software.

At the same time, I was very grateful for my privilege. If I only had a work computer, this would have been a nightmare. I may have had time before the exam date to get IT to install a new and untested programme onto my managed laptop, but it would have been stressful. I am fortunate to have a separate personal computer that I could use, one that I don't share with anyone, so any dodgy software choices are up to me.

I told my husband about the exam. We live and work in a one-bedroom flat, and I wanted to use the living room/kitchen/office/study desk for the exam. He got into the spirit of things by asking facetious questions about how much noise he could make while working in the bedroom. And what about if he wanted to get a drink of water? Or a snack? I felt for students living at home, I have one household member who thinks these jokes are funny, if I was still a student living with parents and siblings during my exams, I'd have five.

The morning of the exam.

A couple of hours before the exam started, I began setting up. I needed to clear the desk of anything that looked like it could help me cheat. In my anxiety, I interpreted this as anything in the room that looked like an exam aid. Or that the invigilator might judge me by. I'd need to give a 360 view of my exam environment for the invigilator so felt obliged to also do the washing up. I tried to tell myself that this could be considered in the place of commuting time to an exam centre, but it wasn't convincing. An even less convincing part of my brain was telling me these were unnecessary displacement activities; this didn't help either. While pre-exam advice is of course in students' best interests, it's worth unpicking how it will be interpreted by someone in extreme anxiety, ready to procrastinate and unable to make sensible decisions about how to organise their time.

The exam itself.

For me, the exam began when the invigilator introduced themselves to me through my speakers and started to take me through the exam onboarding process. Hearing a supportive human voice was more reassuring than I could have imagined. The invigilator was happy with what I showed him of the room and confirmed that the set up was completely fine. I knew he was there throughout the exam and I could contact him through a chat box if I needed to. Based on this single experience, I cannot imagine how stressful the remote exam experience with only AI and not a human invigilator would have felt. It only took a few sentences, but I felt reassured that normal human behaviour would not be construed as cheating and that I could, finally, focus on the exam itself.

Conclusions.

I still need to take my second PRINCE2 exam, but I am currently feeling less stressed about it. I've now been through the process once, and I not only survived, I succeeded. I also am much more confident with the set up and demands on me as someone who is not only sitting an exam, but also creating the exam space.

I would recommend anyone working on remote exams to strongly consider how decisions will affect students. Exams are stressful and stress exacerbates any difficulties faced. People who are stressed are not good at prioritising, following basic instructions or feeling in control of their situations. There are also very practical reasons why asking students to create a controlled exam environment for themselves is a burden that should be considered by those demanding it. Above all, guidance, reassurance and human interactions are key to support those who have no choice but to take part in remote proctored exams.

Shoshi Ish-Horowicz works as Senior Learning Technologist (Enhancing Practice) at Queen Mary University of London. Email: s.ish-horowicz@qmul.ac.uk

Shoshi Ish-Horowicz

If you enjoyed reading this article we invite you to join the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) as an individual member, and to encourage your own organisation to join ALT as an organisational or sponsoring member.

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A Learning Technologist sits a Proctored Exam

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On one hand, I'd been genuinely excited at the prospect of experiencing real life proctored assessment from the student perspective. I would be sitting an exam in my home, using a specially downloaded 'lock-down browser' that would take over my computer, preventing me from accessing unauthorised information, while a remote invigilator watched me through a webcam to confirm I was following all exam regulations.

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Dig deeper into the topics I have touched on today.

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UNICollaboration: home of virtual exchange 

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UNICollaboration: home of virtual exchange 

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Find training and partners, academic publishing opportunities and a community of practice.

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Introduction

Welcome to UNICollaboration.org, the website of a cross-disciplinary professional organisation for telecollaboration and virtual exchange in Higher Education. The organisation was launched at the Second Conference on Telecollaboration in Higher Education at Trinity College, Dublin in April 2016.

UNICollaboration has two main objectives:

to promote the development and integration of research and practice in telecollaboration and virtual exchange across all disciplines and subject areas in higher education

to actively engage in awareness raising of telecollaboration and virtual exchange at institutional and policy making level

Read more about our background and objectives here.

Through this site we want to keep practitioners, researchers, policy makers and management informed of conferences, training opportunities, documents and policy developments relevant to our field.

Join

Join our association as an individual or institutional member to help us promote telecollaboration and virtual exchange practice and research and further policy development in this area.

For more information about membership and a registration form, visit our Join page.

Our Statement on Virtual Exchange and EU support beyond 2020

Virtual Exchange (VE) is a unique and flexible form of online learning. What makes it unique is its focus on online structured and facilitated collaborative learning sessions that bring people together and promote intercultural dialogue. This pedagogy enables participants to develop soft skills and transversal competencies that are essential in today's job markets and multicultural societies. The European Commission is piloting this methodology through the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange initiative, an innovative action that has demonstrated its ability to engage large numbers of youth and educators in VE activities. Since 2018, more than 24,000 young people have taken part in this project and over 250 partnerships with universities and youth organisations have been created.

As partners and stakeholders of the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange initiative, we have experienced first-hand the benefits of taking part in Virtual Exchange activities, witnessing the impact that these experiences have on developing cross-cultural communication skills as well as critical thinking and empathy. Also, we have appreciated that in order to have a positive impact on participants, exchange activities need to have a strong pedagogic design, to take place in safe online spaces, and be supported by trained facilitators and educators.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a significant increase in the demand for online learning opportunities and in an abrupt stop of student and youth mobility, in Europe as well as globally. The long-term effects of this crisis on education and mobility are undeniable, as Europe explores new forms of virtual learning as well as sustainable and inclusive approaches to complement and reinforce traditional forms of mobility. The risk is that students and youth mobility, which has been a cornerstone both to strengthen the European identity and to foster understanding and collaboration with neighbouring countries, will be under strain over the next few years. The relevance of Virtual Exchange at this specific juncture is increasing, both for institutions and for young people. On the one hand, universities and youth organisations are searching for online learning methodologies that can foster engagement and collaboration among learners, as well as for greater support to build educators' and youth workers' capacities in online pedagogy and facilitation. On the other hand, young people need more than ever to learn how to communicate and collaborate online and across cultures, and to engage critically with online environments and the media.

We manifest our interest in continuing to engage with Virtual Exchange activities and we believe that this form of online learning should be further promoted by the European Union through the next Erasmus+ Programme (2021-2027), offering both professional development for educators and youth workers, and a range of Virtual Exchange experiences that bring together young people both within and beyond Europe, in both formal and non-formal educational contexts.

Download the full statement and the list of signatories:

What do students think about Virtual Exchange?

Here are two videos from students who took part in different types of Virtual Exchange at one of UNICollaboration's institutional members, the University of Padova, Italy.
What is Virtual Exchange? What did you learn through Virtual Exchange? Privacy policy for UNICollaboration

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Introduction Welcome to UNICollaboration.org, the website of a cross-disciplinary professional organisation for telecollaboration and virtual exchange in Higher Education. The organisation was launched at the Second Conference on Telecollaboration in Higher Education at Trinity College, Dublin in April 2016. UNICollaboration has two main objectives: to promote the development and integration of research and practice Read More ...

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A curation of links to make us review critically what we do online.

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Research in open and distance learning illustrating the themes mentioned in Teaching Machines.

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A special collection of articles reflecting on how the pandemic has changed the way we work in HEIs.

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Collection launched: 08 Sep 2021

The articles in this collection reflect different perspectives; of students, teaching staff and administrators; and of managers and leaders across very different institutions worldwide as decisions were made about how to respond to the pandemic and provide 'emergency remote education'.

Authors reflect on how educational technology supported higher education provision during this time, yet although the perspectives are different, common themes emerged such as the importance to promote care and community - a principle which can inform future practice. Another theme is that of professional development for academics and teaching staff, and how best to support this during challenging times in a sustainable way. Similarly particular challenges for accessibility during the pandemic were reported and here too, suggested approaches to supporting accessibility follow sustainability principles to make them relevant for the future. Tackling inequity is another related theme found in more than one contribution including an approach taken by a USA liberal arts college to make all supporting materials for their courses free materials (such as open educational resources, OER).

The papers also represent different research methods and approaches, including a longitudinal study, surveys, interviews, student artefacts, meeting notes, workshop and course evaluations and recordings of managers' meetings and decision making.

Guest Editors Ann Jones and Katy Jordan

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Journal of Interactive Media in Education

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Collection launched: 08 Sep 2021 The articles in this collection reflect different perspectives; of students, teaching staff and administrators; and of managers and leaders across very different institutions worldwide as decisions were made about how to respond to the pandemic and provide 'emergency remote education'.

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One practitioner's view of returning to teaching after the online pivot.

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Image by Kei Rothblack from Pixabay

These pandemic reflections are shared with us by Ian Wilson who invites us to consider what our "new normal" may look like.
"I hear it repeatedly. On the television, radio, internet and in conversations and emails. Always the similar phrase being used. When things return to normal. We cannot wait until things get back to normal. Do not worry normality will soon be resumed. But the thing is, I do not want to go back to normal, because I think we can do better than the normal.

Changes in Learning.

The current situation has stirred many emotions in us. From the great sadness of losing loved ones to this horrible pandemic, to the praise and admiration of the NHS and volunteers. I received my first vaccine jab over the weekend, and it made me realise that society might be slowly returning to the life we were living before the pandemic. As the timetable is being drafted for next semester and face to face teaching is expected to resume next September, I hear daily that normality will soon be re-established. If I said one year ago that we need to move more teaching and learning online, I would have been greeted with a range of replies which celebrated the face-to-face nature of learning and how people did not have the equipment or expertise to make the transition. And yet now, one year on, I have witnessed a huge transformation of teaching and learning. Facilitators of learning have committed themselves to an innovative approach and have developed and implemented skills which were once thought to be out of their reach. Learning materials have been transformed to suit learning on a range of online platforms and the use of conference meeting software such as Zoom and TEAMs has rocketed. We, as educators and facilitators of learning, took up the challenge and the need for engaging with all things digital and have made huge strides forward with moving learning online. We all should be proud of the changes we have made, but I worry that, as the light of the end of the pandemic has started to be seen on the distant horizon, we abandon the positives which we have developed and return to the pre-pandemic approaches just because that was the 'normal' way of doing things.

An effective tool?

Technology is not always the most popular tool in the teacher's toolbox. Like an ineffective drill it sometimes fails to start or, worse still, does not stop. Sometimes it has a life of its own and other times it just it plagued by slow internet connections and pixelated imagery. I am not trying to convince you that technology is the only tool to use to deliver learning. What I want to say is technology does have a valuable place in our learning toolboxes and because of this, we should not be returning to learning situations where we did not use the tool effectively, just because we want to return to the 'normal.' People do not like change. But I always like to share the point that whatever they are experiencing now, was once change, and if change had been resisted and prevented then the current situation which people prefer, would not have happened. From moving learning and other aspects of our work to the online environment, we have provided content which has been recorded and has allowed the learners to return repeatedly to support their learning. Online live sessions have meant that learning has been accessible from people's own homes and although interaction has been limited as we gazed at a screen of initials, back channels of discussion have been created in the chat and the learners have been willing to express themselves with emojis and gifs. Tools have allowed students to interact, scale, rate and comment on topics and videos and podcasts have transformed the learning to a more engaging and sometimes humorous experiences. No matter how you look at it, technology has supported learning through the current situation. So why should it be returned to the dark recesses of the toolbox again?

A new normal?

I recognise that I am a technologist, and I must say that although I have hated the pandemic, I have enjoyed flexing my technology muscles to engage with learning online. I am not saying that we should stay trapped in our homes, teaching and learning through the internet. What I am saying is that I want us to acknowledge the benefits and the positives of both systems, both the pre and during pandemic approaches to pedagogy, and allow them to work together in harmony to produce a new blended approach which is seen as a more effective and supportive learning experience. So rather than saying, let us return to normal, the normal of how we were learning and teaching before the pandemic, I would like to think that we can embrace, as effective practitioners, the ways we have transformed learning to create a new and improved normal. A normal which brings together the positives of both approaches and celebrates the transformations, developed expertise and adaptations which we have created. As we reflect and improve, we should not slide back to the previous normal, but we should challenge and embrace the changes and uses of technology we have developed to create a new and better normal for the future.

What will emerge?

So next time you hear that expression maybe you could pause for a moment and accept that although the pre-existing normal might appear reassuring and secure there might be a new normal. A lover of analogies, we went into the pandemic chrysalid a year ago. When we entered, we were a well-established caterpillar, familiar with ourselves and our practices. But very soon, we will be emerging in a pandemic free world. But what will we emerge as? The normal pre-pandemic caterpillar or the transformed butterfly of the new normal? "

Ian Wilson, York St John University. I.Wilson@yorksj.ac.uk

Ian Wilson, York St John University

If you enjoyed reading this article we invite you to join the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) as an individual member, and to encourage your own organisation to join ALT as an organisational or sponsoring member.

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These pandemic reflections are shared with us by Ian Wilson who invites us to consider what our "new normal" may look like. "I hear it repeatedly. On the television, radio, internet and in conversations and emails. Always the similar phrase being used. When things return to normal.

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Video resources to support #innoconf21 keynote

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Video resources to support #innoconf21 keynote

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Presenting information in various ways can be helpful.

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#InnoConf21 Carving a better future from dark matter

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A curation of video resources to accompany my keynote.

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Tweets relevant to my keynote #innoconf21

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Tweets relevant to my keynote #innoconf21

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Selected to help you carve your way to a better future.

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A curation of tweets relevant to my keynote.

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A blog post from Catherine who is a wonderful advocate for open practice https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0069/dr-catherine-cronin-an-open-voice/

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" Someone died today in #Charlottesville because an ideology of hatred marched through the city, wanting battle." - Deray Mckesson

" Three people died today in Charlottesville, Virginia because people have not just been taught to hate, they've been taught that it's important to hate in public." -

" I've got no words. Not now. Not this week. Not today." - Audrey Watters

I sit here right now, carving precious time on a Sunday to write. #phdchat and all that. But I'm thinking of all that has happened in Charlottesville, VA this weekend, after all that has happened this week, this month, this year, these years... People - overwhelmingly people of colour - are being killed, injured, deported, jailed, while the President of the United States, obscenely, emboldens white nationalists, white supremacists, and misogynists.

Something is breaking.

I am trying to find words today. I find a memory .

1998. My husband's PhD graduation. I remember standing with my infant son in my arms, my 4-year-daughter tugging my arm, asking, "Mummy, when will you get PhD?". With two Masters degrees, a head bursting with ideas, and a passion for social justice and for research, I saw that path ahead - but when? In that moment I answered, "When I'm a granny". It was only partly in jest. Two parents working, two young children, living far from both our families. I couldn't imagine doing PhD research also. I continue to be inspired by all who do just that - many with far fewer resources and privileges than I have had. Fast forward 15 years and I registered for that PhD. (And no, I'm not a granny.)

2017. I'm deep into dissertation writing, planning to submit in November. But I'm struggling.

I always knew this research would take time from the beating heart of my life - family, friends, community - perhaps in ways that work and other commitments did not. But, I've managed. We've managed. The challenge I didn't count on was separating myself from the world. So, I'm struggling to find words today.

I believe that " open education is a tool for social change ". I'm writing about open education using a critical approach, based on the voices and stories of academic staff, many of whom are precariously employed, as well as students. Throughout all of this work I am connected to and inspired by many scholars - in South Africa, Kenya, India, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the US, and across Europe - who also see open education as a way of increasing access to education, decolonising education, and decreasing inequality.

My overwhelming feeling right now, however, is that words are not enough.

But these are all I have today.
Image source: Broken Peace, CC0 by Alan Levine

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" Someone died today in #Charlottesville because an ideology of hatred marched through the city, wanting battle." - Deray Mckesson " Three people died today in Charlottesville, Virginia because people have not just been taught to hate, they've been taught that it's important to hate in public." - " I've got no words.

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Vol. 19, n° 1 | 2016 Social dynamics in open educational language ...

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FACT images  Finding, attribution, compression, try something new!  #knowhow Source

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A quick guide to correctly managing images online. Includes: finding, attribution, compression and trying something new! #wihea #knowhow

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EPAA: MacKinnon and Pasfield-Neofitou on video in language learning.

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A summary of our article for EPAA, Open Educational Resources for Language Teaching and Learning: Challenges to Higher Education Policy.

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OER Produsage as a model to support language teaching and learning. 

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OER Produsage as a model to support language teaching and learning. 

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A grassroots model to support the creation of little OER in language teaching.

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.1825

Keywords:
Open Educational Resources (OER), Creative Commons (CC), Intellectual Property (IP), instructional materials and practices, Copyright, higher education, public policy, Little OER, Produsage, soft power, foreign language learning, language arts education

Abstract

Language education faculty face myriad challenges in finding teaching resources that are suitable, of high quality, and allow for the modifications needed to meet the requirements of their course contexts and their learners. The article elaborates the grassroots model of "produsage" (a portmanteau of "production" and "usage") as a way of imagining a movement toward the use and creation of open educational resources (OER) for language learning. Through a set of examples of video resources that fill a need for authentically compelling language learning materials, the authors demonstrate the potential of produsage to engage teachers and learners around digital resources, to the benefit of language teaching and learning. In support of this grassroots model, the authors propose practices and policies to address challenges involved in engaging teachers and learners around OER in higher education.

Author Biographies

Teresa MacKinnon, University of Warwick

Teresa MacKinnon a Principal Teaching Fellow at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick. With 30 years' experience in language teaching and education management, Teresa finds the opportunities available to language teachers through technologies invigorating and challenging. Her website is https://sites.google.com/site/lamodification/

Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou, Monash University

Sarah is a lecturer in Japanese at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, She also holds an adjunct position at the University of Warwick, UK, as an Honorary Associate Professor. Her main research interests are computer mediated communication (CMC), applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, particularly in the Japanese context. Her website is http://www.sarahpasfieldneofitou.com/

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OER "produsage" as a model to support language teaching and learning

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https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.1825 Open Educational Resources (OER), Creative Commons (CC), Intellectual Property (IP), instructional materials and practices, Copyright, higher education, public policy, Little OER, Produsage, soft power, foreign language learning, language arts education Language education faculty face myriad challenges in finding teaching resources that are suitable, of high quality, and allow for the modifications needed to meet the requirements of their course contexts and their learners.

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A children's story or a parable to remind us about the importance of open educational practice? Beware the walled garden!