Introduction
The use of emerging technologies in post-secondary/tertiary education offers a valuable opportunity to improve teaching, learning, and administration. As post-secondary/tertiary educational providers adapt to a rapidly digital world, technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, blockchain, and adaptive learning can enhance education quality, accessibility, and flexibility. However, adopting these tools requires careful planning to ensure that they support academic goals, promote equity, and meet the diverse needs of students and faculty.
This guide outlines key principles for effectively implementing emerging technologies in post-secondary/tertiary education. It emphasises a learner-centred approach, ethical use, scalability, and sustainability, while leveraging technology to create engaging and personalised learning experiences.
Guiding Principles
- Equitable, accessible and evidence-supported implementation
- Ensure emerging technologies are accessible to all learners and implemented equitably to benefit both learners and educators.
- Address diverse needs and abilities of all learners, including those with disabilities, to enhance the learning experience.
- Transparency and communication
- Communicate clearly the expectations for using emerging technologies in academic work, specifying when their use is permitted or prohibited.
- Instruct learners on how to properly document and attribute content generated by emerging technologies.
- Ethical Considerations
- Data importance and reliability: Avoid relying solely on analyses and data informed by emerging technologies for critical decisions. Carefully weigh their reliability.
- Data security and privacy:
- Handle all data collected through emerging technologies securely in compliance with privacy and confidentiality laws.
- Collect only necessary data and minimise risks associated with storing sensitive information.
- Continuously monitor and update security measures to protect data against evolving cyber threats.
- Bias mitigation: Recognise that emerging technologies can be discriminatory and can lead to inaccurate assumptions. Delegate decisions about individualised education programmes and learner support services to qualified professionals who consider individual learner needs.
- Human-centric Design
- Human oversight: Facilitate inclusive and holistic conversations about the role of emerging technologies within the larger organisational mission. Ensure users understand enough to trust or question algorithmic outputs.
- Prioritise human well-being: Use emerging technologies to support, not replace, human expertise and judgement. Rely primarily on human expertise for high-stakes decisions such as learner assessment, placement, graduation, and employee evaluations, considering equity, diversity, access and human rights.
- Maintain control: Retain human control over technological systems. Ensure decisions made by emerging technologies (e.g. AI etc.) are explainable and allow for human intervention when necessary.
- Pedagogical Alignment
- Curriculum integration: Align emerging technologies with curriculum goals to enhance learning rather than using them as standalone tools.
- Faculty support: Provide ongoing training and support to educators for effective integration of new technologies into teaching practices.
- Assessment innovation: Use emerging technologies to innovate assessment methods while ensuring validity and reliability.
- Scalability and Sustainability
- Awareness of invisible infrastructure: Recognize the impact of invisible infrastructure by understanding how the selection of variables in emerging technology tools creates new rules about what matters in post-secondary/tertiary education, and how adopting these technologies can impose different rubrics on educational attainment.
- Infrastructure development: Ensure institutional infrastructure supports the integration and ongoing use of emerging technologies.
- Cost-effectiveness: Evaluate the cost-benefit analysis of adopting new technologies to guarantee their long-term sustainability.
- Environmental responsibility: Use technologies in an environmentally responsible manner by reducing energy consumption, minimising e-waste, and designing technologies with long-term environmental impact in mind.
- Future-proofing: Consider future growth and adaptability when selecting technologies to future-proof institutional capabilities.
- Collaboration and Community Engagement
- Interdisciplinary collaboration: Foster interdisciplinary collaboration across departments to leverage diverse expertise in technology integration.
- Stakeholder partnerships: Engage with industry partners, organisations, governments, and communities to ensure technologies align with workforce needs, trends, and the responsible development of emerging technologies.
- Community outreach: Use emerging technologies to enhance community engagement and outreach programmes.
- Continuous Evaluation and Improvement
- Regular Assessment: Conduct regular assessments of the effectiveness and impact of emerging technologies on learning outcomes.
- Feedback Loops: Establish mechanisms for continuous feedback from students, faculty, and staff to inform improvements.
- Adaptability: Adapt or replace technologies as needed based on evaluation results and emerging trends.
- By following these guiding principles, post-secondary/tertiary educational providers can effectively harness the power of emerging technologies to enhance teaching, learning, and prepare learners for success in an increasingly connected and technology-driven world.
