 And now we move on to a session entitled Building Institutional Capacity for Excellence in Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. And our presenter is Dr. Jerry Handley, Executive Director of Merlot and Skills Commons. Jeff, welcome. Thank you so much, David, and I just really want to thank the Association for Arab Universities, the Gulf Education Team, and all those involved with planning this Middle East education leadership forum. And today, I'm also here representing a team of people. So my one voice is also representing O'Donnell Learn, the online learning consortium and ODIGIA, and we also have many other partners that really empower building capacity for excellence in online teaching. And as many of the speakers have already been talking about, that the COVID pandemic has really created the necessity for higher education to deliver online. And I think rich in talent and also rich in tradition, Arab universities are positioned to really respond to this necessity. When you have the strategic plan by the Association for Arab Universities that provides a roadmap that started before the pandemic, 2019, they began to lay out a roadmap that can really be important when you begin to look at, and I think it's really important to keep in context any innovations that's going to help Arab universities move online is thinking about what plan has been developed by these institutions. So the first one is around the critical nature of the technologies that really enable the networking of researchers, educators, partners, knowledge and information. And the CEO of Coursera made that point very importantly about how to leverage all that knowledge and to facilitate the partnerships among the Arab universities, and I think also among the regional industries that need to work more closely together. Now, a critical element I think that's also in this strategic plan is how do we really transform the way we're doing this learning to enable the learner themselves to have a more effective and successful experience of bringing that expertise into their own personal capabilities. Now, how do we then, the next goal is around scale and strengthen the quality assurance. And I think Tim earlier on talked about how the differences between the competencies being developed and the assessments and the different viewpoints that we have are we really preparing our students for effective education is becoming really important. Now, when you have the other goal is around strengthening the AR use governance to really fulfill this strategic plan 400 institutions is not a simple organization to help move forward. And what's the support the strategic advice and the, and the governance strategy that that could be really important. And finally, the sixth goal. Enable universities and partners to produce solutions to regional and global strategies making education contextually relevant for people's lives for governments lives or industry lives. Very important. So I think all these become really important out. One of the challenges, often that that we're facing is this complexity of 400 institutions. When you're having six goals and there's 31 programs laid out in that 70 plus plan 70 page plan with eight regional organizations and councils and 22 specially, it becomes overwhelming to try to think about how do you really make this change. So what I'm going to do today and one of the purposes I have for today is to present you a metaphor to how to think about how you have to coordinate all these efforts, and in particular, building the internal capabilities of your institution in order to achieve these outcomes that are becoming so necessary. And the analogy is going to be around. How do we think about education, a little bit about like running a restaurant. Now, one of the critical aspects when you have this is that you can have the vision of what you want to do and often a strategic plan lays that out. But if you haven't built the institutional readiness the capability and capacities to fulfill the operations of doing the education planning the education delivering the education, enabling the formative and some of the assessments that become so important. Then you're, you're not going to be successful so how do you make sure you think about organizing what you're doing it within your institution building those internal capabilities become essential. So, when we think about running this your university as a restaurant, right, ingredients are going to be such an important element to bring in, and you're going to have to have a variety of meals to serve. And in our strategy one of the things that we've looking that we've looked at is that how do you bring this online instructional content, and the research to be stored that are in your libraries that are online. Coursera, you can think of that's part of the ingredients that you can bring into that. And I'd say rather than just relying on the ingredients in the past that you've had just in your backyard garden that there's really a wealth of online resources that are available for you here. One of them, and I'm the executive director Merleau, here's a free, open online library, we've been around for 24 years of faculty sharing their educational content from simulations animations tutorials, full courses. And all types of collections of materials across all different disciplines that provides you, in a sense, the pantry for you to draw upon, and even our smart search enables searches over 75 other open libraries that are out there. And as Jeff at Coursera said, affordability is one of those critical factors. And so when you're thinking about your institution, bringing free educational content so they have the ingredients to begin to imagine what are the recipes that they can now do within their institution, this becomes very important. Now, also, it's just not about the academic elements. Where do I go to get workforce development resources, and the US Department of Labor invested $1.9 billion in funding 700 community colleges to innovate their workforce development manufacturing, IT, healthcare, construction, oil mining, agriculture, all these different elements. And they've asked, they asked me to put together this National Library of free, open educational resources for workforce development. So between Merlot and Skills Commons, these are places where you can grab your ingredients, bring it into your institution in an affordable way. In addition, I'll just say, we also have strategies to enable you to implement apprenticeship work-based learning to support soft skills in a whole variety of ways. So just to help you realize that from the ingredients, well, stored ingredients that you have don't cook themselves. What becomes important is where's your kitchen, and who are your head chefs, and your faculty are going to be these critical head chefs to enable that to occur, and what's going to help you bring the kitchen together. And this is where when we look at helping your institution develop its capability, we've partnered with O'Donnell Learn that has a purposeful learning framework that brings that capability. So now you want to think about, I have the food. Now, what are the recipes, the pedagogical strategies that enable me to help my students learn the skills more effectively? How about the advising strategies? How do I deliver the program? How do I do my assessments? And so O'Donnell's purposeful learning strategy is focused on people and that's a critical element of the transformational learning program that the ARU strategic plan puts in place about how do you teach people and not information? How do you use evidence-based practices to ensure that they're learning effectively, both in a formative assessment? What are the strategies for having universal design for learning to achieve equity inclusion? So all these elements become very important. And think of this, this is the kitchen and the recipe book that you can bring in to support your faculty becoming really the master chefs within those areas. And this is also where sometimes I need different equipment in my kitchen. And so O'Donnell Learn also provides these studios to help you design your materials for the unique needs for your programs. So from the, you know, you bring the ingredients, you now have your kitchen, the professional development of your faculty is essential to give them the tools that they need to create the learning experience that they're connected with because they see your students, they're engaged with their needs. And that's why the role of faculty in supporting them is so essential. And helping them understand what are the critical quality assurance strategies that then become important. Now, you have your ingredients, you got your kitchen. Well, without the dining room, without the place to bring all your customers into place, you really need those platforms. And there are a variety out there. And one of the ones that we've been working with, because it's a competency based education platform that really enables you to be able to provide information in an integrated way, and then assess their learning along the way really becomes important. And I think what Tim talked about early on was how important formative assessment is to achieve those competency outcomes. Now, one of the things about, you know, in your dining room as you're designing it, if you come into a dining room and the restaurant person goes, ah, you have to go look for your silverware and your dishes and your plates, they're not organized on your table, you know, in a convenient way at arm's length, that really creates a problem. And so this is where I think you want to think about when you're designing your dining room. And in the AARU you have 400 tables, 400 institutions. How do you leverage the similarity in the shared needs and the unique needs that are important for every institution. And so this is where when we think about how do you bring the technology platform that allow you to customize your educational program for your unique students within your programs. How do you track that student's progress, engage them in active learning to enable them to really bring learning into themselves, just not be distant, and then finally assess it to ensure that you're meeting those quality standards for your education. All right, so ingredients, kitchen, your dining room, and now your servers, the people who connect all these resources to create that final learning experience that really is attended to the students, the faculty, the staff, the industry and the community are all part of the people who are being served. And think about your servers and what they do and how important they are to welcoming your patrons, making them comfortable, getting what understanding what they need is and then looking at the menu and providing those guidance to what will be best for them. Now, when we look at what the online learning consortium, again, another member of our group, that they have annual meetings where we bring all people together to share across the International Forum, exemplary practices to enable all the complexity of learning to become successful, providing workshops, webinars, mastery series, certificate programs, all these elements that really become important to build your internal capacity to deliver high quality online. And I'd say my emphasis here is going to always be around what we want to do is really design, develop and deploy your solutions, not ours. And I think one of the things that I would want to emphasize in my perspective, and sometimes it's different from many others, is that building your internal capacity is going to be really important for the long term. Educational transformation, the complexity is something that does require long term planning and your strategic planning is very important. But building the capabilities of your community and your industry leaders, the administrative leadership of your rectors and your provost the faculty, all become important. And I'd say having an internal capability, rather than outsourcing all these capabilities, because we've seen when crises occur, sometimes the supply change breaks down so you really need to make sure you build those internal capabilities. Now, when you're thinking about those strategies, how do you do that? When working in higher education in an administrative role for 20, 30 years in various ways. Beginning with the first step of understanding, what do you already have? Where is the talents, the capabilities, the resources, the people and aggregating those assets becomes really important when you're trying to go on this journey. The assets are not just within your institution, but also within your industry sectors, your partners within that community, who your students are going to move into their pipeline of employability. Now, one of the things that often happen when you begin to bring all these resources together is that you find many of these organizations, these units really don't work well together. And building those bridges to enable that collaboration. And this is a theme that's throughout the strategic plan of AARUs is collaboration and facilitating and leveraging each other's work becomes very important. And that really takes a strategic support and that's what I think the AARU can provide that help in facilitating building those bridges, but you also need to do that within your own institution. Jeff at Coursera has said technology can really create capabilities by making it convenient and affordable to have access to instructional content and services with technology is so important. And that's what you really want to think how does technology become a gift for people and not a burden. So we can build all these services, but if you don't in a sense develop the demand through communication training professional development, you'll be building something that no one uses. The role of supporting the way your leaders are looking for their developing their own skills so they can take advantage of the collaborations and the capabilities of technology. And often, all this won't happen without your leadership, without the implementation of policies and business models, enabling your ecosystems. So all these critical elements you have to think about how your institution is going to build its capabilities through these different strategies. Now one of the things that has emerging is it sounds oh this sounds like it's pretty easy to do, building these bridges creating capabilities. But one of the things that that we found and this is some data in the US, you have sometimes colleges, their academic leaders think they're doing pretty good in preparing students for success in the workforce. But many business leaders think that only about 11% are actually prepared to serve the business needs so you're having this disjunction between different stakeholders. And that's going to be a really important process, even the learners are saying, boy, having digital skills for the workplace is going to be a prerequisite for the success. Yet, only about 4% feel that they're satisfied and the level that they have other digital skills. So, so these differences really become something important, where you have to begin to think about how far you really need to go. And to do that, you have to know where are you beginning. And this is in building these internal capabilities your institutional capabilities that assessments of the needs of your learners to your employers. What are their current capabilities, and how are you going to really add value spending time thinking about those become very important. And if you want to go far you have to know where you're starting from, and what you're going to bring with you. Now, the complexity of higher education is also about going together. How do you bring yourselves together in that coordinated collaborative way. That involves making sure you share that vision and evaluating how the needs that you are bringing to your institution are really meeting those needs of your communities in the industry. Monitoring your growth and capabilities, looking at the enrollments that you have looking at the revenue that you have all these become the evidence of how you are bringing are the employers satisfied with the skills that your students have. And I'm coming down to the end here when we have looking at what are some of these critical factors that you want. Looking at the strengths and talents growing your enrollment and to produce your net revenue, building your reputation with evidence become so important, and using technologies as an extension of human capabilities. And we have a team of people that we have to bring together. And just you know we've already working with you in many ways. We've been working for example at the American University in Iraq and Salamani working with the Texas International Education Cooperative, our online learning consortium working with people. And already, we have almost 2000 Merlot members throughout your countries, working together. So, and the approach that we have is kind of a best in class, looking at advisory services. And I think at the end here. To put the AR use 2030 vision into practice, thinking about and we have to end since I use restaurants as analogy with a feast where all where all have a place at the table and are satisfied. In order to do this, I think it's going to be very important that you really think about your leadership, guiding your online programs to make be more scalable, and through collaboration. And, and this is really about learning from another through a process that can be powered by your vision for 21st educational institution preparing learners for the 21st century. So, David, thank you so much for that opportunity for us sharing the strategies that we've learned over the years. And we look forward to collaborating and this is kind of a little bit of the appetizers that that we can help you with so and happy to answer questions. Well, let me keep with your restaurant analogy and say well that was a very nourishing input to our conference. And we, we have one question already on the chat and if anybody else would like to put their questions there. Please do so. The question is from who's in sailor based on my experience teaching undergraduate students I've seen that students can often get bored. So what are the key factors for making an online course effective by which I think he means retaining their interest and enthusiasm. And now, first, I'll say, education is about teaching people, not information. Right. And the first step, I think that's so important is building that relationship between you as the faculty member and the student as the learner, right. They have to begin to develop that trust that you have something of value that there's something exciting that's coming forward in this process. So the first step I think is you as an instructor expressing I'll say an understanding that you are a person and you're interested in their well being and having some empathy about the circumstances knowing a little bit about what that student is trying to deal with. Because if they're bored. Well, what is attracting their attention. And if they're struggling with, you know, with COVID and my parents have lost their jobs and all these other aspects and now I'm trying to, you know, develop my skills so I can be effective in bringing in revenue for my family. Right. By knowing a little bit about that that student, then that helps you choose examples in your teaching that connect with their lives so so that's I'll say a relationship aspect. The next aspect is going to be around engaging the student as an agent in their own teaching by having simulations and animations that technology that can they in a sense play with so they can learn the outcomes. Of their, their actions is becomes very important so they see what I've learned now makes a difference in what I can do. And that's how you really deal with people kind of being bored is is an engaging process that connects with them. There's a second question down here on the chat which I want to develop a little bit. The question says is age hurdle to follow certain specific programs, namely technical ones. The way I want to develop the question is, is this your analogy of a restaurant assumes that students are coming to the restaurant on one occasion to get a meal that will keep them going for a period of time. In fact, what universities are doing are preparing students for life. However, that life might change. So I'm just wondering what your thoughts are about how universities play that role, drawing on the vast resources which you have available. Well, one thing is I'll say on the age issue is your restaurant needs to have a pretty diverse menu, right. And they're different nourishing needs for different populations. And so, again, if your institution is teaching people, not information, understanding the learning needs and sometimes you get those from your industry partners as to what are the skills that for employability, whatever your age or it could be what are the upskilling that I need to do. And so thinking about what are people, what are people prepared for is an important aspect. And I think that's the David you're the point around, you, if you don't, you can have a restaurant that's all ready to go. But if you put it in the wrong location, and you don't market it to the right people, you're going to go out of business. So the institution as part of a community and what are you're doing on the leadership side the enabling ecosystem and developing the demand, the outreach, the communication, the professional development, all those become very important. I think the other piece of developing this is if your restaurant is going to be successful. You've got to serve the food that people want. And the food that people want in an education context is both what the students want and what industry wants and what organizations that are emerging in the fourth industrial revolution will want. Hearing the Egyptian minister this morning talk about some students are not yet ready for what they are now offering is quite a challenge. So just quickly, what are your thoughts on how do you decide what menu you're going to offer. Right. And, and this is our work with industry and skills commons that actually building bridges between industry and education is essential and there are strategies organizational strategies and we've developed in a sense of recipes for how to build partnership pathways between industry and education and that involves really listening to industry about those skills and then having having higher education figure out how do I teach those most effectively. That needs to be part of your instructional strategy is building those paving those partnership pathways so the the road to success for your students goes out of your university and into successful sustainable employment. Well Jerry thank you so much for joining us thank you for sharing that you along with the previous speakers in this session have given us a huge amount to think about. Every success and to the audience with us, we are now going to take a short break until the the top of the hour, when I really really hope that you will come back because our speaker is Dr Jamil Salmi, formerly head of tertiary education at the World Bank. He's going to give us a very broad look at what higher education looks like in the next 10 years. So, thanks again Jerry, enjoy a short break and we will reconvene at the top of the hour.