University leaders explore how technology can improve education

Technology is fundamental for higher education providers, but for many in the sector it remains “something of a black box”, warns a collection of essays by university leaders, published by the Oxford, United Kingdom-based Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).

“We would like the digital university experience to be … responsive, intuitive, connecting and personalised,” writes Professor Karen O’Brien, vice-chancellor and warden at northern England’s Durham University, “even though procurement processes, uneven technological development and regulatory controls mean that a ‘seamless’ straight-to-smartphone student experience is still some way off”.

In her chapter on governance and leadership at modern universities, O’Brien emphasised that no educational organisation would ever consider the learning ‘experience’ as something that just happens to students. Digital strategies should be implemented in ways that “empower and equip our students with the knowledge and skills they will need to succeed in the era of artificial intelligence”, she made clear.

Bringing together leading voices from across the university sector to explain how technology can improve higher education, the anthology, released on 28 March 2024, details the current digital landscape of a modern university and highlights the advantages technology can bring to students from the admissions process to graduation.

What Mary Curnock Cook says

Mary Curnock Cook, former chief executive of the Cheltenham-based Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), edited the collection. She told University World News that, “without the foundations of modern technology infrastructure (data, cloud, wifi, etcetera) it is hard for universities to take advantage of technology to enhance teaching and learning, streamline student support and services, and optimise back-office functions”.

Therefore, universities should change their working practices, the report concludes, as they rely too much on large in-house information technology teams. “Running systems on outdated legacy IT and carrying technical debt sucks up huge IT resources which could be better deployed to enhance the student experience and drive efficiencies,” she said.

Curnock Cook, who chairs the Wiltshire, southern England-based Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology and the qualifications sub-committee of London publishers Pearson Education Ltd (where she is a non-executive director), said it was best to be realistic when introducing technology into universities.

University leaders know technology is “now essential infrastructure to run a successful university – both for students and for staff”, she said. “But painful experience of trying to achieve ‘digital transformation’ and perhaps a lack of technology experience on executive teams and governing bodies has led to caution and even fear of embracing the potential of technology in higher education.

“Sometimes modernising technology is better served by managing a patient step-by-step rebuilding of IT architecture rather than an unrealistic stab at ‘digital transformation’ which so often results in cost overruns or total programme failure,” she told University World News.

If this is done successfully, cost savings will follow, Curnock Cook added: “There are undoubtedly large efficiency dividends available from new technologies and co-pilots [a teaching team member sitting in the physical lecture room, connected to a remote classroom, who can manage online discussion boards for example] across many aspects of university operations, marketing, student support and administration.

“And since the pandemic, universities have been working with students to understand the optimal balance between in-person and online learning resources to support academic attainment.”

In one example, the report highlighted how the Barcelona, Spain-based Universitat Oberta de Catalunya – Open University of Catalonia – reduced its operating costs by €300,000 (US$325,000) a year simply by moving to the cloud.

Future-proofing higher education

Universities themselves should spend much more on virtual courses, Nick Mount, professor of learning innovation and academic director of the University of Nottingham Online, writes in his chapter on future-proofing higher education.

He said most UK higher education institutions’ investment in online education “is a fraction of what has been invested in physical campuses”, and as online learners “are arguably the most significant growth opportunity for UK higher education from 2030”, competition to attract them will be intense and significant investment in this area is essential.

Technology also enables more people to benefit from higher education, particularly in the UK, where tuition fees are often around £10,000 a year (USD12,700) – and at least GBP18,000 for international students – the anthology contributions stress. They note that Britain’s high cost of living and inflation (still 4.8% in February 2024) has hit students hard.

Indeed, technology has an “amazing possibility” to “deliver many of the qualities of an elite education for a mass population”, Professor Ian Dunn, provost at Coventry University, writes in his chapter on 21st century learning.

And not only in the UK, as “really high quality, pedagogically sound online education offers huge opportunities for low cost, highly accessible education in emerging economies” too, Curnock Cook stressed to University World News.

Universities should not take a ‘yes or no’ approach to technology either but see it as supporting traditional teaching, said anthology writers. Gavin McLachlan, vice-principal, chief information officer and librarian at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said any leading university requires “a robust technological foundation to support its academic mission”.

“Increasingly, students are looking for options across on-campus courses, online and remote courses and various mixes of hybrid and fusion education,” he writes in his chapter on “Building blocks for excellence in modern universities”.

For example, personal tutoring support using AI can advance students’ academic experience “at higher intensity and lower cost than can be provided by humans”, Curnock Cook noted.

But currently, technological developments are “running ahead of universities’ ability to adopt and assimilate new technology into their operational and pedagogical models,” she warned. “So, it will likely be some time before universities can address technology enhancements as an efficiency measure.”

But they should still prepare and start to embrace new technology, she told University World News, as: “Delegating some of the load of education administration and academic support to technology offers the opportunity for academics to focus on the interactions with students that challenge and develop critical thinking, innovation and knowledge creation – the things that AI cannot do effectively.”

At Durham University, for example, vice-chancellor O’Brien said a 24/7 AI assistant ‘Holly’ has been key in helping students through the enquiry and application process: “She has answered thousands of questions and freed staff to add value in other places.”

The HEPI student survey

Josh Freeman, HEPI policy manager, assured University World News that while the use of generative AI “has become normalised in higher education, we find that universities have so far prevented an epidemic of AI-based cheating”.

Indeed, HEPI’s February 2024 paper on students’ attitudes to AI revealed that 53% of UK students use AI to help them with assessments, especially via AI ‘private tutors’, helping to explain concepts. However, only 5% put AI-generated text into assessments without editing it, said Freeman, “so cheating in the sense everyone worries about does not seem to be widespread yet”.

The survey, reported in University World News, was based on a poll of 1,250 students throughout the UK. It also raised concern over a ‘digital divide’. Well-off students are more likely to use AI for assessments (58%) than the least privileged (51%), said Freeman. In general, “there are plenty of students who are experts and plenty more who have never logged on to ChatGPT”.

Meanwhile, only 22% of students are satisfied with the technology support they have received at UK universities, saying they should provide more AI tools. “Universities change slowly, particularly with regards to technology, and it seems they have not rapidly integrated generative AI into their teaching (yet).”

On the positive side, 63% of students think their institution has a clear policy on AI use and a similar proportion (65%) think their institution could spot work written with AI, “so as a whole they have done a good job in setting clear expectations around AI use”.

This could change, Freeman warned, with students rapidly learning how to use a technology that is becoming much more powerful, especially as ChatGPT 5 is due to launch this summer, with improved linguistic processing and reasoning tools.

The HEPI student survey also highlighted AI’s downsides. More than a third of AI users do not know how often it produces made up facts, statistics or citations (hallucinations).

To counter the risks of what Professor Kathleen Armour, vice-provost (education and student experience) at University College London, in her AI chapter calls “the most transformative innovation any of us will see in our lifetimes”, Freeman said institutions must teach students how to use AI effectively and check whether its content is of high quality.

Armour emphasised that “healthy public debate” on AI will depend on everyone being knowledgeable about its advantages and disadvantages.

At Durham, Karen O’Brien agrees that balance is needed when looking at technology in education: “Universities are (rightly) places of multiple voices and priorities,” she said. But with technology underpinning key university processes such as enrolment, assessment and graduation, the “voice of IT and digital” must be heard clearly and consistently.

“Whether or not the chief information officer is a member or a regular attendee at the executive is less important than… collective ownership of this agenda by the whole team,” she argues in her chapter. “We all need to know what data and technology underpin key processes such as enrolment, assessment and graduation.”

Management teams must be more mature in dealing with IT and accountable for digital strategies, O’Brien continued: “Those of us in management roles see core enterprise systems and digital technologies as the fabric of a higher education institution as much as classrooms, books and labs.

“Ideally, boards should include at least one trustee with IT governance expertise, just as they typically include individuals with backgrounds in accountancy and financial management,” she concluded, as: “We are all part of the ‘IT crowd’ now.”