12/08/2021

The ramifications for publishers with the shifts in learning and teaching in higher education were explored in an online panel recently hosted by the APA.

Four leading educational professionals discussed the topic and offered insight to the role publishers could play in serving university educators in their transition to online learning.

The panel was facilitated by Stephen Matchett of the Campus Morning Mail, and some of the key points raised include:

• challenges faced by educators in the shift online
• how publishers can engage more effectively with universities
• common barriers publishers need to negotiate

Read on for a summary of the session, and find the recording here.

Changes to the workforce and skills gaps

While the broad challenges facing the sector were tackled in a preceding webinar, it was noted that a major shift was occurring with the workforce model. Some universities are now focussing on what’s needed in order to support teaching and learning, rather than just their research outputs, with Associate Professor Kelly Matthews of the University of Queensland saying there are moves to “rethink what the educational workforce looks like in higher education.”

With this focus comes a need to support educators who are moving from traditional lectures to online learning using a variety of video and curated content - a change forced on many universities and educators by the Coronavirus pandemic. Kelly Matthews suggested that educators would welcome support, and publishers should ask themselves: “How do I help with the process [of moving online] that builds capacity along the way to create really good curricular resources?”

Current content and the power of storytelling

Dr Amanda White of UTS has long championed the use of video, providing video segments which she shares freely online to supplement her teaching materials, but she made it clear that not only was keeping resources up to date an ongoing challenge, this content was competing with professional content creators. With over 4 million views of her videos on YouTube, she has spent a lot of time trying to understand competing entertainment and what makes good content. No matter what the subject or the medium, she states that “the power of connection and story is really important.”

Dr Sarah Lambert of RMIT echoed the importance of good storytelling in teaching and resources, and in providing materials that are current in terms of content and more broadly in terms of representation. She says “My research indicates that we do have an issue with some outdated views lingering in our learning materials, texts that are a bit sexist and racist, a bit hungover from the 80s and 90s. Not in an explicit way, but in a kind of underrepresented and misrepresented way that doesn't feel up to date.”

The role of technology

While this rapid shift to online learning hasn’t been easy, Kelly Matthews noted that for educators the challenges of the last year has had positive impacts on teaching, saying: “while we were super busy, it made us have to think differently. I think the opportunity here is realising that people were probably spending more time thinking about their teaching and learning last year than they had before. What are the opportunities moving forward, if we keep thinking differently? And the difference has to be about the intellectual engagement with our students in a learning community, and what technologies are going to facilitate that.”

All agreed that technology shouldn’t dictate the learning process, with Colin Simpson, an Education Technologist from Monash University, noting that “technology always needs to be secondary to the pedagogy. We do absolutely need to think in new ways about how learning and teaching occurs, and what technologies can support that, but it's always around what are we trying to do? We need to start with the basic framework saying, this is good learning and teaching, and then find the tools that support that.”

Opportunities for publishers

This is where publishers could step in, and Colin suggested that academics will support products “that make the job easier, and those with better learning outcomes for students are obviously going to be more beneficial.” Kelly added that publishers need to become a part of the learning process, and be able to give universities justification for their place in this process as “universities are obsessed with wanting to have evidence.”

On how publishers should approach this, the panelists offered a variety of routes to engage with the university sector, which would avoid the tensions caused when sales staff approach individual academics. University librarians and learning technology teams were identified as a more appropriate route to pursue for collaboration, and more broadly at a sector level through the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), the Council of Australasian University Leaders in Learning and Teaching (CAULLT) and the Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT).

Issues to negotiate

A number of barriers were identified with the move of teaching resources online. Sarah Lambert highlighted the important issue around equity of access for those who don’t have sufficient internet availability, and a need for in-person groups saying “Students want to feel connection, but that can happen in their local communities. I think we're going to need more community partnerships, to ensure that students who haven't got that broadband access and just want engagement, can go somewhere.”

Pricing and licensing for resources was another issue highlighted, with academics not always the ones in a position to make the call on what products are used, with Colin Simpson adding “different institutions will have different approaches and attitudes. You might find that someone says `I don't want us using stuff that we haven't made ourselves.’”

Discussing the tools and resources she uses to create engaging content, Amanda noted that she often pays for licenses herself, but that's not possible when trying to get institutional access to resources from publishers, saying “to get access to a great tool that we might want to use sometimes does require a licence, which trying to get approval for can be really, really hard in the current fiscal situation of universities.”

Another issue is that publishers need to be aware of their role in assisting in academic integrity, with a need for more customised assessments rather than a traditional exam bank of questions. An example was given that some publishers have offered tools and quizzes to universities, but then also license the same material to websites like Course Hero which makes the answers available to students.

Other pressing concerns for universities in their purchasing surround integration with existing systems, issues of privacy and where data is held, as well as the availability of support for students when accessing resources 24/7.

Collaborative approach

Given the vast challenges to the sector, and the massive changes to content in recent years, the panelists saw opportunities for publishers' involvement in various areas of higher education learning. They stressed that collaboration would be key in developing ongoing relationships with universities, but there’s still a place for high quality learning resources that meet the needs of both students and teachers.

The panel discussion covered vast ground in the 55 minute session, so members should view the full conversation here to find out more.