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I am sitting in the EADTU Conference on open Higher education in the Open University UK. Here I am listening to Simon Nelson, CEO of FutureLearn.

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Together with Don Olcott  I will have the pleasure to facilitate an interactive workshop at The Open University UK lateran this week. The  workshop will be on “Leadership Unplugged:  Reflections, Challenges and Strategies for the Future of Online and Open Education” at the “Online, Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference“, organized at the Open University Milton Keynes (UK) from 25 – 27 October 2017. It is the frame of discussions about higher education for the future and how to work towards accelerating and strengthening innovation.

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Akademische Mitarbeiterin/ Akademischen Mitarbeiter
in Teilzeit (75 %) 

(Kennziffer KA-LD1)

Ihr Aufgabengebiet: 

• Sie arbeiten mit an der Entwicklung und Durchführung von nationalen und internationalen Forschungsprojekten zum Thema „Wandel und Transformation von Bildungsprozessen und -institutionen unter Bedingungen digitaler Medien“ und weiteren Bildungsforschungs-vorhaben (more…)

Learn more about our new EU project on micro credentials: MicroHE (official EU Info) and read my earlier BlogPost about it.

This is an important topic of future higher education. Microcredentials, also envisioned as  bite-sized degrees are gaining traction. In 2015, The Brookings Institute released a paper proporting that abbreviated online degree programs are upending education and giving traditional programs  competition. This is particularly true in the tech sector, where skills-based certifications already have a long track record. In todays world, students throughout their lifetime are educated, learning, studying lifelong with a multitude of different providers, in different contexts and occasions, purposes and outcomes, informally and formally. To use these learning experiences and try to combine them, to make them usable and understandable is the next step and high art of higher education development. By providing common language and a unified framework for understanding the competencies associated with different credentials, applications of the Framework can improve all of the following: (more…)

Im Bereich neuer Bildungstechnologien und in der Erstellung von Konzepten für die Zukunft der Hochschule sind wir immer aktiver.  Die europäischen Projekte „MicroHE“ (Micro Higher Education) und „OEPass“ (Open Education Passport) beschäftigen sich mit der Hochschulbildung von übermorgen. (more…)

Ich bin derzeit in mehrere EU Vorhaben eingebunden. In einer EU Afrika Kooperation geht es um den Aufbau von dualen Studiengängen im subsaharischen Afrika. Die Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg arbeitet seit mehr als einem Jahr mit 12 Universitäten und Bildungsministerien in Mosambik und Südafrika zusammen. Das Projekt Latfure ist eines von nur acht Euro-Afrika Schwerpunktprogrammen, das die DHBW zusammen mit Partnern aus Finnland und Österreich in dem sehr kompetitiven europäischen Programm für sich an Land ziehen konnte. Latfure, das von der DHBW Heilbronn koordiniert wird und an dem Wissenschaftler der DHBW Karlsruhe und Lörrach mitarbeiten, zielt auf den Aufbau von dualen Studienprogrammen in Afrika ab. (more…)

At the Baden Wurttemberg Cooperative State University next month we will kick of two new international partnerships for innovation in higher education, one is called MicroHE and the other one OEPass. Both projects deal with TOP forefront themes in European higher education, that is the question how to provide higher education in a more flexible, efficient and individually better way to suit individuals (lifelong) learning preferences and interests through developing concepts for recognizing open and flexible learning based on OER and open online resources.

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Today I am starting my  visit to Singapour – once more, the last time I have been there was about 1 year ago. The Asia-Europe-Foundation ASEF has asked me to keynote at the 6th ASEF Rectors Conference & Students Forum 2017 in Singapour. The students’ forum will take place from 9-12 OCT and the rectors conference from 12-13 OCT.  The theme of the conference is “Future ready Universities and Graduates: Quality Education beyond the Horizon.” It is a very brought, yet important and much discussed topic worldwide these days. In our last and also in the next UAS Leadership forum we were addressing a similar theme and universities’ leaders were very much stating that there is a string need for orientation in which directions universities need to develop and strengthen their capacity.

Here you find my background paper: ARC6_Commissioned Paper_EHLERS

I will talk about “Lifelong Learning: Holistic and Global Education”. The theme  carries several important aspects of the debate around future university.

• Third mission: It is clear that today, academic education is not a one-off experience but has to be viewed in from of an episodic and ongoing process. Constant update of knowledge and skills is needed. Not just to avoid labour market risks but also for a meaningful life, where learning and development is seen as pleasure. Therefore universities have to open up to their communites, provide education materials, involve their community in projects and initiatives and become motor and pulse of a vibrant space of learning opportunities. Today in many cases lifelong learning can be the bridge for higher education institutions to connect to their regions’ environment and be an engine for regional development. The entire debate about smart regions is connected to the questions how universities can help their stakeholders to grow in their capacity for innovation.
• Digitalization: Digital media play an enormous important role if lifelong learning is to become a major field of universities. Only through embracing the possibilities of time and space flexible learning provided through digital media, lifelong learning can become measningful for citizens. This process can foster the universities turn toward the digital universities and enforce its modernisation agenda.
• New learning designs for the autonomous learner: Adults are themselves bringing many biographical experiences and competences to the learning processes and want to contribute these to the table of lifelong learning. A new view on learning autonomy, participatory and individual learning approaches and connected spaces needs to be realized. Again – these can have fruitful impulses for academic education at large

Here you find my background paper: ARC6_Commissioned Paper_EHLERS

This fall I am invited to speak at  a number of events which all deal with shape and challenges, potential and pitfalls of the future digital university. In 2 weeks I will leave for Singapour where I have been invited to keynote at the ASEF Rectors’ Conference and Students’ Forum (ARC). The Conference is a dialogue platform for university leaders, business representatives, policy makers and students to discuss higher education issues and shape the education landscape in Asia-Europe. The 6th edition of the ASEF Rectors’ Conference and Students’ Forum (ARC6)  addresses the topic of “Future Universities and Graduate: Quality Education Beyond the Horizon” and invites over 280 representatives from academia, governments, business and industry, students and youth associations as well as NGOs and IGOs.

For conference I contributed a paper on one specific aspect of the new challenges for the future university – the third mission. And even more specifically, how universities can deal with new demands for holistic, global lifelong learning. For higher HEI, the new agenda for LLL will have a significant impact. Usually referred to as the third mission of universities, they need to open up to the needs and developments within the community they are set in, and contribute to the development of smart regions. In order to do so, LLL programs and offerings will become essential as they form the bridge between graduates’ LLL process and the HEI. Through these efforts, graduates will have a chance to maintain relevant skills for the labour market, and develop in their life. Of course, it is not the sole responsibility of HEI but they form an important part in the community and network of education providers. The integration of LLL skills into academic programs becomes increasingly important. This comprises the integration of LLL skills into existing academic curricula in order to prepare students for their LLL pathways, as well as the concise development of offerings and programs for LLL of HEIs.

To realise the turn within higher education and start supporting students for a LLL journey, HEIs need to develop LLL cultures. There are three different dimensions to learning cultures. In my contribution I a summarising the state of art research on development of learning cultures and organisational cultures for higher education.

In order to foster the development of new LLL cultures policy makers, institutions and learners need to come together in a common effort. They all have to contribute to a new, holistic LLL agenda:

• Students have, due to the changed demographics and growing diversity, a growing need for competence development rather than knowledge transfer, for practice oriented, authentic learning scenarios rather than artificial “as-if” education, and enforced mobility needs.
• Teachers, trainers, professors and lecturers are demanding a redefinition of the balance between teaching, learning and research. In particular faculty has to shape a new university landscape by breaking down disciplinary boundaries and by adopting new forms of flexible and learner centred educational models which are oriented towards innovation and competence development.
• Teachers are requesting to change their roles from information transmitters in a distributive paradigm, to coaches who support social interaction, innovation and invention, and who deal with new, unanswered questions as origin for student’s learning processes, in a participative and reflective paradigm of learning. Learning in a holistic LLL agenda will be reoriented along paradigms of collaboration, reflection and interaction. Learning processes, their assessment and measurement will focus on relevance for practice and competence.
• Teachers have to become artists, playing with the dialogical nature of learning and teaching. They have to find more creative ways to provide education in a diverse range of pedagogical models. New activity patterns concerning dimensions of locality and space, time and topics need to be practiced.
• University administrations have to develop into teaching and research support centres which suggest ways of organizing higher education ahead of pressing challenges, and which gain a better understanding on the need for restructuration. More than merely organizing higher education processes, these new administrative entities stand for the values, believes and everyday practices that are increasingly adopted in modern universities. They will play a decisive role in supporting the whole institution in particular on issues like the integration of ICTs for learning and teaching, the interplay between research and administration, the creation of knowledge flows and public understanding of science.
• Higher education institutions today are often over-managed and under-lead. A new role for higher education management will be the systematic and strategic development and implementation of visions on how HEIs can be turned into revolutionary and forward-leading learning organizations.

Finally, government, the public sector, and civil society will find new ways of relating to universities as major actors in the development of societies capability to contribute to solve current and future problems, and to serve the citizens’ well-being and economic prospering.

Find here the complete paper: Lifelong Learning: Holistic and Global Education

(2017-10-ASEF-LLL-Paper-Ehlers)