Benchmarking Digital Transformation in Education & Training Systems: Critical Success Factors for Step-Change and Massification

There is great ferment around and interest in the concept of digital transformation of education and training, but there is a great lack of detailed understanding of the concept, a lack of sectoral consensus on end-outcomes acceptable to learners, and on well-researched ways of measuring progress on digital transformation.

To achieve useful results in the time of this Learning Café, it focuses on critical success factors – those “necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission”, without which failure ensues. Delegates are encouraged to sit at tables grouped by type of institution: such as research universities, vocational colleges, corporate training departments, start-ups, private training providers, etc.

Timetable

• 12:00-12:10
  Introduction and outline of the Learning Café and intended outcomes
• 12:10-12:20
  Input 1 – What do we mean by digital transformation of education and training in my sector? What is the outcome when transformation has taken place? How will we know we have reached that outcome?
• 12:20-12:30
  Group session 1: Discussion and sharing of the above three topics in small groups
• 12:30-12:40
  Plenary report-back, one slide from each group, and consolidation
• 12:40-12:50 Break
• 12:50-13:00
  Input 2 – What went wrong? A distillation of critical success factors based on failed initiatives from the past
• 13:00-13:10
  Group session 2: Discussion of which critical success factors are most appropriate to our sector? Draw on failed initiatives not just successful ones
• 13:10-13:20
  Plenary report-back, no more than 10 factors per table
• 13:20-13:30
  Overall conclusions

Outcomes

• A clearer idea of what “digital transformation” means for your own type of institution in terms of the range of feasible outcomes.
• A better understanding of lessons that can be learned from the institutional failures – or underwhelming “successes” – among your own type of institution, and others.
• A set of initial ideas that can be built on for benchmarking digital transformation.

Paul Bacsich

Founder and Managing Director, Matic Media Ltd, United Kingdom

Paul Bacsich is the founder and managing director of Matic Media Ltd, a boutique online learning consultancy active since 1996 in many UK, EU, UNESCO, OECD and international projects (often with global coverage) in such areas as virtual universities, virtual schools, open educational resources policy and practice, cost-effectiveness, digital transformation, benchmarking, and digital quality in higher education. He has specific experience of digital higher education projects in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Thailand, and UK.

He is also CEO of Dualversity, a collective of consultants, and actively involved with start-ups in online learning. From 2018-21 he was Professor of Practice at the University of The West Indies Open Campus. He has also been Professor of Telematics at Sheffield Hallam University and Visiting Professor at the University of Derby Online. He has had senior roles in digital aspects of the UK Open University, the UK e-University, and the Global Campus of Middlesex Univesity, and has been involved with or studied many other online learning providers over the years, including several that have failed, or failed to achieve expectations.

He created the first UK-accredited online microcredential for Teaching Teachers to Teach Online (TTTOL) as a contract from Interhigh, an online K-12 provider in UK. He is currently active again in this area as an analyst (after a 12-year gap) including looking at the lessons that can be drawn from such institutions and the wider K-12 sector for the more efficient running of universities.

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