Developing Digital Strategies for Higher Education

Ilona Buchem (PhD) is Professor for Media and Communication at Beuth University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw (Poland), Concordia University (WI, USA) and University Duisburg-Essen (Germany). She studied Educational Sciences at Humboldt University in Berlin and obtained her PhD degree in Business Education in 2009. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections of digital media and society, with special focus on emerging technologies such as social, mobile, wearable and smart technologies. Her research interests include Digital Collaboration, Digital Diversity, Digital Learning and Digital Leadership. Ilona Buchem has led a number of R&D projects dedicated to emerging digital media for learning and digital strategies in organisations. She is the Chair of the Special Interest Group on Wearable Technology Enhanced Learning at the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL), the founder of the Europortfolio German Chapter and a member of several organisations related to distance education and technology-enhanced learning, including the Association of Media in Science (GMW) and the European Distance Education Network (EDEN). She has initiated and has been actively involved in a number of national and international projects both as a project coordinator and a researcher, including Mediencommunity 2.0, iCollaborate, Networked Identities, Future Social Learning Networks (FSLN), Credit Points (BMBF, BMAS, BA), BeuthBonus (BMBF, BMAS, BA, ESF), fMOOC (BMBF), Digital Future (Stifterverband) and Open Badge Network (Erasmus+).

Links

http://www.beuth-hochschule.de/

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Professor Gilly Salmon has been a learning innovator for more than 30 years and is one of the world’s leading thinkers in digital and blended learning.

She researches and publishes widely on the themes of innovation and change in Higher Education and the exploitation of new technologies of all kinds in the service of learning.

She is internationally renowned for her significant contributions to  education futures, including research, innovation, program design, teaching methods and the use of new technologies. From 1st September 2017, Professor Salmon will be at the Management School at the University of Liverpool.

Previously, she was Pro Vice-Chancellor of Education Innovation, at the University of Western Australia. Prior to her appointment at UWA, she was Pro Vice-Chancellor of Learning Transformations at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia and before that, Executive Director and Professor (Learning Futures) at the Australian Digital Futures Institute, University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Previously she was Professor of E-learning and Learning Technologies, and Head of the Beyond Distance Research Alliance and the Media Zoo, at the University of Leicester in the UK, and prior to that with the UK Open University Business School.

See her web site www.gillysalmon.com

Links

http://www.liverpool.ac.uk

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From personal perspective, I’m happily married with five nice children (all adults now). From professional perspective  I have a Master’s, a Licentiate’s and a Doctorate degree in Biology, and employment record after PhD includes different academic positions. My current position as a University lecturer in University of Helsinki started on 2003 at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Lahti

My major strengths relates to E-learning. I have done a lot of pioneering work with my courses, and I’m highly trained and participated many projects during my academic career. The three ideals grounding my pedagogical thinking are awareness of the change required at the individual and institutional level in academic education, importance of training of theory and teaching skills, and an importance educational technology or e-learning in the context given above.

Links

http://www.lahdenyliopistokampus.fi/en/…

Paul Bacsich is the Founder and Managing Director of Matic Media Ltd, a consultancy active in online learning since 1996. In addition he consults for the SeroHE division of Sero Consulting Ltd as a Senior Associate.

He has a long-standing interest in Open Education via a large EU project (POERUP) and several EU/European Parliament studies: he is Co-Coordinator of the Open Education Working Group and an Ambassador for the global advocacy of OER and a member of the OER Advocacy Committee of ICDE. 

He is a co-founder of Multeversity, a start-up in online/blended post-secondary education which aims in due course to be an accredited university and higher vocational provider. He also has had involvement in other early-stage online providers over the last six years and has done several studies of them.

His current main publicly visible activities are in leadership in e-learning, via the Erasmus+ D-TRANSFORM project, and Open Education policy analysis across EU Member States (he expects the report will be published soon). These draw on and continue his work over 10 years work on EU open and distance education projects.

In addition to his public work he consults for a number of international, government, commercial, venture fund and university clients on market/competitor/pricing research, policy, education funding models and retention strategies. He has recently finalised a report on credit recognition and transfer for online masters' programmes, for a university client in Canada.

In 2015-16 Paul chaired the review panel for the Vision and Strategy Appraisal of the UK Open University Library, where he interviewed over 70 staff and students and carried out substantial comparative and policy research. He also chaired the E-learning review panel for Uppsala University, with three days of intensive meetings and presentations, and spent four months chairing a task force for the National Forum for Learning and Teaching in Ireland to prepare a scoping document on infrastructure issues related to online learning. He also continued work on reviewing European and Anglophone country activity in ICT in higher education for national agencies in the UK and will soon start work on another review of a department in a leading UK university.

Some of his recent thinking can be found in his UNESCO policy brief on "Alternative Models of Education Delivery" and in a paper for the "Open Education 2030" higher education workshop run by the EU. He remains very interested in "Multiversity" models (see Multeversity) and competence-based provision, based on his earlier studies on "Time and e-learning", developed from a speech given in Austria, a country with which he has increasing links.

In the university phase of his career he was a researcher at Oxford University, had many roles over 25 years at the UK Open University, and was for seven years Professor of Telematics at Sheffield Hallam University and then a Director at the UK e-University. He was also Visiting Professor at Middlesex University and Advisor to the Rector of the Arab Open University.

He has knowledge of and/or experience in higher education in many developed countries.

Links

http://www.serohe.co.uk/team/professor-paul-bacsich/

http://iite.unesco.org/pics/publications/en/files/3214709.pdf

https://independent.academia.edu/PaulBacsich

https://twitter.com/pbacsich

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bacsich/

Links

http://www.sero.co.uk/people/paul/http://www.matic-media.co.ukhttp://bacsich.typepad.com/elearning/

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