Summit agenda

In-person registration will be available from 8:45am, with coffee and pastries served until 9.30am in the Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall.

Opening remarks

Speaker: Margaret Korosec

"The Online Learning Landscape" 

Chair: Margaret Korosec

Speaker: Neil Mosley

This presentation sets the context for the UK online learning landscape. Who is offering programmes and how are they structured and offered? What role do online educational technology companies play in supporting and scaling online in the UK?

"Applying the Learning Engineering Process: Continually and Iteratively Supporting Online Learning" 

Chair: James Pickering 

Speaker: Aaron Kessler 

In this session, participants will be guided through an exploration of the learning engineering process (LEP) to develop a shared understanding of learning engineering in the context of online learning. The session will include opportunities for individuals and small groups to consider how we position learner (and instructor) challenges and the contextual factors and team members available to address such challenges. Engagement around examples from online learning contexts will provide opportunities to consider the creation, implementation, and investigation phases of the LEP. Finally, the nested and complex nature of LEPs within organizations and programs will be explored as a potential frame for our collective work.

Coffee break

"AI and Ethics"

Chair: Jo-Anne Murray

Speakers: Donald Clark

Panel: Eric Atwell, Adam Nosal and Andrew Kirton

This panel session will explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and ethics. What considerations do we need to have when we engage with AI and learning. What is the role of the student and educator? What is the impact on humanity?

Lunch in HELIX

"What’s in a name: MOOC, Short course, Microcredential" 

Chair: Megan Kime

Speaker: Melissa Highton  

Panel: Chrissi Nerantzi, Salha Abdo, Steve Osborne

Opportunities to learn and earn credentials is prompting innovative ways to design and develop online courses. Can we effectively stack credits and courses into a degree? Is the degree the aim or are we reaching a point to fully recognise component parts? Do we have consensus around online pedagogy and these delivery models for an at-scale global audience. This session explores the differences of these type of online courses and how they serve the learner and society.

"A Manifesto for Microcredential Regulation"

Chair: Nick Mount 

Panel: Steve Osborne, Rupert Ward, Annabel Kiernan 

Universities are increasingly considering adopting microcredentials as a model for delivering greater flexibility to support lifelong learning agendas and a means of making credit-bearing, university education accessible to new learners through online provision.  But there are big questions about how this new sort of learning is going to be regulated and the Office for Students is offering little guidance to microcredential pioneers.  So what are the risks that these pioneers face, and how might they pre-empt and mitigate potential regulatory challenge?  In this discussion, senior university leaders will get to the heart of their institutional thinking on microcredentials, the opportunities and risks that they represent and the strategies that can be used to minimise the likelihood of regulatory challenge.

Short break

"Reflections on Future Opportunities for Assessment - Inspired by the Centre for Online and Distance Education’s Book ‘Online and Distance Education for a Connected World"

Chair: Simon Rofe

Panel: Leonard Houx, Neil Mosley, Chrissi Nerantzi, Margaret Korosec

This session will offer up opportunities for a focused, active discussion addressing assessment in higher education, considering inclusivity, AI, relationships with feedback, and surfacing skills amongst others. As an active roundtable, the participants will be invited to share short interventions addressing their chosen dimension of this future opportunities, before opening a discussion to allow for all the participants and audience to reflect on the views of others, and with the overarching themes of the summit. 

"Podcasting for Engagement and Impact"

Chair: James Pickering 

Speaker: Bo Kelestyn 

Podcasting has grown in popularity among educators, especially as part of the transition to online teaching and learning during the pandemic. As a medium, it presents multiple opportunities for innovation in areas such as widening access to learning, student engagement, skills development (Besser et al. 2022; Gunderson and Cumming 2022). During this session, Associate Professor from the University of Warwick, Bo Kelestyn will explore how podcasting played a role in her educational practice using examples from teaching, community building, and even developing her external profile and impact. Bo is a self-taught podcaster and will also reflect on some of the challenges of sustaining this practice, and her top tips for getting started.  

Day 1 closing remarks

Speaker: Margaret Korosec

Drinks reception hosted in HELIX.

HELIX is a brand new multi-use space providing a home for all digitally-focused activity at the University of Leeds. Read more

Welcome and coffee and pastries served until 9.00am in the Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall.

Welcome back

Speaker: Margaret Korosec

"Bringing Wicked Education Problems to Heel: Three Ways of Thinking"

Chair: Jo-Anne Murray 

Speaker: Joann Kozyrev, Tony Morgan, Bo Kelestyn

Evidence abounds that there are many complex interconnected societal problems to which education is integral to the solution, and educators are generally committed to addressing these issues. However, when the problem is complex, solutions may require us to reimagine the very fabric of our social, technological, economic, environmental, and policy structures. Furthermore, if multiple organizations and teams must change their ways of working to adopt the solution, the work can be overwhelming.  Let’s explore how we can leverage three different ways of thinking: Systems Thinking, Design Thinking, and Futures Thinking to untangle our toughest wicked problems, imagine executable solutions, and even prevent new problems from emerging.

"Competency-Based Education: A 25-year Reflection"

Chair: Margaret Korosec

Speakers: Joann Kozyrev and Nick Mount

Competency-based education is not new as a model of education and this session compares two institutions: a veteran and a newcomer. Western Governors University (WGU) was established in 1997 in the US as a fully online, self-paced, competency-based educational model. In contrast, University of Nottingham is just setting up a new model in the UK. What can we learn from these institutions at different stages of maturity? This is certain to be an interesting conversation and exploration of the design of the student and academic experience, relevance for industry, ability to offer an accessible online learning model at scale and systems solutions to enable this to manifest.

Coffee break

"Stories of Artificial Intelligence: Imagining Our Technological Futures"

Chair: Megan Kime

Speaker: Leah Henrickson

Where do you see AI in one year? Five years? Ten? Twenty? What kinds of futures do we and our students want, and how might AI help us realise those futures? In this playful interactive session, we will imagine futures of AI that consider not just technologies, but also the changing sociocultural contexts within which those technologies exist. Through speculative storytelling, we will consider transformative possibilities of AI for online learning that go beyond simply 'this can be used for that'. This session applies a format adapted from the work of the University of Queensland's WhatIF Lab

"Designing and Developing a Multidisciplinary (Cross Institutional) Online Course Using 'Explainable AI'"

Chair: Megan Kime

Speaker: AC Chatterjee

In the rapidly evolving landscape of (online) education, the need for personalised and effective course content has become increasingly important. However, striking a balance between personalised curation and maintaining transparency in the decision-making process can be challenging. This session aims to explore the potential of explainable AI in conceiving, designing, and managing a course while ensuring personalised curation of course content. This session will delve into the practical implementation of explainable AI in course design with a specific focus on emerging interdisciplinary skills gap. Overall, this session aims to highlight the transformative potential of explainable AI in conceiving, designing, and managing courses while ensuring possibilities for personalised curation of course content. By embracing this approach, educators can enhance student engagement, improve learning outcomes, and foster a more inclusive and transparent educational experience.

Lunch in HELIX

"Designing and Improving Accessibility and Usability: Online Learning for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion"

Chair: Margaret Korosec 

Panel: Jolene MacDonald, Tharindu Liyanagunawardena, Aindreas Muldowney and Sue Field

This session explores how accessibility is designed into our online learning experiences and the impact this has on our learners. This will be framed by testimonials to form a foundation for the importance and non-negotiability of this design principle.

"A Systems View of Accessibility"

Chair: Matt Cornock

Speaker: Hannah Morgan, Miro Griffiths, Claudia Coveney, Lizzie Holden and Farzana Latif 

This case study shares the story of the design, development, and upcoming launch in September 2023 of a fully online MSc Disability Studies, Rights and Inclusion at the University of Leeds. The student and staff experience is explored from a systems view and interventions are proposed for a sustainable future.

Short break

"Exploring Consensus Around Online Pedagogy and Delivery Models for an At-Scale Global Audience"

Chair: Joann Kozyrev 

Speaker: Sam Brenton  

This talk will be structured around three provocations: 

1. That a kind of soft consensus has formed around what makes for effective online learning in higher education, particularly in the anglophone West. 
2. That the consensus is a partial and contestable interpretation of specific, and historically situated, theories of learning. 
3. That the pedagogic practices that embody the consensus approach can work against the success of at-scale global online learning.  

The session will culminate in a call to action for participants and practitioners in the field of online learning design to experiment anew, and to encourage colleagues entering to the discipline to develop their practice by embracing a multiplicity of approaches as they find their voices. 

"Developing Learning Design Maturity"

Chair: Margaret Korosec 

Speaker: Neil Mosley 

Panel: Leonard Houx, Matt Cornock, Marlies Gration 

There’s been increasing interest in learning design as a practice as well as growth in the number of learning design roles. But how effectively are universities embedding learning design into their processes and organisational culture? How are learning designers themselves navigating their place within universities and what challenges do they face?  

In this session the organisational and individual challenges and opportunities of embedding learning design will be explored, guided by a learning design maturity framework.