Learning, Equality and E-quality A student-centred approach to reforming higher education Daithí Mac Síthigh / University of Vienna /

ESIB - The National Unions of Students in Europe  Based in Brussels  45 member organisations  Consultative member of the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG)  Structures  Board / Executive / Secretariat  Bologna Process Committee  Committee on Commodification of Education  Gender Equality Committee

Higher education reform

Cycles and Credits?

Learning Outcomes

Qualifications Frameworks

Framework(s)?  National Frameworks  Framework of Qualifications for the European Higher Education Area (“Bologna” framework)  European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (“EU” framework)  (Mutual recognition of professional qualifications)

EQF-LLL

NFQ - Ireland

Doctoral Studies PhD

Doctoral Programmes  Structured programmes  Career paths  Financing  Generic and transferrable skills  “Professional Doctorates”

Purpose of (Higher) Education  Is the attention paid to HE a good thing for HE?

Melvyn Bragg (2005)  “In some ways modern universities threaten to return to their origins in the Middle Ages. Then they were primarily engines for the furthering of the authority of the almost unimaginably powerful Roman Catholic Church. They were also the source of the law of the land - an equally utilitarian function”

 “Now the purpose of universities, in the minds of many politicians and powerbrokers, is as the engine of economic growth, involved in all the material advancements of the hitherto unimaginably far-reaching consequences of successive technological revolutions”  “Leaders the world over are being advised that in the accelerated Age of Information, the university is king”

Whither learning?  Programmed learning  Self-directed learning  Problem-based learning  Blended learning  Student-Centred Learning

Higher education reform

Equality and Reform  Nothing about us without us!  Social Dimension of the Bologna Process  Equity and Efficiency (European Commission)  Higher education is:  Not the answer  Part of the solution  They keep changing the question!

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 13(2)(c) Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education

Building the accessible university  Universally accessible curriculum design  Physical disabilities  Support for “less than full time” study  Technology - a solution and a problem

it’s not (all) about money

Survey 1: 2005 Survey 2: 2007 All action lines All ESIB members Will be submitted to Ministers in London

Higher education reform

ACTIONS  Access  Costs  Teaching and Learning  Interactivity and User-Friendliness  Organisational Issues  Novelty  Speed Bates, Technology, E-learning and Distance Learning (2nd edn.) 2005, p. 49.

Daithí’s Seven Deadly Sins ee -mimicking gg ee-whiz tt echno-utopianism vv anishing QA uu niversal accessibility ii nvestment dd isconnection

the medium is still the message

e-learning e-learning 2.0! web 2.0

What is Web 2.0? (and what does it mean for higher education?) PP articipation CC ollaboration CC ustomisation II nnovation II ntegration TT he triumph of the bazaar?

How can we improve e-quality?

Share and share alike  Legal  Open  Flexible  International  Suitable for education?

Four paths?

Code = Law  E-learning platform design  Software choice / market  Where does your content go?  Academic values in e-learning  Don’t forget the deadly sins!

The Trojan Horse?  “Whilst ICT may offer opportunities for the expansion of learning in the distance mode it has - beyond the confines of Europe - been instrumental in higher education losing its exclusive claim to being a public good and being increasingly regarded as simply another trade item to be negotiated under the GATS” “Internationalising the Curriculum” - symposium at the 4th Networked Learning Conference, Sheffield 2004