We must think outside of the bubble

These are times for breaking out of bubbles. We have much evidence from elections and other phenomena that the algorithms designed to keep us engaged in a personalised way have the potential to only tell us what we want to hear, rather than what we need to be told. What we need most now is deep and fresh insight into the complexities we are facing in the sector and how to respond.

This is one of the dangers of personalisation and of unmanaged exposure to AI-generated and managed content that we will have to work hard to overcome in the future. There is a role and responsibility for higher education to augment productivity-aiding tools and learning with balance and perspective borne out of deep knowledge. It is what will lead us to ask the right questions, and question automated answers we are given. We better get good at it, quickly.

This same phenomenon is evident in leadership situations. Leaders can be in danger of surrounding themselves with people like them, that tell them what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know. While these bubbles of support feel good in the short term, they create self-perpetuating human algorithms that create cul-de-sacs of certainty in organisations that are facing unprecedented uncertainty and disruption.

It is one of the biggest dangers with failing to hear directly from customers about what they want and how it changes. It requires stepping out of our bubble and comfort zone and meeting customers, which in our case are students, where they are. We need to challenge the algorithms that otherwise constrain what we get to hear.

This is a classic issue with failing to see a coming disruption. If we are over-committed to our own bubble, we don’t see and don’t value innovation in the bubbles of others. We discount it if it doesn’t look like us. This is an issue with public universities in their commitment to rankings which judge them by measures and data from the past.? Those over-committed to that perspective will not be seeing private global innovators and new competitors or other ways in which student customers can have their needs met.

We have to push ourselves to look outside our bubble geographically, by stakeholder, by type of provider and by business model. It’s what we are aiming for in HEDx, as observed by John Dewar after our last conference in Melbourne in March, as he outlined in the video below.

The HEDx Future Solutions Conference

John is convening a panel of current public university VCs to start our next event in a fortnight, including Debbie Terry, Helen Bartlett, Simon Biggs and Chris Moran from UQ, UniSC, JCU and UNE respectively.

Given how much the sector is facing change and calls for innovation, it will be fascinating to see how much these sector leaders are looking outside of the bubble we are all part of, for future solutions. By coming on to a panel at a HEDx conference they are making a start.

They will follow a keynote from Ann Kirschner who was until recently an Interim President at Hunter College in CUNY. As John says, it is vital to look to international inspiration for ideas. Ann articulates that after a recent visit to Japan, the local custom of bonsai has inspired her latest thoughts on how we can lead innovation in global higher education.

Our second panel at UQ will pick up on the point John makes of looking beyond public universities for our inspiration.? Professor Christy Collis will lead a panel on this as President Elect of HERDSA in her own journey of sectoral diversity. She will do so in conjunction with a pioneer in that diversity journey, and now a leader of our Higher Education Standards Panel, in Professor Kerri-Lee Krause PhD, GAICD, PFHEA, FSRHE . They will be joined by Sam Jacob who has also had diverse sectoral experiences, and they will dissect the value to be found in private provider and VET sectors, including in new ventures that Cintana and ASU are making into nursing education with Ramsay and Healthcare International. Diversity in provision will come from diversity in organisational providers as well as public universities doing different things from each other.

And those illustrations of diversity and partnerships will be illustrated further in a third panel with examples from Singapore and global skills organisations, and those forming partnerships with industry, and the insights into the future of work. Exposure to such breadth of thinking disrupts and breaks open our algorithms. It is what we need right now.

The purpose of surfacing diverse approaches to innovation is to allow our staff and institutions to overcome the challenging times they have and will face, and augment that with new hope and ideas. And it will allow us to fuel the shared mission and purpose we can all see of pursuing a "growth through equity" agenda despite the frustrations with policy implementation appearing to relegate this from current political priorities.

We need genuinely workable solutions to achieving equity outcomes, and refocussing on student success in our collaboration with Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (formerly NCSEHE) is focused on this.?It is part of putting students first, which is critical in how we look at the opportunities and responsibilities we have with AI.

A time for a Student’s Accord?

As Hamish Coates and others have articulated so effectively, the Universities Accord has ended up being unduly focused on the needs of universities and those that govern them. We appear to have lost sight of providers other than Universities, and who we are all here to serve. This is students, and their stakeholders, not universities, and not government. Is it time for a Student’s Accord instead?

And as we become marginalised further from students, the public and community, the need to get out of our bubble has become urgent and crucial. We need a major change in perception of the sector and what purpose we serve in the eyes of others, not more focus on our self-perception and the purposes we see for ourselves. George Williams , the new Vice Chancellor at Western Sydney University , puts it very persuasively in the quote below:

“We change perceptions by what we do, and who we fight for.” Distinguished Professor George Williams AO, Vice Chancellor of Western Sydney University

It is time to fight for students first and to look at new organisational models, learning models and technologies, by what they can do for students, not universities. We need to enter a conversation with them on this and give them greater agency.? This means meeting them where they are and designing solutions with them, not for them. They need agency. Their needs are to know how to ask the right questions and understand the value of answers, with agency on what technology they use and how, and guardrails that empower not constrain them.

Student agency in using AI in their learning

The HEDx event in two weeks will have this as its goal and climax. It will do so by drawing on how 4 universities in UQ, Monash, Deakin and UTS sought to meet students where they are and listen to what their needs were in AI in HE. A panel led by Kelly Matthews of UQ will share initial findings from the most extensive conversation about student needs and expectations from AI. It will be followed by the sector - public and private and in conjunction with tech companies - exploring how we might respond to that call with action, informed by global context from Rose Luckin of Educate Ventures Research in the UK.

HEDx was created to think outside of the bubble and can only do so through its network of collaborative action from public and private providers in HE and through tertiary education, working with sector partners and technology companies, informed by global best practice. We think outside of the bubble at scale at UQ on October 31st and you can read details of the program here.

Spotlight on others

Recent "thinking outside of the bubble" podcasts involving George Williams of WSU, Sam Jacob of Collarts, David Stofenmacher of Utel Universidad in Mexico and its investment by SEEK investments and Ulrik Juul Christensen of Area9 Group in Copenhagen working in conjunction with VitalSource , all illustrate diversity of perspective and future solutions thinking. The set of episodes offers insights into delivering equitable learning to global learners utilising new ideas and technology to the full. You can access them all at the HEDx website and resource centre here.

We are so excited that almost 500 delegates have registered to join us at St Lucia and share in the journey. That is more than twice the number who have attended a HEDx conference to date. We look forward to sharing the outcome of the "thinking out of the bubble" conversation and the action it generates soon.