Higher Education Design: Big Deal Partnerships, Technologies and Capabilities [1st ed.] 9789811592157, 9789811592164

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Higher Education Design Big Deal Partnerships, Technologies and Capabilities Hamish Coates

Higher Education Design

Hamish Coates

Higher Education Design Big Deal Partnerships, Technologies and Capabilities

Hamish Coates Institute of Education Tsinghua University Beijing, China

ISBN 978-981-15-9215-7 ISBN 978-981-15-9216-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Preface

In July 2020, my nine-year-old daughter picked my 1968 edition of Funny Jokes and Foxy Riddles from the shelf and asked me “Why did the girl catch a plane to school?” I paused, wondering if this was fantasy, folly, fantastic, foresight, fortune, futuristic, or just funny. “So she could get a higher education”, my daughter answered, signalling how comfortable today’s children of faculty have grown up feeling about international university study. My mind wandered. In 1968, the idea that millions of young middle-income people mainly from Asia would swirl around the globe for undergraduate study, financially turbocharging research at major universities, was fanciful. A onehour trunk call might cost more than a 2019 trans-pacific plane ticket, the 747, the monumental whale which lifted globalisation, was fresh from the hangar, only very high elites in largely developing Asian economies were thinking about university, and such study was barely a prerequisite for a fantastic and fulsome or even a professional life. In the last two decades ‘international students’ have fuelled not just jet streams but new teaching buildings, faculty wages, research budgets, huge diasporas, and the foundations of what many foresee as the ‘Asian century’. But has such travel been folly, or at least what has been the folly in such venturing? Though many researchers, university leaders, and politicians have tried, few have come to grips with the dynamism and innovation during this period. The real changes to universities, and

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to the people who have learned and worked at them, remain far from understood. It has surely been a fantastic experience for people engaged in the world’s largest ever growth of higher education. Global collaborations and science have boomed, mountain-loads of cash and armies of talented graduates have advanced knowledge-driven jobs, and industry along with governments have rethought universities as core socioeconomic contributors. The sage on the stage has become the facilitator on the corporate and policy boards, entrepreneurial industry ‘co-creation’ has been woven widely into undergraduate experiences, and academic leaders have forged novel kinds of multinational higher education institutions. Was that 1968 joke marvellous foresight? Having spent the morning listening to the leaders of major universities set ‘24-hours’ as the timeframe for pivoting between teaching online or on campus, I wondered about the value of expensive and highly consulted-on strategic plans, of ‘leadership methodology’, and of the value of joking about planes and higher education in today’s era of sophisticated online learning. Why burn kerosene when you can learn from the lounge? Why build concrete lecture theatres when silicone cell phones can deliver so much more? Flying to school reflects wonderful fortune. It has become an ‘accessible super-rich’ kind of thing. It conveys all kinds of social, financial, and personal wealth. It blends professional formation with early adulthood fossicking in foreign lands, and it has piped billions into fortunate and evermore prestigious universities. These ideas and more flashed through my mind before my daughter pitched the punchline. But one gnawing anxiety pulsed stubbornly in my imagination. In this year of pandemic-induced accelerated global transformation, with 747s scuttled, billions carved from university budgets, and 14-day hotel quarantine dwarfing the pain of even 14-hour flights, what, I thought, would higher education be like in 2030 for my daughter’s generation? The nomenclature of qualifications and credentials proliferates but scares about ‘over-education’ and diminishing returns from degrees have, paradoxically, led to more people spending more time in more study. Promulgating the promise of technology has seen the campus flourish into sacred learning places. Higher education will continue to grow in value. I have learned that forecasting the future is fraught with failure, but also that failing to plan means planning to fail.

PREFACE

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These observations carve out the contours which tone and focus this book. The point is not to dramatise contentious political contingencies, polish pedagogical pedantries, earmark technological solutions, or cast policy prescriptions. The point, rather, is to clarify multidimensional tectonic rumbles, make clear often hidden but non-ignorable innovation underway, and frame constructive narratives and perspectives for considering the shape of things to come. Given that higher education does change, slowly, then suddenly, let’s get ready and be prepared. Beijing, China

Hamish Coates

Acknowledgements

Education is all about people. Thousands of people have helped shape my thinking and this book. Often a brief chat at a conference helps cement an idea. Other conversations go on for years. I am very thankful to everyone who has helped imagine, construct, and refine the ideas in this book. Particular thanks to all my colleagues at Tsinghua University. Many people made more contributions through specific projects and publications. I am forever grateful to family Sara Bice, Imogen Bice, Annabel Coates, and Wendy Coates, and to colleagues (in alpha order) Victor Borden, Patrick Brothers, Brendan Cantwell, Fred Chalupa, Jon Chew, Lauren Conn, Gwilym Croucher, Nick Dirks, Jacob Dreyer, Peter Ewell, Michael Fung, Xi Gao, Steven Godinho, Leo Goedegebuure, Fei Guo, Jie Hao, Ellen Hazelkorn, Xi Hong, Wanqi Hu, Futao Huang, Joan Kaufman, Paula Kelly, Adrianna Kezar, Roger King, Sue Kokonis, George Kuh, Huiqin Liu, Liu, Lu Liu, Yang Liu, William Locke, Vin Massaro, Bill Massy, Kelly Matthews, Alex McCormick, Lynn Meek, Tatiana Melguizo, Ken Moore, Stephen Nagle, Sid Nair, Damian Powell, Zhen Qiu, Rob Sheehan, Yee Zher Sheng, Jinghuan Shi, Zhongying Shi, Jung Cheol Shin, Marie Spies, Bjørn Stensaker, Haitao Sun, Johnny Sung, Bill Tierney, Tom Van Essen, Frans van Vught, Robert Wagenaar, Chuanyi Wang, Gang Wang, Harvey Weingarten, Michael Wells, Wen, David Wilkinson, Enoch Wong, Huanhuan Xia, Weihe Xie, Jiale Yang, Donglin You, Shijie Yu, Chuanjie Zhang, Dan Zhang, Li Zhang, Yu Zhang, Zhou Zhong, Lu Zhou, Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, and David Zupko. ix

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As the citations and references convey, this book draws ideas from many papers, chapters, opinion pieces, and reports. I am particularly grateful to McGill-Queen’s University Press for permission to use material from: Coates, H. (2018). Postsecondary Punters: Creating new platforms for higher education success. In: Weingarten, H., Hicks, M. & Kaufman, A. (Ed.) Beyond Enrolment: Measuring Academic Quality. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. The analysis of doctoral education uses text from: Coates, H., Croucher, G., Weerakkody, U., Moore, K., Dollinger, M., Kelly, P., Bexley, E. & Grosemans, I. (2019). An education design architecture for the future Australian doctorate. Higher Education, 79, 79–94. Working with outstanding colleagues at Tsinghua University and globally, I am fortunate to have led research which has revealed insights and ideas. The work which has shaped this book has included contributing to Tsinghua University’s Shenzhen International Graduate School, exploring the social impact of education technology with Schwarzman and VIPTeach, interviewing global university presidents, evaluating Tsinghua University’s emergency online education, designing indicators for graduate education quality, developing an education quality model for the world’s third-largest MOOC, constructing and piloting next-generation assessment, developing doctoral programme designs and a derivative global website, designing double world-class university evaluation indicators, analysing the formation of elite universities across Asia, analysing university, academic, and workforce productivity, researching lifelong learning with Skills Future Singapore, and characterising global faculty experiences for Chinese higher education.

Contents

1

Higher Education Design Emerging Field Why Design Now The Storyline References

1 1 5 8 10

2

EdTech Establishes Solutions Grow The Money Scene The Platform Ecosystem Creating Educational Value References

13 13 16 19 23 26

3

Campus Options Wriggling Free The Conditional Campus Charting Blended Futures References

29 29 30 34 39

4

International Connections Imagining Futures Designing Guiding Frames Sampling History

41 41 43 44 xi

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CONTENTS

Framing Connectedness References

50 56

5

Education Economy The New Dance Circumstantial Misalignments The New Education Economy Articulating New Arrangements Spurring Required Reform References

61 62 63 65 66 68 71

6

Articulating Success Better Bets on Tertiary Futures Buying Higher Education Craving Confidence Revealing Success Next-Generation Platforms Where to Next References

73 73 75 76 78 81 88 89

7

Reforming Assessment Anticipating Future Assessment Reimagining Current Contexts Creating Perspectives Documenting Insights into Practice A Useful Assessment Architecture Projecting Steps Ahead References

91 91 93 95 99 103 110 112

8

Redesigning Institutions Building Structures Partnership Parameters Service Partnerships Partnership Stances References

117 117 118 124 127 133

9

Curating Public Value Net Positive

135 135

CONTENTS

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Unbinding Publications Imagining Difference Public Value Indicators Beyond Number One References

136 140 142 149 150

Constructing Cultivation Future Characteristics Cultivating Scholars Leading Uncertainty Clarifying Spaces Regulating Regulation References

153 154 154 158 165 170 175

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.1 3.2

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

3.3 3.4 5.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4

The storyline: formations and futures EdTech growth phases Global education stocks 2000–20 by subsector (US$ Billion) Global education stocks 2000–20 by (US$ Billion) Global education venture capital 2010–20 by (US$ Billion) Global EdTech learning landscape OPM firms and MOOCs OPM firms 2019 Value-creating constellation Facets of the campus shock Difference in average scores between online and on campus Education spaces, formats, and arrangements Blended learning design template Addressing the misalignment problem Assessment redesign logic Assessment phases and activities Assessment architecture models Assessment architecture processes Zones of partnership Four-phase academic value model Traditional university and firm partnership depiction Blended university and firm partnership depiction

8 14 17 17 18 20 20 22 24 32 35 37 38 64 96 98 103 107 119 120 124 125

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xvi Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

LIST OF FIGURES

8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 9.1 10.1 10.2 10.3

Innovative university and firm partnership depiction Australian university and firm partnership depiction Chinese university and firm partnership depiction University–firm partnership stances Higher education value indicators Competing values leadership framework Framework of China’s Double World-Class scheme AUA member universities

125 126 126 128 144 160 166 169

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table

4.3 5.1 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2 8.1 9.1 10.1

International higher education design framework Summary of Australian university international student fee revenue Framing forms of international higher education Dimensions of university change Nine qualities of a successful student experience Data sources for the nine qualities Articulating three eras of assessment Indicative assessment standards with prompt questions Parameters and investment questions Social contribution indicators Doctoral design architecture

45 50 52 67 79 82 95 106 129 147 155

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CHAPTER 1

Higher Education Design

Abstract This chapter outlines the urgent need to design future higher education institutions, resources, and services. It charts this emerging and constructive field of inquiry and activity, locates it among system and institution practices, positions it as a field of research and innovation, articulates rationales for design-infused inquiry and innovation, and maps the book’s structure and narratives. It is argued that now is the time for informed, critical, and constructive discourse about cultivating future higher education. Keywords Higher education · Design methods · System transformation · Institutional change · Education innovation

Emerging Field This book advances new views on higher education design, stepping beyond prevailing problems and perspectives and stimulating broader contributions. The 2020 pandemic has shocked already fragile business and academic models, and the time is ripe for innovating global online learning, shifting towards Asia and lifelong learning, and investing in twenty-first-century institutions and partnerships. Rather than dwell on dystopian discontents, the book charts narratives for developing © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_1

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the industry and the field. It is written for commercial, governmental, and collegial communities to inject major research-driven insights into contemporary transformations and research. Overall, the book makes three main points. First, universities are creating substantial educational and commercial innovation, forging novel partnerships, generating broader contributions, and serving broader missions. Second, the distribution and flow of talent development is changing, flowing across the lifespan, rebalancing globally, and embracing larger populations. Third, now is a critical time for higher education leaders to invest in inventing productive narratives to create future higher education. Broadly, this book creates ideas to engage people who can benefit from investing in higher education. This includes hundreds of millions of people who seek to study, research, lead, or reform higher education. It also includes the billions who may be yet to think about devoting time and effort to achieve a worthwhile return. It includes grandmothers who have nurtured generations, billionaires who fund infrastructure, and millions of teachers. At a minimum, it seeks to inspire a clutch of experts to energise the next phase of higher education’s transformation. Not all investments play out with the same rhythm. Higher education grows in lumpy and uneven ways, almost inevitably given the complex and entwined mechanisms at play. Bringing online learning technology to reliable scale has taken around 25 years of plug-and-play solutions. Building a mature doctoral education system seems to take at least 40 years. Building transnational student flows and pathways happen more swiftly. Global university reputation can be generated in two decades, though deeper prestige takes 50–60 years. A professoriate can be purchased, but in any genuine sense takes 30 years to mature. Cultivating one person from school leaver to tenured professor takes 20 years. Campus building programmes reach out two decades but often stick for 50 years. Faculty can fly-in and fly-out of any global teaching location in around 72 hours. In the last few generations people have spent four years at university then sallied forth into 40-year professional careers. How then to approach the productive advance of higher education? Normative prescription rarely translates into worthwhile advance, often even despite regulatory power and financial lubrication. Institutions and systems implement incremental advance, but such progression is almost intrinsically muffled by the negotiation of interests, contextual particularity, and the relativism of resistant discourse. Big thinkers and reformers like to nourish history-sized narratives with decadal patience. A useful

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approach, advanced in this book, is to bundle together principles, perspectives, research, and momentum into the fresh field of higher education design. Higher education design is about creating systems, institutions and resources. It builds on contemporary design science research and practice which has grown way beyond graphics, software, and objects to enrich a host of diverse industries, stakeholders, and systems (Buchanan, 1999; Kelley & Kelley, 2013; McKinsey, 2020; Plattner, Meinel, & Leifer, 2016). Springing from ‘design thinking’ (IDEO, 2020), ventures begin by building understanding through research, observation, consultation, and reflection. Having these foundations in hand makes it possible to delineate ideas, systems, roles, constraints, and experiences. This analytical work underpins the creation of options, solutions, and scenarios. Prototypes can constructed and tested. Finally, storylines and business and implementation models can be curated and launched. This design perspective focuses on solutions rather than problems. It is theoretically and methodologically eclectic rather than formulaic. It embraces insights residing within the scholarly discipline, but also and importantly in surrounding research and practice ecosystems. In certain respects, higher education design may be seen as a successor to university evaluation. Evaluation, in theory though rarely in practice, tries to determine how well an implementation conforms with a plan to prescribe remedies for remediation and improvement. Typically, fuelled by verve for organisational learning, this pushes evaluators to snatch glimpses of experience and attempt to retrofit or attribute these glimpses to removed, distanced, superseded, or even buried forecasts. In 2020 a global expert may gather data for a 2021 review of education practice in 2016 which was shaped by a 2014 agenda. This is a fraught venture in higher education, given so many complex and difficult and moving parts. Often, it reduces to evaluators conducting Rorschach-like analyses of spurious decimal-inflected evaluation reports with hopes of distilling patches for fissures in already dated forms. In essence, the evaluator tries to grab onto long wobbly tails with hopes of ‘closing the loop’ by linking these back to re-imagined heads. Higher education design is much more dynamic, nimble, and engaged. An array of recursive sizing up and solving is located much nearer to problems being identified, created, or solved, resulting in more direct action plans and improvements. Rather than segregate planning, action, evaluation, and improvement, the same people are engaged in checking and

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tinkering experiences. The experiences themselves are modified through ongoing checking and tinkering. Planning is taken much closer to practice, often being blended into it. Indeed, as the above methods reveal, design often happens by co-creating plans with experiences. As such, design focuses on constructive and intellectually infused progression. It targets energy on organisational remaking. It is positive. Higher education design resonates with the way institutions, people and ideas behave as thy ingeniously negotiate stress and innovation. These are not whacky ideas from the edges of any field, but rather informed insights which build on research and expertise. A significant amount of higher education design is already underway, and this book is an early effort to capture and extend this work. United States researchers, for instance, are advocating the sixty-year curriculum (60YC) to ‘develop new educational models that enable each person to reskill as their occupational and personal context shifts’ (Dede, 2018). Related innovation puts emphasis on the design-based engineering of learning (Dede, Richards, & Saxberg, 2019). Stanford2025, the effort to build an ‘open loop university’, is a fascinating effort to explore the ‘future undergraduate experience’ (Stanford, 2020). Arizona State University has the ‘University Design Institute’ (ASU, 2020). The Georgetown Futures venture aims to ‘accelerate educational innovation that allows higher education to more effectively and equitably benefit society’ (Georgetown, 2020). SkillsFuture Singapore focuses on reconfiguring education to help people ‘develop their fullest potential throughout life, regardless of their starting points’ (SkillsFuture, 2020). Georgia Tech has committed to ‘Lifetime Education’ as the ‘next’ in education (Georgia Tech, 2018). Spanning diverse contexts, the Minerva Project works from the science of learning to ‘partner with leading institutions and organizations to design and deliver customized learning and talent development programs that are more agile and effective than traditional approaches’ (Minerva Project, 2020). As these introductory examples convey, designing higher education charts a fresh frontier in sector-specific research and development. The field of higher education studies flourished from the 1990s as Anglospheric and European universities grew large. Education and research programmes, centres and communities formalised around topics such as student affairs, policy and leadership, teaching and learning, and internationalisation. Many warning lights have been flashing, however, that this work has been dissipating and failing to deliver. Research centres have scrambled for scholarly grants as university presidents have turned

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to commercial consultants for reconnaissance and advice. Brilliant 1970s theories have been depleted from anxious and unproductive overmilking. The field struggles to distinguish a corpus of theories which give foundation and genuine ‘discipline’. Major research centres have been closed, major projects defunded, and substantial evidence-bases unnourished. The workforce has aged (Coates & Goedegebuure, 2012) and many experts have retired while doctoral students and global networks have withered. Talented graduates have turned to commercial firms. Anglocentric researchers have become increasingly separated from the overwhelming and growing majority of higher education practice, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. A range of meta-analyses has tried to make sense of the ‘scattered field’ (Daenekindt & Huisman, 2020: 571). These ominous indications of distress must be taken seriously as inducements for reform and rejuvenation. Who should care about creating and investing in the next few decades of higher education? More and more people who care about higher education year by year (Coates, 2019). As tagged in the opening paragraph, obvious participants include university leaders, faculty, students, and industry partners. There are also new and growing communities of financiers, service providers, regulators, and co-owners. To address these diverse interests the book’s storylines stem not just from research, but grab onto conversations with participants and commentators, media reports, ethnographic observation, and imaginary formulations. Overall, the book seeks to articulate principles, perspectives and proposals for future higher education design.

Why Design Now Intersecting forces are fuelling the need for higher education design. These are worth unpacking as they position the book’s narrative and perspectives. They reveal the compounding urgency driving the following analysis. There is of course an ongoing need for informed and accessible dialogues about higher education. Many people who work in higher education, even experts, lack basic knowledge of key areas and major issues. This is partly due to the lack of systematic training and the complexity and breadth of the field. It is also a field which touches many but captures the deeper interest of only just a few. As the book reveals, different people are starting to engage in higher education, include a

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new generation of university and government leaders, commercial service providers and finance partners, and national communities which are only just starting to grasp the sector’s potential. There is an urgent need for fresh and useful narratives in higher education. Anyone familiar with the field is aware of the new worlds charted by signature epochs in California, China, Europe, and the Anglosphere. Today, higher education seems to flourish beyond the reach of system-wide policy designs, with even government ministers viewing traditional policy handles as too greasy, vaporous, and dynamic. This does not mean that dour and dystopian discourse needs to rule, rather that alternative theories and methodologies and perspectives might better serve tomorrow. Resetting around constructive narratives and game plans is essential to ensuring a prosperous and productive future for higher education. There is an urgent need to reinvigorate higher education research, and to clarify research frontiers. Since the 1990s the tectonic plates which undergird higher education have transformed while much scholarship has become befuddled by the fascinating relativism of pedagogical epistemologies, silicone solutions, and identity. Topics like this are important, but their emphasis has left major issues languishing. In countries with major higher education systems it is hard to find research experts or publications on core topics like finance, governance, regulation, or management. As a result, existentially important fractures have emerged between university-based research and actual education practice. This has meant that people doing higher education, such as leaders, teachers, researchers, and students, have turned to management consultants and even loquacious journalists for insight and advice. It has meant that many highly trained researchers have moved into personally comfortable and indulgent conceptual spaces which are blinkered or insulated from the messy machinations which surround them. This book asserts the need for steady awareness, analysis, and reform of core facets of higher education. While planned over three years, this book was written during a major global crisis which tipped many slow-brewing discretionary reforms into urgent priorities. The panicked existential screams of many big players dissipated to reveal the significance of higher education and the urgency of accelerating key reforms. For how much longer, if at all, can universities parlay research reputations into tuition revenues without solid evidence of graduate success? How can universities persuade uninterested stakeholders of their value and impact?

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How can universities seduce a broad range of stakeholders to invest and co-create amazing knowledge futures? The analysis is propelled by the need to understand Asia, and particularly China. This is critical because countries across Asia are likely to account for two-thirds of higher education enrolments by 2030, because not much is known about Asian higher education, and because Asia is at the forefront of major domestic innovation and global development. Research for the Asian Universities Alliance (Zhong, Coates, & Shi, 2019) revealed the widescale and timely need to report and learn more about higher education in Asia. The book presents helicopter insights from the apex of the world’s largest education system, and individual stories from across the region. Major developments have started bumping into each other in nonignorable ways. Governments in major countries are using contemporary economic perturbations to finally shake themselves free of fiscal, and in certain respect regulatory, responsibility for higher education. Online education technologies have become reliable, sophisticated, and useful. Asia has matured as a serious third pole in higher education. While doubtless not dead, globalisation is looking decidedly less beige and nationally prescribed than in the preceding forty years. Demand for higher education keeps swelling with more communities seeking learning across their lifespan, putting enormous stress on traditional supply capabilities. Billionaires are secreting private cash into high education, foreseeing advanced skills as a new form of currency. Through this, skilled graduates are gaining ground on publications as important contributions, opening developmental frontiers for reconfigured kinds of institutions. The ideas and practices which will pattern the growth of higher education over the next twenty years will be shaped by paradoxical and unanticipated factors. Hundreds of millions more people will participate, rendering useless many elite-era academic rituals which persist today albeit with dwindling salience and vigour. A substantial volume of new students, particularly in the sunrise markets of Sub-Saharan Africa (Calderon, 2018), will need to be flown to a university, have a university built nearby, or engage with a mobile university, or have virtual resources piped in. Now is the time for informed, critical, and constructive discourse about cultivating future higher education.

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The Storyline This book distils the fruits of several higher education design projects. Loosely, the first part concentrates on contemporary formations. The balance of the book paints important futures, concentrating on burrowing out persistent pain points and reconstructing more productive and gainful futures. Figure 1.1 depicts the narrative structure. Each chapter is an independent contribution and they combine to contour important narratives of future higher education design. Future higher education will be constructed by mixing three everyday chemicals, namely silicone, concrete, and kerosene. Chapters 2–5 focus on these formations. Combined, these initial chapters compress substantial analytical and empirical research to forge insights on contemporary developments and the future state of play. Chapter 2 focuses on technology. Servers and software have become impossible to ignore, having sped beyond a jumble of unfulfilled silicone ‘solutions’ to finally extend reliable and creative educational services. This chapter takes stock of the burgeoning education technology (EdTech) scene and examines how it is creating new kinds of educational value. Next, the campus, gardens of concrete brilliance. Rustling substantial insights from one of higher education’s biggest ever shocks and transformations, the 2020 viral pandemic, Chapter 3 looks at campus optionality, and the realisation of an inherently blended future. Chapter 4 probes the international connections which will distribute education structures and functions across communities and the world.

ArƟculaƟng success

EducaƟon economy

Reforming assessment

Redesigning insƟtuƟons EdTech establishes

Campus opƟons

InternaƟonal connecƟons CuraƟng public value

Higher educaƟon design

Fig. 1.1 The storyline: formations and futures

ConstrucƟng culƟvaƟon

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How much kerosene will planes burn moving millions of leaders, students, and faculty to campuses, and what sorts of things will they seek to do? Historical analysis helps parametrise a framework which is then deployed to imagine the characteristics of a connected future. The analysis is structural in nature, delving beneath contemporary circumstances and looking instead at broader tectonic shifts underway. Chapter 5 pivots from looking at formation trajectories to instead looking at the landscape in which it will play out. Swelling problems matching education supply and demand are analysed to spotlight options for what is characterised as a new education economy. The chapter proposes transformations which involve reconfiguring education services, and better understanding and supporting demand. Overall, the chapter contributes a strategy for engaging universities in what is referred to as the ‘new education economy’. The balance of this book asserts that incremental reform or silent transformation will not help higher education realise its promise to the places and communities it must serve. Gnawing transformations need to be shepherded into the mainstream futures. Change is required at all levels ranging from individual, instructional, institutional, governmental, and global. Chapter 6 focuses on the individual student. It argues that substantially improved guidance is required to help people punt on post-secondary education. This means understanding how and why people invest in higher education and producing next-generation platforms which facilitate more productive and successful encounters. Recent decades have seen substantial instructional change to curriculum and teaching, but largely unreformed assessment of student learning remains a chronic pain point for higher education. This chapter reimagines prevailing arrangements and advances a next-generation design architecture to project important steps ahead. Drawing on multi-country research education service partnership, Chapter 8 presents a model for understanding and redesigning future higher education institutions. This analysis delves beneath public policy discussions about system and organisational diversity to instead reveal the substantial and often confidential renovations which are already reconfiguring higher education. This is essential to understanding kinds of partnership which are in play and likely to prosper. Chapter 9 targets the policy-level governance of higher education. It is argued that to speed transformation, higher education must grow beyond

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suborn infatuation with bibliometrics, imagine novel growth frontiers, and chase valuable and diverse growth trajectories. The final chapter winds up the exposition, clarifying steps required to cultivate future scholars, leaders, spaces, and regulations. It charts the trajectory of existing arrangements to spotlight the characteristics of future global arrangements.

References Arizona State University (ASU). (2020). University design institute. Accessed from: https://udi.asu.edu. Buchanan, R. (1999). Design research and the new learning. Accessed from: https://www.ida.liu.se/divisions/hcs/ixs/material/DesResMeth09/The ory/01-buchanan.pdf. Calderon, A. (2018). Massification of higher education revisited. Melbourne: RMIT. Coates, H. (2019). Editorial: Eight tactics for engineering consequential higher education policy research papers. Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 3(1), 1–3. Coates, H., & Goedegebuure, L. (2012). Recasting the academic workforce: Why the attractiveness of the academic profession needs to be increased and eight possible strategies for how to go about this from an Australian perspective. Higher Education, 64(6), 875–889. Daenekindt, S., & Huisman, J. (2020). Mapping the scattered field of research on higher education: A correlated topic model of 17,000 articles, 1991–2018. Higher Education, 80, 571–587. Dede, C. (2018). The 60 year curriculum: Developing new educational models to serve the agile labor market. Accessed from: https://evolllution.com/rev enue-streams/professional_development/the-60-year-curriculum-developingnew-educational-models-to-serve-the-agile-labor-market. Dede, C., Richards, J., & Saxberg, B. (2019). Learning engineering for online education: Theoretical contexts and design-based examples. London: Routledge. Georgetown University. (2020). Georgetown futures venture. Accessed from: https://futures.georgetown.edu. Georgia Tech. (2018). Deliberate innovation, lifetime education. Accessed from: https://provost.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/documents/deliberate_inno vation_lifetime_education.pdf. IDEO. (2020). Design thinking defined. Accessed from: https://designthinking. ideo.com. Kelley, T., & Kelley, D. (2013). Creative confidence: Unleashing the creative potential within us all. New York: Crown Business.

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McKinsey. (2020). Growth by design. Accessed from: https://www.mckinsey. com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/how-we-help-clients. Minerva Project. (2020). Minerva Project. Accessed from: https://www.minerv aproject.com. Plattner, H., Meinel, C., & Leifer, L. (2016). Design thinking research: Making design thinking foundational. Singapore: Springer. Skillsfuture. (2020). Skillsfuture Singapore. Accessed from: https://www.skillsfut ure.sg. Stanford. (2020). Open Loop University. Accessed from: www.stanford2025. com/open-loop-university. Zhong, Z., Coates, H., & Shi, J. (2019). Balancing the scales: The urgent need for leading educational innovation. In Z. Zhong, H. Coates, & J. Shi (Eds.), Innovations in Asian higher education. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 2

EdTech Establishes

Abstract Leveraging education technology (EdTech) is core to designing future higher education. The chapter begins by clarifying the financial dynamics shaping contemporary EdTech, which are critical to understanding the scene overall. This analysis reveals the massive influx of global capital which has spurred the growth of sophisticated platforms. The broad education technology ecosystem is surveyed, before diving into case study analyses of online learning platforms and online project management firms. The final part of this chapter unpacks how education service firms are blending commercial with academic capability into growing constellations which are creating and expanding educational value. Keywords Education technology · Investment dynamics · Platform ecosystem · Education service firms · Academic value

Solutions Grow Education technology (EdTech) has solved sufficient software solutions and matured in sophisticated ways that add integrated value to higher education. While lagging ‘MedTech’ and ‘FinTech’, the maturation of EdTech has been rapid in the last two decades and particularly in the last

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_2

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five years. This critical analysis opens out the field, revealing the flourishing digital transformation of higher education, and furnishing a prelude to later analyses. EdTech growth can be distinguished into three educationally framed phases. Adopting an educational not technological gaze means that all the technology in the world is irrelevant unless it touches and transforms how institutions and people create and share knowledge. Figure 2.1 depicts the phases. While difficult to pigeonhole in terms of dates or technologies, and playing out differently in different contexts, the analysis starts at the turn of the century, shortly after the massification of the internet (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005; Guro, 2019). The first ‘distinct’ phase ranged from the turn of the century for around a decade. The turn of the century was a formative moment for IT given the Y2K scare, which engaged even people who had thus far managed to avoid computers and the internet. Many people had email and internet access, many acquired their first smart mobile phone during this period, and universities adopted enterprise-level education platforms. Certainly, technology was separate from education, and easily avoidable. Learning advisors were hired to help faculty transform overhead transparencies into PowerPoint slides and upload these to rudimentary learning management systems. Major global universities explored the potential of the internet for open courseware and programmed learning. Conservative analysts debated how universities should engage

Distributed Unavoidable EducaƟon Technology Technology

DisƟnct EducaƟon EducaƟon

Technology

Fig. 2.1 EdTech growth phases

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with phenomena which posed an existential threat, writing books about the death of the campus and traditional academics. A more mature ‘unavoidable’ phase emerged towards the end of the first decade of the century, maybe running for the next seven to ten years. This second phase was epitomised by smartphones, massive open online courses, video conferencing, and an abundance of online curriculum materials. Major knowledge-relevant global firms grew up, particularly on the internet but also in and around key education activities and conditions. Universities relaxed as it became clear that higher education was more than the sum of potentially solvable and codable parts. Accessible knowledge resources did not deflate the value of the credential nor dissuade people from enrolling in formal programmes. Coders found it difficult to deliver on their promise to programme and automate teaching, administration, and student support. During this time technology not only became unavoidable but also swamped core facets of higher education. Chief information officers wielded platforms with the potential to ‘solve’ and perhaps even supplant education. The third and contemporary ‘distributed’ phase started somewhere around 2015 when it became clear that education and institutions could be enabled by technology, not the other way around. EdTech matured in its capacity to help configure education in ways that help people learn. The availability of powerful platforms and software was important, but more important was finding ways to exploit these systems for educational and institutional advantage. Commercial capability and in particular marketing techniques played a role in this development. This contemporary phase signposts an important milestone in which large service firms integrate technology which supports an array of conferencing, messaging, scheduling, tracking, reading, and assessing. Embracing much more than technology, these firms grew to coordinate human, physical, and virtual resources into ecosystems which are genuinely starting to reconfigure education reach, experiences, operations, and outcomes. The scale and sophistication of this change also undergirds genuine promise of greater transformation to come. This three-phase depiction conveys how the maturation of EdTech has meant that, particularly in the last five years, technology has started focusing on education rather than the other way around. In the first two decades of the internet, education technology tended to be led by engineers and managers who understandably focused on technological

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fundamentals and innovations rather than broader educational and institutional returns. The decades ahead look different. Rather than focusing on technology, contemporary academic leaders have started leveraging different platforms and experts to enable productive education. Education and business leaders have seized this change and built substantial global education service corporations which are of major relevance to higher education.

The Money Scene Contemporary EdTech spans local start-ups to global conglomerates, with a plethora of firms each advancing a platform or application to service any and every educational need. It is easy to get lost in the flux, even for experts. There is an eternally merging array of incommensurate and often competing brands, lots of flashy branding, and intricate knowledge communities. Even technically literate busy people do not have time to get into the details, and it is useful to explore the investments and technologies being made. Clarifying the money side is critical to understanding the scene overall. EdTech investment is booming. Governments invest substantially in higher education, which goes to direct though more often indirect investments in design and development. Lots of wealthy countries are spending more than 4% of GDP on education overall (OECD, 2019). Many firms have emerged from universities, particularly small and risky start-ups. The scale and nature of these firms is hard to track as specific business and technical activity often floats within boundaries prescribed by regulatory and other instruments to compel broader disclosure. Non-governmental investment is playing a massive role not just in growing but also in consolidating and reshaping EdTech. The accelerating role of private equity and capital markets is associated with declining government investment, the scope for firms to turn cash and surplus from education, and the rise of ‘grey-zone’ services which are important within the total education ecosystem but sit beyond formal sectoral and institutional structures. This ‘grey-zone’ is very colourful, and plays a super-important role in helping people and institutions and even governments across boundaries. Examples include online pathways providers, student recruitment platforms, and careers and internship providers. Figure 2.2 shows the market capitalisation of education stocks from 2000 to early 2020, revealing the sustained growth in number and size of listed

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Fig. 2.2 Global education stocks 2000–20 by subsector (US$ Billion) (Source https://www.holoniq.com/notes/20-years-of-global-education-stocks)

higher education companies and the growth in other sectors, much of which flows into higher education (HolonIQ, 2020a). Figure 2.3 shows that China has played a significant and growing role in listed investments, now being the largest single global market in terms of listed firms and market capitalisation. Private equity is also playing a huge role, both through start-ups and buyouts. Figure 2.4 shows trends in private equity over the last decade, revealing sustained increase. The acceleration of this money has been fuelled by the global rush in early 2020 to build systems

Fig. 2.3 Global education stocks 2000–20 by (US$ Billion) (Source https:// www.holoniq.com/notes/20-years-of-global-education-stocks)

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Fig. 2.4 Global education venture capital 2010–20 by (US$ Billion) (Source https://www.holoniq.com/notes/3b-global-edtech-venture-capital-forq1-2020)

which support more distributed forms of education, persistent underinvestment in education relative to other major sectors, and growth of education populations. China is the dominant market, fuelled by the core value on education, substantial private wealth, huge internet use, and enduring interest in innovation and success. Market analysts predict that global venture capital will continue multiplying over the next decade, with growth in emerging and underserved regions such as Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia (HolonIQ, 2020b). These figures portray an array of complex holding patterns. It is complex even for experts to understand the dynamic, intwined, and layered corporate flows reshaping contemporary higher education. Public universities strike joint ventures with listed companies then together supporting private companies which are investing in private firms. The SEEK Group, for instance, started as an Australian job application website which expanded internationally, invested in education institutions, spunoff an online education services firm, then invested in global online platforms. In 2020, the group holds ‘talent-related’ brands across several markets and functions, and sports exposure to three billion people. As these few charts convey, the last twenty years have spawned and exposed opportunities for an influx of big global capital which has fuelled, and in important respects transformed, core facets of higher education.

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Obviously this is a really big and complex business, involving huge interests, thousands of super smart people, thorny politics, and tonnes of confidentiality. The average university faculty and even most leaders probably have little idea about the shape of things coming. Not much is written and in certain cases known about these matters, perhaps due to the lack of analytical expertise, company allegiances, and commercial sensitivities, and the fraught optics of public universities outsourcing core academic work. But it is important, and this analysis attempts to make modest progress by both revealing a few practical developments and more generally articulating structures for making it easier for people to understand what is going on.

The Platform Ecosystem More money than ever before is flowing into education technology, and it seems likely to keep growing. As education grows there remain substantial opportunities to invest in platforms and services that will yield sound and substantial returns. Where is this money going? The full answer is likely into every nook of education, and it is necessary to narrow focus to achieve greater clarity. The following analysis concentrates on technologyrelated service firms in the field of higher education. The lines are blurry, but the analysis does not focus, for instance, non-technology companies which mainly address research or institutions’ corporate services. First, an overview is provided, then a series of functional case studies. Figure 2.5 presents ‘HolonIQ’s Global EdTech Learning Landscape’ (HolonIQ, 2020c). This depicts a suite of acronyms, each of which signposts functional space inhabited by a suite of companies. For instance, looking within new delivery models at ‘Mo’ reveal a suite of MOOC providers and within ‘Op’ a suite of online project management (OPM) firms (Fig. 2.6). These functional spaces can be unpacked and explored to reveal dynamic insights into technology-related higher education service firms. Two case studies are explored here, each of which flags an important zone of the EdTech space and set foundations for subsequent analyses. Fully online learning is the most obvious manifestation of technologically infused education. Recent surveying suggested that around one-third of students are participating in some form of distance education, though perhaps one half also engage in campus-based provision (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018). The economies of online education

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Fig. 2.5 Global EdTech learning landscape (Source https://www.globallearni nglandscape.org)

Fig. 2.6 OPM firms and MOOCs (Source https://www.globallearninglandsca pe.org)

are attractive, perhaps around US$5000 compared with US$24,000 for the average student who takes less than one-fifth of their learning online (Eduventures, 2020). The reduced cost obviously ties with the decline of traditional faculty roles and less research work. Marketing is the bookend to this equation, which drives up student engagement, tuition revenue, and overall surplus. Sustaining the quality of materials, experiences and

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outcomes renders purely online education an attractive option. Accordingly, market analysts estimate that the online degree market could reach US$74 billion by 2025, around 3% of the US$2.5 trillion global higher education market (HolonIQ, 2020b). Certain institutions have gravitated towards fully online provision. The shift is not small and is often far from being shaped by financial considerations alone. It can involve reconfiguration of underlying operational models. Starting in 2008, massive open online courses (MOOCs) launched contemporary interest in online education. These platforms made university curriculum and passive teaching available at scale, though with lax assessment, minimal certification, and often appalling attrition figures. Hyped by technozealots, they failed to deliver the ‘borderless, gender-blind, race-blind, class-blind, and bank account-blind’ education once envisioned (Agarwal, 2013: 3). Research into student engagement has revealed that only a slither of a percentage of students ever complete a course (Coates et al., 2019; Perna et al., 2013). Clearly serving initially as sophisticated business cards for major global-brand universities, with the help of university and business executives these platforms have been nudged into the accredited programme space, with the most important dividend being the promulgation of various micro-credentials. Backed by large universities, many MOOCs are now mature platforms which are starting to tiptoe into other areas, taking with them millions of interested learners. To date, fully online provision has been particularly prominent in the United States, with major prominent players such as Arizona State University, Purdue University, Western Governors University, and Southern New Hampshire University. Education technology also contributes enormously to location- and campus-based forms of education. The learning management systems (LMS), which early in the millennium threatened to unbundle and disrupt even the most stable universities, were most used on the campus (Coates, 2006). Such systems are still ubiquitous but focus deliberately on technology rather than education or broader services. The following case focuses on professional education service firms referred as ‘online program management’ (OPM) firms. In the broadest articulation, an OPM is a for-profit firm which helps a typically, non-profit institution such as a university re-engineer education resources and services and scale programme delivery. These are much more than technology firms, typically also incorporating marketing (e.g.

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market research, student recruitment), management (e.g. course coordination, student administration, student retention, financial management, helpdesk and technical support), and academic (e.g. course development, curriculum design, faculty development) services and expertise (Helix Education, 2019; HolonIQ, 2020d). As they embrace online as well as blended education, OPMs are relevant to higher education students across the globe. The OPM market is young and dynamic. There are ongoing changes in business models, academic services, and firm characteristics. It is estimated that there are around 30–50 established OPMs, partnering with hundreds of universities and generating billions in revenue (Zipper, 2016). Figure 2.7 depicts a sample of firms, dividing these into firms which are generalist, specialist, MOOC-based, and university-based. OPMs tend to be based in the United States, with a smaller number in Australia, China, the United Kingdom, Europe, and India (Eduventures, 2020; HolonIQ, 2020d; Navitas Ventures, 2017). These firms have sprung from publishers (e.g. Pearson Embanet, Wiley Education Services), university-based MOOCs (e.g. edX, FutureLearn, Coursera, Udacity), and education service firms (e.g. Academic Partnerships, Online Education Services (OES), ChinaEdu, 2U, Open Edutainment, China Cyber, Academic Partnerhips, CEG Digital, Keypath, Bisk, Huike Group, Laureate Partners, Navitas).

Fig. 2.7 OPM firms 2019 (Source https://www.holoniq.com/news/anatomyof-an-opm)

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After several years of growth and consolidation, it appears that OPMs have been successful in improving higher education. In the United States, where the industry is most mature, OPMs have helped grow enrolments by two-to-three times (Garrett, 2018; Legon & Garrett, 2017). OPMs in China are already educating around 1.5 million learners in partnership with dozens of universities. Several factors have propelled such growth, including reliability, learner-centredness, change facilitation, multi-institutional experience, teaching expertise, online expertise, speedto-market, full-service capability, and risk-sharing. OPM firms form an evolving range of commercial and academic partnerships with universities. The case of OPMs affirms that when looking into online education it is vital to keep in mind that higher education is first and foremost about people and learning, not technology and business. Earlier waves of education technology were led by computer specialists and corporate managers who understandably focused on technological fundamentals rather than broader educational and institutional returns. But this facet of higher education has matured beyond ‘talking big’ (Garrett, 2019). It is now creating more nuanced contributions to administration, teaching, learning, assessment, and student support (Riter, 2017). Future success hinges on using a range of different platforms and education experts to enable leaders and students to engage in more productive forms of higher education.

Creating Educational Value These mature technology service firms are creating new and often expanded forms of educational value. The educationally flavoured commercial orientation has assured this, along with sustained growth and consolidation of the field itself. The success of contemporary firms is that they put education first and position technology and business as the enablers. Figure 2.8 depicts this value-creating constellation in which commercial nous is the glue that binds these ingredients in ways which yield additional revenue and return. As Wong (2019) and Liu, Wong, and Coates (2019) clarified, contemporary service firms have flourished not because they sell IT to universities, but because they bring IT into commercial solutions which advance the productivity of higher learning. This analysis focuses on education and technology, but it is worth delving a little further into the commercial facet of this value-creating

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Educaon

Educaon value

Business

Technology

Fig. 2.8 Value-creating constellation

constellation. These public–private partnerships are important to probe, for while they are largely confidential hence invisible, they are the stimulus and lubrication which underwrites the whole deal. The legal and financial details are of course complex and contextualised, but the broad models are worth unpacking. OPMs tend to strike one of two kinds of deals with universities. The first deal is a fee-for-service arrangement in which the university pays the firm start-up and ongoing fees. The second type of deal is a revenue-sharing model in which the firm limits service fees but instead takes a revenue cut. These two deals have obvious and more interesting consequences for universities. The fee-for-service model is less common but more straightforward. In this model the university forms a partnership with the firm which involves paying for development and educational services. The limitation of this arrangement for universities is the need to pay initial service fees during start-up phase when enrolments may be small. The fee-for-service model also hinders universities from accessing new forms of finance which can be leveraged. The benefit for universities, however, is that it reduces initial financial exposure associated with development costs, and there is a proportional decline in fees with increased enrolment. Universities can

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also park funds with the service organisation, opening greater opportunities than may be feasible in the more tightly regulated accredited university. The revenue-sharing model typically involves universities and service firms forming some joint venture whereby both take equity in development, and both take slices of the returns. This deal model exposes financially regulated universities to potentially significant start-up costs, and the distribution of surplus is usually tipped in favour of the service firm. The arrangement enables universities to advance education capability through new vehicles which can help shift cash into new spaces which have few use constraints. This can yield further bonuses to universities, not least sidestepping conservative industrial and regulatory arrangements, shifting intellectual property into more contemporary and nimble vehicles and, importantly, forming partnerships which provide access to private and public finance. These two basic deal models unfurl into rivers of educational, commercial, and social complexity. Universities retain greater command in the subcontracting arrangement, enabling finer specification of product and service qualities. Conversely, joint ownership over products enables reliance on more standardised materials which lowers customised academic input though may boost baseline quality. The specifics depend on programme and course mix, market nature and size, negotiation, and a host of externalities associated with regulation, finance options and broader institutional governance. Interestingly, governments appear to have taken little interest in below-radar arrangements, even though they signpost an obvious outsourcing of core business, prove that the costs of higher education are lower than publicly claimed, and have immediate and obvious implications for quality and diversity. This field is substantial, already occupying a core part of higher education. Estimates for the United States, the biggest market (Seaman et al., 2018), suggest that one-third of non-profit online providers leverage technology-related service firms (Busta, 2019), as do more than three quarters of the colleges which engage in online education (Newton, 2016; Wong, 2019). In other words, most of the online education, even at non-profit public universities and colleges, makes use of a commercial technology services firm. Understanding the complexities of university and education firm deals is of vital importance to understanding the future of higher education. Sustained growth is projected for service-enabled learning across all levels,

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fields, and institutions. This growth will be driven by declines with traditional revenue sources, confirmation of the productivity of alternative education models, reconfigurations of core business and disruptions to global hypertravel. While sustained growth is expected with online service firms, particularly after 2020, the nature and ownership of firms could pattern out in a range of ways. Service firms may continue to consolidate, forming into larger, more global, and more professional aggregations. That is, the service industry itself may form professional affiliations which float for the most part underneath broader higher education accreditation regimes. Alternatively, the firms may splinter into a host of smaller service providers, each delivering and returning distinct value to specialist professional and public communities. This, ironically, would mean that the service firms more closely resemble existing higher education adhocracies. Firm characteristics will also pattern out in terms of ownership, be this by universities, public shares, or private money. Ownership by universities may imply more fragmented firm structures but not necessarily if more cooperative and collaborative commercial vehicles are established. Of course, this is an innovative commercial field marked by high volatility and substantial failure. The share price of the NASDAQ listed firm 2U, for instance, grew from around US$14 on listing, soared to around US$100, tanked in mid-2019 to around US$14, then realised steady gains to around US$48 in mid-2020. The mid-2019 dip revealed major challenges shaking the market, such as increasing competition, greater costs associated with recruiting more challenging potential student segments, retention issues associated with ‘non-traditional learners’, the reduced appeal of coursework graduate study (particularly the masters), the growth of formal and informal smaller (‘micro’) learning parcels, and the need to navigate regulatory complexities.

References Agarwal, A. (2013). Online universities: It’s time for teachers to join the revolution. Accessed from: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/jun/15/uni versity-education-online-mooc. Busta, H. (2019). As traditional colleges grow online, OPM relationships shift. Accessed from Education Dive website: https://www.educationdive.com/ news/as-traditional-colleges-grow-online-opm-relationships-shift/549414.

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Coates, H. (2006). Student engagement in campus-based and online education: University connections. London: Routledge. Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11, 19–36. Coates, H., Liu, L., Zhong, Z., Liu, L., Hong, X., & Gao, X. (2019). International innovation in online higher education services: Framing opportunities in China. Melbourne: Online Education Services. Eduventures. (2020). The Eduventures market guide to Online Program Management (OPM). Accessed from: https://docplayer.net/474863-The-eduven tures-market-guide-to-online-program-management-opm-executive-summary. html. Garrett, R. (2018). Prove it: Do OPMs really boost enrolment. Accessed from: https://encoura.org/prove-opms-really-boost-enrollment. Garrett, R. (2019). Whatever happened to the promise of online learning? Accessed from: https://wonkhe.com/blogs/whatever-happened-to-the-promise-of-onl ine-learning. Guro, M. (2019). State of EdTech 2019–2020: The minds behind what’s now and what’s next. Accessed from: https://edtechdigest.com/2020/02/25/stateof-edtech-2020-report-now-available. Helix Education. (2019). Navigating the OPM landscape. Accessed from: www. helixeducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/helix-opm-quickguide. pdf. HolonIQ. (2020a). Global education stocks 2000–20. Accessed from: https:// www.holoniq.com/notes/20-years-of-global-education-stocks. HolonIQ. (2020b). Global education venture capital. Accessed from: https:// www.holoniq.com/notes/3b-global-edtech-venture-capital-for-q1-2020. HolonIQ. (2020c). Global EdTech learning landscape. Accessed from: https:// www.globallearninglandscape.org. HolonIQ. (2020d). The anatomy of an OPM . Accessed from: https://www.hol oniq.com/news/anatomy-of-an-opm. Legon, R., & Garrett, R. (2017). The changing landscape of online education. Accessed from: https://encoura.org/project/chloe-2. Liu, L., Wong, E., & Coates, H. (2019). Exploration on the reform of online course operating mode in Chinese universities: Inspiration from OPM provider-university cooperation model in Western countries. Distance Education and Online Learning, 1, 122–128. Navitas Ventures. (2017). Global EdTech landscape 3.0. Accessed from: https:// www.navitasventures.com/insights/landscape. Newton, D. (2016). How companies profit off education at non-profit schools. Accessed from: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/06/ for-profit-companies-nonprofit-colleges/485930.

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Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2019). Education at a glance 2019. Paris: OECD. Perna, L., Ruby, A., Boruch, R., Wang, N., Scull, J., Evans, C. & Ahmad, S. (2013). The life cycle of a million MOOC users. MOOC Research Initiative Conference (pp. 5–6). Riter, P. (2017). Five myths about online program. Accessed from: https://er.edu cause.edu/…/five-myths-about-online-program-management. Seaman, J. E., Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2018). Grade increase: Tracking distance education in the United States. Babson Survey Research Group. Wong, E. (2019). New insights into contemporary higher education in the US: Framework of Online Program Management (OPM) providers and its implication for China. Beijing: Tsinghua University. Zipper, T. (2016). The value of the online program management industry. Accessed from: www.uncompromisingedu.com/2016/06/23/the-value-ofthe-online-program-management-industry.

CHAPTER 3

Campus Options

Abstract Harnessing perspectives on institutional and learning spaces, this chapter reveals tectonic shifts which will shape the future of the campus. Building on analysis of China’s Tsinghua University, the first analysis shows that the campus has appeared to wriggle free from any ‘necessary role’ in higher education. Unshackling the campus, setting it ‘free’, has unleashed an inevitably more blended future for even the most traditional forms of higher education. The second analysis sets out a framework for understanding this blended future. These analyses point to a ‘bionic’ university which rests on substantial reconfiguration of campus not just online infrastructure. Keywords Campus sustainability · Tsinghua university · Pandemic shock · Campus transformation · Asian education · Blended education · Re-engineering education

Wriggling Free As has already been the case for many hundreds of years, deft design and deployment of the campus will play an important role in future higher education. The year 2020 has been the first-ever in which the world relied heavily on remote online learning to support core education © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_3

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provision. This experience has made clear the importance of bringing people together to learn. Online learning is highly functional, but campuses give life to many of the more human, intangible, and transformational facets of any educational experience. It helps then to understand how the campus matters and what it may look like in the future. Many thousands of universities shuttered their campuses in 2020, driving a surge of volatile theories, opinions, and visions about the future of the campus. It is prudent to look through this flux to identify broader trends and developments. As Schleicher asserts ‘If universities stay closed down for the next academic year, I think that will raise very serious questions over the value proposition they offer… [students attend prestigious – and expensive – universities to] meet the most amazing professors in the world [and] brilliant students from all over the world [and] …if that gets lost, what will remain?’ (THE, 2020). By harnessing perspectives on campus and learning spaces, this chapter reveals certain tectonic shifts which will surely influence the future of the university campus. The first analysis shows that the campus has appeared to wriggle free from any ‘necessary role’ in higher education. Unshackling the campus, setting it ‘free’, has unleashed an inevitably more blended future for even the most traditional forms of higher education. The second analysis sets out a framework for understanding this blended future.

The Conditional Campus Many thousands of articles have been written about the university campus. They are enjoyable spaces, and often convenient. Increasingly they are being rebuilt as ‘smart’ and ‘connected’ campuses, incorporating technologies which enhance sustainability and efficiency (Deloitte, 2019; Valks, Arkesteijn, & den Heijer, 2018). But higher education seems not to rely on or require a campus. In most fields, plenty if not most of the research and education happens outside a campus. Lots are already done online or by distance. Hotels, planes, oceans, and deserts all serve as locations for learning and discovery. This has led critics, particularly around the turn of the century during the formative days of the internet, even went so far as to portend the decline of the campus (e.g. Dutton & Loader, 2002; van der Molen, 2001; van Dusen, 1997). The campus has prevailed, however, seeing away the computer rooms which were fittedout to kill it, many lucrative offers for prime and often underutilised

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real estate, and ample evidence that large-group lectures are a costly and ineffective way to learn. Indeed, many campuses have flourished through extensive building programmes, and many major universities have converted their campuses into islands of exemplary sustainability, affirming its innovative potential. Though it is often useful, important and enjoyable, recent experience affirms that the campus is neither necessary nor sufficient for higher education. The novel coronavirus pandemic at the start of 2020 shocked higher education around the world. To keep people apart, governments implemented social distancing and self-isolation measures which emptied and shuttered campuses, causing nearly all students and faculty to work from home. This provoked a rapid shift to emergency forms of online and remote learning by major education systems, institutions, faculty, and students. This crisis is likely the largest shock to higher education in living memory. Coming at the peak of globalisation, it may be the largest ever. There are estimates that more than 90% of the world’s learners, more than 1.5 billion people, have been confined to their homes (Giannini, 2020). The world’s most eminent higher education scholars and leaders recognise that universities are likely to be impacted so dramatically that they will be fundamentally different after the pandemic. Review of any media outlet conveys that every facet of higher education has been touched, from student wellbeing and characteristics, to campuses and global research, to faculty characteristics and work, to university funding and policy. It is telling to examine the case of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Over the last two decades Tsinghua has grown into one of the world’s most prestigious universities. It is gated, highly intensive, residential, and research productive. Tsinghua is a high-tech university, though hitherto without online education in its formal education programme. The campus is particularly important part of the university. The campus has grown around former royal gardens and includes many iconic buildings, lakes, parks, sculptures, and forests. Around 45,000 students usually live on campus, as do many thousands of professors, staff, and support personnel. The canteens feed most people on most days and are augmented by restaurants and markets. In late January 2020 it became apparent to Tsinghua’s leaders that the spreading coronavirus was likely to impact normal university operations. A university-wide academic leadership meeting was convened, and it was decided that Tsinghua would become the first of the world’s prestigious universities to evacuate the campus and shift all coursework online.

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This existential decision was shaped by culture and tradition, technological infrastructure and resources, the capability of faculty and staff, and necessity. Figure 3.1 sketches facets of this campus shock. The intent, broadly, was to implement emergency online learning to progress education as normally as possible. This resulted in substantial change. While the fundamental programme and course mix and people remained the same, formal gated campus provision flipped entirely to formal online provision with students distributed across China and around the world. In early February 2020, days after nearly all students and faculty left for the Spring Festival holiday, Tsinghua’s academic leaders gave the ‘first formal online class’ to more than 50,000 students and 10,000 faculty and staff. Faculty, staff, and students, most with no or little formal online education experience, were given two weeks to prepare for the semester’s teaching. In the following months almost 2700 faculty delivered 4000 online courses to 25,000 students spread across every time zone and continent. Tsinghua did not spring into formal emergency online education in a vacuum, without resources or without an eye to the future. As China’s premier technical university, Tsinghua plays a huge role in creating, designing and distributing education technology. Tsinghua’s global ranking in computer science is among the highest in the world (Shanghai Ranking, 2020). Tsinghua is in the heart of a multi-billiondollar EdTech ecosystem (Jing, 2018; TusStar, 2020). The university is a pioneer in education technology in China, having developed global Parameters Program and course mix Human resources Enrolled students PresƟgious and high touch Faculty on campus Studios and experiments Training in teaching Formal online provision Gated campus locaƟon Students in residence Social gatherings Learning spread globally

Pre-shock

Fig. 3.1 Facets of the campus shock

During shock

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online and mobile learning platforms with innovative pedagogical and business models. Tsinghua’s engagement in education technology encompasses teaching and learning, basic and applied research, innovation, social service, and entrepreneurial spin-offs. XuetangX and Rain Classroom are two signature Tsinghua innovations in online and mobile learning (XuetangX, 2020). XuetangX was the first and is currently the largest Chinese MOOC platform in terms of registered learners, and the world’s second largest. Rain Classroom is an interactive blended learning environment which integrates lecture, assessment, social media, data analysis, and educational administration. So, while much formal education at Tsinghua remained very traditionally campus based, it was already very technologically infused. This rapid transformation of Tsinghua University is notable for many reasons, making this an important source of insight into education futures. Given the timing of the shock and academic calendar, Tsinghua appears to have been the first of the world’s major research universities with a diversified curriculum to shift into emergency online learning. It is likely the first time that one of the world’s most prestigious, gated, and residential universities has shuttered the campus and shifted education entirely online. Beyond a small selection of distance education institutions, China has few formal policies regarding formal online university education. The highly stratified nature of China’s university system means that Tsinghua plays an important signalling and service function, both for education experimentation and for propagating education resources. Looking beyond China, this was the first time that a major higher education system in Asia embraced emergency online learning as part of formal education provision. Unlike other prestigious universities, particularly in Anglospheric countries, while highly tech-savvy Tsinghua’s faculty and students have little experience of online education. Given the elite STEMemphasis of Tsinghua’s programmes, giving much emphasis on creative discovery and collaboration, a great deal of education involved informal, individualised, ‘high-touch’, and global forms of education. Recognising the significance and implications of this transformation, Tsinghua’s leaders launched a university-wide research project at the start of semester. The overarching aim of this research was to identify the nature of the education transformation, and to identify implications for the future of high-quality and blended higher education. It involved a census of all faculty and all students using questionnaires which asked

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about their education conditions and activities, the quality of their experience, and (for students) about perceived outcomes (Liu, Zhang, Qiao, Zhou, & Coates, 2020; Zhang et al., 2020). The insights into education experience reveal much about the campus. Figure 3.2 presents results for student, showing differences in average scores between online and on campus experiences. Importantly, the two groups saw preparing for and participating in formal classes as broadly similar across modalities. The quality of education was seen as broadly similar, except for more positive faculty impressions regarding online education and student concerns about the overall experience. Predictably, online learning dents the more social and broadly enriching facets of the education experience, and students and faculty concur regarding constraints associated with collaboration, participation in public activities, socialising, and beyond-class contact with faculty. Student and faculty views diverge with respect to support, however, with students feeling less supported and faculty reporting that online learning requires more support. What is remarkable is the extra energy faculty invested in pedagogical development. This energy was propelled by reconfiguring teaching for online provision, which provided a broader impetus for education professional development. While impossible to tell, this extra energy may have underpinned the consistency in students’ perceived outcomes. These census results convey that in just a few months Tsinghua University’s leaders, students, staff, and faculty transformed an elite residential research university with limited formal fully online education into the world’s most prestigious and programmatically diverse online universities. If Tsinghua University was able to shift from full-campus to full-online in just a few weeks, then this reveals that extent of transformation possible for other institutions. Irrespective to how Tsinghua engineers its future in the post-pandemic world, which remains the focus on ongoing research, this transformation revealed much about education and the future of the campus.

Charting Blended Futures During the 2020 global reliance on online emergency education, systems, experiences, and expectations have been quickly forged which will almost surely yield widespread and enduring changes for higher education. It is not possible nor seemingly desirable to ‘go back’ from much that has been

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Online educaƟon at Tsinghua Online educaƟon outside Tsinghua Learn to develop curriculum Confidence and skills online educaƟon Online educaƟon experience Computer and IT skills InteracƟon between teacher and student Training in supplementary skills Understanding yourself Course materials up2date Develop student criƟcal thinking Learning eīecƟvely on your own Preparing for classes Field-specific knowledge and skills Values and ethics Analyzing quanƟtaƟve problems Clear and helpful course structure Course resource support learning Thinking criƟcally and analyƟcally Assessment help student learning Develop important knowledge and skills WriƟng clearly and eīecƟvely Broad general educaƟon Problem solving Student feel part of learning community Online resources support student learning Good intellectual climate Teacher engage student in class Student engagement with the program Understanding others Speaking clearly and eīecƟvely General independent research ParƟcipate in class acƟviƟes InteracƟon between students Student academic advice Individual student support Student careers service ContribuƟng to research Working eīecƟvely with others EnƟre educaƟon experience Working on assessments Student/teaching socializing outside class Oral presentaƟons in class Culture acƟviƟes ParƟcipate in public acƟviƟes Collaborate with student outside class Socializing with students outside class -1.00

-0.50

0.00

0.50

1.00

Difference in average scores between online and on campus

Fig. 3.2 Difference in average scores between online and on campus (Source Liu, Zhang, Qiao, Zhou, and Coates [2020])

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experienced. Online learning has indeed grown beyond smart acronyms and joined mainstream education. Education systems across Asia will almost certainly place more emphasis on formal online education. Such a move holds global consequences, with Asia being the world’s biggest time zone for higher education and projected location of two-thirds of all higher education students by 2030 (OECD, 2016). New regulatory policies and cross-border agreements will be required. Countries will need to negotiate new rules with physical institutions such as campus-based universities, including bolstering the already flourishing emergence of lifelong learning. These circumstances carry immediate and large implications for the nature and location of learning. The implications and risks for international and campus-based higher education are numerous and profound. Students and faculty will learn to adapt to new teaching experiences. Learning alone in a room with a computer, even with videoconferencing, is a quite different social and personal experience to learning in-person with peers. Students must be even more active and collaborative, selfdirected, and supported. They will require specific training to prosper in this environment. Teaching must be much more programmed, requiring specific training of faculty. In the online classroom teaching assistants play a much greater role in supporting students, stage-managing online webinars, and taking care of technological and administrative issues. All this signals the need to navigate options within what can be termed the ‘blended education space’. From one direction, this involves augmenting face-to-face or campus-based education. From the other direction, it involves supplementing more virtual forms of provision. This is the future bionic core of higher education. Understanding, leading and working this ‘middle space’ is the key to future higher education success (Fig. 3.3). These ideas can be interpreted at conceptual, policy or practical levels, or ideally in aligned ways. Figure 3.4 sketches the blended learning design template which deconstructs education into phases, with a suite of activities, providing a tool which joins ideas with practices. The template can be used in design, monitor, or evaluate education leadership, experiences, and outcomes. Much flows from repositioning educational into an inherently blended future. While digital technologies have become important enablers, it is the core education services and infrastructure which warrant further attention. Several observations regarding broad ‘growth directions’ arose

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Fig. 3.3 Education spaces, formats, and arrangements

from the Tsinghua research and are worth reviewing as background to subsequent analyses. Education services will be re-engineered. Universities and faculty will need to redesign core education services to shift information dissemination online and magnify the social, interpersonal, and enriching facets of campus education. There remains one glaring gap, namely regarding student assessment, which remains very underdeveloped and usually falls back on very traditional/unreformed campus-based practices. To address this gap, universities will need to make substantial investments in bringing to scale robust solutions for assessing student learning, finally integrating academic leadership, assessment methodology, and education technology.

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H. COATES Phase

PreparaƟons

Experiences

Successes

Activity ApplicaƟon Admissions InducƟon and orientaƟon Academic support and advice Personal support and advice Health and medical services Core learning and curriculum resources Supplementary materials and readings Big classes like lectures Small classes Laboratories, fieldwork and studios Managing your study Studying alone Studying with other students Geƫng advice from faculty Never (1) Ongoing assessment Rarely (2) Formal assessment SomeƟmes (3) Oral defense Always (4) GraduaƟon Networking with employers Careers advice Socializing with other students Supplementary academic learning ContribuƟng to social interest groups InteracƟng with communiƟes outside campus

Oncampus 1 4 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 4 3 1 1 1 2 1

Online 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 4 3 1 1 2 1 3 1 2

BLR 1.0 4.0 0.5 2.0 0.3 1.0 2.0 0.3 2.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 0.3 2.0 1.0 0.3 0.7 4.0 3.0 0.5 1.0 0.3 2.0 0.5

Fig. 3.4 Blended learning design template

Such re-engineering has implications for academic functions hence work roles. Faculty will need support to grow into this new environment through training in pedagogy, building relationships with teaching support staff, learning how to exploit software to enhance academic productivity and success, and adapting to greater transparency. Drawing also from findings into broader online learning (Coates, Kelly, Naylor, & Borden, 2017; Coates et al., 2019), new kinds of ‘academic success professionals’ are required who focus persistently on student success by integrating student support, academic administration, and individualised learning. Learners will need to approach study in different ways. Very basically, it seems learning will be split across several contexts spanning home, work, campus, and the community. Universities will need to ensure that students and faculty have IT equipment which furnishes them with a high-quality

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experience. To enhance education equity and achievement students will need academic skills training on how to succeed in blended education environments so that they can regulate and enrich their learning. Stretching universities well beyond the campus will require new forms of governance and management. University quality assurance and enhancement must change to take account of changes in education such as greater scale, online communication, contemporary platforms and data, and new forms of collaboration. With the shift online universities will routinely collect large volumes of data on education, requiring the formation of new theories, of new analytical and reporting techniques, and new strategies for helping people interpret patterns and identify consequences. Accordingly, academic administration and infrastructure will need to become substantially more agile to support myriad forms of teaching and learning and ensure academic continuity and sustainability. Given all of this, the contexts which shape and surround education will change. This blending of online and campus infrastructure will spur new education economies, creating new institutions, experiences, communities, and contributions. The formation of blended education economies will reshape international patterns of study, assure the sustainability of learning, expand global partnerships, make major contributions to lifelong learning, re-parcel learning into smaller resources, reshape the way achievement is recognised, and spawn new kinds of credentials. These assertions map broad parameters for future development. What they point to is a ‘bionic’ university which rests on substantial reconfiguration of campus not just online infrastructure. Looking for ‘technology to solve education’ will achieve little. The real work, often far less glamorous, means looking at how ‘education can solve technology’. These ideas are extrapolated in subsequent chapters. They are indeed normative, but not intended to constrain development. The blended future will likely be more complex and diverse than ever.

References Coates, H., Kelly, P. Naylor, R., & Borden, V. (2017). Innovative approaches for enhancing the 21st century student experience. Alternation. Coates, H., Liu, L., Zhong, Z., Liu, L., Hong, X., & Gao, X. (2019). International innovation in online higher education services: Framing opportunities in China. Melbourne: Online Education Services.

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Deloitte. (2019). Smart campus: The next-generation connected campus. Accessed from: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/ strategy/the-next-generation-connected-campus-deloitte.pdf. Dutton, W. H., & Loader, B. D. (2002). Digital Academe: The new media and institutions of higher education and learning. London: Routledge. Giannini, S. (2020). Welcome. Address given at the Tsinghua/UNESCO Special Dialogue on online education in the COVID-19 response and beyond. Beijing: Tsinghua University. Jing, M. (2018). Zhongguancun: Beijing’s innovation hub is at the centre of China’s aim to become a tech powerhouse. Accessed from: https://www.scmp. com/tech/start-ups/article/2172713/zhongguancun-beijings-innovationhub-centre-chinas-aim-become-tech. Liu, Y., Zhang, Y., Qiao, W., Zhou, L., & Coates, H. (2020). Ensuring the sustainability of university learning: Case study of a leading Chinese University. Sustainability, 12, 6929. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2016). Education at a glance 2016: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. Shanghai Ranking. (2020). Shanghai ranking’s global ranking of academic subjects 2019: Computer Science and Engineering. Available online: www. shanghairanking.com/Shanghairanking-Subject-Rankings/computer-scienceengineering.html. Times Higher Education (THE). (2020). OECD education head: Pandemic disruption should mean lower fees. Accessed from: https://www.timeshigh ereducation.com/news/oecd-education-head-pandemic-disruption-shouldmean-lower-fees. TusStar. (2020). TUSHOLDINGS. Accessed from: http://en.tusholdings.com/ h/tusstar. Valks, B., Arkesteijn, M., & den Heijer, A. (2018). Smart campus tools 2.0: An international comparison. Delft: Delft University of Technology. van der Molen, H. J. (2001). Virtual university? Educational environments of the future. London: Portland Press. van Dusen, G. C. (1997). The virtual campus: Technology and reform in higher education. Washington: George Washington University. XuetangX. (2020). XuetangX . Accessed from: https://next.xuetangx.com. Zhang, Y., Coates, H., Wang, C., Liu, Y., Zhou, L., Hong, X., … Liu, H. (2020). Designing Tsinghua blended education: University leadership, emergency online education, higher education futures. Beijing: Tsinghua University.

CHAPTER 4

International Connections

Abstract Connecting people across regional, national, and cultural boundaries is a quintessential attribute of higher education. This chapter deploys a systematic and deliberately eclectic approach to articulate a framework for understanding international connections. The chapter sketches the design of a multidimensional framework, validates this through reference to past eras, and leverages this analysis to imagine future connected forms of higher education. Sample schemes and activities for each era are explored, and a case study of commercial international education is presented. The analysis looks beneath the flux of contemporary contextual contingencies at the more pervasive and sustainable continuities which will shape evolving academic collaborations. Keywords Global higher education connected services · Collegiate education · Sponsored education · Open education · Online education · Commercial education

Imagining Futures Connecting people across regional, national, and cultural boundaries is a quintessential attribute of higher education. Across many waves of globalisation (Sachs, 2020), scholars, and universities have always played a © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_4

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core role in stimulating and shaping ideas and innovations. As the world topples into new rhythms of internationalisation, it is especially useful to clarify what forms of connection this might entail. It would have been hard to imagine contemporary higher education a generation ago. In the 1970s researchers captured higher education in developed economies during an evident shift from an ‘elite’ to a ‘mass’ scale of provision, with forecasts made about the ‘universal’ shape of things to come (Trow, 1973, 2007). Higher education massification took place in many developing countries in 1990s in Latin America and Caribbean, 2000s in Asia and is still in the process in many parts of Africa today (Chiroleu & Marquina, 2017; Mohamedbhai, 2014; Shin, Postiglione, & Huang, 2015; UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2018). Over the last decade many countries and universities have skipped through national growth patterns towards what is often portrayed as global levels of provision, in certain instances expediting or bypassing expected pathways. This has been an era in which sector-focused research has chased policy and certainly practice. Statistics chart the many millions of people who have been engaged (OECD, 2004; UNESCO, 2003– 2017). On many campuses whole new management offices and staffing structures have emerged (Whitchurch, 2008). Dedicated researchers as well as those with passing interests have constructed theories, data, and advice (Altbach, 1991, 2016; Altbach & Knight, 2007; de Wit, 2002, 2010; Knight, 2004, 2016; Knight & de Wit, 1997; Marginson, Kaur, & Sawir, 2011; Marginson & van der Wende, 2007; Teichler, 2014). The flourishing of this major global industry has spurred new buildings, markets, politics, regulations, and contributions (Knight, 2006; Marginson, 2006; Yudkevich, Altbach, & Rumbley, 2017). Less prominent, however, are considerations of the implications of these developments for higher education in more general terms, and perspectives for channelling future development. Unpredictable forces will always shape future higher education. Most of these will be exogenous to the higher education sector. This does not discount, however, the value and need for scholarly research on the agency of institutions and systems to shape their future. It seems reasonable to assume that there is a need for such analysis, evident through conference topics, media, and the interests of governments and universities. Indeed, it can be argued that there is inherent value in the process of planning even if, as is most likely, projected details do not come into play (Wildavsky, 1973). Such value is evident given the alternative of having no structure to guide future planning and work. ‘All models are wrong, some

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43

are useful’ (Box, 1979). Such foresight is often sought from economists who have a well-honed capability to invoke theories and data that yields evocative evidence and advice. But it is limiting to relegate such forecasting to any single epistemological perspective, particularly one that is not able to account for all salient phenomena and often finds higher education hard to gauge (Dulleck & Kerschbamer, 2006). Doing so can lead to mindsets and oversights that hinder future growth. There are substantial rationales for the kind of broader sociological and educational forms of analysis articulated in this chapter. This chapter deploys a systematic and deliberately eclectic approach to articulate a framework for understanding the connected nature of future higher education. It draws from strategic analyses of higher education in Asia. The chapter sketches the design of a guiding framework, applies this to past eras or epochs, and leverages this analysis to imagine future connected forms of higher education. The point is to look beneath the flux of contemporary contextual contingencies at more pervasive, enduring, and sustainable continuities.

Designing Guiding Frames Building frameworks to imagine future higher education is far from an exact science and several assumptions and limitations are required. This framework is designed to analyse precursor forms of higher education and serve as a basis for articulating connected higher education. Higher education research and practice is replete with frameworks, but existing frameworks are typically compartmentalised within one area of interest such as accreditation, student experience, economics, international education, teaching practices, or online learning. They are, as well, usually derived through some form of moderation or consultation process which usually renders them useful in a particular jurisdiction but simultaneously hinders broader generalisability. In charting the future, it is necessary to strike through these topics, and often discourse and community, silos and take broader views. Hence as befits the phenomena under study, this framework draws on an eclectic range of theories and evidence to explore problems with current arrangements as well as areas for development. Design thinking offers a useful epistemology and methodology for framework production. Design thinking can be described as an interactive four-stage process, inspiration, synthesis, ideating, and testing (Kelley & Kelley, 2013; Plattner, Meinel, & Leifer, 2016). Constructing the

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current framework drew on the first three stages. The fourth stage was then simulated by deploying the framework to examine and characterise current forms of international higher education. Insights produced by the framework illustrate the utility of reframing manifestations of international higher education with a connected lens which can be used for future design. Table 4.1 presents the design framework, henceforth referred to as the ‘international higher education design framework’. The framework includes parameters which distinguish different forms of higher education. These parameters are divided into several dimensions. The parameters are not exhaustive but when tested against literature (Cantwell, Coates, & King, 2018; Hazelkorn, Coates, & McCormick, 2018) define necessary and possibly even sufficient conditions for understanding past and projecting future scenarios. The first four focus on broader cultural, economic, political, and regulatory continuities which shape higher education. The latter three factors focus on more specific content, delivery, and management facets of education.

Sampling History This framework can be applied to unpack four established forms of international higher education. Each form is used to test the framework and to work towards an understanding and articulation of what is depicted as a future ‘connected’ form of higher education. This unpacking provides context for articulating these established forms and helps to validate the framework. The approach echoes similar work by analysts like Choudaha (2017), who referred to several ‘waves’. The four precursor forms are referred to as ‘collegial’, ‘sponsored’, ‘open’, and ‘commercial’. These forms are well-known and broadly chronological and cumulative, building towards the envisaged connected form. The four waves are not mutually exclusive but are highly interrelated and developmental. For this reason, greater emphasis is given to contemporary commercial forms of higher education which has become the most widespread, manifest, and relevant as a springboard for tracing future developments. First, the collegial form. Higher education has long been international. In a historical perspective, modern higher education in the world today is a result of international spread and evolution of medieval collegial universities in Europe since the twelfth century. The collegial form of higher education entails a community of scholars with the freedom to pursue

4

Table 4.1 International higher education design framework

INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS

45

Dimension

Parameter

Description

Cultural

Ethos

Shaping perspectives Why people study What facilitates practice Student dispositions Who has market power Who pays What is charged What is known Political considerations Who sets policy Who controls market entry Who assures it What people study Nature of resources What happens outside class Who teachers Basic teaching platform Place of teaching Who assesses learning Who participates Criteria used for admission Management approaches How is learning recognised

Rationale Facilitators Stance Economic

Power

Political

Finance Price Information Politics

Regulation

Policy Accreditation

Content

Quality Field focus Curriculum Experience

Delivery

Teachers Infrastructure Location Assessment Students

Management

Admission Student success Accomplishment

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H. COATES

knowledge and truth and to govern their institutions through democratic consultation and consensus with all members of the academic community, away from external interference. Admittedly, this model portrays more an ideal form than the actual organization of any historical or contemporary university. Yet it highlights the ethos of community sharing, co-development, cross-fertilisation of ideas through dynamic personal interaction among faculty and students, the freedom safeguarded by the university for the individual to pursue the learning of all kinds, and the close attention as well as education innovation afforded by faculty and staff to improve the students’ learning experience so that an apprentice can grow into a master. Though information about the collegial life in the detached ivory tower is not well communicated to the wider world, students and scholars travel widely to other universities across borders to enrich their learning experience. Exchange learners are regarded as fellow members of the same world academic community. Learners already enrolled in a higher education institution are selected and funded for exchange on competitive but largely non-financial basis. This form of international higher education is supported directly on a non-profit basis by universities, or through some form of third-party sponsorship. As the scale of such international swapping expands, so too do the academic opportunities and broader student supports. For example, under the auspice of the Chinese Scholarship Council, Tsinghua University developed tuition-free, semester-based, credit-transfer undergraduate exchange programmes with nine Australian universities. The University of Melbourne developed such exchange relations with five leading Chinese universities over the past five years. Credit-transfer arrangements ensure that study abroad programmes are well integrated into the curriculum of sending institutions. The collegial model is conducive to promoting and facilitating academic mobility through barter exchange of learning opportunities. Today, universities around the world compete to attract talented and culturally diverse exchange students so to help internationalised campus life. Next, the sponsored form of higher education. This evolved with the aim of helping people develop through study or teaching abroad. For example, the religious mission motivated pilgrims to learn from both the traveling process to and study in a destination place to deepen spirituality (de Ridder-Symoen, 1992). The colonial missions in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries motivated colonies to send students to metropolitan

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47

states to be trained as clerical or secular elites and to implant European university models in the colonies (de Ridder-Symoen, 2003). The political mission is present throughout history but especially strong since the nineteenth century as both sending and receiving countries sponsor students to study in established academic institutions overseas as a strategy for developing power. In contemporary terms, these sponsored missions fit two notions for long-term development through international academic mobility. The first is the ‘soft power’ notion in which a nation seeks to develop the capability to achieve the desired objectives through persuasion and cooperation rather than by coercion, usually through strengthening people-to-people connections across borders by educational and cultural means. The second ‘venture capital’ notion refers to scholarships as a form of seed funding for early stage, emerging talent with high-growth potential in exchange for their service as returnees from studying abroad. Such scholarships also grant the learners with academic, professional, and social recognition. There are many prominent international examples of this sponsored form of higher education. For instance, the United States Fulbright Program since 1946, the European Union Erasmus Program since 1987, the Erasmus Mundus Program since 2009, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) International Mobility for Students (AIMS) since 2009. Examples with respect to two-way mobility scholarships between China and Australia include the China Scholarship Council programmes and the Australia Awards Scholarships (formerly known as Australian Development Scholarships). In particular for outbound semester-based study and research and workplace internships, the Chinese government has provided the National Study Abroad Scholarships for Outstanding Undergraduates since 2012 which offers 5000 scholarships to study in over 900 universities over 50 countries in 2018–2019 (CSC, 2018). The Australian government launched the New Colombo Plan which offers 120 scholarships to study in 40 locations across the Indo-Pacific region in 2018–2019. Open education is another important precursor form of international higher education. The essence of open education is free, open, flexible, and borderless mobility without necessarily asking the student to move (Daniel, 2003). Though open education is not necessarily international it laid important foundations for international growth. Distance education evolves with communication technology from print and correspondence, to radio, television, satellite then to the internet online, and mobile

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forms common today. Open education refers to all formal, informal, and non-formal education that can be accessed with no or minimal barriers to entry. Established international open and distance education providers include the University of London extension programme for learners around the globe since the 1850s, the United Kingdom Open University established in 1969, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare initiative announced in 2000, the Coursera and edX Massive Open and Online Course (MOOC) platforms since 2012, and Tsinghua University XuetangX since 2013. XuetangX, for instance, the largest Chinese MOOC platform and third largest in the world, is currently hosting two courses offered by the University of Adelaide and five courses by the University of Queensland with a total of 173,000 subscribers. XuetangX also broadcasts over a dozen courses by the University of Queensland and the Australian National University through resource sharing with edX. Such platforms function as local-toglobal hubs to connect universities and learners around the world through integrated and interactive online environments. Contemporary online forms of open education have established an enduring place in higher education. While perhaps not the educational or commercial panaceas advocated by technozealots in recent decades, they have certainly proved to be a sustaining innovation (Annetta, Folta, & Klesath, 2010; Daniel, 1996; Moller & Huett, 2018). MOOC courses are composed of a wide range of multimedia courses, either interactive or broadcast, usually provided by universities, enterprises, and cultural institutions. Theoretically, the MOOC model enables nonrivalrous and non-exclusive services which means open enrolment with declining marginal cost as the size of learners rises (Belleflamme & Jacqmin, 2014). As the number of MOOC courses and learners have continued to grow since 2011 (CHE, 2017), high non-completion rates persist as a key concern with the sustainability of MOOC education and business models (Hayes, 2015). The spectrum of MOOC learners range from learners who are taking MOOCs as the only possibility for earning academic credit for higher education qualifications, who take MOOCs as a concurrent means to supplement traditional mode of face-to-face higher education by auditing part or whole courses, to those who are just tasting courses and institutions for curiosity and enjoyment. The MOOC provider develops course content in response to diverse market need, with learning outcomes the responsibility of individual learners (Littlejohn & Hood, 2018).

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In addition to the above three variants, more pragmatic and overtly commercial forms of higher education have emerged in the last three decades. This form of international higher education involves families or governments paying established universities in developed countries to gain a credential and then to find work to maximise personal revenue. Such development carries implications for the nature and work of national systems and has promoted contemporary higher education arrangements with multilayered connections. Much has been written about what is usually but loosely termed ‘international higher education’. In trying to make sense of the large global industry that has formed in recent decades, researchers have studied supply-side arrangements in terms of institutional formats and partnerships (Knight, 2007; Marginson, Nyland, Sawir, & Forbes-Mewett, 2010), demand configurations in terms of student markets, student demography and skills (Li & Bray, 2007; Varghese, 2008), and broader geopolitical and systemic designs (De Meyer, Harker, & Hawawini, 2004; Marginson, 2007). Such research has adopted myriad methodologies, been conducted for scholarly, political and commercial ends, and has ranged from very applied treatments to broader more theoretical or normative analyses. This body of work has become so large that niche communities have formed with separate associations, training programmes, conferences, and journals (Kosmützky & Putty, 2016). The scale of such provision has grown beyond the ‘international office’ and has become a fundamental facet of contemporary practice. The case of Australia and China provides a good example of the commercial form. Analysis in 2019 estimated the total Chinese overseas student fee revenue per Australian university between 2010 and 2015. Because revenue figures per student are not publicly available, estimation of student fee revenues required data from three separate official Australian Government sources. Croucher, Zhong, Moore, Chew, and Coates (2019) detail the methods and provider fuller results. Table 4.2 provides a snapshot of Australian higher education in terms of total revenue from annual operations, international student fee revenue, and estimated fee revenue from the students from China. The statistics are presented in terms of totals from all universities in the sample and by university mission groupings, being the Australian Technology Network (ATN, five members that were former technical institutes), the Group of Eight (Go8, eight members all large research-intensive universities), the Innovative Research Universities (IRU, seven members, all universities established after 1960), Regional Universities Network (RUN, six

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Table 4.2 Summary of Australian university international student fee revenue

Sector ATN Go8 IRU RUN OTR

Total revenue (AU$ 000)

International student fee revenue (AU$ 000,000)

Chinese international student fee revenue (AU$ 000,000)

International student fee revenue per cent of total

Chinese student fee revenue per cent of international

2010

2015

2010

2015

2010

2015

2010

2015

2010

2015

22,117 3272 9696 2565 1207 5376

28,569 4262 12,356 3115 1720 7116

3882 748 1626 372 228 907

5350 944 2575 489 255 1087

1325 249 571 101 54 350

2075 347 1277 98 34 320

18 23 17 15 19 17

19 22 21 16 15 15

34 33 35 27 24 39

39 37 50 20 13 29

Source DOET (2017) and modelling

members that are all regionally based), and the remaining Australian universities which are not members of a mission group. The Go8 collected 43% of the sector’s revenue generated by Chinese international students in 2010 and 62% in 2015. Every other mission group decreased its market share. Chinese international student fee revenue made up 35% of the Go8’s total international student fee revenue in 2010 and 50% in 2015. The ATN is the only other group growing their Chinese international student fee revenue as a proportion of their total international student revenue.

Framing Connectedness Even these brief analyses affirm the need to devote serious consideration to ensure the future prosperity of international higher education. Connectivity is growing not shrinking, notwithstanding volatility and segmentation. New global structures are emerging in reflection of the established nature of such flows along with bi/multilateral regulatory agreements (King, 2011). As national systems are becoming increasingly open and porous (Nancy, 2018; Zhong, Shi, & McConkey, 2018; Zhong & Ulicna, 2012), in spite of prominent ruminations to the contrary, while institutions have matured means for governing international affairs, including a raft of complex support arrangements (Han & Zhong, 2015). Perhaps most importantly, new student cohorts are emerging who absorb

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cross-border education as a normal part of their physically and technologically mediated global connections (Knight, 2014). As the preceding financial analysis and case studies convey, many more than just elite graduates from any field expect to develop global competences. It is easy to portend that international higher education will keep changing, though more complex to project the shape of things to come. The connected higher education design framework gives a framework for designing possible futures. Table 4.3 captures the essence of the connected design using the framework articulated in Table 4.1. Cultural, economic, and political factors in the framework imply that future higher education will be shaped by an ethos of connectedness and facilitated by artificial intelligence to help people build capability and become global citizens. Students will be connoisseurs who have substantial market power given transnational environments in which policy steering is fraught. Funding and pricing will be determined by provider and student potential, informed by must more information. These broader settings infuse educational settings. The open market will itself regulate provision given an almost complete failure of legacy accreditation infrastructure. A very differentiated range of criteria will be used for admissions. People will engage with study across a broad range of fields because they see returns from developed capability rather than just acquired credential. Learning resources will be customised and co-created in ways portended for two decades by leading theorists. The student journey will be designed and enriched. Teaching and support services including assessment will be provided by anyone and anything, and most likely by a hybrid of branded and backroom professional working in distributed fashion with advanced computing resources and all managed by devoted education service firms. Student accomplishment will be recognised using interoperable/blockchain technologies. It follows that education becomes more borderless, and that students will be the arbiters of quality. Such characterisation advances a reinvention of the original collegial idea of the university centred on an empowered learner in a connected community. Ideally, this is a transformative experience that is rich, lasting, personalised, seamlessly coordinated and optimised among different learning stages and spaces, and guaranteed with data privacy and security. Moreover, it is also a reciprocal experience that not only has visible learning outcomes, but also empowers the learner with active engagement in the design and delivery of the learning experience and community. This implies that future connected higher education will return to the

Delivery

Content

Regulation

Political

Economic

Leaders System Host nation Nothing Not much Soft power Government Nation Nation Anything Batch supply Enrichment Home scholars Campus Host country

Stance Power Finance Price

Information Politics

Policy Accreditation Quality Field focus Curriculum

Experience Teachers

Infrastructure Location

Rationale

Facilitators

Ethos

Cultural

Sponsored Mission orientation Status affirmation Sponsorship

Parameter

Campus Host country

Enrichment Home scholars

University University Nation Anything Batch supply

Not much Academic

Explorers University Non-financial/swap Nothing

International travel

Experience

Cross-fertilisation

Collegial

Framing forms of international higher education

Dimension

Table 4.3

Internet Home country

Irrelevant Home scholars

Marketing Capacity development Institution University Institution/business Anything Batch supply

Tasters Student Institution Nothing

Internet

Upskilling

Capacity building

Open

Home scholars Campus Host country

International travel Consumers Student Student Market dependent Advisors Capability growth Institution Nation Nation Anything Batch supply

Cashflow

Profit

Commercial

Hybrid Many countries

No policy steering Market Student Multifield competencies Customised and co-created Enrichment Anyone and computers

Full transparency Global citizens

Connoisseurs Student Potential-dependent Market dependent

Artificial intelligence

Capability development

Connected

Connected

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Management

Dimension University Selected elite Personal Individually supported Social status

Assessment Students

Accomplishment

Admission Student success

Sponsored

Parameter

Already enrolled Institutionally supported Credit transfer

University Selected from mass

Collegial

No recognition

Completely open Self-supported

No-one Anyone

Open

Qualification

University Selected from mass Segmented Institution

Commercial

Interoperable/blockchain

Education service firm People who value returns Differentiated Mentors and computers

Connected

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central premise of a collegial community of scholars and fellow students, respectful, attentive, and supportive to each other through power and authority vested equally among colleagues. Whereas the student–scholar relationship is not exactly equal for the two parties, the student’s voice can be well heard, their expectations taken into good consideration and their perceived experience well studied through both direct communication and ongoing analysis. As a result, the learner journey through the university should be an unfolding of a coherent strategic plan that allows real-time individualised optimisation for fast-evolving expectations through automated and integrated cycling of data inputs and outputs from students, scholars, and other stakeholders. Such education may well spur new kinds of community through opportunities brought forth by sponsored, collegial, open, and commercial forms of international higher education. Table 4.3 expresses the essence of the five forms of higher education. Summary attributes have been provided for each parameter to exemplify the form of international higher education discussed above, and the utility of the framework. These ideas are being given life by the world’s most imaginative and wealthy higher education leaders, stimulating a range of interesting pilot ventures. In his time as the Chancellor of University of California Berkeley, Nicholas Dirks planned to build a ‘new “global campus” at Richmond Bay… [comprising] an integrated global network of activities, programs, and enterprises… [which will] “provide our students, faculty, and staff with an unparalleled global experience and education, as well as generate and sponsor global research and entrepreneurship”’ (Dirks, 2014). The plan failed to progress, though gives visionary and sustainable life to the connected ideas expressed in Table 4.3, drawing strength from an array of university and corporate partnerships. Minerva Schools at KGI (Minerva Project, 2020) is a United States non-profit which runs on services from the for-profit Minerva Project to deliver a global education experience to its students. Formal education is conducted online, while traditional-age students spend time in residence halls located in San Francisco, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Hyderabad, and London. The globally focused liberal arts is project-based and hands-on, enabling students to connect a wide range of areas with a practical orientation. The United States located University of the People offers another institutional model, drawing students from nearly every country.

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These entrepreneurial initiatives are yielding novel insights into higher education options, though much work is required to bring them to scale and maturity. As Johnson (2018) has clarified, higher education is ‘increasingly international and persistently local… higher education is a massively fragmented sector… universities are small scale and localised in operations’. Johnson continues that ‘higher education has not experienced trends common to other economic sectors that have become more internationalised [such as] cross-border merger and consolidation, formation of multi-national businesses, and global branding and marketing… [and that] Higher education has internationalised despite its structure, not because of it’. Drawing on experience running several universities, he asks ‘Is the fragmented global higher education and research system sustainable? Can small, localised universities continue to thrive when other knowledge-based industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals, media, consulting, finance) continue to consolidate? What if the world’s biggest retailers decided to create a low-cost, global marketplace for online tertiary education”? These are powerful ideas which open substantial space not just for casual dialogue but for serious foresight research, planning, construction, and debate. This chapter has mapped out how connectedness has become a defining feature of the higher education. It drives the creation and dissemination of knowledge through dynamic interactions both in the educational and academic communities and beyond. It observes and projects that higher education has never been more connected, and promises to become increasingly so. Clearly, this carries implications for people, institutions, systems and even regions. For people, it offers greater opportunities to engage but also the need to accept more responsibility for education, and perhaps even more broadly as ‘citizen diplomats’ or ‘people’s ambassadors’. For institutions like universities it means redesigned education models and platforms, new environments and markets, and new workforces. Other intermediary organisations will form to facilitate the exchange of students, knowledge and business. Systems will become even more porous, mingling domestic with international markets in ways that pose fundamental challenges to existing state-based forms funding, regulation, and policy. University, regional and intergovernmental networks may be forced to play a greater role in governance. This carries regional implications, perhaps for reconceptualising education flows in ways now common for studying the mobility of research and researchers. This

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chapter asserts that the continued growth of higher education spurs a need for more design, rather than leaving the future to chance.

References Altbach, P. G. (1991). International higher education: An encyclopedia. Saint James, MO: St James’ Press. Altbach, P. G. (2016). Global perspectives on higher education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Altbach, P. G., & Knight, J. (2007). The internationalization of higher education: Motivations and realities. Journal of Studies in International Education, 11(3– 4), 290–305. Annetta, L. A., Folta, E., & Klesath, M. (2010). V-Learning: Distance education in the 21st century through 3D virtual learning environments. London: Springer. Belleflamme, P., & Jacqmin, J. (2014). An economic appraisal of MOOC platforms: Business models and impacts on higher education. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Box, G. E. P. (1979). Robustness in the strategy of scientific model building. In R. L. Launer & G. N. Wilkinson (Eds.), Robustness in statistics. Cambridge: Academic Press. Cantwell, B., Coates, H., & King, R. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook on the politics of higher education. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Chinese Scholarship Council. (CSC). (2018). Five-year evaluation of national study abroad scholarships for outstanding undergraduates. Beijing: Chinese Scholarship Council. Chiroleu, A., & Marquina, M. (2017). Democratisation or credentialism? Public policies of expansion of higher education in Latin America. Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 1(2), 139–160. Choudaha, R. (2017). Three waves of international student mobility (1999– 2020). Studies in Higher Education, 42(5), 1–8. Chronicle of Higher Education. (2017, August 13). Cumulative growth in number of MOOCs, 2011–17. Croucher, G., Zhong, Z., Moore, K., Chew, J., & Coates, H. (2019). Higher education student finance between China and Australia: Towards an international political economy analysis. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 41(6), 585–599. Daniel, J. S. (1996). Mega universities and knowledge media: Technology strategies for higher education. London: Kogan Page. Daniel, J. S. (2003). Open and distance learning: Technology is the answer but what is the question? International Institute for Educational Planning Newsletter, 21(2), 14.

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De Meyer, A., Harker, P., & Hawawini, G. (2004). The globalization of business education. In H. Gatignon & J. Kimberly (Eds.), The INSEAD Wharton Alliance on globalizing: Strategies for building successful global businesses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Department of Education and Training (DOET). (2017). Finance publication: Higher education publications. Accessed from: http://www.education.gov.au/ finance-publication. de Ridder-Symoens, H. (1992). Mobility. In H. de Ridder-Symoens (Ed.), A history of the university in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. de Ridder-Symoens, H. (Ed.). (2003). A history of the university in Europe: Universities in early modern Europe (1500–1800). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. de Wit, H. (2002). Internationalization of higher education in the United States of America and Europe: A historical, comparative, and conceptual analysis. Westwood, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. de Wit, H. (2010). Internationalisation of higher education in Europe and its assessment, trends and issues. Den Haag, The Netherlands: Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders. Dirks, N. (2014). Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay. Accessed from: https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/BGCRB-1sheetDec 2014.pdf. Dulleck, U., & Kerschbamer, R. (2006). On doctors, mechanics, and computer specialists: The economics of credence goods. Journal of Economic Literature, 44(1), 5–42. Han, S., & Zhong, Z. (2015). Transforming into global universities: An analysis of research universities’ international strategies. International Journal of Chinese Education, 4, 28–47. Hayes, S. (2015). MOOCs and quality: A review of the recent literature. QAA MOOCs Network. http://qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/MOOCsand-Quality-Literature-Review-15.pdf. Hazelkorn, E., Coates, H., & McCormick, A. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook on quality, performance and accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Johnson, P. (2018). Internationalisation and the future of higher education. Invited seminar given at Tsinghua University, Beijing. Kelley, T., & Kelley, D. (2013). Creative confidence: Unleashing the creative potential within us all. New York: Crown Business. King, R. (2011). Governing universities globally: Organizations, regulation and rankings. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Knight, J. (2004). Internationalization remodelled: Definition, approaches, and rationales. Journal of Studies in International Education, 8(1), 5–31.

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Knight, J. (2006). Higher education crossing borders: A guide to the implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) for cross-border education. Paris: UNESCO. Knight, J. (2007). The internationalization of higher education: Motivations and realities. Journal of Studies in International Education, 11(3), 290–305. Knight, J. (Ed.). (2014). International education hubs: Student, talent, knowledge-innovation models. New York: Springer. Knight, J. (2016). Transnational education remodelled: Toward a common TNE framework and definitions. Journal of Studies in International Education, 20(1), 34–47. Knight, J., & de Wit, H. (1997). Internationalisation of higher education in Asia Pacific countries. Amsterdam: European Association for International Education Publications. Kosmützky, A., & Putty, R. (2016). Transcending borders and traversing boundaries: A systematic review of the literature on transnational, offshore, crossborder, and borderless higher education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 20(1), 8–33. Li, M., & Bray, M. (2007). Cross-border flows of students for higher education: Push–pull factors and motivations of mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong and Macau. Higher Education, 53(6), 791–818. Littlejohn, A., & Hood, N. (2018). Reconceptualising learning in the digital age: The [un]democratising potential of MOOCs. Singapore: Springer. Marginson, S. (2006). Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education. Higher Education, 52, 1–39. Marginson, S. (2007). Global position and position taking: The case of Australia. Journal of Studies in International Education, 11(1), 5–32. Marginson, S., Kaur, S., & Sawir, E. (Eds.). (2011). Higher education in the Asia-Pacific: Strategic responses to globalization. Rotterdam: Springer. Marginson, S., Nyland, C., Sawir, E., & Forbes-Mewett, H. (2010). International student security. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Marginson, S., & van der Wende, M. (2007). Globalisation and higher education (OECD Education Working Papers, No. 8). Paris: OECD. Minerva Project. (2020). Minerva Project. Accessed from: https://www.minerv aproject.com. Mohamedbhai, G. (2014). Massification in higher education institutions in Africa: Causes, consequences, and responses. International Journal of African Higher Education, 1(1), 59–83. Moller, L., & Huett, J. B. (Eds.). (2018). The Next generation of distance education: Unconstrained Learning. New York: Springer. Nancy, W. G. (2018). Higher education in the era of the fourth industrial revolution. Accessed from: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007% 2F978-981-13-0194-0.pdf.

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CHAPTER 5

Education Economy

Abstract A new education economy is being born following reconfigurations of education supply and growth, and diversification in demand. While slow-brewing for several decades, this new education economy has been turbocharged by the 2020 global reliance on online emergency learning to deliver core education services, and widespread socioeconomic need for re and upskilling. Systems, experiences and expectations have been forged quickly which have almost surely yielded widespread and enduring changes for higher education. The chapter contributes a strategy for engaging universities in this new economy. This chapter first examines supply and demand characteristics. It examines persistent matching problems, and the prospects revealed through the new education economy. Attention is focused on reconfiguring university education and understanding and supporting demand. The final section provides an overview of market design reforms, surveying available capabilities, and forecasting development. Keywords Macroeconomy · Market failure · Education services · Skill demand · Market and policy design · Lifelong learning

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_5

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The New Dance A new education economy is being born given reconfigurations of education supply and growth and diversification in demand. While slowbrewing for several decades, this new education economy has been turbocharged by the 2020 global reliance on online emergency learning to deliver core education services, and widespread socioeconomic need for re and upskilling. Systems, experiences, and expectations have been forged quickly which have almost surely yielded widespread and enduring changes for higher education. It may not be feasible or desirable to revert from much that has been experienced. How can universities better connect with and lead what is unpacked in this chapter as ‘next-generation learning’? Higher education already intersects with next-generation learning through standard campus-based provision to people aged 18–22 years, contribution to lifelong learning, and provision to professional and ‘mature-age’ communities. These connections must be reconfigured, however, given the changing nature of higher education and changing community demands. With the escalating challenges associated with ageing demographics and the accelerating pace of technological and business disruptions, support for next-generation learning will grow in importance worldwide. To build up these ideas, this chapter first examines prevailing circumstances and arrangements. It looks at higher education supply characteristics and then demand for post-secondary education. After that, the chapter examines persistent matching problems, and the prospects revealed through the new education economy. Attention is then directed to how to design the required transformation, by reconfiguring university education and by understanding and supporting demand. The final section provides an overview of the required market design reforms, surveying available capabilities and forecasting steps for development. Overall, the chapter contributes a strategy for engaging universities in the new economy. There is a growing need to make available information on the suitability and capacity of universities to provide more varied education resources to people across a much larger and diverse range of demographics.

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Circumstantial Misalignments In developed countries higher education has grown from elite to universal levels of provision. Asia has fronted this trend, with gross enrolment rates moving about 80 per cent in Asia’s most prosperous countries (UNESCO, 2020). In most Asian countries this growth in provision has been largely driven by public universities. A small number of countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia have turned to private institutions, others like Singapore and China to exploratory joint ventures, and others to commercial service firms. Most countries, however, have turned to public universities, including to help regulate, cultivate, and harness potential alternative providers. Leveraging public universities to create nation-building knowledge has helped grow and strengthen these universities and, along with nonignorable global and sectoral externalities, has impelled them to focus on growing in distinctive ways. Public universities, even those which are lower tier in terms of research or located in developing countries, have sought to become ‘world class’ (Salmi, 2009). This amorphous term ‘world class’, underpinned by magical technically and politically curated lists, has fuelled almost ubiquitous isomorphic striving to produce forms of research which deliver reputational growth and attract highyield student investment in formal multi-year qualifications. Governments have used accreditation and funding mechanisms to guide this striving as part of nation-building skills agendas, as part of export strategies, to enhance population aspirations, to propel innovation ecosystems, and to differentiate vocational from higher education. The consequence of higher education scaling in recent decades, therefore, has meant that public universities have fallen into what can be characterised as a ‘prestige trap’. In recent decades, universities have reformed to provide elite forms of education, chasing premium students like top school leavers and affluent professionals with packaged and bundled premium products. At the same time, demand for post-secondary education grows greater by the day, with such qualifications serving not merely as an initial fouryear fulcrum into a lifelong professional career but also as a means of building national, social, and individual prosperity. New strands of research into post-secondary educational returns are emerging to support growing interest in education quality and impact.

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The growing demand for education is fuelled by many forces. Global socioeconomic development has lifted overall student demand, which is projected to reach 350 million over the next decade (Calderon, 2018; OECD, 2016). As economies mature, they require more educated workers. Enhanced education levels drive flow-on need for more higher learning. Rising health standards and longer lives spur need for more retraining. The changing nature of careers and work require more contextualised and atomised learning. The competition for higher credentials is also fuelled by the geopolitics. To upskill its workforce, for instance, China recently suggested that graduates invest in an additional bachelor-level qualification, in addition to any subsequent higher learning. Demand for post-secondary education will look different than it has since the turn of the century. There will be career-long demand for differentiated forms of education. In very advanced economies this demand may well be universal, meaning almost everyone in work. Recent innovations reveal, however, that people will neither need nor seek further qualifications, however, and instead seek more individualised and relevant capability formation. People will seek education which is closer to home and ideally ‘just-in-time’ and ‘just-for-them’. These supply and demand characteristics reveal the discontents which give rise to the new education economy. In short, while higher education institutions, primarily universities, have manoeuvred to sell priced-up and bundled and prestige qualification products to premium learner segments, there is growing population-wide and career-long demand for more individualised and atomised forms of learning. These discontents are driven by a matching or misalignment problem. Figure 5.1 depicts this misalignment problem in terms of institutional positioning and product offering. These pictures convey that to align

Space universiƟes needed

General

Space universiƟes seek

Elite

General

Learner segment

Premium

Educa onal offering

Fig. 5.1 Addressing the misalignment problem

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university provision with future demand, universities need to be steered away from homing in on affluent segments with premium products and offering bundled qualifications to individual students. As the pink arrows convey, it will be necessary to shift into less affluent market space and offer specific competencies that match and augment specific talent needs. Many attempts have been made to buck the pervasive demand of the world-class movement and entice universities in more differentiated directions. Supranational institutions like the European Commission have funded U-Multirank (2020) to diversify institutional and student interests. Government and private agencies across the United States have constructed online ‘return on investment’ calculators to encourage potential students to consume more differentiated services (e.g. Brookings, 2015; Payscale, 2020). Educational service firms have sought to unbundle curriculum into smaller parcels or micro-credentials (e.g. edX, 2020; Udacity, 2020) with emerging governmental interest in formalising recognition (Australian Government, 2019). Elite universities have made courseware openly available online (e.g. MIT, 2020; Stanford, 2020). Tinkering with current circumstances has enabled more people than ever before to engage in ongoing learning. These are welcome developments but even combined they have not spurred the transformations which many in government, industry, the community, and even universities have sought. Relaxation of existing arrangements does not necessarily suit nor benefit universities, nor fully recognise or respond to looming demand. Broader transformation is required, both in the nature of education services and in understanding and supporting demand.

The New Education Economy Transformational shifts are required to help universities and learners adapt to the new ‘education economy’. Singapore’s SkillsFuture (2020) exemplifies this new economy, as does the merging of continuous education and online education offices at Tsinghua University (2020), Stanford’s promulgation of its Open Loop University model (Stanford, 2020), Korea’s Academic Credit Bank System (Park, Choi, Kim, & Hwang, 2019), the ‘sixty year curriculum (60YC)’ (Dede, 2018) and Georgia Tech’s Lifetime Education (Georgia Tech, 2018) and many other initiatives mapped by UNESCO (Martin & Godonoga, 2020). Instead of people being sorted by capability into a small number of formal post-secondary qualifications before embarking on a lifetime of work,

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the agenda signals people’s engagement in career-long programmes of learning and upskilling. Rather than providing formal foundations which are augmented through work and informal learning, education itself plays an ongoing role in co-creating innovation frontiers. A sample of guiding questions reveal characteristics of this new education economy. Governments search for how education providers can contribute in novel ways to socioeconomic development asking, for instance, ‘What additional education would transform economic competitiveness’? and ‘How can we make better use of education providers’? Executives and managers recognise people’s growth as productivity potential. For instance: ‘What skills will enhance my workforce’? and ‘What are the easiest and most effective training options’? People working across all fields and levels see ongoing learning as a key to vocational enablement. Questions might include: ‘What different skills will help me get ahead’? and ‘Where are the most engaging and useful learning experiences’? This is ‘next-generation learning’ which sits at the heart of the new education economy. Many features of this education economy are not all that new, though there are significant departures from existing policies and practices. Many policymakers trace continuity between vocational and higher education provision, but most institutional executives or practising teachers do not. Most education institutions promote accredited and quality-assured products, even though these are dated and supplier—not learner-centric in nature. Teaching workforces are tuned around existing education formats. Funding and growth are influenced by established networks and transactional paths. Substantial reform is needed to move beyond prevailing circumstances, address misalignments, and activate the new education economy.

Articulating New Arrangements Transforming higher education for the new economy requires widescale changes to products and services, and to all segments of the education value chain. This means redesigned institutions and ultimately markets. Supply and demand characteristics differ to those considered above. The changes for institutions are multifaceted and profound. Table 5.1 provides a non-exhaustive list of potential changes. As this depiction conveys, higher education institutions will be reformed and directed

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Table 5.1 Dimensions of university change Dimension

Prevailing situation

Transformed arrangement

Vision Promotion

Advance the populations’ talent About small parcels of learning

Support

Progress world-class research University and programme information Multi-year accredited qualifications Premium individual students National regulatory mechanisms Governmental and professional authorities Regular academic faculty Examinations and assignments Formal university transcript One to four years Linked with university Payment for qualification Prior qualifications and experience Responding to reported needs

Advice

Product-oriented branding

Rationale Focus

Obtain formal credential Framed by conventional disciplines Campus, online, or blended

Product Market Accreditation Quality Teachers Assessment Certification Timeframe Affiliation Funding Admissions

Location

Atomised learning parcels Anyone with talent needs National regulatory mechanisms Trust network using multisource review Specialised education engineers Authentic assessment tasks Talent development certificate Hours, days, or weeks Linked with learning pathway Payment for learning parcel Capability and readiness to learn Proactively identifying learner needs Predicting individual potential and growth Augment vocational capability Shaped by industry and social problems Campus, online, in community, or blended

in demand-centric ways to actively identify and stimulate and reward formally recognised learning. The change required is substantial and touches many facets of core academic work. University leaders are eager to embrace such change and are already engaged in a large amount of the required innovation and reform, moving beyond the prestige trip to embrace broader social commitments. This work is being progressed to meet expanding social commitments, to progress sustainability agendas, and in response to innovation imperatives. It is unlikely that universities will be able to effect the required change by themselves, not least as the new education economy necessarily engages a much larger array of institutions and stakeholders. In recognition of this many universities are creating new subsidiary ventures

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and institutions, often with greater commercial characteristics, to advance the required change. Emerging partnerships are sketched in Chapter 8. Along with reconfiguring supply, to uncap the bionic education economy it is necessary to understand, support, and likely reveal different forms of learning demand. Activating new demand means moving well beyond broadcasting institutional reputational data on prevailing rankings platforms which seek to entice applications. Instead, it means shifting to more individualised ways to understand people’s learning frontiers and potential. This requires sourcing information on people’s backgrounds, current circumstances, and potential learning trajectories. It means helping people see the value of identifying the field, extent, and format of preferred learning. It means engaging ongoing support from the community, employers, and government to inspire much greater embrace and recognition of smaller parcels of learning. It means underpinning new forms of learning with tangible industry recognition and professional reward.

Spurring Required Reform The field of ‘market design’ integrates perspectives which help articulate the new education economy. Market design experts provide clues for forming a functioning education economy (Roth, 2007). First, functioning markets require enough potential consumers and suppliers. Second, there needs to be a safe place to transact, and sufficient lubrication for any required revelation. Third, contextually efficient clearance mechanisms are required. Many organisations and experts have begun to assemble the infrastructure required to bring about these foundations. This of course includes reforms by governments, industries, employers, universities, and service firms. Robertson and Komljenovic (2016) talk about the complex expression of these ideas in the unique context of higher education. Functioning markets require enough potential consumers and suppliers. How then to motivate universities and potential learners to exchange? The answer for universities can be clarified by working up from the drivers which shape university behaviour. Universities strive for reputation and prestige (Goldman, Brewer, & Gates, 2002) and for revenue (Bowen, 1980; Salmi, 2009). Impelling universities to serve new learner segments can therefore be achieved by making this a means to

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enhance reputation, prestige, and revenue. This requires innovative evaluative indicators and the capacity to generate revenue from broader learner segments without tarnishing prestige. The formation of such ‘impact’ or ‘shared value’ or ‘engagement’ underpins the formation of new partnerships which open additional revenue flows. For instance, online project management firms are partnering with universities to repackage and repurpose existing education resources and distribute these in scalable ways into new educational markets. Motivating potential learners is a little different. If it is even partly accepted that education is what economists call a ‘credence’ good or service, then almost by definition people do not know what to consume. Attracting non-traditional learners into tertiary study, those who do not ‘glide in’ from secondary school, albeit via ruthless and unrelenting testing and examination regimes, is always more challenging, though much has been learned from providers of distance and online education (Martin & Godonoga, 2020), and from frontier policy work in the United States (Lumina, 2020). For instance, such learners are much more instrumental in terms of capability though not necessarily qualification returns, seek a flexible and fun experience, and require teaching and assistance which is more supportive. Governments and employers can use promotion as a lever to help people see the returns which flow from engaging in quality, fun, and feasible forms of learning. Such promotion can bring potential learners into next-generation learning. Enhancing the recognition of learning shows promise too, illustrated by business intelligence firms building platforms for storing authenticated achievement information (Long, Kidwell, & Gonick, 2019). Interestingly, while the intended transaction is the same the means for attracting potential learners differs to the means for attracting universities. Once universities and learners have been attracted to engage in the new economy, what kind of ‘space’ might optimally facilitate their transaction? Presumably, a variety of such spaces are required, ranging from structure discussions between managers and workers, online inquiry tools, and institution outlets. Job search and networking applications are progressively improving the capability to understand work roles and feasible trajectories. Universities are developing ‘solution centres’ to advise prospective learners and facilitate transactions. Industries and professions maintain registers of development options and preferred suppliers. A plethora of platforms and spaces seems the key ingredient. To function effectively as matching mechanisms such spaces must be

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authentic and can be trusted, which highlights a need for regulatory oversight. There is also, as the market design analysts convey, a need to facilitate transaction. Initial cash facilitation, learning subsidies, and mentoring seem helpful. What, finally, do contextually efficient clearance mechanisms look like? Technology is presumably leveraged to enable universities and prospective learners to browse, enable universities to assess readiness, and close the deal. Browsing, applying for, and financing education tend to remain separated today, though there are signs of convergence among financial and educational technologies. To close this analysis, it is helpful to map out specific reforms which seem necessary to give life to this new education economy. Policy-level action is required to initiate transformation on this scale, followed by engagement of universities, and then the implementation of regulatory mechanisms. A macro-level skills architecture is required which lays out the landscape of desirable competency development in terms of substance, level, duration, and recognition. Developing this architecture requires incredibly detailed investigation of individual and national demand for competency development. This involves analysis of current participation as well as broader social research. This architecture needs to go beyond established qualification frameworks to include course-/credit-level and outcomes information. This can usefully draw on precursor work with the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQFP, 2020) and learning outcomes specifications (HEQCO, 2020). Technology firms and in particular MOOC platforms are building sophisticated documentation engines for this skills architecture. Universities must build education resources that support this skills architecture. This likely involves developing or repackaging competencyspecific resources, as already occurs with online partnership and programme management arrangements. As noted, financial, reputational, and regulatory mechanisms together seem useful for spurring this action. Universities already make major contributions to community learning, but such work is not recognised in any existing reputational indices, and there is a need for financial incentives to spur market entry and cover startup costs. Enticing universities with this new competitive ‘social impact’ frontier will be essential to spurring their engagement and contribution. Having a skills architecture in place and clearer sense of the nature of learning resources makes it possible to initiate constructing of a new

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information system that helps regulate and stimulate the new education economy. With a cogent and parsimonious array of indicators this information system will help people identify directions and options for their own talent development. It will help regulate the nature and supply of education opportunities. Importantly, it will help provide guidance that helps connect individual demand with institutional supply in timely and helpful ways.

References Bowen, H. (1980). The costs of higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Brookings. (2015). Using earnings data to rank colleges: A value-added approach updated with College Scorecard data. Accessed from: https://www.brookings. edu/research/using-earnings-data-to-rank-colleges-a-value-added-approachupdated-with-college-scorecard-data. Calderon, A. (2018). Massification of higher education revisited. RMIT: Melbourne. Dede, C. (2018). The 60 year curriculum: Developing new educational models to serve the agile labor market. Accessed from: https://evolllution.com/rev enue-streams/professional_development/the-60-year-curriculum-developingnew-educational-models-to-serve-the-agile-labor-market. edX. (2020). MicroMasters. Accessed from: https://www.edx.org/micromasters. Georgia Tech. (2018). Deliberate innovation, lifetime education. Accessed from: https://provost.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/documents/deliberate_inno vation_lifetime_education.pdf. Goldman, C., Brewer, D., & Gates, S. (2002). In pursuit of prestige: Strategy and competition in U.S. higher education. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). (2020). Learning outcomes. Accessed from: www.heqco.ca/en-ca/OurPriorities/LearningOutc omes/Pages/Home.aspx. Long, P., Kidwell, D., & Gonick, L. (2019). The trusted learner network. Accessed from: https://uto.asu.edu/sites/default/files/general/the-trustedlearner-network-v1-3_0.pdf. Lumina Foundation. (2020). Lumina Foundation. Accessed from: https://www. luminafoundation.org. Martin, M., & Godonoga, A. (2020). Policies for flexible learning pathways in higher education: Taking stock of good practices internationally. Accessed from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372 817/PDF/372817eng.pdf.multi. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). (2020). MIT Open Courseware. Accessed from: https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm.

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Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2016). Education at a glance 2016: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. Park, H., Choi, J., Kim, J., & Hwang, J. (2019). The Academic Credit Bank System in the Republic of Korea: An effective medium for lifelong learning in higher education? International Review of Education, 65, 975–990. Payscale. (2020). Payscale. Accessed from: https://www.payscale.com/research/ US/School. Robertson, S., & Komljenovic, J. (2016). Unbundling the university and making higher education markets. In A. Verger, C. Lubienski, & G. Steiner-Kamsi (Eds.), The global education industry. London: Routledge. Roth, A. (2007). What have we learned from market design? Accessed from: https://www.nber.org/papers/w13530. Salmi, J. (2009). The challenge of establishing world-class universities. Washington: World Bank. Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership (SCQFP). (2020). Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework. Accessed from: https://scqf. org.uk. Skillsfuture. (2020). Skillsfuture Singapore. Accessed from: https://www.skillsfut ure.sg. Stanford. (2020). Open Loop University. Accessed from: www.stanford2025. com/open-loop-university. Tsinghua University. (2020). Continuing education. Accessed from: https:// www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/Admissions/Continuing_Education.htm. Udacity. (2020). Udacity. Accessed from: https://www.udacity.com. U-Multirank. (2020). U-Multirank. Accessed from: https://www.umultiran k.org. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2020). UIS.Stat. Accessed from: http://data.uis.unesco.org.

CHAPTER 6

Articulating Success

Abstract Post-secondary punters are people who place bets on higher education. Improving this kind of investing is essential not just to students and graduates, but more broadly to the industries, organisations, professions, and communities that these people will lead. This chapter articulates an agenda for understanding and developing the value of higher education. It argues that higher education must move beyond seeking asylum through coded opacity that fails to disclose the sector’s full brilliance and offer. Major new reporting platforms are required to clarify and prove the value of higher education, and improve investments and outcomes. Keywords Purchasing education · Education value · Success indicators · Reporting platforms

Better Bets on Tertiary Futures Post-secondary punters are people who place bets on higher education. Higher education is a huge industry and finance firms around the world are active in many investment plays. But most post-secondary punting happens in humble family homes by people wagering that higher education has a part to play in helping them or their loved ones succeed. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_6

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Improving this kind of punt is essential not just to students and graduates, but more broadly to the industries, organisations, professions, and communities that these people will lead. As higher education has expanded, so too have widespread calls for information on its value. But there remain core facets of the academy about which little is known, and available information is often difficult even for specialists to interpret. Traditional disclosure arrangements evolved for highly regulated and supply-driven forms of provision. Recent shifts to far larger and more competitive contexts require radically new disclosures. To guide and sustain future growth, more must be done to report and affirm the sector’s value and contribution. It is important that people have access to insights that sustain confidence and support. This means moving beyond myths and rituals that may feel ingrained yet fail to prove value, creating new data collections and reporting mechanisms, and sparking new cycles of contribution and improvement. Building on Coates (2018), this chapter argues that there is a need to take stock of contemporary developments and advance a progressive agenda for academic quality. Higher education must move beyond seeking asylum through coded opacity that fails to disclose the sector’s full brilliance and offer. How people talk, measure, and report on quality is outdated and has done little to make an inquiring public or government more informed, satisfied, or poised to succeed. Major new reporting platforms are required to clarify and prove the value of higher education, and improve investments and outcomes. The observations which follow are pitched at a general level and necessarily skirt above many of the delicacies and complexities of specific fields, institutions, markets, and industries. The analysis is aimed at the ‘norm core’ of higher education rather than any ‘dragging tail’ or ‘high-end elite’. It focuses on education rather than research functions. There is an overlap between these two facets of academic work, not least in terms of marketing activities, which are touched on below, and the work of a dwindling number of ‘traditional’ academic staff. But the chapter focuses squarely on the business of education. This is foresight rather than historical research. It distils observations about the past, but the focus is on future reforms rather than past shortcomings.

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Buying Higher Education Delving a little bit into the buying process spurs the simple and always controversial innovation that this chapter advances. Much has been invested in trying to understand and influence how people buy things. Buying is a complex endeavour, even when it comes to small purchases. As with market design, it gets even more complex when the thing being consumed is higher education, there appear to be a few fundamental processes at play. Basically, buying involves awareness, searching, deciding, and purchasing (Engel, Kollat, & Blackwell, 1968). The first two of these processes are of immediate relevance to this analysis. Becoming aware of a need or want is an obvious initial step in buying. The formation of such awareness is a complex matter, which may not be rational, obvious, or sequential. Research into higher education consumption suggests that a range of cultural, familial, personal, and educational forces all shape people’s decision-making (Hossler & Gallagher, 1987; Moogan & Baron, 2003). But increasingly any fine-grained deliberations appear swamped by much broader socioeconomic forces. Demand for higher education continues to grow (OECD, 2016; UNESCO, 2017). A bachelor’s degree is the passport to most forms of professional or even much skilled work, and in fast-growing economies the ticket to the middle class. The value of such credentials is expanding as economies mature. The growing scale of higher education underlines the importance of getting ‘awareness formation’ right, particularly but not only for people from countries or communities without traditional access to tertiary education opportunities. Second, awareness of the need for a service like higher education launches a search process that identifies options, and for each option salient parameters and attributes. So, what are the options or the various higher education services on offer? Next, how should these options be evaluated and what parameters are relevant to consider? Then, what information on each of the parameters is helpful in making a decision? Expertly run procurements might unfold in such sequence, but in practice such searches are likely scatty, subrational and non-articulated. It is also unfair to frame potential higher education consumers as experts. Most are firsttime buyers. Given the demography of the world’s high-growth markets, most aspirant consumers have little personal experience of the industry. And this is an area in which even industry experts can be flummoxed. It is sometimes asserted that education, like eating, is a credence good.

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There is a need to carefully frame the information that plays into people’s deliberations about buying higher education. These brief forays affirm the great significance of always seeking to do better in making people aware of higher education, and in improving the information that can help people with buying. These are important matters for people and their communities, and the price of failure is high. It is impossible to be too deterministic about education where experience matters as much as substance, but evidence shows (e.g. Taylor, Fry, & Oates, 2014) that people are better off if they have the opportunity to participate in higher education, and surely economies benefit most when the most interested and able people are schooled into professions. Both areas canvassed above matter, sparking interest in participation, and optimising matching of people to courses of study. The two areas are surely interrelated, but this chapter looks specifically into the second, the nature and disclosure of information about higher education.

Craving Confidence Much has been done over the last three decades to help people buy higher education and afford confidence in the decision that they have made. For instance, there have been greater financial disclosures, innumerable policy reviews, billions spent on consultants, ramped-up media attention, more public-spirited academic reporting, the creation of various advisory and information networks, and expanded personnel training. Yet, to date such efforts have proved inadequate. The ‘quality movement’ provides an interesting case study of the shortcomings of such attempts. In advanced economies, the ‘quality period’ started in the 1990s as higher education expanded beyond elite preserves. Governments sought assurance that public funds were being administered to deliver education of sufficient quality for their growing populations. Quality is a pervasive and expansive idea that touches every facet of university life in different and changing ways. The dominant focus during this period was mainly educational and administrative functions rather than research or broader engagement. The main approach might be characterised as ‘internal selfevaluation followed by external peer review’, the latter being facilitated by some form of quality agency. These agencies were set up by governments and had a reasonably close relationship with universities. Several chapters in Hazelkorn, Coates, and McCormick (2018b) provide a comprehensive analysis of the quality agenda.

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This quality-related work achieved much. For instance, it helped build academic management systems within institutions, create large volumes of enhancement-focused R&D, ensure institutions were leading academic matters in ways ‘fit for purpose’, create system-wide and international alignments, and create sector-specific infrastructure and discourse. The quality period helped professionalise and safeguard higher education. But in recent times, this prevailing approach to quality has lost its dominant position and increasingly much of its shine. Quality agencies in several countries including the United Kingdom and Australia have been closed, with similar agencies in the United States seemingly bursting at their existential seams. The focus on peer review led to variation in the definition and application of standards and overuse of the words ‘appropriate’ and ‘concern’ to avoid terminal relativism. The focus on institution-level processes yielded diminishing returns and failed to account for the outcomes that really matter. The production of (undoubtedly heavily redacted) industry-centric reports failed to yield information for broader stakeholders, particularly of the kind increasingly viewed as normal in broadband-enhanced societies. The ‘insider’ perspective evolved from collegial arrangements and stumbled seriously in more competitive and commercial settings including with emerging for-profit and private forms of provision. The quality agencies set up to run the processes typically had no or weak regulatory powers to enforce any identified improvements. In general, the ‘quality period’ might be seen as setting the foundation for shepherding higher education institutions in advanced economies from elite to mass scale (Hazelkorn, Coates, & McCormick, 2018a). More is required to guide progress in more universal, competitive, and complex times. Shortcomings in the higher education sector’s own quality agenda fuelled anxieties, particularly among those outside ‘the university club’, which spurred workarounds and new solutions. As the dominant funders of higher education, governments clarified and strengthened their regulatory powers. Consumers sought information from new market-targeted reports on institution performance and, in particular, on research and reputational rankings. New market entrants, in particular for-profit private institutions, used commercial research to strengthen their market plays. Business and community stakeholders continued to flounder in exasperation at the accidental ways they remained forced to engage with higher education institutions. Of course, separate accreditation exists for certain professional fields, though this is not without its own complexities.

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As even this brief summary conveys, there has been a proliferation of bewildering information about many facets of higher education. This unravelling has ignited confusion, not clarity. No solution thus far has yet addressed the aching need for more effective, sophisticated, and comprehensive disclosures that help people make informed decisions about their initial and ongoing engagement with higher education.

Revealing Success Next-generation reports are needed to help people engage successfully with higher education. A first key step in this quest to provide better information on higher education is identifying what information should be reported. A suite of ‘success indicators’ could yield powerful information on how higher education can help people and communities succeed. To venture in this direction, research was conducted in Australia in 2015– 2016 to shed light on the nature of success in higher education, and how success might be measured. As detailed by Coates, Kelly, and Naylor (2017) and Coates, Kelly, Naylor, and Borden (2017), the study brought together researchers from eight universities and was overseen by an international advisory group. It entailed a systematic review of educational and psychological literature, procured extensive feedback from thirtyone tertiary institutions, involved six in-depth institutional site visits and case studies, interviews with a diverse group of forty-four students, and consultation with hundreds of researchers and practitioners in dozens of countries. The research built on findings and limitations of a large body of prior work on how students prosper in higher education (e.g. Bice & Coates, 2016; Coates & Richardson, 2012; Coates, 2017a, 2017b; Radloff, Coates, James, & Krause, 2012). The study defined a new model that deconstructed student success into nine qualities. Table 6.1 presents the nine qualities and shows how they are divided into three broader groups. In articulating these nine qualities it is not assumed that they are either exhaustive, incontestable, or mutually exclusive. The terrain is too complex and dynamic for any such claims to be made. Rather, it is contended that the qualities mark out a suite of worthy agendas and carry the potential to create discourse that helps students and their institutions succeed. Importantly, as the above presentation reveals, the qualities step beyond the prevailing terms which are used to define and operationalise student experience and related constructs. For instance, while ‘student

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Table 6.1 Nine qualities of a successful student experience Group

Quality

Description

Student Outcomes

Discovery

Opportunity to discover and create new ideas. Cognitive experience that is motivated intrinsically but mediated socially. Includes research, identification of new, transferable ways of thinking, building emotional capability, and creating social networks Attaining sought-after outcomes, including near-term benchmarks (grades, honours, awards), and longer-term completion and attainment goals (getting a good job) Making connections between ideas, people, and experiences. Establishing networks within (student activities) and outside (interest groups, academic exchanges) the institution. Building sensitivity to cultural differences and collaborating with communities, socially and professionally Academic and professional opportunities gained through social connection, provision of insights into prospects, and sense of enrichment and empowerment Return on investment. Seeing that higher education is worth the time, cost, and effort. Includes monetary and opportunity costs, as well as broader forms of cognitive and emotional effort and returns Being part of something larger than oneself. Aspects of engagement (participation in educationally purposeful activities) but also inclusion in and recognition of the individual by the community Ability to change and define oneself in localised or more expansive ways. Identification with peer groups and, increasingly disciplinary or professional identities on the way to becoming a member of civic and professional communities Providing students with new competencies and broader self-regulatory and meta-cognitive capacities required for thriving in future settings. Based on both learning and leadership experiences within educational settings (classroom, online) and student communities Support and guidance received as appropriate to individual needs and when needed (just-in-time, just-enough, and just-for-me). Curricular structures are present, but nimble enough to respond to different individual circumstances

Achievement

Connection

Opportunity

Student Formations

Value

Belonging

Identity

Student Supports

Enabled

Personalised

Source Borden and Coates (2017)

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satisfaction’ has become somewhat entrenched, there is ample evidence that besides stamping out woeful practice it offers substantially diminishing returns to improving higher education. Worse, it sucks energy and attention away from things that really count as articulated in the nine qualities above. Even ingrained phrases such as ‘teaching quality’ and ‘student support’ and ‘student services’ are becoming less relevant as team-based computer-mediated teaching and facilitation becomes more widespread, as evidenced by the near-universal adoption of learning management and other enterprise-learning systems. The nine qualities are broader than the frequently espoused though rarely measured ‘graduate attributes’. Rather than fixate on what are supplier-centric concepts, they instead project qualities that signal new co-created conceptualisations of higher education. The qualities are designed to be equally meaningful to diverse stakeholders, including people such as those who have not thought about higher education, prospective students, students, graduates, employers, teachers, and support staff. Given the transparencies and efficiencies afforded by new technologies and knowledge, it makes little sense to design ideas about education or quality for segmented or partitioned audiences, as has been the case in the past. Instead, as emphasised below, nuanced information can be provided to myriad stakeholders. What this means in concrete terms is that the same data in aggregated form could flow through to academic leaders and used to produce personalised reports for individuals. To guide individual success, it is necessary to chart paths through each of the nine qualities. This involves identifying thresholds of increasing success for each quality. This does not imply that every student proceeds stepwise or even necessarily through each threshold, or that each threshold is meaningful for each student. It does imply a fundamental structure that underpins each quality and is relatively invariant across environments and people. This is uncontroversial if the thresholds are defined in sufficiently general ways and are able through the process of measurement to be particularised in relevant and helpful ways. It is also necessary to deploy technology for modelling individual profiles and journeys. Simply put, a profile can be envisaged as a complex dynamic of diverse attributes that portray an individual in relation to a successful student experience. A journey is a multiple branching pathway through a higher education process, from beginning to end. The idea of profiling ‘movements through journeys’ steps well beyond the idea of shifting

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‘batched groups through lifecycles’. Together these two approaches may seem at first glance to unleash infinite complexity for conceptualising and managing each student’s experience, but experience in other industries implies otherwise. After initial reworking in terms of new processes, effective digitisation has been shown to yield substantial increases in productivity and quality of people’s purposeful interactions with organisations. As part of the foundation project, initial efforts were made to identify sources of robust data to measure each of the nine qualities, or at least prove the feasibility of their measurement. Table 6.2 demonstrates that a range of collection techniques and data sources are needed. The examples are rooted in the Australian context but are sufficiently broad to support generalisation to other settings.

Next-Generation Platforms At least once, people should ask what value higher education might add to their life. People should consider, often in conversation with family or friends, how higher education could enlighten them, make them a more able professional, or a better citizen. In advanced societies it is expected that such questioning is almost ubiquitous, that the vast majority of people should make such inquiry. Unfortunately, it is also almost universally clear that hardly anyone has access to the kind of good quality information needed to inform such discovery and decision-making. It is unclear where helpful information can be easily sourced, who governs such advice, and how higher education institutions can use data to improve. The problem endures for those who engage in higher education as they bump through bureaucracies, sit lonely in crowded lectures, and seek personalised insight from teachers and institutions to help them succeed. Information abounds, of course, but is of varying quality and relevance, and can be difficult for even experts to decode, let alone exploit to articulate a transformative higher education experience. Typically, data has a ‘supplier-centric’ tinge to it, providing results from a distinct data collection on an entire institution’s past, rather than advice as to how different parts of that institution might help an individual’s future. What is needed is an effective means for conveying to each person what a successful higher education experience looks like, which is what the project that underpins this report sought to achieve.

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Table 6.2 Data sources for the nine qualities Quality

Associated indicators

Data availability

Discovery

Development of new technical, generic, and personal skills; advanced problem-solving skills, production of body of creative academic work; understanding academic culture and expectations; and acquisition of new interests

Achievement

Admission; passing; retention; learning outcomes; completion; and articulation into other qualifications

Opportunity

Awareness of career opportunities and strategies; further study readiness; graduate employment; participating in collaborative networks; and participating in experiential learning or in leadership roles

Value

Graduate outcomes; course fees; course duration; work experience opportunities; physical and online facilities and services; perceptions of teacher quality; identification of study purpose aspirations; and student information

Lagged data is available from national student and graduate surveys. There is a shortage of collected data that measures students’ capacity for discovery, however, internal data points including curriculum and assessment systems, and commercial online profiling platforms would yield richer information Lagged data is available from national student surveys and data collections, state-based admissions agencies. Additional information could be harnessed through e-portfolios or tracking mechanisms. There is a shortage of publicly available information on learning outcomes Lagged data is available from national student, graduate, and employer surveys. Additional information could be gained from admission agencies and institutional alumni information and systems. There is a shortage of collected data that measures opportunities seized by individual students, however, participation in institutional events, leadership roles, experiential activities, and graduate outcomes could be logged Lagged data is available from national student, graduate, and employer surveys. Additional information could be gained from student service use and incidence of attendance, exit interviews, institutional alumni systems, and social media platforms

(continued)

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Table 6.2 (continued) Quality

Associated indicators

Data availability

Connection

Exposure to industry events, speakers and networks; undertaking work placements; student exchange and volunteering; and forming academic, collegial, and social networks

Belonging

Feeling welcome; awareness and participation in groups, forums, and clubs; participation in online and face-to-face curricular and non-curricular activities; and forming and maintaining relationships

Personalised

Staff engagement with students; tailoring curriculum and teaching to students; experience/advice that is tailored to individuals; and provision of real-time assessment

Lagged data is available from national student surveys. Additional information could be gained from institutional systems, work-integrated learning experiences, online discussion boards, interaction in student groups, and commercial networks used in course work. New collections that log student attendance or participation in industry or academic events Subscriptions, membership, and participation in professional or academic networking platforms, organisations, and chat rooms would indicate connectedness Lagged data is available from national student and graduate surveys. Additional institutional systems that log participation, attendance, and duration of experience on campus or online could be used in conjunction with records that indicate attendance at orientation events, membership, and participation in groups. Other new forms of data could include real-time student feedback about perceptions or swipe-card data. Alumni information and commercial online profiling offer other data Data is available, or could be made available, from national student surveys and institution systems on the extent to which staff and infrastructure are personalised. There is more information available on commercial platforms

(continued)

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Table 6.2 (continued) Quality

Associated indicators

Data availability

Enabled

Student aid; scholarship availability; teacher quality; assessment feedback; academic support; online and physical resources; and student development sessions

Identity

Leadership skills; cultural awareness; emotional intelligence; self-reflectiveness

Lagged data is available from national student and graduate surveys. Information from tertiary admission centres, and institutional scholarship data could be used. Additional institutional systems that record incidence of support services, attendance at non-compulsory curricular events, use of online and physical resources including career advice or utilisation of digital systems would provide information. Institutional information about alumni and commercial online profiling offer other data sources Lagged data is available from national student and graduate surveys. Institutional systems including administrative data and others that house assessment items including reflective and practical journals, capstone experiences and exchanges. Data that identifies participation in mentoring, leadership, orientation events, or peer-assisted programmes. Information about student awards and recognition and volunteer roles for both curricular and non-curricular activities could be captured. Other commercial online systems or personal blogs offer additional data sources

Source Coates et al. (2017)

This state of play creates several problems. Most particularly, individuals are unable to inform, let alone optimise, how they might invest in higher education. As well, the people and institutions that provide higher education are unable to communicate the value of what they do. Society overall can fail to recognise the value of the higher education system with consequences for constrained government funding, reduced community perceptions of value, and attenuated engagement with other

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industries and businesses. The lack of good information, particularly given the complexities of higher education, creates problems and potentially failure. The situation gets more serious considering transformations shaping so many facets of higher education, like regulation, markets, staffing, students, institutions, and governments. Surely everyone engaged in higher education wants students to have an intellectually engaging and personally fulfilling experience. Yet higher education today is a huge venture and meaningful experiences which once flowed serendipitously must now be programmed explicitly into broad education designs. In a small-scale community students and teachers will tend to naturally interact. However, in today’s very large tertiary institutions, which are deploying increasingly distributed forms of education, it can even be hard to know when students are flat-lining. Higher education is shifting from a highly regulated and supply-driven system to a more market-driven venture which must be increasingly sensitive to the needs of students. We must continue to explore new approaches for helping each student succeed. New platforms are required to report information in ways that help people succeed. Having the right information is necessary but not sufficient for improving how people buy higher education. Information already abounds in higher education, though as identified above, there is substantial scope for repackaging it. Better reporting is also required. What are the problems with current platforms? There are many, and the following high-level synthesis of the shortcomings with this young and fast-growing field is not intended to be expansive, conclusive, or focus on any initiative in particular. In summary, it is not uncommon for reports to present highly diffuse information on a narrow range of institutional (mostly research) functions that is lagged, sourced from third parties, often annual, and of unverified or unknown validity and reliability. Such information is often presented online in static ordinal lists without regard to interpretation or consequence. Reports may be provided without full disclosure of political or commercial interests or intentions. The current reporting landscape is just too confusing, even for experts, but especially for punters. Coates (2017a) clarified how reports must improve as part of a comprehensive analysis of transparency in higher education. In summary, future reports must become more comprehensive, more sophisticated, and more effective. Exploration of each of these dimensions charts substantial opportunities to innovate in this growing field.

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Reporting platforms need to broaden to include more information of direct relevance to how prospective and current learners engage with higher education. While information on research conveys status, drives brand, spurs buying behaviour, and is attractive to institution executives, it leads to myriad distortions. Individuals seek to study at institutions because of research endeavours that have nothing, besides perhaps credential brand, to do with their education. Institutions, for their part, seek to do ‘world-class research’ even if it is far from or beyond their reach. Nations aspire for all institutions to pursue global research rather than serve more diverse local needs. Rather than emphasise research, platforms should report the kind of success qualities articulated earlier in this chapter. Reports need to become more sophisticated. They must move from being static, to being dynamic, and even personalised. As computing technologies have advanced, there has been a notable shift towards more dynamic, online-rating systems. Rather than disseminate static information, reporting agencies have developed more nuanced means for engaging with information about higher education activity and performance. But increasingly reporting mechanisms are becoming more personalised. Generic internet search engines are perhaps the most flexible means of sourcing information about higher education, though the lack of guiding structure is confusing. Social-networking platforms are an evidently important source of information for stakeholders, as are individual institution websites. As well, a range of other independent platforms are emerging which enable individuals to select among specified criteria to generate customised comparisons of institutions and programmes of study. Reports on higher education must become more effective, shifting well beyond the anarchy that currently prevails. Drawing from broader governance settings, Coates (2017) identified that reports must be robust and assured, relevant and accessible, timely and ongoing, intentional and engaging, and regulated and accountable. In a nutshell, information must be robust and assured such that only quality information is reported. Information must be disclosed in ways that are relevant and accessible to target audiences. It is essential that disclosures about higher education activity and performance are timely and continuous. Public institutions should be intentional and engaging in their reporting practices. It is important that there are effective means of governing overall reporting arrangements, particularly in expanding and anarchical environments.

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Indeed, in recent decades there has been a general progression in each of these three areas. Scott (2013) has clarified that the 1990s saw the emergence of ‘first generation’ reports that were distributed via static print, presenting heavily lagged and partial data of varying quality sourced from compliance reports. The 2000s saw the rise of more efficacious ‘second generation’ reports of greater scope and increasing sophistication. Examples include the current international rankings and a host of national initiatives (Hazelkorn, 2013). The 2010s saw the rise of more effective ‘third generation’ transparency mechanisms that can be nuanced towards individual preferences and encompass a greater range of functions. Such reports have proliferated as demand for information has intensified. A core thrust of the current argument is to spur creation of the ‘next-generation’ or ‘fourth-generation’ suite of reports, delivering more information that is more dynamic and hopefully more robust. These reports should unfold at two parallel levels of analysis. The first is institution- or programme-level benchmarking tools for industry insiders like ministries and institutions. Second, there is a need for nuanced platforms particularised to the interests of individuals seeking to engage in higher education. Given the transparencies and efficiencies afforded by new technologies, it makes little sense to continue designing ideas about education or quality for segmented or partitioned audiences. Nextor fourth-generation reports may be designed to communicate equally meaningfully to diverse stakeholders, including people who have not thought about higher education, prospective students, students, graduates, employers, teachers, and support staff. In concrete terms, this means the same data in aggregated form could flow through to academic leaders as is used to produce personalised reports for individuals. As with advisory platforms in any area of life, next-generation reports should join what people get from higher education with what they initially invest. The platforms should articulate and align what people bring to higher education, the experiences they seek, and the success that they want. Such platforms carry potential to dynamically clarify rather than compartmentalise options, experiences, and outcomes. They are unlikely to ‘solve’ all problems with buying higher education, but would likely play a direct part in improving choices, progress, and outcomes for universities, students, professions, and communities. More broadly, insights could be used by universities to improve the engagement, contribution, and success of their students and graduates.

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Where to Next Sprung from the simple proposition that there is ample opportunity to improve how people punt with higher education, this chapter has charted the need for and nature of new reporting platforms. It looked at weaknesses in how people buy higher education, shortcomings of current quality arrangements, the need for information to help students succeed, and finally the impetus for new reporting platforms. It was argued that in the future higher education must be unrecognisably more transparent. There is a need to improve the nature and governance of disclosures, a need for more information, a need for a shift in focus from inputs and processes to outcomes, impact, and value or success, and a need for more effective reporting platforms. Of course, as in any large-scale context, the field’s development will be patterned by a range of forces. Several hurdles exist. Established international rankings are supported by power dynamics that underpin reputation and prestige. Many of the particularly prominent reporting initiatives have also secured a first-mover advantage through being early entrants in this young field. Indicator definition and data collection have proved troublesome and costly, particularly for education and engagement functions. Establishing that data is robust on a broad scale is always challenging, but there is substantial room to align ranking techniques with expected standards in international comparative evaluation. A range of facilitators, including public expectations, will undoubtedly fuel greater disclosure. What, then, would be the characteristics of a helpful way forward? Essentially, there appears to be value in advancing some kind of nonprofit, and likely non-governmental, initiative. The need for a non-profit approach is critical to steer clear of any commercial sensitivities or conflicts of interest. A non-governmental approach is needed to engage higher education institutions and other stakeholder agencies on equal footing, recognising, of course, that governments fund most higher education and spark many important initiatives. An appropriate series of governance, leadership, and management arrangements would need to be formed. These arrangements must be multi-stakeholder in nature. They must go well beyond engaging sector insiders alone and give equal power to other higher education stakeholders. The initiative will be inherently international, which is essential given that higher education is marking out a new series of borderless arrangements that transcend existing agreements and

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dialogues. A charter with guiding principles and policies should be developed that speaks to the espoused technical principles, and that guides the conduct of the initiative. The spark for such development will almost surely arise from conversations and debates among existing stakeholders, early adopters and advocates, though a medium- to long-term view will be required. As with the development of any new field, there is a need to define and position such interests. As flagged throughout this chapter, new value is being created by new contributors, evolving technologies, and changes to higher education itself. Reporting is a young field and there are substantial opportunities for innovation. While work has commenced on many of the areas mentioned, it is difficult to forecast when new indicators and data sources will become available. If past progress is any guide, it would seem reasonable to envisage change over the next five to ten years. This is an area of substantial opportunities for growth.

References Bice, S., & Coates, H. (2016). University sustainability reporting: Taking stock of transparency. Tertiary Education and Management, 22(1), 1–18. Borden, V. M. H., & Coates, H. (2017). Learning analytics as a counterpart to surveys of student experience. New Directions for Higher Education, 179, 89–102. Coates, H. (2017a). The market for learning: Leading transparent higher education. Singapore: Springer. Coates, H. (Ed.). (2017b). Productivity in higher education: Research insights for universities and governments in Asia. Tokyo: Asian Productivity Organisation. Coates, H. (2018). Postsecondary punters: Creating new platforms for higher education success. In H. Weingarten, M. Hicks, & A. Kaufman (Eds.), Beyond enrolment: Measuring academic quality. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Coates, H., Kelly, P., & Naylor, R. (2017). Leading online education for student success. International Journal of Chinese Education, 6(1), 105–126. Coates, H., Kelly, P., Naylor, R., & Borden, V. (2017). Innovative approaches for enhancing the 21st Century student experience. Alternation. Coates, H., & Richardson, S. (2012). An international assessment of bachelor degree graduates’ learning outcomes. Higher Education Management and Policy, 23(3), 51–69. Engel, J. F., Kollat, D. T. & Blackwell, R. D. (1968). Consumer behaviour. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

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Hazelkorn, E. (2013). Are rankings a useful transparency instrument? Accessed from: http://media.ehea.info/file/Transparency_Namur_September_2010/ 92/1/Are_Rankings_a_Useful_Transparency_599921.pdf. Hazelkorn, E., Coates, H., & McCormick, A. C. (2018a). Quality, performance, and accountability: Emergent challenges in the global era. In E. Hazelkorn, H. Coates, & A. C. McCormick (Eds.), Handbook on quality, performance and accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Hazelkorn, E., Coates, H., & McCormick, A. C. (Eds.). (2018b). Handbook on quality, performance and accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Hossler, D., & Gallagher, K. S. (1987). Studying student college choice: A threephase model and the implications for policymakers. College and University, 62(3), 207–221. Moogan, Y. J., & Baron, S. (2003). An analysis of student characteristics within the student decision making process. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 27 (3), 271–287. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2016). Education at a glance 2016: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. Radloff, A., Coates, H., James, R., & Krause, K. (2012). Development of the University Experience Survey (UES). Canberra: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Scott, P. (2013). Ranking higher education institutions: A critical perspective. In T. M. Priscilla, Marope, Peter J. Wells & Ellen Hazelkorn (Eds.), Rankings and accountability in higher education: Uses and misuses. Paris: UNESCO. Taylor, P., Rick, F., & Oates, R. (2014). The rising cost of not going to college. Washington: Pew Research Center. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics (UNESCO). (2017). Higher education. Accessed from: http://uis.unesco.org/en/topic/higher-education.

CHAPTER 7

Reforming Assessment

Abstract When today’s primary school students enter university they will experience very different assessment practices to those in widespread use today. They will experience what this chapter articulates as ‘nextgeneration assessment’. Framed by this need for reform, this chapter reports outcomes from a project that designed an architecture for this kind of next-generation assessment. It looks at pertinent higher education contexts, perspectives useful for designing more productive assessment, and insights from analysis of current practices. It presents an architecture for improving assessment and work required to bring this into practice. Keywords Purchasing education · Education value · Success indicators · Reporting platforms

Anticipating Future Assessment When today’s people primary school students enter university they will experience very different assessment practices to those in widespread use today. They will experience what this chapter articulates as ‘nextgeneration assessment’ (Coates, 2018a). Assessment will be woven invisibly into education experiences, almost indistinguishable from ‘curriculum’ and ‘teaching’ and ‘support’. It will sculpt each learning moment © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_7

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with challenges and guides that help each person reach their potential. Resources will be produced by education engineers who share a scientific commitment to their profession. Assessment will yield tailored insights for a range of audiences that help people move seamlessly through study and work. Assessment matters enormously to higher education. It bookends who ‘gets in’ and who ‘gets out’. It is the distilled essence of what is taught. It drives learners’ engagement and signposts their achievements. It gatekeeps education standards. It distinguishes different programmes and institutions. Even so, assessment has yet to have its transformational moment despite other major disruptions to higher education. Hypertravel has augmented the swirl of students, academics, and universities around the world. Online learning has transformed curriculum and teaching in ways that could be mild compared with the artificial transmutations to come. Student cohorts have grown and diversified. New fields have sprouted and matured. Yet much assessment is being done today much as it was a century ago. There have been many attempts to transform assessment. These are recognised in a flow of topic-specific research publications (e.g. Boud & Falchikov, 2007; Carless, 2015; Coates, 2014; Melguizo & Coates, 2017; Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, Pant, & Coates, 2016). As well, it is important to recognise the innovative but local efforts of millions of academics. Larger signature initiatives have involved imposing qualification frameworks, cross-national benchmarking projects, discipline-specific reforms, the tuning of curriculum structures, training scorers, and implementing standardised assessments (Coates, 2016; Hazelkorn, Coates, & McCormick, 2018). Such initiatives have registered various advances, yet they have failed to tip the scales and spur pervasive new norms, policies, or practices (Carless, 2017; Deneen & Boud, 2014; Gibbs, 2006; Price, 2005). Deep analysis of higher education exposes interlocking forces hindering change. Though it is difficult to be conclusive, from consultation with hundreds of experts and stakeholders (see: Coates, 2014, 2017; Coates & Richardson, 2012; Kuh & Jankowski, 2018; Medland, 2016; Wagenaar, 2014; Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al., 2016) it appears several key forces are at play. These include institutional priorities, workforce, and resource capabilities, as well as options and capability for change. Many of these hindering forces seem exogenous to assessment itself. Such complexity highlights the significance of assessment. It also signals that

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‘business as usual’ is unlikely to prevail. There is a need for smart workarounds. Change is perhaps likely to be provoked by capabilities established through new partnerships and infrastructure. As with any important facet of education there are cogent reasons for improvement. These have been distilled in a range of international projects (e.g. AQFC, 2013; ASEAN, 2014; CALOHEE, 2018; EC, 2004, 2008; OECD, 2012; UNESCO, 2015). For instance, there is value in advancing assessment in the spirit of continuous improvement. There are strategic institutional rationales for finding innovative ways to assess student learning. Graduate employer and business concerns about education standards ultimately fall back to concerns about assessment. Assessment is a fulcrum for enhancing student engagement and retention. At the same time, by doing assessment better and cheaper there is enormous educational and financial value to be found for institutions, faculty, students, and governments. Producing more cogent data on outcomes would yield broader dividends by proving economic and social returns from education, an important addition to other information about quality. Taking these contexts into account, this chapter reports outcomes from a project that designed an architecture for this kind of next-generation assessment. The following section looks at pertinent higher education contexts, perspectives useful for designing more productive assessment, and insights from analysis of current practices. It then presents an architecture for improving assessment and work required to bring this into practice. In this chapter ‘assessment’ is interpreted broadly as involving the measurement, reporting and interpretation of student learning and development. This includes what are sometimes called ‘formative assessment’ and ‘summative assessment’, a distinction likely to fade in years to come as focus shifts to people and their learning rather than the locus and rationale of supply. The chapter invites people with vested interests in higher education to recognise current problems and imagine the shape of things to come.

Reimagining Current Contexts Almost anyone who works in higher education knows that now is not business as usual. Over the last two decades the speed and dynamism of higher education have made it to interpret. The year 2020 shocked higher education in unprecedented and unexpected ways. Even at the most

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personal and local levels, higher education keeps changing in complex synchronisation with non-ignorable global developments. Given such change, it is an opportune time to invent future forms of higher education. So, what helpful thinking can create fresh value for the core education services that drive most of the rest of the world’s higher education institutions? As argued with respect to the ‘prestige trap’, a dominant policy and institutional logic has infused higher education during the ‘world-class era’ whereby research outcomes have grown university brands which have fuelled education and research investment which in turn yields revenues for more research (Salmi, 2009). Rather than parlay research trophies into education profits, and vice versa, a more coherent logic sees education success as creating education value, which in turn spurs education investment, which then leads to expanded contributions, which inspires further successes. This new kind of thinking carries enormous potential to shine light which strengthens people and entire education systems. Reforming the assessment of student learning is surely a plinth in such growth. Prognosing the future of assessment is fascinating but carries scary implications if not led well. Changing products and services means reconfiguring legacy structures, roles, materials, interactions, and even ambitions. In existing contexts assessment is woven into close collaboration between academics and students. In future settings assessment dissolves into the technologically mediated interplay between learners and much broader learning systems. This has direct implications for people, infrastructure, and institutions. But the implications are not immediate, despite technozealot rhetoric. Change is paced not just by software advance but also and perhaps more powerfully by broader and incremental transformations of anxious people, complex institutions, and massive systems (Joughin, 2009). To position progress, the evolution of assessment practice can be framed in three eras. To exemplify these, Table 7.1 highlights a few shifting practices in the transition from traditional (broadly, 1990s and before) through stretched (1990s to 2020) to next-generation (2020 and thereafter) practices. The last few decades have been expansionary though not transformative in nature. Education practices common in traditional settings may be wonderful but hard to scale. These legacy practices have been stretched taut and patched for bigger delivery as higher

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Table 7.1 Articulating three eras of assessment Parameter

Authority Production Format Location Implementation Scoring Reporting

Phase Traditional

Stretched

Next-generation

University Solo academics Paper Campus Universities Solo academics Generic

University or regulator Academic teams Paper and online Campus and online Universities Moderated practice Contextualised

Shared Co-creation Mobile and online Anywhere and anytime Specialists Automated Customised

education has expanded. Instead, the architecture below offers a gangplank for porting to truly enriched next-generation practice which has the properties pitched at the outset of this chapter. To summarise, after decades if not centuries of application, aspects of assessment still in widespread use today are almost surely yielding diminishing returns to education. To parlay provocative language from economics (Quiggin, 2010), it appears that certain ‘zombie practices’ have been propped up well beyond maturity into various kinds of sustained obsolescence. The technology life-cycle innovation ‘s-curve’ (Foster, 1986) has been stagnant for some time. Given this, and the delivery of new technologies now is ripe to ferment genuine improvements in productivity. Any open-minded glance at assessment reveals rocks under which there are likely to be step-change solutions.

Creating Perspectives Design thinking presents a useful epistemology and methodology for advancing assessment. As mentioned, design thinking can be couched as an interactive five-step process (DMI, 2018). For instance, the first stage ‘empathising’, goes to defining the problem and exploring relevant human contexts. This means asking what the problem is and who cares? ‘Definition’ then involves determining and defining the things that are important, creating a point of view based on needs and insights. ‘Ideation’ involves brainstorming possible futures, generating as many creative ideas as possible. ‘Prototyping’ is about building the new things and approaches enough to convey nature and value. And ‘testing’ means

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looking at whether the things and approaches work, typically with reference to initial audience and needs. This chapter reports on research which created blueprints for prototypes. Assessment was taken back to the drawing board for careful reasons. Management research reveals that design thinking helps organisations and professionals out-perform. There are several ways in which it achieves this (Edson, Kouyoumjian, & Sheppard, 2017). It steps around, above, and beyond traditional scientific and educational thinking, encouraging exploration and experimentation rather than conservative incrementation. It helps deliver a product rather than just a set of thoughts. It charts course towards novel rather than nudging existing thinking. It encourages creative controversy rather than incumbent functionality. Figure 7.1 presents the overall redesign logic deployed in this innovation. With its tentacles tucked deep around the roots of education it is no small question to ask where assessment reform energy should best be funnelled. What investments will provoke the most change? Guidance can be found by framing then deconstructing assessment, diagnosing problems, identifying improvements, and advancing an engineered solution. Design thinking helps harness eclectic strands of thought and channel these into assessment inventions. Doing different things needs new thinking about education, corporate structures, workforce capability, and partnerships. Weaving together several lines of education and business thinking contribute very helpful perspectives. These include Academic Course Redesign, Evidence Centred Design, Third Generation Assessment, Business Process Re-engineering, and Value Chain Analysis. As design thinking conveys, sensitive analysis of key contexts is also required. Launched by Carol Twigg at the United States National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), Academic Course Redesign refers to the process of analysing and improving education outcomes while reducing cost, making as much use of information technology as possible (NCAT, 2018). Course Redesign was developed to assist academic coordinators at traditional universities to reduce course-level costs and

Framing assessment

DeconstrucƟng assessment

Fig. 7.1 Assessment redesign logic

Diagnosing problems

IdenƟfying improvements

Engineering soluƟons

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improve outcomes, however the ideas are readily applicable to the subject/unit level, and to the assessment function. It involves selecting a redesign model, defining student outcomes and appropriate assessment methods, and specifying detailed cost reduction strategies. Over several years NCAT has developed very specific resources and approaches for the application of these approaches. Of most use to the current project is the idea that commercial logic can be applied to existing/legacy education practices to improve productivity. Advanced by Robert Mislevy at the United States Educational Testing Service (ETS), Evidence Centered Design (ECD) articulates a scientific framework for designing, producing, and delivering educational assessments with respect to evidence requirements (Mislevy, Almond, & Lucas, 2003; Bennett & Matthiasvon, 2017). Drawing from disciplines like psychology, IT, and policy studies, the framework includes models and processes that ensure assessment is sound and effective. ECD includes modelling of the domain/topic being assessed. It includes mapping important facets of assessment such as students, the evidence required, optimal task specifications, implementation requirements, and delivery specifications. ECD provides a holistic and arguably the best platform for assuring the development, review, and improvement of assessment. ECD ideas, resources, and techniques service foundations for next-generation assessment. The term ‘next-generation assessment’ flows from foresight research. While ECD establishes a framework for structuring work on assessment, Bennett’s (2015) work contributes an historical lens. The evolutionary story is about how IT can, though often may not, make assessment better. In a nutshell, ‘first-generation assessment’ differs only marginally from paper-based assessment. This type of practice simply involves loading paper-derived materials onto online systems, and deploying them in relatively standard ways. ‘Second-generation assessment’ invokes the use of IT-derived innovations in educational practice, though often without any more advanced educational underpinnings, or without a fulsome marriage between educational and technological considerations. ‘Third-generation assessment’ involves the formation and promulgation of sophisticated educational and technological reasoning. IT is designed around new or rejuvenated educational ideas/practices, and educational practices are transformed around contemporary platforms. These perspectives play an especially important motivating and shaping role in the current design.

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They help expose first- or second-generation practices, and set principles and rationales for launching the next-generation. Education thinking is not itself sufficient to launch next-generation assessment. Other organisational settings can be the inspiration for alternative assessment approaches and should be taken into account. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) helps analyse and improve organisational workflows and processes (Davenport, 1993). BPR is a management strategy that involves analysing an organisation’s mission, processes, decisions, information, and technology. From this, organisations or their parts can then be redesigned to improve processes and ensure mission alignment. BPR can provoke big restructures. In the current design work BPR is focused on assessment subprocesses. Value Chain Analysis (VCA) is another helpful management technique. The ‘value chain’ (Porter, 1985) is comprised of activities performed to convert ‘inputs’ into ‘outputs’. VCA involves studying these activities and identifying how to reduce costs and improve quality, to improve productivity. This management tool is useful for mapping assessment processes, identifying competitive advantages (through better/differentiated quality) and disadvantages (bottlenecks, inefficiencies, etc.), and identifying productivity improvement opportunities. VCA can be conducted in different ways to suit different needs. Typically, it involves reviewing primary activities (e.g. inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing, service) and enablers (e.g. infrastructure, human resources, technology, and procurement). These primary activities and enablers can all be phrased in assessment/educational rather than commercial terms. Figure 7.2 models this in terms of key assessment phases and activities. Derived from prior investigation (Coates, 2015a; Richardson & Coates, 2014), this model draws from professor measurement science research which has produced generalisable insights into assessment. Borrowing these mechanisms avoids

Planning • Governance • Leadership • Management

Development • Mapping resources • Specifying outcomes • SelecƟng formats • DraŌing materials • QualitaƟve review • QuanƟtaƟve review • Material producƟon

ImplementaƟon • Designing administraƟon • Organising faciliƟes • Managing students • Administering assessments • Resolving problems

Fig. 7.2 Assessment phases and activities

Analysis • CollaƟng results • Marking • Producing data • Cross-validaƟng results

ReporƟng • Producing grades • Analysing and commenƟng • ReporƟng • Reviewing and improving

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myopia by situating higher education in the broader world and helps garner the most scientifically relevant insights. The model provides a compelling lens for reviewing how assessment creates value for people. As design thinking conveys, these theories and perspectives are not meant to be adopted or applied in simple or slavish ways, but rather are drawn in various ways into the design. Such integration of technical education and applied management theories is reasonably distinctive. Assessment research and consultation that is international in scope has highlighted the need for and value of such development (Yorke & Vidovich, 2016). As argued, however, despite marked educational and commercial advantages there are not yet research-driven resources in widespread use in higher education.

Documenting Insights into Practice Investigating current assessment practice reveals circumstances and material for future innovation. And there is much to be observed. Deep-diving into everyday practice in even very advanced and accredited contemporary contexts conveys that anything goes, almost. A long list of insights was produced by six months’ observation of existing education practice across three diverse discipline areas. This observation involved meetings, conversations, reviews, and prototyping. It pinpointed opportunities for improvement and innovation, and the opportunity to trial prototypes of next-generation assessment architecture. The alignment between learning outcomes and assessment tasks can be challenging. Learning outcomes can be defined in very broad ways, partly to cover over invariably but not necessarily indeterminate links with lectures, tutorials, and assessment tasks. Tasks for units can be designed and developed in holistic or impressionistic rather than scientific ways, leading to unclear or suboptimal configurations, creating opportunity to better integrate and align assessment with the other facets of education. Next-generation assessment should have tasks which are aligned with articulated learning outcomes. Assessment tasks are typically not defined, parameterised, and developed in clear and coherent ways. Even common tasks and practices like groupwork, exams, and essays may not be defined in any technical sense. The weightings given to pieces of assessment within a unit can be arbitrary and not be fully explained by factors such as sequencing, length, or task rationale. The length of tasks, in terms of word lengths and

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presentation timings, often appear to flow from prior practices as much as considered educational or commercial perspectives. Instructions can vary across tasks as they are produced by different teaching/design personnel, creating inefficiencies and potential confusion and unfairness for students. As much assessment evolves from existing materials there can be large and undocumented task variants in use, a ‘flowering of practice’ that creates inefficiencies and quality uncertainties. There may even be variations in the nature and quality of tasks even of a similar type. Given the lack of broader specification, basic technological infrastructure can frame practice. Inadvertently, this also means that tasks may not make full use of online options/functions. Next-generation assessment should involve tasks which are fully defined and specified. It seems accidental if assessment is delivered in ways that enrich each student’s experience. Some assessment may be only accidentally related to the education experience, which partly stems from lack of alignment with other facts of the unit, but mostly from an instructor- rather than student-oriented view of education. There can be batch processes in play, signalling opportunities to individualise and to make more use of real case studies, simulation experiences, or make feedback more aligned with people’s interests and aspirations. There can be known ‘hassles’ arising from the administration and experience of group work and presentations which may not have been addressed due to concerns about fidelity with past practices. Collaborative work might be advanced in more effective and enjoyable ways by minimising administrative constraints around joint synchronous work, and instead deferring to more sophisticated asynchronous interactions which make use of collaborative features like meta-data and student background information. Getting the pitch of assessment might be difficult with diversifying student cohorts. Certain assessments may make assumptions about student aptitude and preparedness that are no longer feasible given a larger and more diverse student body. Next-generation assessment should be driven by supporting, challenging, and enriching each student, rather than by separate supply-side considerations like content, timetabling, and teaching interests. Nextgeneration assessment should advance each student’s experience, not least by using technology to leverage much richer forms of social engagement. Assessment tends not to be validated against sound standards which assure quality. Much assessment is created as conservative adaptations of

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existing education and management practices, so framed in opaque ways with respect to legacy resources and with little subsequent validation. Assessments may be implemented differently across different contexts, giving rise to equivalency considerations which are negotiated rather than referenced to objective criteria. There may be only vague minimal requirements or specifications for common assessment practices. Next-generation assessment should show fidelity to scientific standards rather than past practices. Educational and practical decisions are made without reference to financial considerations. While assessment is resource demanding, management focus remains on aggregate cost identification followed by reduction inclinations, rather than on building within a broader and potentially transformative financial context because full costing remains difficult. Financial models can focus on the aggregate cost of things which are easy to capture, and may not routinely take account of potentially significant resources associated with student time, exams, and online content development. At times, tasks may be deployed which are not marked/scored or factored/computed into students’ overall outcomes. Next-generation assessment should link education with financial models. All up, there can be a lack of a coherent ‘architecture’ that brings together relevant facets of assessment. There are less commonalities in assessments than might optimally be the case given a more considered design. Assessment information and practices can be spread between different people, teams, systems, and materials, which may be sustaining inefficiencies. Collaboration across units/fields may not be as extensive as it could be due to management structures or fidelity with legacy practices. Indeed, much assessment involves controlled and cautious translation rather than novel, excellent, and efficient innovation. While it is core to education, there are often not yet people employed solely as assessment specialists who take overall expert responsibility for the quality and productivity of assessment. Substantial assessments such as exams and group work can be included by default, and without clear educational or commercial rationale. Next-generation assessment should be framed by an educationally and practically cogent architecture. Box 1 presents a case study application compiled from observation of the various assessment practices. It details an ‘anything goes’ scenario, using the example of assessment in a particular subject.

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Box 1: Case study of current practice A subject has been taught by the same academic for over a decade. With broad alignment to the overall degree, this teacher designs the teaching materials (overall plan, teaching resources, student readings) and teaching arrangements (mix of seminars and lectures, consultation hours, administrative supports). The teacher also produces the subject’s assessments. While the teacher works largely alone, the assessment is framed by broader considerations such as degree structures, accreditation criteria, resource constraints, colleagues’ expectations, and personal preferences. The subject has many different assessments. Specific tasks include three separate individual essays, a separate group assignment, and an end of term three-hour exam. Students are also encouraged to submit fortnightly reflective syntheses. Viewed from the perspective of a well-designed assessment regime, there are problems. Total word count for each student is likely to gross more than 8,000 words. No feedback is given from the reflective syntheses or from the exam. The group assignment was inherited as it had no home elsewhere in the degree. The exam was included given norms and traditions across the faculty. The tasks do not interlink or accumulate, and are not synchronised to support a smooth learning experience. No tasks are aligned in any operational or technical respects with similar such tasks across the faculty. Detailed instructions vary, as do marking rubrics and grading schemes. The assessments are revised incrementally on an annual basis without obvious reference to other teaching practices or materials. The tasks are not built with reference to any broader technical standards. Little use is made of prior materials or analysis of prior experiences. The paper-based exam consists of a small number of very open-ended questions which are marked by the teacher and one doctoral assistant in a single day using a broad rubric with limited pre-calibration or cross-checking. The length of each of the essay tasks is given by assumed professional practice customs rather than the tasks to hand. There is little assurance that the tasks align with expected subject learning outcomes. While the university has invested heavily in sophisticated online platforms this subject makes little use of such functionality. While the teacher insists on managing the whole assessment process due to academic autonomy, this creates workload issues given that the work must then be juggled with reference to the teacher’s unrelated research agenda. No consideration is given to finances beyond the teacher’s workload and small direct salary expenses associated with the doctoral teaching assistant. Requirements which are somewhat arbitrary to the subject are given quarterly by a ‘small working action

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group’ of the faculty’s education committee. Though there is not moderation across years, each year most students score in the mid-to-upper range of the grading distribution. Overall, the experience is bumpy and perplexing for students, and they invest as much in trying to ‘game’ the process as in the sought learning itself. But students generally like the teacher so rarely complain and there seems little impetus for change.

Assessment would look different if designed and made with reference to education and business principles. Together, these insights offer ideas and increased rationale for redesigning assessment. They affirm the particular significance of looking at what assessment is and what tasks are used, how these are deployed, and the contexts which shape deployment.

A Useful Assessment Architecture The designed assessment architecture consists of a family of models and processes. The models specify the educational and commercial characteristics of assessment. The processes detail the steps involved in assessment redesign. Together, the architecture provides a platform for high-quality and efficient assessment. The architecture focuses on the task level rather than on broader assessment governance or structures, or on any narrower materials that make up specific tasks. For instance, it does not span broader social considerations relating to plagiarism, integrity, and equity. These broader matters vary across delivery contexts, notwithstanding increasing standardisation against norms. Macro- and micro-level improvements can build on a progressive task-level architecture. Flowing from the design perspectives and reconnaissance of existing practice above, the assessment architecture includes an outcome model, resources model, experience model, standards model, and business model. Figure 7.3 depicts the flow.

Outcome model

Resources model

Experience model

Fig. 7.3 Assessment architecture models

Standards model

Business model

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The outcome model defines the focus and nature of sought knowledge, practice, and social outcomes, and links this with evidence captured by the tasks. The model structure is a simplification of existing mapping resources and approaches (Biggs & Collis, 1982; Bloom & Krathwohl, 1984; Lennon et al., 2014). It seeks greater specificity on the focus of the outcome, going beyond a general description. It also seeks information about the nature of the outcome to help understand its relevance and characteristics. It requires that tasks be aligned explicitly with outcomes, helping to ensure that minimally sufficient evidence/observations are available to demonstrate each outcome. The resources model specifies the actual tasks and other materials required to procure evidence from students. As specified by Bennett (2015) and Mislevy, Almond and Lucas (2003), these materials include tasks and also supporting materials, rubrics, and reports. Rather than defer to conventional/colloquial terms which are very loose, the resources model defines tasks in terms of their precise functional nature. The purpose of this is that it helps map the actual tasks in play and better control and specify these. There are efficiency and quality improvements to be found in more transparent practice, which, as with professional assessment work, must begin by clear specification and documentation of tasks. The experience model incorporates a different perspective, focusing on what students are asked to do, hence their experience of the assessment. This helps ensure the assessment makes sense practically and in terms of how people experience the assessment. Substantial research and practice have grown around the topic of the ‘student experience’ in recent decades (Coates, 2016; Coates & McCormick, 2014; Coates, Kelly, Naylor, & Borden, 2017; Darwin, 2016). Yet strangely little around the field of ‘experience design’, which has grown through via the field of marketing to many other experience or service sectors, has been applied to higher education assessment (Bommel, Edelman, & Ungerman, 2014; Foglieni, Villari, & Maffei, 2018; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). The two fields of curriculum and instructional design and of customer or user experience design are becoming increasingly connected. This conveys prospects for improving the experience of assessments so that they not only measure learning but also contribute more broadly to student engagement including retention, improving learning outcomes, and reducing time/resources of staff (Fink, 2013; Hokanson, Clinton, & Tracey, 2015).

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The standards model details the technical, substantive, and practical facets of assessment. They provide broad scientific, educational, and management foundations for stepping beyond conventional forms of assessment practice. The standards have been sourced and distilled from a wide range of resources that, over the last half-century, have defined the optimal and achievable properties of assessment (e.g. AERA, APA, & NCME, 2015; OECD, 2012, 2015; ITC, 2010; Martin, Rust, & Adams, 1999) and its application in higher education (e.g. Banta & Palomba, 2014; Carless, 2015; Sambell, McDowell, & Montgomery, 2012). Table 7.2 lists indicative standards which are broadly relevant to all assessment tasks. Such standards are necessarily normative ideals and it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any task to fully meet these expectations, but it is important, and distinctive, that critical consideration be given to each standard in task design, development, implementation, and review. The quest is not that a task be flawless, but that it has known and optimised properties. The business model focuses on the cost of assessment activities. It covers staff and material costs associated with development, including research, meetings, software development, consultation, and review activities. It embraces costs associated with operations like managing student engagement, proctoring, marking and verification, and reporting results. Indirect costs associated with student time and materials are incorporated into the experience model. It is important to clarify the distinctive nature of this architecture in higher education. In very rudimentary (and not uncommon) higher education it is typical for there to be specification of broad outcomes, formation of often very boilerplate resources, and consideration of the extent to which work is feasible within institutional/practical constraints. The assessment architecture takes a very different approach. Rather than see assessment as activity that derives from a broader teaching and curriculum or support process it instead enacts standards and approaches forged in education and measurement sciences as a basis for more principled development. The architecture processes detail the steps involved in any redesign. Figure 7.4 shows that key processes include setting foundations, analysing materials, confirming the redesign, and validating materials. Certain processes can be absorbed into and augment existing learning design procedures. Others are disruptive and require new infrastructure and perspectives.

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Table 7.2 Indicative assessment standards with prompt questions Standards

Prompt questions

Coverage

Does the task cover sufficient range and depth of content and all relevant material? Does the task seem relevant and real? Does it appear useful and meaningful? Does the task correlate with other indicators of similar topics? Does the task distinguish varying performance levels? Is it easy for students to engage with the task? Is the task ‘user friendly’? Is the task efficient for staff to implement and use standard equipment and procedures? Does the task yield timely feedback for students? Does it support lively learning? Are task requirements understood by all students? Is task language easy to read? Are task requirements and expectations clear to students? Does the task prompt students to learn and contribute seamlessly to the experience? Does feedback have expected consequences and promote improvement? Are task materials produced to a high standard? Have they been designed and proofed? Have relevant legal and cultural approvals have been secured for the task? Does the task perform consistently across people, time, and contexts? Does the task align with students, curriculum, teaching, and outcomes? Is the task sufficiently distinctive and does it add unique value and insights? Do rubrics enable sound and generalisable scoring? Have task materials been validated and improved by students?

Authenticity Criterion Discrimination Practicality Efficiency Responsiveness Interpretability Transparency Educational Consequential Production Clearance Consistency Alignment Distinctiveness Scoring Validation

By way of a brief overview of the generic processes, setting foundations involves building relationships with relevant personnel, and identifying rationales and approaches for development. These relationships are important because this new approach to assessment is necessarily disruptive of much prevailing practice. Analysing the unit includes mapping the outcomes and evidence, taking stock of existing materials, and distilling observations to shape the redesign. The heart of the redesign involves

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Set foundaƟons

RelaƟonships

RaƟonales

Approaches

Analyse unit

Mapping

ExisƟng materials

ObservaƟons

Confirm redesign

Generate opƟons

Revise and specify

Audit against standards

Validate materials

Develop tasks

Develop rubrics

Develop scoring

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Evaluate materials

Fig. 7.4 Assessment architecture processes

generating options, revising and specifying the resources, and auditing against standards. Validating the materials includes developing tasks and associated rubrics, forming scoring protocols, and evaluating the materials. The designed assessment architecture provides the platform for ensuring that higher education providers implement high-quality and efficient assessments. It consists of a family of general models that specify the educational and commercial characteristics of assessment. It consists of a series of generic processes that can be aligned with and augment existing design practice. Exactly how this assessment infrastructure is used depends on need. Developing new tasks is the most comprehensive application of the architecture. It would involve stepping through each of the models and processes mentioned above. Each of the six integrated models is deployed throughout this process to both guide, document, and refine the production of improved assessment. Given that much assessment already exists, renovating existing tasks is likely the most common application of the architecture, and involves using it as an audit tool to diagnose risk and improvements. An initial scan might reveal the need to apply the model in some ways but not others, for instance to use the resources model to parameterise and align existing tasks, or to use the outcome model to map materials to outcomes. A further broad scan might then help ensure the quality of materials.

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Assuring tasks might simply involve application of the analysis and validation processes. This involves mapping tasks against the resources, outcomes and experience models, and then confirming properties against the business and standards models. Rather than a series of tasks, this audit would process a series of mappings and summary report. Though fuelled by best intentions and masked by seemingly satisfactory outcomes, this chapter has asserted that much contemporary assessment is hardly optimised practically, technically, or substantively. Application of the assessment architecture could help remedy the situation. Ultimately, the architecture needs to yield better or great alternatives for even the least interested, able, or time-poor academics. Box 2 provides constructs a picture of the look and feel of a redesigned assessment process. It gives a snapshot of the kind of designed, transparent, and productive assessments that go some way towards the sort of integrated practices hinted at the outset of this chapter. Box 2: A designed future This chapter sketches a desirable long-game and it is useful to document what education professionals can do in coming months and years. Waiting a generation for evolution or revolution will not yield growth. Full-steam work is needed. First, get assessment out of the closet and create or refresh conversations about what students know and can do. Big organisations swing towards big structures and tribes, but new approaches do not always align with existing roles. A Dean at one large university cut through by bringing together people doing different work on assessment for a roundtable meeting. People were working as managers, teachers, administrative support staff, academic assistants, learning designers, and learners. Drawing next-generation ideas into play, she created fresh dialogues about stagnating policies, new cross-cutting assessment collaborations, and three subject-level pilot initiatives to seed broader reform. Everyone had a chance to speak, and with differing views registered their interest in trying alternative approaches to assessment. The Dean asked each of the pilot initiatives to plan how to build more productive forms of assessment. One group already had a well-estimated mapping of learning outcomes derived from earlier professional accreditation work but saw that they needed to further specify tasks and explore options for consolidation and alignment. For another subject only broader curriculum outcomes existed, and the team saw the need to distil more

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assessable learning outcomes then move from legacy essays and exams to a much more varied array of individually nuanced assessments. The third group had well-articulated outcomes mappings, task specifications and alignments, and deployments which made good use of technology to sustain each student’s experience. What this group lacked was evidence of quality and efficiency. After initial forays lasting a month, the Dean reconvened the teams to discuss their plans. Team leaders brought along other colleagues. Drawing on ideas aligned with those put forward in this chapter, the Dean created teams that could help with the development work ahead. People with experience in outcomes specification and task specification were asked to partner regardless of discipline or role with teachers who had yet to establish or fully articulate these foundations. The Dean invited people with rich experience using existing technologies to deploy more transparent forms of assessment to partner with the subjects needing task renovation. Finally, the Dean engaged assessment and finance experts from across the university to build templates for investigating quality and productivity. The Dean asked for delivery of redesigned assessments in a year. She projected four milestones to guide design and development along the way, to gather as much information as helpful, define redesign ideas, build prototypes, and test solutions to scale. Bimonthly seminars were planned for the educators engaged to come together and share progress and problems. Further topic-relevant experts were called as consultants to advise about work along the way. An expert on academic work was asked to advise on new configurations and approaches to teaching. The university’s Director of Learning Platforms gave insight into LMS plugins that could help give life to and scale the prototypes. Students were called into team meetings to test refined task formats and flows. Along the way, the Dean was careful to sustain energy on producing efficient and effective assessments rather than on the varying assessment expertise/roles of people contributing, the epistemological nuances of the subjects involved, or any hint that institutional policy was a pseudo barrier rather than enabler of progress. At the end of the pilots, three redesigned next-generation assessments were produced with toolkit reports for use by others across the university. Particular effort was made to assure scientific, educational, and management standards of the redesigned tasks, with the Dean seeing this as a way of building confidence in the integrity of the degree among students and graduate employers. By applying clear tests to the new infrastructure, the project was able to assure things that people ask about such

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as coverage and authenticity, practicality and responsiveness, and validity and interpretability. For a task in one subject, for instance, the teaching team was able to differentiate from rival programmes by proving how investing in more in-depth teaching helped learners to master documented skills which employers had been seeking. The Dean evaluated the initiative and reported that despite the (largely sunk) start-up costs involved, she emerged with more engaged and efficient education infrastructure. To lead this project the Dean drew on her deep expertise of higher education and student learning and assessment. Driven by a broad vision and through detailed steps she patched together the rudiments and platforms needed to create next-generation assessment. Not all leaders have time, relevant experience, or interest. The architecture articulated in this chapter seeks to make better assessment easier for all.

Projecting Steps Ahead Just because good assessment needs academic magic does not mean it should be immune from science. With a view to articulating nextgeneration assessment this chapter has touched on just a few necessary and maybe sufficient conditions. There is much to be reformed. Collaboration is key to advance. In essence, it is foreseen that assessment will shift from something that single universities and single academics do to recipient students, through broader collaborations that involve interactions with various education services companies and industry agencies/networks, to much more sophisticated work which involves multilevel co-creation of planning, development, implementation, analysis, and reporting (Canny & Coates, 2014; Wilkinson et al., 2012). Clearly, there are many more individuals and interests involved, reinforcing the need for architectures which render such complexity workable in sophisticated ways. Assessment reform will take years to achieve. Coates and Lennon (2014) analysed growth pathways. If the analysis argued in this chapter is correct, traditional practices will decline in coming decades, partly because of demographic shifts. The fruits of signature collaborative developments pioneered in recent decades along with dividends of commercial activities and political projects will be distilled into optimised next-generation practices. This innovation will flow across decades, relying as forecast in

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this chapter on a confluence of technological and organisational factors. More optimised practices will start to emerge. Looking ahead, it may be portended that next-generation assessment would evolve with the next-generation of higher education more generally. In this evolution, three dynamic streams converge to drive not only technological but also educational and financial transformations (Adams Becker et al., 2017). Important facets of this transformation include a growing focus on visible learning that simultaneously reconceptualises both the nature and the means of learning assessment, continuous designs of networked learning time-spaces that both facilitate human interaction and augment human-machine interaction, and continuous designs of intelligent online, mobile, and blended cyber-physical learning environment with ongoing assessment and effective feedback that enhances individualised holistic development of cognitive, affective and physical learning. There will be convergence with fast-blossoming work on ‘trusted learner records’ (Long, Kidwell, & Gonick, 2019) which is blending supply-chain software, graduate and learner mobility, and assessment. As with other core areas of reform, computing technology is not the panacea for assessment. It may be a necessary but not sufficient condition that helps people to eschew anachronistic practices and inspire reform. The architecture advanced here can be given easy software life, not just with simple MCQs and mechanical teaching functions, but with much richer forms of natural processing, emotional recognition, expressive interpretation, playful responsiveness, and intuitive analytics. People will expect the kind of augmented and spontaneous interactivity that has infiltrated other facets of contemporary life, from banking to travel. They will seek instantaneous support when stuck, as with the collegial days of old. Employers, educators, and learners will seek authenticated evidence of learning. Educators will need software that outwits the robots that bandits commission to cobble together fake assessment. Chief operating officers will need fresh proof that people are better than silicone at designing, proctoring, marking, and feeding back. The world needs intelligent not stretched assessment. Computers give a technological fulcrum for lassoing a more productive future. This chapter has argued that next-generation assessment has the potential to create much value. It can help learners engage with higher education. It can help faculty augment student learning and ensure the quality of education. It can help universities grow and improve. It can

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build novel capability and insights of global relevance. It parlays promise and underpins the viability of future higher education.

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Gibbs, G. (2006). How assessment frames student learning. In C. Bryan & K. Clegg (Eds.), Innovative assessment in higher education. London: Routledge. Hazelkorn, E., Coates, H., & McCormick, A. C. (2018). Quality, performance, and accountability: Emergent challenges in the global era. In E. Hazelkorn, H. Coates, & A. McCormick (Eds.), Handbook on quality, performance and accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Hokanson, B., Clinton, G., & Tracey, M. W. (Eds.). (2015). The design of learning experience: Creating the future of educational technology. Cham: Springer. International Test Commission (ITC). (2010). International test commission guidelines for test use. Louvain-la-Neuve: ITC. Joughin. G. (2009). Assessment, learning and judgement in higher education: A critical review. In G. Joughin (Ed.), Assessment, learning and judgement in higher education. Cham: Springer. Kuh, G. & Jankowski, N. (2018). Assuring high quality learning for all students: The state of the art in the United States. In E. Hazelkorn, H. Coates & A. McCormick (Eds.), Handbook on quality, performance and accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69–96. Lennon, M. C., Frank, B., Humphreys, J., Lenton, R., Madsen, K., Omri, A., et al. (2014). Tuning: Identifying and measuring sector-based learning outcomes in postsecondary education. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Long, P., Kidwell, D., & Gonick, L. (2019). The trusted learner network. Accessed from: https://uto.asu.edu/sites/default/files/general/the-trustedlearner-network-v1-3_0.pdf. Martin, M. O., Rust, K., & Adams, R. J. (1999). Technical standards for IEA studies. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Measuring and Comparing Achievements of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Europe (CALOHEE). (2018). Measuring and Comparing Achievements of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Europe (CALOHEE). Accessed from: www.calohee.eu. Medland, E. (2016). Assessment in higher education: Drivers, barriers and directions for change in the UK. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(1), 81–96. Melguizo, T., & Coates, H. (2017). The value of assessing higher education student learning outcomes (editorial). AERA Open Higher Education Special Topic, 3(3), 1–2. Mislevy, R. J., Almond, R. G., & Lukas, J. F. (2003). A brief introduction to evidence-centered design. Princeton: Educational Testing Service.

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CHAPTER 8

Redesigning Institutions

Abstract A substantial amount of institutional design and innovation is underway, creating novel academic, political, and commercial capabilities. This chapter tries to make better sense about what is going on. It begins by advancing a means for parameterising service partnerships, examines outcomes from applying the model, and rounds off by looking at different partnership stances and the leadership questions which are provoked. The analysis focuses on the core teaching and research activities which mark out contemporary change frontiers. Keywords Public–private partnerships · Academic value · Education service firms · Academic outsourcing · Joint ventures

Building Structures What kind of higher education institution is suited for contemporary and emerging environments? Are traditional universities and colleges wellplaced to embrace the challenges and opportunities? Universities weather endless critique and adversity but nonetheless seem to flourish. If not universities, what other institutional forms are most future ready? What can be done to develop optimal institutional forms?

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For sure, innovative institutions are required. Today’s institutions have evolved for different contexts and activities, and different services, arrangements, and situations would better fit emerging circumstances. Creating these institutional formations does not imply the kind of system or institution reform advocated by researchers and policy actors in the decades either side of the millennium (e.g. van Vught & Ziegele, 2012). Rather, it is proposed that innovative partnerships will take shape through existing regulatory and institutional structures, giving rise to institutions with required academic, political, and commercial capability (Coates & Bexley, 2016). As rich-country governments appear to divest or distance themselves from mature higher education, universities assume more autonomous and powerful governance characteristics and practices. Commercial ventures supplant political reforms. The world’s major strategy consultancies provide clues what these will look like (e.g. BCG, 2019; Bokor, 2012). The bulk of change, in specific terms, will not happen between governments and accredited institutions, but between accredited institutions and the public or market. Such changes are already well underway, and the following analysis tries to make better sense about what is going on. It starts by advancing a means for parameterising partnerships, examines outcomes from application of the model, and looks at different forms of association. The analysis focuses on what Marks and Sparkman (2019) refer to as the ‘academic core’ of higher education. As Fig. 8.1 conveys, this core includes teaching and research, the heart of universities, rather than the enabling layers such as academic and administrative services. This is important, as this is the current frontier and obviously the essential part of the academic institution of major concern to senior leaders rather than auxiliary offices given regulatory, workforce, and quality considerations.

Partnership Parameters To examine different kinds of partnerships it is helpful to set out the various education services which might be plugged into different partnership arrangements. A four-phase academic value model is proposed. The frame stems from research and innovation conducted in the United States and Australia which has mapped the academic and corporate building blocks of higher education (Bokor, 2012; Borden & Coates, 2017; Coates, 2018; Coates, Kelly, & Naylor, 2017; Coates et al., 2019); Radloff, Coates, James & Krause, 2012).

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Fig. 8.1 Zones of partnership (Source Marks and Sparkman [2019])

Why, in principle, would universities seek to engage in such partnerships? The reasons vary, but the value propositions extended by education service firms clarify a few main drivers. These partnerships, for instance, bring: • New perspectives, which flow from blending commercial ethos, speed, and drive with academic culture and capability; • Student-centred service design, which involves careful deployment of physical and digital artefacts, workflows sculptured around learner needs, and data-driven forms of interaction;

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• Expanding markets, making higher learning accessible and attractive, taking out the pain points, and supporting differentiated learner journeys; • Differentiated workforce models which make well-coordinated use of discipline experts, teachers, support staff, and advisors; • Shifting the education production function, by creating high-quality learning resources which can be scaled; and • Partnering quietly and confidently to reinforce and advance established university brands. Figure 8.2 presents the ‘four-phase academic value model’. The model deconstructs education into four phases, with a suite of activities or facets under each phase sequenced in loose, top-down logic. It presents education activities and conditions for which institutions, as opposed to students, governments, businesses, or other agencies might be considered responsible. Student participation in purposeful education activities is critically important to education success, but is not the initial or prime responsibility of the institution.

Foundaons Ownership

Preparaons

Accreditaon

Governance Management Products Markets

Markeng

Experiences

Recruitment Admissions Orientaon

Support

Successes

Curriculum Teaching Assessment Enrichment

Fig. 8.2 Four-phase academic value model

Graduaon

Careers Networks

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The point of this frame is not to build more theory, but rather to offer a succinct structure for analysing current and forecasting actual practice. This frame is sufficiently specific to highlight interesting education activities, underpin subsequent analysis, and support practical application. The foundations phase sets out the fundamentals which undergird education. This includes corporate considerations such as ownership and management arrangements, academic products, and market considerations. Important academic foundations touch on governance arrangements and course accreditation. Simply put, together these factors mark out what product and service is owned, how it can be offered, how the offering is led and managed, and how it is packaged and for whom. Clearly, without these general regulatory and leadership arrangements in good order subsequent activities are difficult. These are the hard and soft infrastructure or platforms which underpin education provision. The preparations phase marks out the underpinnings of any programme of study. Marketing incorporates market clarification, market creation in many cases, and the usual activities of product specification, pricing, promotion, and sales (student recruitment). Admissions is the penultimate step, involving both formal administrative procedures and individualised forms of enculturation. The final step involves orientation, in which the student is engaged and embraced by the educational opportunity. To cope with the expansion of higher education in recent decades such activities have often been relegated to administrative divisions, though being essential to academic success. They are essential for ensuring a good fit between individuals and institutions, people and programmes, and setting the preconditions for success. The education experience is the obvious heart of academic value creation, though specific elements must be delineated to ensure they are given full play in consideration of institutional permutations and reconfigurations. The experience includes academic and administrative support, the production and provision of curriculum and learning resources, formal teaching and learning, assessment of learning outcomes, and broader beyond-class or informal professionally or socially oriented enrichment activities. There is surely much more to the higher education experience than suggested by this functional decomposition, though these rudiments appear to be the substrate for institutional understanding and redesign. The fourth and final phase is about education successes. At a functional minimum this is about graduation activities, moving to a job or

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further study, and building networks and moving into social and professional communities. Finer graduations can be distinguished, but these seem sufficient to analyse institutional partnerships. This four-phase academic model helps articulate institutional innovation. In a traditional university all phases and activities would be conducted by the university itself. Instead, various innovative partnerships can be imagined in which different facets of the framework are handled by either the university or an online services firm. Making reference to mostly commercial literature (e.g. All Campus, 2019; Bokor, 2012; Dipietro, 2018; Garrett, 2018; Hill, 2018; Kryczka, 2017; Straumsheim, 2015; Wiley, 2019), it is helpful to depict a potential partnership. These can be plausibly imagined as a deal between a public university and commercial education services firm. In terms of the foundations phase, for instance, it is common for a deal to be struck between a commercial firm and an accredited higher education institution. The commercial firm brings resources and capability, and the education provider brings prestige or reputation, access to protected markets, and academic intellectual property. The deal may stipulate shared governance and management arrangements, product and service standards, and characteristics of target student markets. Institutional partnerships can play a very active role in the preparations phase. By way of example, specialist commercial marketing services may augment existing university operations, and extend the value-creation potential of higher education into new non-traditional segments. This arrangement owes as much to the innovative nature of the educational offer as it does to expertise in client-/student-centric online marketing that uses multiple platforms to reach non-traditional global markets. Unconstrained by space, though sometimes subject to broader regulatory restriction, commercially driven firms may target all who are eligible to learn. These firms may then guide prospective students through the application and enrolment steps, providing advice on course selection, eligibility, study load, and suitability of study mode based on their specific circumstances. The process is consultative and designed to establish a credible, high-quality prospective student pipeline. The firm may handle logistics to admit students to the partner university. This may be underpinned by the commercial firm’s integrated technology ecosystem which captures and documents student information and tailors the admissions process. The experiences phase is core to what happens during higher education. It is helpful to illustrate partnerships in relation to support, curriculum, teaching, assessment, and enrichment.

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Supportive partnerships, for instance, focus not just on campus-based students. They may also cover purely online students and the large majority who move, consciously or otherwise, across modes of engagement. Better understanding each student’s perspective enables the design of learning environments and support services in ways that ready individuals for study success. Specialist services firms have developed targeted approaches to help students progress through study to graduation. These begin with the technology ecosystem which collects data that helps identify and develop proactive interventions across all aspects of learning design and delivery. The approaches continue with dedicated retention teams consisting of advisors and coaches who analyse interactions and student engagement across various learning systems and support services, conduct ongoing cohort analyses and propensity modelling research, and provide targeted reinforcements designed to improve engagement, performance, and retention. All aspects of the student experience are continually monitored and reviewed, allowing pain points to be remedied across the entire organisation, whether through adjusting processes or introducing additional or personalised support programmes. Transformation of curriculum and learning resources lies at the heart of partnership arrangements. Such partnerships enable an effective, scalable way of translating face-to-face curriculum to online-focused resources. Commercial teams of learning designers and education technologists work collaboratively with partner university academics to create online learning materials. This involves consultation, building, review, and approval. Typically, university academics: provide curriculum, learning outcomes and learning materials, then review and approve all learning materials, and provide oversight and ongoing expertise. Online learning specialists ensure alignment to online learning pedagogy, translate and build learning materials for online environments, and ensure alignment with accreditation and quality frameworks. Learning resources may be monitored and rebuilt after teaching periods, drawing on institutional research insights. Teaching may be distributed between commercial firms and partner universities, and between people and technology. Both university faculty and commercial teaching experts (academic directors, coaches and learning advisors) plan and deliver programmes. Service firm experts are trained in online teaching and receive ongoing professional development. Teacher/student ratios may be specified to ensure quality. Teaching may be supported and augmented by integrated learning platforms.

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Online assessment materials may be sculpted into redesigned learning resources as part of the overall curriculum rebuild. This can ensure alignment with accreditation requirements, learning outcomes, and any parallel teaching that is purely face-to-face (Coates, 2018). Assessment can be supported by a range of collaboration, marking and authentication technologies. Higher education study is much more than learning. Universities tend to provide the broader forms of enrichment spanning the spectrum of social, economic, and cultural supports and opportunities. A plethora of firms have formed to give life to many such activities, providing opportunities for social ventures, internships, cultural engagements, and personal development. The final successes phase of the value model corresponds to education outcomes. The assessment of specific capabilities is packaged into a graduation event led by the accredited university. Career outcomes and progressions are also important, as is formation of broader academic and professional networks. Broader career development can be linked with the employment market, for instance, via skills mapping then backward enhancement and curriculum alignment. Building alumni networks has been in the sight of universities only for the last few years. Given the mobility of graduates, and the size of the cohorts, this is obviously a space in which online networking is vital. It remains a space for further growth.

Service Partnerships This academic value model can be applied to unpack partnership arrangements. Figures 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5 present example formulations. These renderings illustrate innovative institutional and educational forms rather than any specific example. As these convey, such depiction goes beyond Foundaons Ownership Accreditaon Governance Management Products Markets

Preparaons Markeng Recruitment Admissions

Experiences Support Curriculum Teaching Assessment Enrichment

Successes Graduaon Careers Networks

University Services firm Shared arrangements

Fig. 8.3 Traditional university and firm partnership depiction

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University Services firm Shared arrangements

Fig. 8.4 Blended university and firm partnership depiction Foundaons Ownership Accreditaon Governance Management Products Markets

Preparaons Markeng Recruitment Admissions

Experiences Support Curriculum Teaching Assessment Enrichment

Successes Graduaon Careers Networks

University Services firm Shared arrangements

Fig. 8.5 Innovative university and firm partnership depiction

well-trodden ideas about ‘unbundling’ (Coaldrake & Stedman, 2013) to focus instead on new institutional fabrics or architectures. In the traditional university model all education activities are managed internally by the accredited education provider. Figure 8.3 shows that there are no shared arrangements with service firms. Many universities still operate like this. A blended university model is presented in Fig. 8.4 which depicts activities and conditions in-sourced by the university, outsourced to a services firm, and managed through various forms of co-sourcing. This is a more innovative model in which the institution with university accreditation takes care of externally required and interpersonal matters, while the commercial organisation oversees more productive services as possible. The innovative institutional model stretches the blended model further, engaging many more extensive forms of sharing. Figure 8.5 shows even governance and basic commercial arrangements are out- or co-sourced. These kinds of arrangements are quickly revealed by inspection of any major university. Specific case studies give greater life. Two case studies are explored, one from China, the other from Australia.

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Figure 8.6 shows the partnership map for the Australian university. This is a large suburban technical university with a history of campusbased education. At this university, the leadership made a deal with the education services firm to augment the campus-based provision with online programmes that would engage what can be broadly labelled as lifelong learner (mature age such as non-school leaver and professionals). The firm was tasked to define and activate the new market, front-end recruitment, work with the university faculty to redesign curriculum for purely online delivery, hire tutorial and teaching support staff, and provide particular digital assistance with student support. The university retained full control over admissions, assessment and graduation thresholds, and over broader enriching and careers-related matters. The university and services structured an initial investment to build the resources, and formed a revenue-sharing agreement. These arrangements enabled the university to leverage largely pre-existing materials for significant growth in new markets, of course creating education value for new students and also financial and institutional returns to the university. As an additional example, Fig. 8.7 depicts partnership relationships for the Chinese university. This is a large metropolitan university Foundaons Ownership Accreditaon Governance Management Products Markets

Preparaons Markeng Recruitment Admissions

Experiences Support Curriculum Teaching Assessment Enrichment

Successes Graduaon Careers Networks

University Services firm Shared arrangements

Fig. 8.6 Australian university and firm partnership depiction ` Ownership Accreditaon Governance Management Products Markets

Preparaons Markeng Recruitment Admissions

Experiences Support Curriculum Teaching Assessment Enrichment

Successes Graduaon Careers Networks

University Services firm Shared arrangements

Fig. 8.7 Chinese university and firm partnership depiction

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with campus-based programmes which have been augmented by online learning technologies for the last two decades. Figure 8.7 shows that the university retained control over most facets of education but shared certain elements with technology and service firms. All leadership and management arrangements were retained by the university, though with respect to foundations the university sought assistance for identifying and establishing new learner market segments. All facets of the core education experience were retained by the university, enabled with technology. The result is a much more limited form of augmented campus. Such institutional and educational permutations extend imagination, thinking, and hence action, regarding university education. They bring to light several perspectives about the nature and value of innovative partnerships. How these play out is important to examine.

Partnership Stances The nature and standing of the university substantially influence the relations formed with other firms. In commercial terms, this goes to the nature of an institution’s market and its standing within that market as well as various other institutional orientations. Different types of institutions have different rationales for and approaches to progressing partnership arrangements. Three case studies convey patterns evident from analysis of the formation of technology start-ups and university engagement. It seems that universities with concentrated research intensity have spawned many of the contemporary education service firms. Many such firms have achieved international reputations. They appear to flow from entrepreneurial professors, specific university–industry linkages, and student start-ups. These universities and firm arrangements can be referred to as ‘design innovators’ as they create online futures. These universities tend to be very campus based, though they use myriad platforms to augment, enrich, and distribute traditional practice. They also provide resources and capabilities for developing education ideas and technologies. By contrast, universities with fewer resources rely on technologies to enhance productivity. These ‘productivity innovators’ are often mid-tier or provincial universities which look to forge service arrangements with existing institutions to reduce costs, expand scale, and sustain quality.

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Universities with even fewer resources rely not just on services but also on shared content and curriculum resources to scale provision. Local universities, typically with limited staffing and infrastructure, will look to adapt standardised resources, make the best of thin physical infrastructure, and deliver contextualised programmes. Figure 8.8 depicts these varying partnership stances. These stances condition the kind of deal of interest to universities and the value firms can offer. Design innovators, with relatively more institutional power and resource, might identify problems, opportunities, and spin-off start-ups. Firms here are positioned as derivative entities. Productivity innovators, by contrast, strike selective ventures which augment strengths and compensate for university-specific limitations. Firms are engaged in horizontal ways. With scale innovators, the focus is on how less branded educational programmes can be distributed into new communities. These stances, in turn, go to the kinds of parameters and questions which structure joint ventures. Table 8.1 samples the kinds of questions that universities would benefit from asking. Review of the questions conveys that these emphasise finance and governance and business. Technology is an important enabling concern. This structural approach resonates closely with frameworks being pursued by UNESCO (2020) as part of the global education monitoring report for probing the role of non-state actors in education.

Firm

University University

University University

Design innovators

University Firm

University

University University Firm

University

Producvity innovators

Fig. 8.8 University–firm partnership stances

University

Scale innovators

How can the universities governance capability be leveraged or extended for venture creation? What commercial, innovation, and education management capabilities are required?

Governance

What new markets can the university serve either directly or indirectly?

Markets

Can service partnerships help the university generate more and different returns?

What are the core programmatic What products will help build strengths of the university and the university’s scope and what needs exist in the scale? community?

What added oversight is required to monitor the academic and business facets of a partnership? What new management partnerships should be formed?

Products

Management

What springboard and shield does prestigious accreditation provide for new education ventures?

Accreditation

Can the university buy or invest in start-up firms?

What kind of service firms would help respond to external market opportunities?

Ownership

Productivity innovator deploying services to expand offering

Foundations

Elite innovators creating premium solutions

Activity/condition

Parameters and investment questions

Phase

Table 8.1

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What kind of joint venture adds value to the institution and service firm? Does reliance on external firms create or raise regulatory risk? Does the professional education service firm add governance strength to the provider? Do any management services need to be out-/co-/in-sourced to support value-adding partnerships? What kind of leasing arrangement can be made regarding programmes, courses, and learning resources? Can the platform help people identify, access, and engage in higher education?

Scale innovator serving large communities

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Experiences

Marketing

Preparations

Teaching

Curriculum

Support

Admissions

Recruitment

Activity/condition

(continued)

Phase

Table 8.1 Productivity innovator deploying services to expand offering

Scale innovator serving large communities

How can the service firm What new brands and segments can the education extend the university’s business services firm open up? established brand? Can internal admissions systems be deployed for added volume Can the service firm of recruitment? join-up marketing, recruitment, and admissions? What admissions arrangements What are the regulatory obligations regarding admissions can be optimised and parlayed into potential spin-offs? What additional support services Can support professionals Does the services firm might be converted into co-work with the university offer additional forms of valuable online ventures? and service firm? responsive student support? What curriculum resources can Can curriculum materials be converted into online be borrowed from an materials? existing content platform? Can faculty or teachers be What is the optimum blend of What technology could trained to extend the reach or traditional and novel teaching help extend the reach of depth of the university’s practices? programmes? contributions?

Elite innovators creating premium solutions

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Successes

Phase

Networks

Careers

Graduation

Enrichment

How can the university create queen-bee networks and solutions which help position people into jobs and careers?

Scale innovator serving large communities

Can assessment materials be leased from an existing content platform? Can the service firm offer enrichment activities which engage non-traditional learners? Can a graduation management firm link-up academic progress and facilitate graduation services? Can productivity be enhanced by enhancing how students and graduates transition out of the university into future study or careers? What networks could be Can a networking generated by tapping into a platform help the professional career platform? institution tap into potential teaching personnel?

What innovative assessment Can existing materials be used platforms can be developed to to augment education boost academic productivity? resources? Can platforms and courses be developed to enrich or extend conventional forms of learning and participation?

Assessment

Productivity innovator deploying services to expand offering

Elite innovators creating premium solutions

Activity/condition

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This analysis focuses on education, but many broader questions must be raised. Corporate perspectives around public–private partnerships (PPP) are obviously critical in understanding the risks and rewards of blending public universities with private finance and ownerships. Much of this work, however, has focused on infrastructure and related operations, rather than core education services. The same benefits arise, including resource increases, broadening provision and access, working around workforce constraints, and supplying additional private-sector expertise. Universities need the entrepreneurial and corporate capacity to govern, procure, and manage such arrangements. Most broadly and importantly, they need to be able to negotiate and optimise inherently conflicting commercial, political, and educational considerations. Robertson, Verger, Mundy, and Menashy (2014) give detailed consideration to these ideas. To inform institutions about this hot issue, in early 2019 the Chronicle of Higher Education ran a series on the ‘new era of outsourcing’ and ‘P3s’ revealing, among much else, that interest in future partnerships gravitated around core academic and support services. Carlson (2019) presents evocative case studies. Robertson and Komljenovic (2016) paint conceptual substrates which undergird this topic, and detail fascinating P3 case studies. This mapping of the nature and extent of blended partnerships assists in charting education and commercial arrangements, partnerships, and prospects. It clarifies how the development of education services plays out in different ways depending on education arrangements and contexts. Universities have a long history and are likely to prevail as a higher education model for many years more. Nonetheless, work functions, and who delivers them, will change in response to shifting with organisational and educational norms. As UNESCO puts it, there is a growing role of ‘non-state actors’ (UNESCO, 2020: 2). The analysis reveals the necessity to step well beyond conventional public sector approaches to studying higher education and universities. The relationship between state agencies like regulators, funders, and policy institutions, and accredited institutions like universities, is a decreasing part of the contemporary story. Generating insights with explanatory power will become increasingly difficult if inquiry is limited to referencing conventional forms of institutional management and evaluation. Looking within universities to better understanding their relationships with education services firms is crucial, because such understanding carries implications for learning and

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teaching, for academic programmes and departments, and not least for institutions and countries. This discussion has sailed through much hotly debated territory. As UNESCO writes, ‘Few topics in education generate as much passion as the role of non-state actors. The wide range of opinions on the topic has much to do with divergent perceptions of rival properties of education: whether it is a public or private good, a form of consumption or of investment’ (UNESCO, 2020: 3). Even if this debate could be contained, other risks must be countered such as those associated with privacy and security, culture and epistemology, faculty workforce, and the transparency around public finance. Contemporary developments bring out that transformation appears unstoppable, even and especially if it is ‘discrete’. Nonetheless, constructing an investigative agenda around these huge topics is a challenge and opportunity for researchers, evaluators, and practitioners alike.

References All Campus. (2019). Online program management for university and college partnerships. Accessed from https://www.allcampus.com/online-program-man agement. Bokor, J. (2012). University of the future: A thousand-year-old industry on the cusp of profound change. Accessed from https://apo.org.au/node/31610. Borden, V. M. H., & Coates, H. (2017). Learning analytics as a counterpart to surveys of student experience. New Directions for Higher Education, 179, 89–102. Boston Consulting Group (BCG). (2019). The company of the future. Accessed from https://www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/2019/companyof-the-future.aspx. Carlson, S. (2019). The outsourced University: How public-private partnerships can benefit your campus. Washington, D.C.: Chronicle of Higher Education. Coaldrake, P., & Stedman, L. (2013). Raising the Stakes: Gambling with the future of universities. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Coates, H. (2018). Next generation assessment. Melbourne: Online Education Services. Coates, H., & Bexley, E. (2016). Organizing and managing university education. In L. Leisyte & W. Wilkesmann (Eds.), Organizing Academic Work: Teaching, learning, and identities. London: Routledge. Coates, H., Liu, L., Zhong, Z., Liu, L., Hong, X., & Gao, X. (2019). International innovation in online higher education services: Framing opportunities in China. Melbourne: Online Education Services.

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Coates, H., Kelly, P. Naylor, R., & Borden, V. (2017). Innovative approaches for enhancing the 21st century Student experience. Alternation Journal, 23(1), 62–89. Dipietro, M. (2018). How to choose an Online Program Manager (OPM). Accessed from https://blog.extensionengine.com/how-to-choose-an-onlineprogram-manager-opm. Garrett, R. (2018). Prove It: Do OPMs really boost enrolment. Accessed from https://encoura.org/prove-opms-really-boost-enrollment. Hill, P. (2018). Online program management: Spring 2018 view of the market landscape. Accessed from https://mfeldstein.com/online-program-manage ment-market-landscape-s2018. Kryczka, S. (2017). Online program management (OPM) or not? Six factors to consider. Accessed from https://evolllution.com/revenue-streams/distance_ online_learning/online-program-management-opm-or-not-six-factors-to-con sider. Marks, M., & Sparkman, J. (2019). The new era of public-private partnership in higher education. Accessed from https://www.p3edu.com/wp-content/upl oads/2019/03/The-New-Era-of-Public-Private-Partnership-in-Higher-Edu cation.pdf. Radloff, A., Coates, H., James, R., & Krause, K. (2012). Development of the university experience survey (UES). Canberra: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Robertson, S., & Komljenovic, J. (2016). Unbundling the university and making higher education markets. In a verger, c lubienski, & g steiner-kamsi (Eds.), The global education industry. London: Routledge. Robertson, S. L., Verger, A., Mundy, K., & Menashy, F. (2014). Public-private partnerships in education: New actors and modes of governance in a globalizing world. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Straumsheim, C. (2015). Where is the billion-dollar online program management Industry Headed? Accessed from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/ 2015/09/11/online-program-management-providers-now-billion-dollar-ind ustry-look-ahead. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2020). Concept note for the 2021 global education monitoring report on nonstate actors. Paris: UNESCO. van Vught, F. A., & Ziegele, F. (2012). Multidimensional ranking: The design and development of U-Multirank. Dordrecht: Springer. Wiley. (2019). Third-party OPM providers and online higher education in a broader and evolving landscape. Accessed from https://edservices.wiley.com/ opm-online-higher-education.

CHAPTER 9

Curating Public Value

Abstract As higher education grows there is a need to understand hence boost the public value created and contributed to a diverse range of communities. To achieve this a new set of platforms, indicators, and instruments are required, which differ in significant ways to those designed in the past and still in widespread use today. It is necessary to unshackle from current operating environments which have come to stymie system and institutional growth. It is time to open space and options for creative development, imagining different forms of public value. Doing makes it possible to define perspectives helpful for paving alternative value indicators. Tracing implications of these activities is helpful for spurring entrepreneurial transformations. Keywords Bibliometrics · Post-rankings · Sustainability · Public value · Social indicators

Net Positive As higher education grows there is a need to understand hence boost the public value created and contributed to a diverse range of communities. What ideas, stories, forms of evaluation, information, and data can shape transformation and growth? Of course, many institutions and systems are © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_9

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fuelled by broader mandates like nation-building, scientific advance, and community development, but these big ideas still must be distilled into specific platforms, indicators, and instruments. These future public platforms, indicators, and instruments need to differ in significant ways to those designed in the past and still in widespread use today. The details are tilled below, but the crux goes to the need not just for growth or performance or quality but above all else for distinctive forms of value. Value in this context reflects the need to create, discover, and contribute more than is consumed. The concept of ‘net zero’ has popularised this ethos with respect to emissions economies, but the core idea can be expanded well beyond environmental concerns, and pushed further into the territory of ‘net positive’. Net positive, in short, is about putting back more than is taken out. For universities, there must be proof that the admission, education, and graduation of students returns more value than it consumes. Research must discover, create, and make more value than goes into it. Institutions and the people who swirl through them must parlay resources received into more substantial social, environmental, and economical contributions. Universities should create more and different communities than they are initially asked to serve. Higher education needs to move a long way to touch, embrace, and progress in net positive ways. First, it is necessary to unshackle from current operating environments which have come to stymie system and institutional growth. This is because environmental mechanisms built up over the last few decades are yielding diminishing returns. It is time to open space and options for creative development, imagining different futures. Doing this makes it possible to define perspectives helpful for paving alternative value indicators. Tracing implications of these activities is helpful for spurring entrepreneurial transformations.

Unbinding Publications The quest to expand higher education over the last few decades has spurred distinctive aspirations, reactions, and reforms. These can be traced back to 1998, the year in which China decided to massify higher education in ways which launched almost global existential priorities which have imbued and dazzled the sector over recent decades. Analysing these contexts sets background for articulating how things might be different. The analysis touches on what has been referred to as the new geopolitics of higher education Marginson (2018).

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In May 1998, China’s President Jiang Zemin announced that as part of ongoing modernisation China would build a number of world-class universities. This policy spurred exponential transformation of Chinese higher education, including for instance a doubling of institutions over the next two decades, a tenfold increase in the number of research publications, a quadruppling of enrolment rate, and a massive expansion in faculty (Zhong, Liu, Coates, & Kuh, 2019). Such massive scale transformations spurred much innovation and change. Faculty roles were reformed to clarify research and teaching obligations, substantially more and different students entered education, new models of doctoral education emerged, and universities started playing a much greater role in the construction of contemporary China. The implications of China’s growth reverberated globally interacting, of course, with a host of other developments. The idea of listing universities by signifiers of perceived value narrowed research agendas for at least the largest few hundred of the world’s 20,000 or so institutions. Governments refreshed policy interest in the contribution of higher education. Billion dollar global platforms emerged to provide information on research outputs. New strategic frontiers emerged for universities and their managers and leaders. Many consequences flow from a very large number of universities all striving to be the ‘same kind of number one’. One consequence, which is radically underexplored given its significance, is the implementation of reasonably distinctive productivity reforms (Moore, Coates, & Croucher, 2018a, 2018a; Moore, Croucher, & Coates, 2019). While each idea and university are essentially unique, university leaders and management consultants have gone a long way to unpicking such complexity and clarifying generalisable productivity reforms. While the details vary substantially, certain reforms can be identified which have grown into major facets of higher education and would appear to be starting to reshape rather than service core academic functions, roles, and institutional features. Regardless of what conventional faculty know or think of such work, it plays a major role in higher education and is difficult to ignore. Efforts to boost research power have been nourished by focusing resources on certain types of resources in certain types of fields. Almost invariably, investment has been steered towards science and engineering, and the production of refereed journal articles. The work and papers of course yield knowledge and artefacts which advance industry and society, but these broader contributions have proved persistently hard to define,

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measure, and manage. So far as higher education is concerned, they’ve been viewed as externalities. Social impacts are many are varied, and today’s senior faculty have not necessarily received training on working with industry and community. Hence the focus remains on scientific papers. Publication requirements are baked into faculty contracts, production output is used to signify institutional and national impact, and the papers play a huge role (typically forty to sixty per cent) in the annual parade of university sortings. One common productivity reform, therefore, has been the propagation of and reliance on publication platforms and databases to guide the targeted development of research power. While the main signal of research power has become research publications, its main determinants are expensive people, infrastructure, and materials. This requires large money, often requiring the strategic reallocation of resources. Funds are shifted from typical revenue centres such as large first-year courses, business and social sciences, junior faculty roles and professional services, into cost centres like expensive scientific infrastructure and labs, later-year courses and research training, and senior faculty. Important reallocations involve shifts from administrative to academic services, from education to research services, and from professional to scientific fields. Such reallocation is typically framed by traditional cost accounting methods whereby confidential zero-sum budgets are allocated to autonomously management units. Advances in professional services, in back-end systems and in the economics of learning spaces have helped to proliferate novel ownership arrangements, different service sharing arrangements, and the merging and consolidation of academic and business units. University executives invariably attempt to keep the particularities of this behind-the-scenes work invisible, though headline budgets and results are published, strategies and methods are published, and workforce consequences often emerge in the media. A plethora of such administrative reforms have sought to generate extra revenue, free up and redistribute internal cash, and fund growth in ways deemed prudent by the idealised institutional forms above. These post-1998 WCU research and institutional reforms have had consequences for education. Though core pillars of higher education, the visceral chase of research-oriented reforms left learning and teaching exposed. Around 2004, several governments expressed joint concern that the lack of data on education information comparable to that for research publications would diminish attention, energy, and traction (Ischinger,

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2006). Repeated national and cross-national efforts to build such information using questionnaires and tests have failed to gain traction (Van Damme, 2015), such that despite its importance there has been little progress in developing new information about education (Coates & Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, 2019). Simultaneously, the scaling of education services also has also challenged many peer-based approaches to quality assurance (Hazelkorn, Coates, & McCormick, 2018). The vacuum of generalisable evidence about quality, particularly in fields not subject to professional accreditation, has spurred the growth of efficiency-related reforms, particularly around faculty work roles, campus infrastructure, and online systems. Thus, a range of education-related reforms have sought to enhance the scale and efficiency of education services. These reforms have propelled much advance in higher educaiton, but there is ample evidence that they are yielding diminishing returns. This has been revealed through analysis of the productivity of leading global and Asian universities, those institutions most influenced by the ‘world-class’ agenda (Yang et al., 2020; Zhong, Coates, & Shi, 2019). This analysis revealed that higher education systems have set boundaries around performance. This makes sense given that nations regulate and finance universities, but the finding is inconsistent with the idea of a ‘world-class university’ which by definition seeks to go beyond systemic contexts and contribute globally. After two decades of growth, this raises the question as to whether ‘world-class universities’ in fact plateau as ‘national-class universities’ bounded by similar national externalities which in turn shape isomorphic behaviour. It may also be that leading universities are looking sideways towards domestic competitors rather than outwards beyond national frontiers. The productivity modelling gave merit to such interpretations, raising further questions about the characteristics and potential for genuinely global universities. The analysis also revealed leading universities pursue different productivity growth strategies, but that each strategy was starting to rub up against financial and functional limitations. Shrinking the balance sheet, narrowing the mission or widening the institution did not necessarily parlay into productivity advance. The productivity analysis conveyed a more positive story for research than for education. Specifically, the results showed that joint productivity change is portrayed more positively assuming increased emphasis on research. This seems good for research, though research is expensive and requires substantially greater resource to grow at the top end. Concerningly, ‘world-class research’ may have come at

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the expense of ‘world-class education’. The situation signals huge problems for education, however, potentially quality problems with quality and innovation.

Imagining Difference Prominent research rankings didn’t entirely offer higher education a ‘set of new clothes’, but they did expose the hubris of the prevailing ‘quality agenda’ and lure almost every university into flurry of ‘ivy isomorphism’. Much has been said about recent changes regarding quality and institutional striving. For instance, countries/systems have closed quality agencies and replaced them with new accountability offices, governments and institutions have queried the relevance of legacy statistical collections, and peer review, the traditional basis of much academic quality assessment, has been derided as unreliable and unsustainable. Regading isomorphism, a substantial amount of commentary has decried the implications of many thousands of universities distributing funds into producing indexed publications to fuel bibliometrics that edge the institution in convergent ways towards the same kind of number one. But how could things have been different? Higher education could have played forward in infinitely different ways. A handful of alternative developments can be imagined to bring out a few of the quite globalised existential priorities which have come to dominate. Different evolutions may have taken shape. Universities may have kept serving local communities, focusing on distinctive fields in which they had established particular strengths. This may have diminished sharp investments in STEM fields, and it may not have led to the fragmentation, consolidation, or in certain instances decline of humanities. Almost certainly, the last two decades of commercial internationalisation would have been much more muted. Without such ramped-up competitive agendas around education revenues and research productivity, universities may have flourished in wonderfully non-comparable and idiosyncractic ways. Many fewer may have hired management consultants, built up expensive executive infrastructures, or even developed strategic plans. From one perspective, this scenario seems boutique, collegial, and grounds for infinite creation. This is higher education with many ‘desired firsts’. From another perspective, which has grown into the dominant global view, this scenario seems chaotic, ‘cottage-esque’, unmanageable, and unproductive.

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As well as elaborations of business of usual, different kinds of reforms may have been pursued. Universities and internal departments may not have merged to achieve economies of scope and scale. Governments may not have introduced now very fashionable performance budgetting and funding campaigns. Emerging higher education systems may not have converged towards more established Anglospheric models. Teaching students and readying graduates could have been given an equal footing to scientific research. Universities may have sustained engagement with surrounding communities rather than chased global glories. Highly varied kinds of academic work roles may have emerged. Faculty might be discouraged from publishing too much so as to spend more time thinking, experimenting, advising, and engaging. Faculty might not be encouraged or compelled to upload regulated academic and professional contributions to databases. People may have been incentivised to weave in and out of university, business, and government careers. Such circumstances do of course play out in many areas of higher education today. But they do seem weird, crazy, or even acidic when juxtaposed against the dominant global view of today’s first-rate university. It is strange to reimagine pasts which either haven’t occurred or seem somehow contrary to trends which appear to prevail in developed higher education systems, but doing so helps delve beneath the emergent and in many instances curated constructions of contemporary higher education. What, then, are the dominant characteristics of those constructions? While certainly a caricature, and as anyone with experience knows invariably far from the daily life of any university, the perfect university today powers English-language research in clearly defined scientific fields, lets globally renowned faculty roam free to create authoritative thought, exploits online platforms to streamline and enrich class-based education, stirs emotional aspirations for a small number of places, unites faculty and learners around imaginative epistemological endeavours, runs on intellectual spirit rather than financial or material intermediaries, cultivates future researchers and captains of industry, and has grounds and alumni which confer perpetual social prestige. The dominant global view on higher education espouses that only one single university touches all such ideals. Probably, a few universities may touch many of these ideals, and many universities may touch some. It is likely that most ideals are far away from most universities.

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Public Value Indicators Ultimately, new public value indicators are required to push university performance in net positive directions. What sort of information is likely to impel future higher education leaders to reach outside national policy systems and create distinctive forms of value? This is a complex matter, as the review by Borden and Holthaus (2018) conveys. There remains a pressing need for information that helps institutions and people discover how to best engage, create, and contribute with higher education. Such information must focus on university outcomes and processes as much as inputs like funding and admissions. Echoing shifts underway in other sectors, it must give insight into impact and value. As well, information must focus on individuals as well as institutions and systems. It must go beyond university research activities to consider other core facets of academic work, notably education, but also broader socioeconomic forms of engagement. The information must be dynamically shaped by clever algorithms rather than presented as static ordinal lists. In building out such work a number of perspectives are important to keep in mind. For instance, any system-level evaluation architecture such as this should be framed by appropriate governance (Austin & Jones, 2016). Key governance theories examine different agencies, responsibility configurations, and interactions. They unpack theories of governance/policy structures, which articulate the espoused and actual ways in which higher education operates. They prise open theories of institutional diversity, which focus on how to maximise value/productivity and relevance of higher education institutions to the broader community. These theories frame the architecture’s rationale and potential. The value and impact of evaluation information is lost unless it resonates with and compels university leaders to improve. To be effective the architecture should rest on theories of higher education leadership. Contemporary university leaders must marry competing academic (education and research) with external (commercial and political) imperatives. This is a complex brief which requires supporting leaders, assisting with planning, and assuring academic integrity. As well, it is important to draw on management approaches that help explain how higher education institutions use information (Webber & Calderon, 2015). Unless indicators entice universities to step ahead, they fail to capture the imagination of leaders and spur management improvements.

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Of course, real change in higher education hinges on transformation of faculty work. Faculty, not just university or policy leaders, must be inspired and engaged to change their performance. To enact change at this level any architecture needs to engage with general theories of academic work and reform, as well as functional insights into education, research, and engagement. Unlike the prevailing rankings, which have proved difficult to translate in interpretable ways by actual faculty, an improved architecture should be immediately useful to help people do better in their work. This frames the need for information on core education and research work, and also about the nature of institutional and contextual settings. Also, it creates the need for reports which engage and inspire faculty and academic managers. Any disclosures about higher education must first and foremost be relevant to the public, particularly people who know little about universities. Key insights on how to do this stem from the large body of work developed in recent decades on academic, institutional, and social choice. In particular, to ensure the architecture is both relevant and sustainable it should take account of theories of consumer purchasing, emerging theories of social impact and co-creation, and theories of higher education markets. The architecture structures indicators which frame discourse. This discourse must stretch people’s interest beyond the promotion of luxury goods to instead create new forms of multidimensional and multilevel value for all universities. Recent large-scale evaluation design has shown a way. This work designed an indicator architecture for China’s Double World Class University Policy (Zhong, Liu, Coates, & Kuh, 2019). This discussion details the optimal design of such an architecture, then the underpinning research perspectives. The architecture should be designed to spotlight four areas, namely education success, research productivity, social contribution, and institutional growth. The areas signposted in Fig. 9.1 flow from what decades of higher education and broader public policy research flag as important to develop. They embrace but also step beyond research and chart new conversations and innovations. These areas are framed to be of immediate relevance to the system policy, institutional leadership, academic practice, and consumer interests discussed above. They go well beyond institution-level preoccupations with research to provide insights into fields of interest to many people. And the areas are well-researched and given research in recent decades appear feasible to develop, assess and

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Educaon success

Instuonal growth

Educaon value

Research producvity

Social contribuon

Fig. 9.1 Higher education value indicators

report. In particular, there exists an expansive body of technical work which affirms the rigour of key underpinning metrics. Education is the core of most of the world’s higher education institutions. The architecture should embrace education success in terms of student engagement, learning outcomes, and career development. It should draw from work which has reshaped how students, business, universities, and the public pursue education success. This work draws on investigations of student admissions, studies of student engagement, and studies of learning outcomes as people progress through higher education and studies of graduate destinations and career progression. Foundation work has been laid in these areas over the last decade, furnishing necessary data and technology. Such work has not yielded perfect solutions, but it is arguably far more advanced than was bibliometrics when it was parlayed into global rankings. As has been evident in the rise of bibliometric science

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over the last decade, resting system and institution growth expectations on indicators will ensure rapid technical development. Education is too important to ignore and let wane. Research productivity comprises faculty output, research quality, and academic impact. The architecture should build on excellent prior work evaluating research and augment and advance this with emerging insights into new forms of research relevance and impact. To date, research rankings have exploited bibliometric data to emphasise the volume and peer-recognition of a researcher’s or department’s output. While ready to hand, these measures fail to say anything about the broader contribution of research (Grant, 2015). To frame future practice, it is essential to draw on or chart the need for more advanced metrics relating to research engagement and impact. These metrics cover conventional products derived directly from research like publications and patents and doctoral students, but also step beyond to examine links with industry, public impact, and the creation of shared value (Bice & Coates, 2016). New data on research has the capacity to stimulate new kinds of research. Social contribution can be viewed as spanning regional engagement, national development, and international impact. The scope of such engagement is potentially shaped by the mission and scale of the university. It may also be organised into forms of engagement that stem from education, research, or institution activities. For instance, educationrelated forms of engagement might include the extent of open courseware, the provision of community-based education, and the contribution of graduates and alumni. Research contributions can take account of the scope and scale of projects and start-ups, staff exchanges, engagement via media and lectures, and more traditional academic service contributions. Institution-related contributions might take account of a university’s networks and partnerships, the public use of facilities, and even the provision of strategic plans and budgets for such engagement. To measure these facets of social influence, the architecture can be designed to integrate developments in corporate governance and social impact assessment to chart new ways for understanding and creating the social engagement of universities and disciplinary fields. This means touching on techniques related to organisational social responsibility, university–industry relations, and the links between fields and the industries and professions that they represent. Much of the technical and practical efforts required in this area involve bringing universities into broader alignment with the way other major sectors report their social influence.

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Any important facet of any reporting system is that it helps higher education institutions themselves develop. Institution growth is about governance and leadership, management effectiveness, and the creation of distinctive value. Top-ranked ‘world-class’ universities comprise a tiny fraction of all institutions, about one per cent, yet all universities can and should be engaged to become excellent in their own distinctive ways. To encourage this, as conveyed by governance and leadership research, indicator systems must provide scope for each university to define and demonstrate their own unique excellence. To enable this, the indicator architecture should draw on proven and innovative managerial and actuarial perspectives on how to understand and advance the success/productivity of higher education institutions. Emerging policylevel research across ten countries in Asia has proven the feasibility of collecting and compiling such data (Coates, 2017; Zhong, Coates, & Shi, 2019). It should define ways to reflect productivity that matter to all universities, and also ways which enable distinctive expressions aligned with each institution’s strategy. These areas, at least, are both necessary in any robust set of indicators. The indicators cover what is conventionally identified as the primary academic functions. Each adds its own value and is appropriately general to cover relevant information needs. For instance, excellent, research and education can go hand-in-hand, but they often do not, and any assumption that great research implies education success is easy to prove false (Gu, Lu, & Shi, 2007; Zhang & Guo, 2014) Likewise, being well managed does not necessitate that a university is socially influential. Ultimately, links between these four indicators and relevant underpinning metrics are contingent and shaped by a range of contexts and interests. This implies the need for a dynamic reporting platform that enables end users to shape what they seek to discover. Continuing to rely on static and highly aggregated research metrics will not unlock the new value sought for future higher education. There is ample evidence that this suite of information is a minimal set and that an even greater array is required. As signalled by the idea of being net positive, major thinking and developing is taking place around sustainability and social impact indicators (Liu, Hong, Li, & Coates, 2019). This field of work has moved from being ‘beyond’ or ‘outside’ academic work and ignored or dismissed, to being the ‘recipient’ of university work, to being the shaper and co-creator of all academic and institutional functions (Borden, Coates, & Bringle, 2018). In this growing

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mindset, education value is construed not just by the number of students admitted, retained, and graduated, but also by the sort of indicators listed in Table 9.1. Spurred by the need for national and public relevance, this work is building fast in Asia. This is a young field and there is some way to go to build and deliver mature indicators. Development work will need to confront very divergent stakeholder perspectives, the blossoming of frameworks, the challenges of context, and the need for grounding in concrete institutional life. Of course, sufficiently engaging platforms are needed to advance this new aperture. Rather than framing academic activities using functional terms like ‘research’, ‘education’, ‘engagement’, and ‘administration’, research has affirmed the importance of the cross-cutting ideas phrased above—education success, research productivity, social influence, and institution governance. Such headline terms might be distinguished into more granular ideas, which in turn can be underpinned by the substantial information that swirls around higher education. Software can then Table 9.1 Social contribution indicators

Education

Research

Institutional

Public lectures and workshops Public library access Summer school participation Graduate career services Online course provision Continuing education resources Student diversity Service-learning options Programme industry alignment Alumni contributions Graduate regional contributions

Public lectures Public research governance Staff exchanges Open publication Start-ups and spin-offs Media contribution Project accessibility Academic community service Commercial revenue streams Patents and licences Science and business parks

Community plans Public museums Local tourism Networks and partnerships Campus public use Public governance Sports engagement Community-based projects

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blend and slice this information in clever ways to suit myriad contexts and interests. To be effective, these platforms must empower people with intelligence on how they can create meaningful higher education experiences. This analysis has articulated foundations for giving life to a new evaluation logic and architecture for higher education in which multidimensional and multilevel success drives new forms of diversified value, augment engagements, and expanded contributions. This work steps beyond limited institutional research-oriented lists to create engaging and sophisticated reports across a range of key areas. Packaged in engaging ways, these reports can spur new insights into higher education, enhancing sector activity, and contribution. Research has defined the required structures, information, analyses, and reports (Coates, 2017). It has revealed that progress requires collaboration among education researchers, university leaders, and software experts. It has revealed a particular need to build broader insights into learning and teaching, a core pillar which languishes in current rankings. It has affirmed the importance of linking institutional research, continuous quality improvement, and clarifying the value of higher education. Of course, the real-world creation of innovation on this scale does not flow without obstacles. There are change blockers. Self-evidently, the established international rankings are supported by power dynamics which underpin reputation and prestige. Many of the particularly prominent earlier generation reporting initiatives have also secured a first-mover advantage through being early entrants in a young field. The lack of courage and perceived need for reform is a hazard, particularly among powerful interests with stakes in the status quo, though the global tectonic forces sketched at the outset of this paper seem to be swinging with a forward momentum. Indicator definition and data collection has proved troublesome and costly, particularly in relation to education and engagement work. Establishing that data is robust on a global scale is always challenging, but there is substantial room to align techniques in this field with expected standards in school-level cross-national assessment studies. Clearly, development will be patterned by a range of forces.

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Beyond Number One Context-independent implications for quality emerge from this state of play. These are noted, then after this implications for students, universities, governments, and service firms. The chapter concludes by framing a set of novel existential priorities that will shape the net positive future of higher education. What implications for higher education quality flow from these settings? Clearly, while the provision of common academic services may help standardise practices in potentially helpful ways, it likely also inflates risks associated with unhelpful forms of homogenisation. Homogenisation can be problematic in higher education if it erodes the complexities and uncertainties which make higher education ‘higher’. Certain knowledge and work in higher education could be helped by homogenisation, but hindering many kinds of exploration, creativity, and investigation may dull essential features of university research and learning which make them worthwhile in the first place. On the other hand, as higher education moves more out further into the mainstream enomony, there is likely great value to be derived from more consistent codification, evaluation, and reporting of what is going on. Common metrics and standardised processes help guage the quality of what is being delivered and understand how it can be improved. Different stakeholders will of course experience these emerging arrangements in varying ways. Students are more likely to strive towards more highly reputed universities, though unexpectedly receive increasingly common forms of education. Universities will increasingly play a role of governing rather than generating new education and research services, placing new stresses on senior leaders and spurring further ongoing reforms. Governments, as regulators, policymakers, and funders, will likely need to move more quickly into more comprehensive forms of risk monitoring, which essentially will require rapid development of information on outcomes and contributions. The firms themselves will of course consolidate, falter, and grow, creating opportunities for new kinds of academic ideas, work, and workers. What priorities might be structured to help shape future higher education? First, there is value in clarifying a clear sense of how a university might develop in ways which serve a set of identified communities. All univerities, even those which are bibliometrically elite, must look beyond publishing data to strengthen their broader role and contribution. There

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is notable value in charting maximally contributing rather than maximally efficient education. Second, there is value in encouraging universities to develop in ideosyncractic ways which encourage diversity and creativity. There is much value in productivity reforms and the standardisation which this may entail. But it is likely not in a university’s interest to rush towards efficiencies which homogenise and outsource core academics. This requires strong governance, leadership, and management, which in turn hinges on identifying, training, and regulating capable leaders. Third, different contributions and academic profiles undoubtedly carry different financial implications. Universities will need to run more activitybased financial systems, will need to be more astute in differentiating areas that need stability from areas which are more dynamic, will continue to diversify revenue streams, and will need to be more transparent about how they receive and allocate money. These priorities have profound implications for understanding and leading future higher education. They are relevant to a wide range of stakeholders should be engaged in their elaboration. They seek to guide future work which must in most cases go beyond making traditional forms of academic work more efficient and more same, and instead build stronger arrangements.

References Austin, I., & Jones, G. A. (2016). Governance of higher education: Global perspectives, theories and practices. New York: Routledge. Bice, S., & Coates, H. (2016). University sustainability reporting: Taking stock of transparency. Tertiary Education and Management, 22(1), 1–18. Borden, V., & Holthaus, G. C. (2018). Accounting for student Success: Academic and stakeholder perspectives that have shaped the discourse on student success in the United States. International Journal of Chinese Education, 7 (1), 150–173. Borden, V., Coates, H., & Bringle, R. (2018). Classifying higher education institutions: Past, present and future directions. In E. Hazelkorn, H. Coates, & A. McCormick (Eds.), Handbook on Quality, Performance and Accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Coates, H. (2017). The market for learning: Leading transparent higher education. Singapore: Springer.

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Coates, H., & Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O. (2019). The governance, policy and strategy of learning outcomes assessment in higher education. Higher Education Policy, 32, 507–512. Grant, J. (2015). The nature, scale and beneficiaries of research impact: An initial analysis of research excellence framework (REF) 2014 impact case studies. London: King’s College London. Gu, L., Lu, G., & Shi, B. (2007). An empirical study on the relation between college teaching and research. Liaoning Educational Research, 3, 25–27. Hazelkorn, E., Coates, H., & McCormick, A. C. (2018). Quality, performance, and accountability: Emergent challenges in the global era. In E. Hazelkorn, H. Coates, & A. McCormick (Eds.), Handbook on quality, performance and accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Ischinger, B. (2006). Higher education for a changing world. OECD Observer, 255. Liu, L., Hong, X., Li, R., & Coates, H. (2019). Experience and enlightenment of evaluation of social services in universities in the USA. Australia and Japan: Tsinghua University Education Research Journal. Marginson, S. (2018). The new geo-politics of higher education global cooperation, national competition and social inequality in the world-class university (WCU) sector. London: Centre for Global Higher Education. Moore, K., Coates, H., & Croucher, G. (2018a). Investigating applications of university productivity measurement models using Australian data. Studies in Higher Education, 44(12), 2148–2162. Moore, K., Coates, H., & Croucher, G. (2018b). Understanding and improving higher education productivity. In E. Hazelkorn, H. Coates, & A. McCormick (Eds.), Handbook on Quality, Performance and Accountability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Moore, K., Croucher, G., & Coates, H. (2019). Productivity and policy in higher education. Australian Economic Review, 52(2), 236–46. Van Damme, D. (2015). Global higher education in need of more and better learning metrics. Why OECD’s AHELO project might help to fill the gap. European Journal of Higher Education, 5(4), 425–436. Webber, K., & Calderon, A. (Eds.). (2015). Institutional Research and Planning in Higher Education: Global contexts and themes. New York: Routledge. Yang, J., Wang, C., Liu, L., Croucher, G., Moore, K. & Coates. H. (2020). The productivity of leading global universities: Empirical insights and implications for higher education. In: Broucker, B., Borden, V., Kallenberg, T. & Milsom, C. (Eds.) Responsibility of Higher Education Systems. What? How? Why? Leiden: Brill. Zhang, N., & Guo, N. (2014). An empirical study on the relation between capabilities of teaching and research for young faculty members. Contemporary Teacher Education, 7 (2), 76–81.

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Zhong, Z., Coates, H., & Shi, J. (2019a). Balancing the scales: The urgent need for leading educational innovation. In Z. Zhong, H. Coates, & J. Shi (Eds.), Innovations in Asian higher education. London: Routledge. Zhong, Z., Liu, L., Coates, H. & Kuh, G. (2019). What the U.S. (and rest of the world) should know about higher education in China. Change: The magazine of higher learning, 51(3), 8–20.

CHAPTER 10

Constructing Cultivation

Abstract What are the characteristics of future academic experts, leaders, and governance arrangements? This chapter begins by examining the need for doctoral reform and advancing an architecture to guide the growth of more productive experiences and outcomes. It addresses the need to develop leaders who can navigate uncertain and dynamic institutions and environments. The chapter then draws on research conducted with the presidents of globally focused universities, presenting insights into leadership styles and the growing importance of leadership teams. Future faculty and leaders will operate in more global higher education contexts. Asia will play a particularly important role, and with a specific focus on China this analysis considers important contemporary developments. These massive transformations stir the need for massive regulatory reform. As the world leans more on talented experts, there is urgent need to clarify and align education qualifications, institutions, curriculum, standards, and outcomes. There is an even broader need to convene productive arrangements for regulating practice and governing quality. Keywords Doctoral education · University leadership · Regions and locations · Regulation and quality · Global governance

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H. Coates, Higher Education Design, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9216-4_10

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Future Characteristics It is helpful to consider the nature of the future experts and how they will ply their trade. Which scholars and leaders must take these ideas forward, where will they work, and who decides the rules of the institutional and academic games?

Cultivating Scholars Doctoral education underpins the cultivation of future faculty. Especially after intense scrutiny, the doctorate remains one of the most complex, confusing, and conservative facets of higher education. It sits in and often defines the intersection of education, research, outreach, and administration. Doctoral education is expected to grow substantially over the next decade, particularly in Asia (Coates et al., 2019a; Coates et al., 2019b; Shin, Postiglione & Ho, 2015). Yet research shows that the doctorate is effective but not optimised to best serve the interests of students, academia, or industry. Of course, professions and countries engage in ongoing review and incremental improvement (e.g. McGagh et al., 2016; DOET, 2017b). Universities as well engage in various programme renewal activities such as the introduction of transferrable skills programmes, enhancing internships and collaborations, and developing supervisor development programmes. This change can be fruitful, but it has also led to the confusing proliferation of offerings and experiences. With the growing scale and significance of the doctorate, there remains ample room for thinking about how to reframe the doctorate in ways that increase internal productivity and external impact, and inspire even greater confidence in its future. Recent research has deployed many of the techniques honed with school- and bachelor-level education to undertake much bolder and deeper design, and particularly design with an education focus. A doctoral programme design architecture has been produced to give life to dynamic options for future doctorates. The word ‘architecture’ conveys that the contribution has both structure and function. Structure in this context refers to the arrangement between facets of the doctorate, whereas functions go to experiences and processes. Table 10.1 depicts the final doctoral design architecture. The structural facets are shown in the two left columns. There are three phases, each with three focus areas:

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Table 10.1 Doctoral design architecture Structure

Function

Phase

Focus

Student

University

Successes

Academic

Produce outputs and outcomes Engage in job and build career Personal and social experiences Build generic research, education, and leadership capabilities Engage in research training and experiences Study discipline foundations Identify readiness and needs Provide education and demographic profile Explore futures and opportunities

Provide assessment and guidance Guide, support, and engage through graduate activities Engage and enrich through alumni activities Provide development courses and guidance

Professional Personal Experiences

Development

Research Foundation Preparations

Onboarding Application Awareness

Provide support, advisors, and opportunities Provide education and guidance Design services and infrastructure Articulate programmes and infrastructure Market programmes, experiences, and outcomes

• ‘successes’ are at the top, and pertain to outcomes which are academic, professional, and more personal in nature; • ‘experiences’ embrace foundation training in the discipline, research experiences, and broader forms of development; and • ‘preparations’ encompass the sequence of steps, from initial awareness about doctoral opportunities, to the application process and onboarding. Specific attributes underpinning these focus areas were tested in the instrumentation and empirical work. By way of example, consider the three focus areas for ‘successes’, ‘academic’ outcomes would focus on producing research publications, development of discipline-specific competence, general research skills, education (teaching and learning) skills, academic management capabilities, stakeholder engagement skills, and broader analytical skills, as well as specific programmatic outputs such as dissertations, oral defences, coursework, seminars, and creative work. ‘Professional’ outcomes would focus on different kinds of work

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arrangements, as well as broader professional skills pertaining to leadership and management. Finally, ‘personal’ outcomes sought by people and universities might cover general social outcomes, individual development, and capacity for career management. In the ‘experiences’ phase, specific attributes would pertain to varied advisory arrangements, academic activities contexts, university-related social supports, training and development in professional skills, practical arrangements, and broader forms of institutional and individual support. Specific background attributes would pertain to academic history, interest and aptitude, prior research outcomes and professional experiences, and individual interests and aspirations. The functional facets are shown on the two right columns and relate to activities undertaken by students and universities both for themselves and on behalf of other stakeholders. A series of reasonably standard business rules can be envisaged to knit these functions together. Broadly, universities would first provide information on doctoral successes, experiences, and preparations. Next, prospective students specify their aspirations in terms of the kinds of successes, experiences, and preparations that they seek and bring. A series of more granular business rules could then furnish the architecture with a matching framework that helps dynamically align these two perspectives. This alignment could well continue throughout the duration of doctoral study. Importantly, the design architecture does not define one or more specific reductive models for the doctorate in any declarative way. This is a simple but important observation, for it belies any attempt to try and package doctoral education in specific to fields, industries, institutions, or occupations. This kind of splintering may seem like a means for engineering productivity, but at best is likely to represent a veneer of order that fails to respond to an inherently complex activity. The architecture looks beyond any such tinkering with existing supplier-centric formats. Importantly, however, the architecture is not intended as a permissive excuse for extrapolating existing diversified practice. Rather, it is a general frame for gathering, analysing, and reporting information in ways that inform ongoing improvements in practice, and while including those improvements underway, it focuses on a longer timehorizon. It advances an efficient and robust means for matching students with doctoral programmes. The simplicity of the logic is both its value and its risk. In paving a way to enhance the success of doctoral programmes, it risks disrupting established arrangements. Given the distribution of

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research resource capabilities, however, clarification rather than disruption is a more likely outcome. The doctoral design architecture is intentionally parsimonious. It is nationally, institutionally, and individually consequential. National application reflects a broad, policy-level implementation of the architecture in ongoing reform. This could involve the architecture informing further development of university and graduate survey instruments, and then recurrent annual or biannual collection of data on doctoral education. This would go well beyond current data, collected mainly for funding and regulatory purposes. It would fill a major knowledge gap and yield insights of immense value to universities and other stakeholders. It would reveal all kinds of data-driven quality improvement not routinely possible. Within universities, the architecture can be deployed quickly as an audit or interpretative tool to identify areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. It might be applied at the university level, or more helpfully within certain education or industry fields. The architecture could well be used to frame further cross-institutional research that delves deeper within each university and investigates student and supervisor handbooks, institutional policies, and other materials. The point is to clarify and potentially enhance diversity, rather than to constrain diversity or perpetuate unconstrained proliferation. Though analysing existing macro-level practice is important, the main purpose of the architecture could well be to design better doctoral experiences and outcomes for individual students and their universities. The phased structure helps ensure that a student and a university have addressed all facets of the doctorate in ways which are coherent and aligned with relevant circumstances including disciplinary expectations. It serves as a frame for ongoing coordination, milestone setting and review, interviews, and academic development. These ideas are being given life in a platform designed to empower global research by transcending regions and resources. A future researcher platform is being designed to connect research talent with opportunity. It supports the preparations phase and awareness focus of the model, enables universities and faculty to post research programmes and openings, and enables prospective applicants to explore opportunities. The platform contains many thousands of programmes and openings, already enabling analysis of different experiences and successes. As it grows it will enable the delineation of individual profiles and journeys, enable cross-university benchmarking, and deliver broader insights for doctoral reform.

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In massive higher education systems, it is no longer viable or reasonable to train people in amorphous research experiences and expect them to transition seamlessly into undifferentiated academic roles. Elite-era training may work for elite-era academics, but not for much larger even universal settings. Accordingly, more differentiated academic roles are required (Coates & Goedegebuure, 2012), which acknowledge that not all people working in all higher education institutions will perform the same duties all of the time. Research shows that there is an almost endless variety of role configurations, which of course aligns with the everyday experience of anyone who works in higher education. The challenge remains to articulate these in institutionally, nationally, and even internationally meaningful ways which add-up for each person’s career, for the academic unit, for the institution, and for any broader professional, sectoral, or national interests. The prevailing industrial instruments in use in many countries, which focus on broad academic function and academic level and contract type, are just the start of required workforce reconfiguration, customisation, and reform.

Leading Uncertainty As higher education changes so too must its leadership. This makes it useful to study leadership and identify directions of development. While leadership often seems to glide in magical ethers and be nuanced by contextual specificities, it is not beyond reproach and it is feasible to sketch patterns and trends. Indeed, it is common to analyse the leadership of public institutions (Bice & Coates, 2020). Such forecasts can be formed through different types of inquiry. Conjecture is common, as is obfuscation, observation, and critique. Leadership is the focus of much deep-dive analysis and boardroom fiction, though mostly about the presidents of rich-country universities (Croucher et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2020). Leadership is also probed through investigations of governance and institutions. There is much to be gained by going beyond received or public information about university presidents and engaging in deep qualitative analysis. The discussion which follows derives from multi-year research of people who serve as presidents of global universities. There is particular value in studying university presidents, as these people have enormous authority, expertise, and prominence. Their privileged position gives them unique information and insight. Studying their

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candid stories in their own voices takes analysis well beyond sanitised information available from university websites or third-party analysis. It also helps move beyond observational studies of leadership traits and characteristics (e.g. Bolden, 2014), and instead unpack the lived experience of effective top-level leadership. Of course, leadership is always distributed in large research universities, there are limitations with the ‘great person’ perspectives on leadership, and arguments have even been advanced that formal leadership roles are inflated or redundant (Bolden et al., 2015; Davis & Jones, 2014; Hoffman et al., 2011). Such angles, however, do not discount the value generated in exploring the insights of very senior members of the world’s higher education community. The Global University President Interviews project was launched at Tsinghua University in China in 2019. As a leading university (Shanghai Ranking, 2020b; Yang et al., 2020) Tsinghua is typically visited by dozens of people each year with the title of ‘president’, ‘rector’, ‘vice chancellor’, or ‘principal’ who are running globally focused universities. A one-hour semi-structured interview was requested during the planning for such visits. Nearly all presidents agreed, and so far 18 interviews have been conducted with presidents from Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America. The interviews touch on the president’s university, Chinese higher education, and global higher education. The interviews have clarified at least three reasonably distinct forms of leadership. Leadership may be characterised as collegial, commercial, or political. Collegial leadership seemed common until the 1990s in most advanced countries, and seems widespread in Europe, Japan, and many developing economies. Eminent scholars are elected or appointed by ministries or university governing councils for defined periods into modestly prestigious positions which invoke little added renumeration or influence. Spurred by scholarship, this involves coordinating the flow of institutional matters, functioning mainly to chair committees and processes. Commercial leadership has taken flight since the 1990s, especially in wealthy Anglospheric and the Middle East. This is personified by high-profile appointment of external executives on performance-based five-year contracts with substantial renumeration as well as overall political, financial, and collegial authority. These senior strategic leaders are paid to design strategy, network with stakeholders then manoeuvre in tactical ways to grow the institution’s resources. Political leadership has flourished in education systems which are still predominantly government controlled, in top global universities, in developing economies, and often

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Human Relaons Model (Mentor/Facilitator)

Flexible

in Asia. Typically, an eminent scholar and public leader is appointed by a government agency into a role which carries varying executive perks yet enormous social and collegial esteem. The job is to govern the institution but more importantly to diplomatically grow reputation and prestige. The interviews clarified that effective leadership demands a contextual blend of all three of these leadership forms. Clearly, different capabilities are needed to deliver on each of these fronts. The competing values framework (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983) has gained prominence as a mechanism for understanding this kind of complex leadership (Cameron et al., 2006). Figure 10.1 shows the framework has a structural dimension which is defined in terms of control and flexibility and a focus dimension defined in terms of internal and external focus. Together these dimensions map out four management models. These include the rational goal model (external/control), the internal process model (internal/control), the human relations model (internal/flexible), and the open systems model (external/flexible). Quinn (1988) linked different leadership styles with these models, shown in brackets, and advanced that effective leaders should be able to deploy these different styles.

Open Systems Model (Innovator/Broker)

External

Internal Internal Process Model (Monitor/Coordinator)

Control

Raonal Goal Model (Producer/Director)

Fig. 10.1

Competing values leadership framework (Source Quinn [1988])

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The interviews did confirm that effective university presidents are indeed adept at engaging in a diverse range of leadership styles. Presidents are involved in many forms of lobbying and brokering with a wide range of stakeholders, affirming the importance of dealing with myriad uncertain externalities. They play an important role in coordinating external circumstances, engaging in strategic design of their university, building plans, and engaging and communicating with large numbers of staff and stakeholders. They work on internal control systems, being the executive authority at the university, although they clearly tried to delegate such work and limit the extent to which they needed to step into solve problems. This appeared to be an area in which presidents’ responses varied, apparently based on experience, expertise, backgrounds, university change contexts, and characteristics of the senior executive team. Much of the presidents’ interest and energy appears to be expended in mentoring and facilitating people within the university. They particularly emphasised the education, as opposed to research, focus of such leadership. Very varying forms of communication are deployed, from executive coaching to public communication. Presidents use a range of formal administrative, interpersonal, managerial, and technological tactics to navigate different leadership styles. The concept of balance and harmony arose often. This is a challenging mandate for an individual, no matter their brilliance or background. This explains and underscores the rising importance of senior executive teams. As global universities have expanded, these teams have grown to form a very substantial and intimate facet of each president’s leadership (Shattock, 2013; Shepherd, 2017). These teams can be characterised as the most senior managerial (as opposed to governance) decision-making body and play a vital role in helping presidents develop policy and catalyse action. Such teams can be defined as people who are directly connected to presidents, often through line reporting arrangements, and have university-wide portfolio roles derivative of the president’s own role. They can range from five to 20 people in size. Review of team demographics at more than fifty universities reveals that they are typically two-thirds academic males, just over half of the teams are appointed by the president, and that they advise presidents, do routine administration and supervise reforms. All engage in planning, though decisionmaking often falls to presidents. Member portfolios focus on operations, academics, finance, human resources, foreign affairs, students, legal affairs, and information technology.

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The interviews emphasised and clarified the role of these leadership teams. It affirmed the importance of achieving all kinds of balance, of including people from diverse disciplinary and professional backgrounds, with contrasting personalities and interests, and complementary experiences and expertise, and with diverse demographics. De-identified quotes from different presidents speak to these ideas: To have an artist or people from arts or humanities or social sciences, basically it deepens the conversation. They provide some very important angles or at least segments of a conversation that I wouldn’t normally have myself, but they bring a quite different perspective. The most visible one is the ability to think beyond known concepts, to think beyond what’s available and they’re able to bring the what-if part of the question. We fight like hell, and then when we leave the room, we all go together—that is an absolute requirement. I say within that room, we can argue as much as you like. You are free to express your opinions. Once we come to a view, we stick to it. I think one of the things that we—I insist on is that they have a core role, but when they’re on the senior team, everybody’s equal, and they need to have a view or express an opinion about something even outside their area. In that sense, probably administrators and professors should be working together. Balance-wise, it’s very difficult, but probably professors should place more weight on research and education but listen to the administrators, and administrators should listen to the professors to do better administration. In composing the executive team and selecting the vice rectors, I first of all went for a perfect gender balance. Very important in academia today, so there are four female and four male vice rectors. A good representation of all the disciplines within the executive committee is very important, because in the end, the university is a bottom-up driven institution. There is topdown decision-making. There is a certain level of compliance needed. …so you need a certain level of compliance, but being in balance within at least the larger faculties like engineering, medicine, economics, and business. It’s very important. I selected a few of the vice rectors from those faculties and have a very good balance between people who are coming from backgrounds. A few received their PhD in the U.S., a few others in Europe, so bringing to the table different types of academic backgrounds and familiarity with different systems. That’s very important. You know, leadership team in many ways is like a marriage, no? Basically, you have to recognize that you bring together totally different people, different backgrounds, and different cultural backgrounds. In our case, all

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the academic and research side’s very international. Administration finance very national. And putting them together is quite the challenge, so, in a way, you have to constantly make sure that they meet often. So, we have at the minimum weekly senior management meetings. We have in addition all kinds of committee meetings where pretty much everybody’s also there. We have a new vice president- executive vice president for administration finances. Very inclusive. He’s rational, but he’s very inclusive. He always thinks about students. He thinks about doing things together.

Presidents manage executive leadership teams in diverse ways. The presidents have different approaches to distinguishing themselves in those teams. As revealed by Shepherd (2017) and Bowen (2011), team formation dynamics are important. Certain presidents see it as a team of equals, others see it as consisting of discrete executives, whereas others appear to structure the team in more hierarchical ways. Again, the presidents’ words are informative: So I see particularly, my role as pulling big, external things. They do also, but they have big internal jobs to do. I see that, and I would more frequently meet with government ministers or leaders of industry. That’s a COO/CFO type of person, but also an academic coming from the same faculty, and we started our careers on the same day and working in the same domain, so extremely close to one another. I always say within the university, this institution is led by two people. Not only by the president, but also by the managing director. That is very well-received. So just in terms of a helicopter view again, I’m not a micromanager. I give the broad general direction, and then I trust people to get on with the job. And I’m very fortunate to have very capable people in doing that. I would certainly see a key role I play of not only innovating but challenging, actually. Sometimes saying, “Hang on. We’re all agreeing on this, but there is another point of view. Let’s have a look at it.” Or saying, “Have we thought about doing this differently?” Sometimes we have a debate and everybody says, “No. That’s a silly thing to do. We’re not going to do it.” Sometimes it does shift thinking quite significantly, so I’m quite keen on—I worry that universities can get into internal bubbles and group things. I’m quite keen on bringing in people who will challenge. I brought in a speaker last week who believes that universities are partly to blame for the divide in society. Didn’t agree with him entirely, but he had some valid points to make, and I thought it was right that we got somebody in who would challenge us.

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Collegiality is very important for me, so I selected intentionally a few people who already knew each other very well so that you can immediately start with a strong group cohesion. We have an election-based leadership, so every four years, the director is elected by all faculty and students and administrative staff and so on. A few of them were also on my campaign board during the election period, so partners in crime, so to say, but made a very clear message from the very beginning that as of day one, the focus should be on the university and not on a political view on a team or a group that is now leading the university against other groups or coalitions within the university. I think we have a very, very strong loyalty today in most of the faculties—in all faculties, I can say. That’s—I think—due to the fact that they were very well chosen. Subsidiarity is very important, so I only interfere if I think that a decision is going wrong or I really disagree or a decision is not in line with the strategic plan, but otherwise, at the size of this institution, you need to give them some leeway, some autonomy, and really translating that responsibility to the rest of academia and [university]. So we have the heads, the deans, and the senate and all that, so I run all these meetings, dean’s committee. They’re well-organized and then we have the, the registrar, the bursars and other sectors. …So, they have the work. …So if you want to be a dean, you have to be a head of a department because you need to have that maturity with some experience. So, from the heads, one person will be elected. Sometimes—most of the time, it’s unanimous, position because we don’t want conflicts created at the faculty level.

Directions for leadership development can be gleaned from this analysis. First, effective leadership manifests in a variety of prominent forms, and future leadership may well be a mixture of these. Second, there is a need to navigate different leadership styles. Third, the size and complexity of the contemporary role underscores the need for executive teams. Fourth, in terms of substance, form, and structure, such teams must be balanced and diverse. Though these observations may seem unremarkable, they carry serious implications for leadership formation hence higher education. There are surely foundation preconditions for university leadership, such as academic excellence, interest, and experience. But much can and should be developed through formal training in business, in public policy, in academic leadership, and in general governance. Future leaders also require experience with government, with industry and business, and with foreign and diverse cultures. The cultivation of people who can

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deftly navigate uncertainty and complexity of course applies not just to presidents but also future leaders.

Clarifying Spaces The era of international higher education is winding down. Since the mid-1990s international education has given rise to reasonably wellknown information economies, student markets, research ecosystems, and geopolitics. People have become very familiar with rankings, Chinese international students, bibliometrics, and debates about technology. But the gloss has worn off reputational lists, the reliance on foreign finance has been cast as odd and unsustainable, and as countries advance the world is reorienting around novel patterns of industry and investigation. The allure and authority of Anglospheric universities is being rebalanced, particularly by those across Asia. There are sure signs of a shift to what are often termed more global forms of higher education. Global higher can be anything, but it is often a euphemism for the rise of the ‘global south’, of expanded and multidimensional academic and talent pathways, of the intersection between globalisation and education, or of a worldwide marketplace of ideas. Emerging global higher education seems anything but international, and more likely cross-national in nature. An important if not dominating part of the discourse swirls around the maturation of higher education in Asia. Discussion of China is prominent. The rise of Chinese higher education has become almost inseparably interlinked with global transformations. The Chinese sector has grown substantially in recent decades, contributing much to the country and rest of the world. Major initiatives like Project 211, Project 985, the Yangtze River Scholars Scheme and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) (Shanghai Ranking, 2020c) propelled a select number of leading universities to the top tier. The Double World Class (DWC) scheme (State Council, 2015a) is being designed to strengthen, broaden, and diversify the sector and its contributions. Indeed, the AWRU has likely been one of the most substantial single forces reshaping contemporary higher education. Elite Chinese universities have thrived but the whole system has also lifted, with graduate and research outcomes as well as international participation and engagement rivalling the greatest systems in the world (Zhong et al., 2019). Higher education has become a significant ‘intellectual capital’ engine for larger national developments like the Belt and

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Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and for even broader transformation of global socioeconomic prosperity. China now has the largest domestic higher education system, and even so each year thousands of students enrol to study in foreign countries. Understanding the global implications of Chinese developments has become essential to understanding higher education overall. The idea nourishing this transformation is to construct leading global universities with Chinese characteristics. This aspiration is being articulated through the DWC scheme. Launched in 2015, it superseded all preceding schemes. It sets forth China’s vision for what constitutes world-leading universities and disciplines with Chinese characteristics. The term ‘Chinese characteristics’ means honouring the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership and the country’s traditional culture (State Council, 2015b). Figure 10.2 depicts the overarching design template that articulates the intended goals of the DWC along with principles to guide ten

Goal: Chinese characteriscs and world-class excellence Principle: World-class excellence as goal, capacity building of academic disciplines as foundaon, accountability as leverage, and reform as driving force Approach: Top-level design, mul-source support, accountability-based membership adjustment, and social parcipaon and contribuon Main tasks:

Promong internaonal collaboraon exchange

Building world-class faculty

Culvang innovave talent

Strengthening Inhering and Improving research innovang knowledge capacity culture transfer

Breaking through instuonal bolenecks

Promong social parcipaon

Opmizing instuonal governance

Strengthening the leadership of the Communist Party of China

Fig. 10.2 Framework of China’s Double World-Class scheme (Source Zhong, Liu, Coates & Kuh [2019])

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tasks individual institutions and disciplines should pursue to attain the goals. The DWC Plan and its 35-year timeline (2015–2050) resulted from broad consultation between central and provincial governments and higher education institutions. In late 2018, the Ministry of Education (MOE) approved action plans and substantial funding (more than US$14.5 billion) for 142 DWC universities and 465 DWC academic centres of excellence in 108 academic disciplines. These simple ideas are influential. The ideas go way beyond simple long-term investment to instead convey carefully crafted strategies for sculpting future higher education. While primarily designed for China they will have non-ignorable implications for higher education globally. They cement the need to go beyond quantity and scale and for multifaceted strengthening and diversification. The ideas speak to the public good delivered by higher education, myriad academic functions, and the need for proving sustainable contribution. The scheme confers policy stability required for deep reform of institutional governance, faculty management, doctoral training, discovery research, and industry partnership. International collaboration and exchange are facets of this growth, but far from the main premise which fuelled much reform since the last 1970s reform and opening up. Importantly, core emphasis is placed on the promulgation of socialist flagship universities that strengthen the leadership of Communist Party of China (CPC) and honours the country’s traditional culture (State Council, 2015a). Rather than benchmark against world-class excellence, a trove of Chinese-specific methods and indicators will be specified for evaluating system and institutional performance and development. Principal among such development is a trusted cocreating relationship between universities and government which dually grows national policy and institutional reform. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provides the broadest narrative for understanding the cultivation of these ideas outside China. This AfroEurasian Belt and Road Initiative is a major community-wide strategy for global development, touching almost two-thirds of the world’s population and one-third of the world’s wealth (BRF, 2019). While mostly focused on hard infrastructure, intellectual infrastructure has an important role to play (Coates, 2015a; Kirby & van der Wende, 2019; Li, 2018; Peters, 2020). China sees education as a conduit for promoting people to people ties, cultivating supporting talent, developing and aligning standards, and achieving common development. In concrete terms, this goes to student

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exchanges, joint research, credit recognition, sister schools, Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, and vocational education which facilitates large infrastructure projects. Higher education is developing rapidly in participating countries. Less than ten per cent of these countries have an elite system of higher education, around half have mass higher education systems, and the balance are massifying (MOE, 2016). Put simply, the initiative embraces what looks to be the world’s largest higher education growth corridor over the next few decades. As it grows, this mechanism is expanding from a China-to-government to a government-to-government format. Understanding this organising mechanism is essential to understanding higher education in coming decades. It is a major addition to those already established around regional blocks and resource- and reputationfixated rankings. Importantly, this is a governmental rather than commercial approach to steering higher education futures. Rather than orient around channelling cash flows into cash-hungry research universities, the aim is to leverage education for broader economic growth and social advance. In this frameset, universities are not exalted as lone pioneers but rather sown into the fabric of national socioeconomic growth. This leads to a much broader and more diverse array of investments and institutions, requiring new perspectives, networks, systems, and platforms. Evidence is emerging that Asian universities are starting to carve out unique paths given diminishing returns from leveraging prevailing prestige arrangements (Lee, Liu & Wu, 2020). National, professional, and institutional alliances have been inked. Perhaps the most obvious is the University Alliance of the Silk Road (UASR), initiated in 2015 as a cooperative platform among the BRI countries. Headquartered at Xi’an Jiaotong University, it includes over a hundred universities from more than 30 countries spanning five continents. The Alliance of International Science Organization (ANSO) was founded in 2018 with 36 other international science and education institutions. The Silk Road Law School Alliance (SRLSA), for instance, is an international education cooperation platform for high-end law schools. The Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) was launched in 2017 with 15 flagship universities. In bringing together many high-profile universities, AUA promises to strengthen academic practice and contribution in what is now the world’s most populous and biggest higher education timezone. Each university in the AUA is a ‘flagship’ or leading institution in its country. Figure 10.3 locates these universities on the

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Fig. 10.3 AUA member universities (Source Asian Universities Alliance (AUA), 2017)

map, showing the breadth of global and regional coverage. AUA invites countries and universities to focus on common needs and shared expectations, looking beyond social, economic, historical, and cultural differences. While acknowledging diversity among countries and cultures, AUA acknowledges and promotes shared identities and values. AUA seeks to increase the accessibility of educational resources among member institutions in an effort to cultivate future leaders. It seeks to serve as a platform for an innovative collaboration ecosystem between academia, government, and industry. It also seeks to enhance existing ties and facilitates new links among member institutions, and foster a multicultural learning environment, specifically through increased educational and research exchanges. It is important to keep in mind that a leading Asian university typically plays a more important role in its country than do leading universities in other parts of the world. This is partly due to the esteem placed on education and research in Asia. The status of these universities also derives from the provision of dedicated resources and energies. More broadly, many of these universities carry the opportunity

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for, and responsibility of, various kinds of nation-building, particularly those involving knowledge and innovation. After three decades of internationalisation it may be considered inevitable that new global arrangements would emerge. Still, it is always a shock when they do. The smart 20-year-old who entered a prestigious old-world university in the early 1990s is now a young executive or faculty at a rapidly growing institution. By the time they retire, perhaps around 2040, they will have created a world very different to the 1950s world in which their teacher was born. The best learners and scientists transcend what they have been taught, and discover and make new insights and surrounds. With science and education it is common for many, even competing, mechanisms to coexist. International research reputation lists have not hindered the European higher education area, for instance, and the growth of Asian higher education has only augmented the flow of international students. Circumstances will reveal how future higher education mechanisms condense, cold-shoulder, coalesce, or collide.

Regulating Regulation In early April 2020, a remarkable deal was inked in the middle of tumbling markets and closing doors. As conveyed by the lead consultant Wells Advisory (2020), China’s leading private higher education company became a long-term partner of Richmond, The American University in London. This non-profit liberal arts university becomes able to offer dual accredited United Kingdom and United States qualifications. The new deal will expand and amplify student pipelines and pathways. It provides the private higher education company with an additional institutional footprint in two key foreign markets. Similar deals have been struck between the Galileo Global Education and the private Regent’s University London (Regents University London, 2020), and between Strategic Education and Torrens University (Laureate Education, 2020). These private higher education investment firms span dozens of countries and institutions, and many hundreds of thousands of faculty and students. Such partnerships represent the future, a future with deep connected channels and deep relationships across global markets, between organisations committed to quality education, and bringing old and new world assets to the table. What is a useful means of regulating this kind of arrangement? How best to regulate future higher education spaces? Prevailing arrangements

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seem neither sound, sufficient, nor sustainable. Substantial transformation is required. This requires innovative higher education design. At first and even second glance, though on first glance it feels extreme, it hardly seems worth bothering with higher education regulation. Higher education has inherently anarchical qualities. Almost by definition, universities are fantastic at circumventing constraints and at creating adventurous surprises. Ultimately, higher education is co-created and only as good as the students, faculty, professionals, and leaders who give it life. Faculty on temporary contracts swirl between institutions, making it hard to pin standards on such moving targets. Students flow into universities from a growing array of domestic and foreign pathways, complicating established assessments of learning capability and readiness. Informal learning takes place in all kinds of places, many beyond the reach or worry of regulators. Discrete private firms deliver much public education and hover outside formal structures. An enormous exoskeleton of commercial consultants, lawyers, and advisors has grown around even, and especially, around the oldest and most conservative universities. A growing array of practices seem to sit beyond the limit of formal policy or control. As education systems have massified, the 1990s quality movement has faltered, and has fallen in high-profile instances such as the United Kingdom and Australia. While noting the difficulties and complexities there is certainly a need to try for better forms of regulation. A higher education free-for-all serves no one. Countries and professions need a means of ensuring education nature and outcomes. The lack of fulsome regulation in other large industries has proved fraught, big tech being the quintessential example though global finance stands out. Even the most cowboy universities and other providers seek assurance and guidance on the boundaries which shape the game they play. Currently, as experts note, ‘there is no coherent governance framework for the global higher education system’ (Van Damme & van der Wende, 2018: 106). What appear to be the key normative and practical features of effective future regulation? Much can be gleaned from analysis of existing systems, sector-specific, and more general research, and the failure or challenges of regulatory practice (Bevir, 2011; Bevir & Hall, 2011; Coates & Mahat, 2014 Hazelkorn, Coates & McCormick, 2018). Regulators must have the same scope and scale as the institutions being regulated. There is little use in a regulator which is unable to impose powerful and timely constraints. Regulation must have the expertise and reach to cover a very wide

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range of educational practices. Regulation must be sufficiently borderless or post-systemic, though not necessarily post-national. Much education activity extends beyond system boundaries, such as student recruitment, borderless learning, and graduate destinations. Even in the most global countries and sectors, and even after suffering policy neglect, there is declining interest in any diminution of national power. Geopolitical developments are fuelling nationalism, though simultaneously awareness of the limits of national steering mechanisms. Regulation must be sensitive to and encourage diverse fields, disciplines, and institutions. It must be equal to private and public institutions, including to invisible partnerships. There is no point in regulation which stifles growth or experimentation, encouraging isomorphism and workarounds instead. One approach to this is to articulate minimal governance provisions which leave much up to the practical imagination of educators, policymakers, and managers. As much as possible, regulation must be based on generalisable, verifiable, and relevant evidence. This instils a need for the collection and reporting of assured information. Global reputation research rankings have grown to play a role in this regard, but inter- and supra-governmental organisations surely have a much larger role to play. Systems and institutions must have confidence in the legitimacy of regulatory institutions, actors, processes, information, and outcome. This is hard in an era in which even global institutions are suffering critique and generational reform, though perhaps feasible to achieve within a specific sector. Ultimately, the regulator has oversight across education and research outcomes, though little responsibility or authority. Unsurprisingly, a number of familiar actors are likely to play a role in future governance. Academic autonomy has a primary role to play. Self-regulation is the foundation pillar in most professions and higher education serves as the foundations of these, amplifying the importance of professional trust. Governments are important, as the largest ultimate owners, clients, and consumers of higher education. Government interests may be pressed directly, or via quality or regulatory agencies. Networks of regulatory agencies have been established which fulfil important benchmarking roles. A range of supra-governmental agencies like OECD, UNESCO, ASEAN, and APEC exert soft power through peer influence, non-binding standard setting, and other mechanisms. Institutional, research, and education networks are important. There is a plethora of these, ranging from management benchmarking networks and alliances, scientific communities and authorities, and discipline and professional

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networks. Industry and professional organisations, including accreditation associations, provide an important additional and triangulating form of governance. They are often global and substantially cross-latticed through research and applied experts. Commercial players have grown to play a prominent role in pseudo-regulation of the quasi-market, examples being the boards of commercial service firms, commercial rankings firms, big tech, and the media. An evolving array of regulatory activities have erupted as higher education has grown globally and unshackled itself from earlier national regulation. There seems no shortage of regulation, and existing activities may be overlapping and even redundant. Still, important elements are missed, such as regulation of international student agents. Other elements are resource demanding, such as the international peer review of faculty. Very few people appear to read quality audit reports, including even faculty and students with a keen interest in a university’s performance. Progressive facets of regulation, particularly in the area of research and social impact evaluation, can take up to a decade to bear fruit, raising questions about responsiveness and relevance. Countries and universities set targets around student equity and affirmative action in ways which are inconsistent and paradoxical across borders. With the exception of language testing and specific in certain professional fields, even similar universities fall back on quite different admissions information and standards. Price transparency is weak or non-existent, even within countries and particularly in terms of the real cost of education and other living and travel expenses. Scientific review systems have substantial power yet sit outside most formal regulatory mechanisms, increasingly in the hands of a small group of global publishers. It is really hard even to find basic institutional information on universities such as student and faculty numbers. Public-facing websites flourished over the last decade with the intent of trying to curate and inform potential student markets, though these failed to gain traction and yield the aspired-for impact. Many of these problems can be solved by the kinds of innovation explored in this book. Still, there remains a need to bring relevant pieces together in ways that make sense to the main protagonists such as universities, governments, learners, business, and employers. There is a need for regulatory coherence. A single global entity is unlikely to have the scope or momentum to prevail in a fracturing global environment. The demise of the OECD’s IMHE, which delivered important agenda-setting, evaluation dissemination functions, signalled

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the difficulty of compressing diverse and conflicting interests into a single structure. UNESCO, via IAU and other agencies might appear to deliver in this regard, though it does so through retreat to the untouchable ethers of ultra-high policy. Hazelkorn’s (2020) more recent call for an ‘international assembly for higher education and global science’ would appear to honour existing arrangements in efficient ways and fill a governance void with formal recognition of ‘an interconnected web of governments, policy-makers, non-state and societal actors, universities and other higher education institutions and academics and researchers working across and within formal, informal and non-formal arrangements’ (Hazelkorn, 2020). Engaging the world’s more prominent universities and systems in this form of international assembly would do much to advance contemporary higher education. Anyone who works in higher education knows it is not business as usual. Centuries of scholarly tradition have been swayed by ascendant managerial rituals fuelled by reductive quantitative narratives about the presumed competitive practices that are required to succeed. A pandemic has cleared campuses globally and compelled universities and faculty to underwrite radically alternative ways to proceed. Demographic shifts have expanded waves of baby-boomer retirements in developed countries and swollen doctoral cohorts in fast developing countries. Altered financial flows have grown in significance, most particularly via widespread declines in public investment, geopolitical rebalancing, and emerging sources of private finance. After decades of hyperbole, advanced computing technologies have wrapped well-financed tentacles around core facets of discovery and learning. Perhaps most broadly, the role of higher education in community life has changed, with the sector gatekeeping the bachelor credentials which serve as passports to professional work, and the doctoral training creating the technologies that advance the forefronts of geopolitical development. Change on such scale emphasises simple, grand, and often highly personal questions. What, where and how much should people study? Where and how should industries partner in research? How do universities contribute to different communities? What does higher education cost, and what are its returns? How such questions are answered varies markedly around the world. But even though higher education research in its current form is little more than a generation old, and even though academic scholarship can stake claims at being eternally relative, there is no reason why such profound questions should not be defined in

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reasonably consistent, specific, and transparent ways. Yet answering such questions seems harder than ever before even, and perhaps especially, for experts. This book has taken stock of such flux as a means for understanding contemporary practice, and perhaps more importantly for guiding future growth.

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