 Assalamu alaikum. My talk is about innovative digital solutions. Let me just briefly go over the outline of my talk. Initially, I will be talking about the factors and forces that drive our work, some practical issues that institutions might face when implementing digital solutions, the digital trends that are inviting innovative solutions and are the main areas of focus of our work. And then I plan to end this talk with two examples of digital innovations. One which is an application of technology and the second being technology itself as an innovation. So let's get the basics straight. Innovation is usually defined as the process of introducing something new or making changes to something established by introducing something new. Now we know that technology drives change and the fastest-moving technology happens to be digital. Hence we should be talking as we are about innovative digital solutions. However, we don't want to introduce change for the sake of change. We must have a focus on achieving some educational or developmental objectives and not just on popularizing technological gadgets. Right now, what are the major issues in education? I think worldwide the first issue is one of access followed closely by equity. At the primary and secondary levels, we have a shortage of trained teachers and a shortage of schools and learning materials, at least in the developing world. At the tertiary level, we have a lack of infrastructural capacity and a shortage of properly qualified faculty. There is also the issue of student success where students in most institutions and countries are not achieving the desired learning outcomes. When we talk about equity, we do know that underrepresented students face additional barriers and challenges. Digital solutions must aim to close the equity gap and improve student learning, especially course and degree completion rates. Digital learning innovations must have features that lower the cost for students and improve chances for success, afford flexibility and enhance student learning. When we talk about innovative digital solutions, these should be the driving forces for our innovations. Now let's look at some practical issues. We know that innovations can improve access and efficiency, but there is an initial investment that is required by faculty and institutions. Faculty, of course, need time and funding to develop their professional skills, so they need to be engaged in continuous professional development, especially in the skills required for these innovations. Institutions need infrastructure, and infrastructure in this case includes human resource, technical infrastructure, and of course the financial way with all to accomplish these changes. Something that we should be very aware of is that the quality of implementation of any innovation is directly proportional to the effectiveness of that innovation. So if it's a poor quality implementation, the innovation will fail. Thus we want to carefully plan and implement the innovation to achieve the desired result. Academic leaders typically view digital learning innovations as part of their strategic plans, so vice chancellor of universities may be planning for the future, which includes all of these digital innovations, but faculty are typically reluctant to adopt such solutions. Now let's look at some of the technologies that are of interest here. Since we're talking digital, we have to talk about the core digital technologies in the educational landscape, which are, in my opinion, learning management systems and cellular mobile devices. With interoperability, students have seamless access from the devices anywhere and anytime. These are the prime targets for further digital innovations, so innovations can happen within this space. Whenever we consider introducing an innovation, we find that these core technologies exist, and by and large, we innovate in and around these technologies. However, there are still many institutions that are newcomers to digital learning, and they will need to have careful onboarding to the core technologies. Once the implementation of the core is complete, only then can they start thinking of introducing digital innovations. Now let's think about building on the core and determining the areas where we can innovate. First, let's talk about accessibility and access. From an accessibility perspective, digital innovations can help to remove barriers. For example, for the visually impaired, we have text-to-speech programs, and that is a simpler problem. For the hearing challenge, we need speech-to-text or transcription, which is a slightly more complex problem involving natural language processing. Right now, we do have excellent speech-to-text transcription programs, but further improvements are needed, and this is an ongoing effort. For cognitive disabilities or other reading disorders, we have special color schemes. We also have support for touch interactions through keyboard, mouse, and key touchpads. We can introduce extended contrast for graphics, and of course, more detailed description of page controls and elements to support personalization of user interfaces. Right now, the Commonwealth of Learning website is undergoing a revamp. It has been redeveloped to align with the new strategic plan. Elements of accessibility are being built in from the foundation, so to ensure that the website is friendly for all visitors. A very exciting area of digital innovation is that of personalized learning approaches. This is where we can build on the strengths and weaknesses of individual students and provide custom learning pathways, which are applicable to courses as well as programs. So you can think that within a course, a student has to study all topics, but the specific order in which the topics are introduced can depend on the student's own strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, within a program, we can think in terms of reordering courses for certain students based on their interests. Now you will realize that this cannot happen unless we have the basic core technology in place, which is the learning management system, which can actually track a student's progress. Now all kinds of innovations are happening in this area and they normally employ artificial intelligence techniques to do the analysis, which ride as I mentioned on the core technologies. These are quite advanced systems and innovations are happening in this space as we speak. We've heard a lot about virtual reality or VR and there is excitement associated with the term. At the simplest level, we are able to enable students to experience the real world from the classroom. At a more advanced level, VR is extremely valuable in the hands on space. For example, in maintenance engineering, where with the aid of a special set of classes, you can actually overlay instructions on top of whatever you're working on. Cloud based learning opportunities are important because coupled with mobile technology, they enable any time and anywhere learning and allow teachers and students to connect from virtually anywhere. I'm sure all of you are very familiar with open education resources or OER, which is basically course content or material or activities that are open, usually free of cost or low cost and easily accessible. OER as textbook alternatives can help reduce the cost of education and they're implemented with hopes of positively influencing students access and success. However, one major impediment in finding and utilizing OER is the issue of identifying and locating the required resource. Of course, there are repositories on the internet and we can perform searches on those repositories. But when we do something like a Google search, we will end up with an unwieldy list of thousands of resources. And we face the difficult task of filtering and identifying useful open resources. It is certainly not clear which is the best resource and curating from this ever growing pile is a huge task begging for digital innovations and it is still a work in progress. No talk about innovations would be complete without bringing in the topic of MOOCs or massive open online courses. Astonishingly, they're still around. Originally, when they came in, there was a huge amount of excitement and they would be thought to be the answer to problems of access and equity and everything. But they didn't turn out to be quite the panacea originally thought of, but they're still around. MOOCs did raise the profile of online learning, but now they are slowly morphing into finding their own niche. One of these areas where MOOCs have found real applicability is that of upscaling or rescaling the workforce, especially in high demand areas. So we find innovations within innovations. As I mentioned earlier, we consider mobile devices now to be part of the core technologies that are being used in digital and educational endeavors. Mobile devices are basically untethered devices with cellular communications and they are now moving from 3 and 4G to 5G and Wi-Fi 6 and they literally have become extensions of modern day students. You cannot see a student walking into a campus or into a classroom without having a smartphone in his or her hand. Although these technologies are now considered part of the core, there are still huge opportunities for innovations, empowering seamless interactivity with greatly influenced digital learning. The Commonwealth of Learning has used simple feature phones, not even smartphones, to deliver education and training. There are huge areas in the mobile space where further innovation could occur. Now let's move on to the examples of innovative digital solutions. The first one I'm going to talk about is the examination system of the Virtual University of Pakistan, which was my previous institution, and I stayed there for quite a few years. And the second example will be about the Aptus device from the Commonwealth of Learning, which I will hold out as an example of technology itself being the innovation. Now let's look at the first example. The Virtual University of Pakistan has a large student body. It's like one of the larger universities of Pakistan that ranges between 80,000 and 100,000 active students each semester. Since the university is an e-learning institution, the students are scattered all over the country in more than 100 cities. The university admits about 25,000 fresh students annually. All courses are offered every semester and they are now numbering more than 160. On the student front, the university has full-time students who are taking a normal course load as defined by the scheme of studies. But they're also working students who carry a partial load. And they have a variety of course distributions. And finally, of course, there are stragglers as in any university who would take any course in any semester. Since the university runs on a semester system, it conducts midterm and final term examinations for each semester. And to maintain the sanctity and the public perception of a good assessment process, these examinations are conducted at designated examination centers. And they are conducted on computers, but they are proctored. And the university, the schedule is announced by the university. Now the problem is that the examination centers see a huge variance in attendance. For example, the popular courses will see a full exam center. But for the more advanced courses or elective courses, the exam center is almost empty, which means wasted capacity. And given this complexity of students taking a mix of courses and the number of courses, et cetera, it makes and creating an exam schedule that satisfies the requirements of all students is an almost impossible task. And what happened was that the examination started taking a huge amount of time, and that started to disrupt the semester schedules. So that was the problem faced by the university. How do you create an exam schedule or date sheet, as we call it, that satisfies all students? How do you ensure a secure distribution of question papers across the country, and then collect them and bring them back in time to the university so that we could grade and announce the results in an acceptable time frame? In order to reduce the overall duration of the examinations, we wanted the centers to run at full capacity. But working students preferred evening hours or weekends for examinations. Full time students wanted morning times and weekdays for their papers. So they were conflicting demands. We had students who were commuting from villages to the exam centers, and they would prefer to sit for the exams at midday. And of course, have gaps between papers. Every student wants that. They don't want two exams on the same day, or even on successive days. There is also the management issue for the university where a mismatch in exam start timings can compromise the sanctity of the examinations. And ensuring proper invigilation across all centers is a nightmare. The basic problem was how to conduct mid and final term examinations in a secure, convenient and time limited and efficient manner. So what was the innovation? The big idea was to allow students flexibility in choosing their own examination date or time, and do that on a first come first served basis. And then run the exam centers at full capacity and minimize the duration of the examinations. This basic idea led to all of the subsequent actions. If the university were to allow students to create their own individual date sheets on a first come first served basis, as I mentioned, this could only work if students received distinct question papers. You cannot use one for all students. Creating distinct question papers could be done by creating a question bank and then automating the process, which is what the university did. So basically, by looking at course registrations and the capacity of the various centers, the university could determine the required duration of the examination with every center running to full capacity for each session, which means no wasted space or time. Once that exams start and end dates were defined and declared, students were allowed to create their own exam schedules. They logged onto a specific portal, select the city where they wish to appear, choose the exam center, and within the city, they then can choose a session and date and time for each subject that they are registered for. Once they have confirmed it, their date sheet is done and they would get an examination entrance slip. The system has all the information required then to conduct the examination. If you think about it, the system can tell you in city X on day Y for the 9 a.m. session, you need three English 101 question papers, five Math 201 and 15 CS 101 papers. Basically, the system now knows exactly how many question papers are needed for a given subject on any specific city, center, date, time. Now, the academic staff provides question paper parameters in terms of defining how many multiple choice questions or how many essay type questions should be in each paper, which parts of the syllabus should be covered, etc. And they only define parameters. The system then goes to work. It generates balanced question papers, all distinct, but all having essentially the same level of difficulty. The system then creates electronic bundles meant for each center, date, time, etc., using the same parameters that were used in defining the date sheet. And then they are electronically dispatched to the centers. Everything is encrypted, all the way from questions to question papers to bundles. They're all encrypted and cannot be opened before the defined date and time without authentication. Authentication parameters or passwords or encryption keys are then shared with the invigilators on the day of the exam, typically using the mobile devices that we mentioned are part of the core. So it's a very secure system. Now there's an additional little quirk, but I'll mention that just for the sake of completeness. When student attempts come back electronically, of course, to the university, how do you grade them? Each paper is different. Well, obviously the multiple choice questions can be computer graded since the answer keys are present, so they are automatically done. For the essay type questions, there is an issue. But you know, since the question papers were created from a question bank in the first place, there is considerable reuse with the same question appearing in various different question papers that were distributed. So the system collects attempts for the same questions into a single file and gives that to a single faculty member for grading. The grading rubric is provided on screen in front of them and they can have uniformity and consistency in grading, while maintaining complete anonymity, since the grader does not know the identity of the student who's attempt has been graded. From a management perspective, the controller of examination simply sits back and sees when the system tells him that all questions have been graded. The controller then simply presses a button and the result is tabulated and declared and students get their results in their learning management system accounts. So it's hugely innovative. The system has been in operation since 2008 without a flaw so far. It's a very secure system as two students attempting the same subject and sitting side by side get different question papers on their screens. They cannot collaborate and there can be no unfair practices going on. It is very easy to proctor and monitor and the system is simple to operate and is fully automated and has done a wealth of good for the university. Now that was an example of a digital innovation where we used technology to innovate and find a solution to a rather sticky problem. Now I'm going to talk about a second example where technology itself is the innovation. Many regions around the globe and especially in the commonwealth do not have broadband connectivity and are without access to the internet and many places do not even have reliable electricity. What that means is that learners are deprived of digital learning resources and the wealth of information and knowledge that resides on the internet. This is where the Aptus device from the commonwealth of learning comes to the rescue. The Aptus is a low-cost server and it is an enabler of mobile learning. It allows educators and learners to connect to a digital learning platform and access content without the need for electricity or internet access. It runs on a five volt power supply. If you have electricity you can use an adapter otherwise you can use a battery bank or even a solar panel. Okay like for mobile phones we can do the same thing. It is a mini PC or a mini server and it can host typically 32 gigabytes or 64 gigabytes of content on a simple SD card and even more if you use an SSD device. It can facilitate interactive virtual learning anywhere. You can typically set up a classroom without walls in minutes and allow rich content to be accessed by any learner with a laptop, tablet or mobile device and Wi-Fi capability. Just to give you a feel for what is included on the SD card or not just a 32 GB SD card there are more than 3,000 videos from the Khan Academy. Over 100,000 articles from Wikipedia in English and we have the dictionary in English with over a million terms. We have OER from Kohl's open school programs. We have the open street map and fat simulations from the University of Colorado which are a very useful valuable resource for STEM education. For other learning tools the Aptus Device has a full-fledged implementation of the Moodle LMS on it. You can author your own courses if you want to. It has own cloud like Dropbox and also WordPress and all this fits on a 32 GB card and it can accommodate even larger card capacities. Users can add their own content to the device with room to spare. The commonwealth of learning sometimes customizes content for specific audiences. For example when there was a need for in the Caribbean after Hurricane Dorian destroyed many schools we took content from the Caribbean curriculum and put it on the Aptus. For the Maldives we have distributed a version which includes all of the OERs mentioned earlier but it also includes e-textbooks from the Maldives itself in their own language. The Aptus is an example where technology itself is the innovation. You can literally set it down in the middle of nowhere power it with a battery bank or a solar panel, have students connect to it from a smartphone tablet or laptop and provide access to valuable digital resources which otherwise would never be available to these learners. I hope these examples of innovations have triggered some new thoughts in your own minds. I'm sure that many of you are working on digital innovations. There are of course many many other areas where one could work by my focus have been on areas which empower the last person in the queue. So we're not talking about the haves of this world. We're talking of population segments which are deprived, which have access issues, which have accessibility issues and which have equity issues and how we could empower them through digital innovations. Thank you for your attention.