Presentation Panel
The Role of Quality Assurance and Capacity Building in Learning Design in Higher Education
Date Thursday, Nov 23 Time – Room Potsdam I
In this Presentation Panel we will focus on strategies for remote education and how to keep pace with future developments in learning design for higher education.
Speakers will explain how to evaluate transformational processes and discuss international standards for digital education. They will formulate sustainable strategies for digital education and explore the value of agile development, with a more flexible approach to quality assurance that allows for continuous improvement.
The session will also shed light on the role of learning design in improving your learning project and how to build learning design capacity in your team by identifying good learning designers and writing better job descriptions.
Michael Stephan
Division Manager Certification Procedures, Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation (FIBAA), Germany
Master´s degree in Literature and History, several years of professional experience in research, writing and editing on study and career planning (focus on engineering, economics, management, MBA, international and double degree programmes, postgraduate programmes (Staufenbiel, Germany)), most recently several years of professional experience in quality assurance services for national and multinational corporations (Top Employers Institute Amsterdam, Düsseldorf). With FIBAA since July 2021 as project manager in national and international accreditation and certification projects, division manager certifications (including “Excellence in Digital Education”) since May 2022.
Brian Mulligan
Owner / Consultant, Education Futures, Ireland
Brian Mulligan, a former Civil Engineer with a specialisation in computer simulation, transitioned into a successful 38-year career in higher education, working mainly with learning technologies. Widely regarded as Ireland's foremost authority in education technologies, Brian's impact has been significant. In 2002, he founded the Irish Learning Technology Association. Additionally, Brian spearheaded the establishment of Ireland's largest online distance learning operation. Today, he serves as an independent consultant, leveraging his expertise to strategically harness the power of learning technologies.
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Leonard Houx
Director of Learning Design, Cambridge Education Group, United Kingdom
Leonard Houx is Director of Learning Design at Cambridge Education Group (CEG). He has written about learning design in the Guardian, Times Higher Ed and FT and is the 2022/23 winner of the Learning Technologies Awards' Learning Designer of the Year (Gold). In previous learning design work, he won an award for Best Online Distance Learning Programme for his design of the “Squared” marketing certificate course with Google. He is a current fellow at the University of London's Centre for Online and Distance Education (CODE) and a former director at the Learning Network.
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Moderator
Archibald Gordon Slaven
Director, Slaven Consultancy services Ltd, United Kingdom
Gordon has long experience of managing educational innovation projects Internationally, most of which, since the mid 1990s, have had digital elements incorporated. Since 2016, he has consulted to in most areas of education, but primarily at the TVET and higher education areas, organisational development, and management of change.
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Quality Assurance in Digital Higher Education – Implementing Internationally Comparable Quality Standards for Digital Teaching, Michael Stephan
The overarching questions posed in this session are how institutions can keep pace with future developments in learning design and embed quality assurance of learning design into organisational quality assurance.
FIBAA has developed international standards to guide universities towards excellence in digital education, and Michael Stephan would like to discuss and strategise with higher education institutions about their way of doing remote education and their motivation to move forward with it.
Participants will gain insights on evaluating their institution's transformational process and formulating a sustainable strategy for digital education, and will gain confidence in taking further steps towards digital education.
What Is A Learning Designer?, Leonard Houx
In this presentation, Leonard Houx aims to shed light on the role of learning design, including its past, present, and potential benefits.
Participants will learn about the benefits of learning design, how to improve learning projects through it, write better job descriptions, identify good learning designers, and identify development areas.
The presentation aims to help participants build learning design capacity in their teams, make better hires, and improve learning experiences.
Quality Assurance and Instructional Design Do Not Guarantee Quality, and Inhibit Innovation, Brian Mulligan
In this presentation Brian Mulligan will argue that a more flexible approach to quality assurance and adopting a continuous improvement approach can yield similar outputs with less effort, and facilitate more innovation.
Participants will learn about the shortcomings of educational QA systems, the value of agile development, and how to develop innovative educational initiatives in a leaner way.