 Hello everybody and welcome to the launch of Ireland's National Digital Experience Survey results. I'm delighted that you could join us today. We have hundreds of people linking in. It doesn't seem that long ago, since we were in Smithfield in October and we were at the launch of the survey itself. I remember telling you then that we'd over 34 institutions participated in the survey. I also remember giving out about the job it was to get agreement on how we would work the questions and maintain the benchmarking. But we did and we managed to do it. And as a result, Ireland has a fantastic data base, an evidence base to inform the decision making, especially at this crucial time. The survey hasn't just given us the national data. Institutions have had their own data since December and I'm sure that they've been using that data to make informed decisions over the last few weeks. But what they do have now with the new data set is we're actually, they're able to compare what's happening in their institution to the national data set of the similar institution type. And they're able to benchmark with what's happening in the UK and what's happening in New Zealand and Australia. We've got an interesting setup. We've got a number of people to speak to us on the couch this morning. We'll be talking to them, getting their input, how they feel that what the data is actually telling us. But before we start, I'd like to introduce the chair of the forum, Dr. Lynn Ramsey, to start proceedings and to welcome the minister. Lynn. Hello everyone. It's an honour to welcome you all to launch of this important report on behalf of the Board of the National Forum. The National Forum Board includes representatives of students, all institution types and policy and industry partners. When the preliminary index findings were presented at one of our recent board meetings, the interest they raised in the discussion that followed reflected the importance and value of this new national data set. I don't doubt today we'll hear some equally fascinating discussions of the findings that are presented. This report is a major milestone in the digital journey the National Forum embarked on with the sector back in 2013. From the collaborative development of a national vision for building digital capacity, published in the form of a roadmap in 2015, through various reviews, research projects and enhancement efforts across the higher education community, we have reached a point where we are well positioned to make sense of this treasure trove of insights. The expertise, experience, understandings and commitment to collaboration that have been built in recent years can be applied usefully to consider and respond to what the index findings reveal. This survey reflects perspectives and experiences of close to 30,000 of us. The fact that it attracted so many contributions from such busy people is a testament to the remarkable effort of the steering group at a national level and the army of students and staff volunteers who organized promotional events and response opportunities across all of our higher education institutions. But the extensive engagement with the survey is also a testament to the importance of this topic. Digital has infused our lives in higher education as it has outside of education for many years now and at an increasing pace. And thankfully, tens of thousands of people recognize the opportunity presented to them and that's the opportunity to build an understanding of what digital means to people in higher education, how they use it and why. It's only with this understanding that the national form can continue to lead an advice on this important topic. Working with our national forum associates, steering group advisory groups and sectoral partners, we want to ensure coherence and aligned decision making based on the reality of engagement with digital teaching and learning. When all this began, Ireland's first ever minister of state for higher education, Mary Mitchell LaConnor, kindly took out time to say a few words about the survey. I'm now delighted to welcome Mary back to reflect on what has been achieved since that launch day and to share her thoughts with us as we look to the future. Welcome, Mary. Good morning. I'm here to launch the findings of Ireland's national digital experience. So in launching this survey, it really highlights now the importance of the digital lives of our students and of our lecturers and educators and our teachers, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic. This survey is illuminating and Ireland now has a rich data base delineating what the students and teachers and staff are experiencing. We have a unique data set at a unique time. So it is with great pride that I launch this report on behalf of the higher education community. Thanks very much, Lynne. And I'd like to thank the minister for taking the time to do the recording. Now I'd like to introduce Alan Wall, the CEO of the HEA to say a few words. Thank you, Terry, and to know everyone. I'd like to begin by commending the National Forum Board Executive for all they've done to enhance teaching and learning in recent years. The central place of teaching and learning in higher education is more evident than ever, and this is as it should be. I believe enhanced teaching and learning to be fundamental to the realization of all our aspirations in higher education and to our recovery from these challenging times. The evidence-based approach of the National Forum takes its work, takes its work is particularly welcome, and the index survey is a prime example of this approach. The first time we have an accurate picture of engagement, experiences, and expectations with regard to digital amongst those who teach and learn across our institution. Digital transformation is the major item on the agenda of the HEA and all higher education institutions and representative departments. And we recognize that without the ability to harness the potential of digital technologies, we won't be able to keep pace with and influence decisively the direction of change. As outlined in a recent HEA discussion document, digital transformation is not a destination for the journey, whereby emerging technologies will necessitate a constant evolution of the ways of working systems and processes across those systems. Such constant evolution requires agility, adaptability, responsiveness, and crucial and awareness of evolving needs. The index survey provides much-needed information regarding the degree to which our sectors evolve and respect the future. I particularly welcome the data that reflects the degree to which students feel prepared for the digital workplace and findings regarding related practices and provisions. In the current climate, with difficult economic times forecast, institutions would do well to interrogate the detail of those findings within their own context. Indeed, the comparative aspect of the index finding is also very useful. Differences within and between institution types will make for fruitful discussion and we're also now in a position to compare digital provision in Irish higher education with that of other jurisdictions. The index findings are important to all institutions and everyone within them, whether you learn, teach, support learning, develop policy, and short quality of provide essential services to the higher education community. These findings relate to you, your peers, and your comments. So I say to higher education leaders across Ireland, please note the index finding. Become familiar with your own institutional data set and hold conversations with staff and students consider why the numbers are as they are and what can be learned from them. Use these conversations to evolve provision and support further. Ensure that resources and efforts are targeted in the most useful direction and that the potential that exists within your context is fully leveraged. The report concludes with actionable first steps for both institutions and those at national policy level. And for our part of the HEA, we'll be working along with our colleagues across the country to attend to these issues and provide whatever help we can. Thank you, Dylan. Thank you very much, Alan. And I look forward to working with you and your staff on the coming months on the results of the index survey. And now I'd like to invite three other guests to speak with us. I'd like to invite Claire McGee from IBEC, Kevin Max Travick from the USI. But first, I'm going to talk to Deirdre Hudson from the digital education team in the EU. Morning, Deirdre. Hi, Terry, great to be here. Perhaps you should start by just giving us a kind of an insight into what you actually do with the EU. Sure. So I'm working at the education department, Terry. I'm in the digital education team. And basically what we're doing is that we're helping countries and institutions across Europe to adapt to digital transformation. So in concrete terms, we're looking at digital skills of teachers, so of our educators and of our students. We're also looking at how technology can support teaching and learning as well. And also we're looking at changing labor markets, how that's impacting on the needs of the workforce as well. So making sure that all of our students, our workers, our job seekers have the digital skills that they'll increasingly need in the workplace as well. OK, so I bet there'll be a lot of, I hope there will be anyway, a lot of interest in our index survey. I think there's going to be tremendous interest, not just in the data that you're releasing today, but also in the whole kind of process and the backstory about how you brought these institutions together to work in a collaborative way. Yeah, that was some of my best of my worst moments, I have to say, because try to get it. It's hugely challenging, but fantastic to be where you are today with the release of the data. And it's a fantastic time as well, with this massive and unplanned shift that we've had to remote teaching because of the pandemic. I think to have that data set kind of out there now is the timing is hugely important as well, I think, because it will really allow the institutions, and also in terms of policy as well, to really use those insights in order to kind of plan for the future as well. Yeah, well, let's just have a look at what we've actually gathered, a profile of who actually responded and the kinds of information that we have now and from whom. One thing I really like is the fact that you have those student responses there, so the student voice is very visible as well. You have the staff, you've lots of different staff roles. You have your teaching staff there as well. You have educational support staff, so I think that's very rich in itself. And then you have the leadership, the senior management, so I think it gives a really nice kind of holistic and organizational approach. And we know that that's really key to digital transformation as well. I mean, it's the same if you look at the school sector and further education. We're talking about technology, but ultimately we're talking about people. We're talking about partnerships. We're talking about breaking silos. And what we're trying to do is to move away from the kind of isolated pockets of innovation. I think any educational organization you look at, you're going to see wonderful examples of innovation and change. But I think where we're trying to make the difference is working across institutions and across the sector to have systemic and deeper transformational change. So I think the fact that you have the voice of both the staff and the students and you have your leadership there as well, I think that's really, really powerful going forward. Let's just see what the benchmarking data highlighted for us. Lots of similarities. Students are saying, the students seem to be saying the same thing about the importance of digital, for example, in their learning. Yeah, that's something I think that's really striking, Terry, from the data. If you look at these different countries, different jurisdictions, I think you're getting a clearer message from the students how they see technology really supporting the learning experience as well. I mean, it's really clear that, you know, whatever country you look at here in the data, students are saying it helps their understanding. It helps their engagement and their enjoyment of learning. Crucially, it helps them be more independent and flexible. And if you look at the figures for Ireland, 68% of staff said they'd like to use more tech in their teaching practice, and that was 33% in the UK. So you see that huge appetite there, I think, for technology use, a real openness for technology use. And let's face it, there's lots that's been done as well over the last few years, as you know well, with the many projects you're running in the foreign too. So I think we have a great basis to go on there, but in the last few weeks and months, of course, we'll be telling, I think we'll have a lot of lessons to learn from that as well, because it's been such a huge exposure in such a short timeframe. I think people will be learning what works well, what works last well, the drawbacks, the potential, they'll be learning about new resources that are available. So I think, again, to have the data set and to be able to build on that, I think will be really important. I've been working on a tool for schools that we've launched called Selfie, and it's similar to the Index, it really has that holistic approach. So Selfie's a free online tool that any school can use, and it helps them see how they're using technology for teaching and learning, student voices in there, the teachers as well, and the leadership team. And again, that's something, we get that feedback from schools, that it really helps them focus, and I think your data will really help an organization to pinpoint where they feel the weaknesses are. And I think the data shows that that is not necessarily the case, that they're actually looking to the teaching staff to the lecturers for support. So I think that's very interesting there. So I think the learning and the digital skills should be done very much in tandem in terms of the teachers needing that digital capacity and capability and the students as well. So I think that was a very interesting finding, And now, so if I was to ask you, I put you on the spot now and I ask you, every institution in almost every institution in Ireland now has their own data set with their own questions for their staff and for their students. And if you were to give some advice to the staff, the students, the senior management of our higher education institutions from through your international lens, what advice would you actually give them and how to use the data, what to go forward, what they should go forward with? I think the conversations around the data will be really important as well. I think that's a feedback we're getting as well from schools that have used selfie that for the first time, they actually had a conversation around the why of technologies. I think in the past, technology strategies, digital strategies were very IT driven. And I think, as we kind of get more used to technologies as we mature, I think those strategies are moving to more organizational approaches. So I think it's a great conversation started to have those insights. I think it's important to keep the students involved as well. The students clearly from the data have very strong opinions on where they like to see technology, where they think technology is helping. So I think keeping that partnership with the students is really important. So I think it's just really important for planning what is it that we're trying to achieve through using technology? So I think it's really about the pedagogy. I think it's about the people and I think it's about the partnerships as well. And really breaking the silos and keeping those conversations going. And that can be very powerful within an institution, whether it's a faculty or across a whole university. But I think to have that collaboration as well between different institutions, whether that's within Ireland or abroad, I think is really critical. Because we see that the challenges are very common across the board. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for your time, Jodra. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Seri. Okay. So I'm delighted to speak now with Kevin Maxtrabuk from the Union of Students of Ireland. So Kevin, I've a warm welcome to the launch of the report today. Thanks very much for having me, Seri. No problem at all. Very important, one of our key partners in actually making this survey a success. So can I thank you and all the students that responded to the survey and had their voices actually heard? Let's have a look at some of the stuff that the students have actually said. Okay, Kevin, that was interesting. As you saw, students were very clear that when digital technologies are used in their learning that they learn better, they can fit it into their life better. Are you surprised? I wouldn't say I'm surprised. I think it probably goes with the need to interpret a lot of the online digital learning and that having a much more integrated course that waves digital learning into the narrative of the program allows for a lot more flexibility in the way in which it's delivered and makes it a lot easier to digest for students as well. So Kevin, what I found was interesting that when they were asked about how much technology or if they wanted more technology used in the course, there was a kind of a 50-50 split. 50% of them said there's enough technology. 50% said, yes, we'd like more technology. What can we interpret from that? Yes, there's a couple of interpretations you can take from that. Within that 50, you said that there's enough. There's probably an element of students here maybe nervous about the use of technology within the classroom. And with that, I think it's more around building the digital confidence of students and actually making use of the technology that's currently available to them and allowing them to properly utilize it in a way that enhances their learning. And perhaps that's what they're getting from it. On the other hand again, it's maybe not necessarily that they want new technology to be introduced, but they want the existing technology to be used in a way that enhances their learning. So they want better use of the virtual learning environments or if some of the other technologies available rather than introducing new things. And then the other 50% is probably a cohort of students who are digital adopters and who want to use digital technology as much as possible within their learning and find that that makes it a lot easier. And also there are probably some students who feel that there isn't enough use of technology within the classroom as it currently stands and maybe feel that there are too much of an over-reliance I suppose on traditional teaching methods and would welcome new opportunities. So there's so many different perspectives that I think you could interpret from that, but it definitely does tell that it's not necessarily about trying to introduce a new wave of technology into the classroom. It's looking at the current teaching methods that are employed. Yeah, and I think you're right. I suppose all the institutions have their own set of data and if they have results like this, I think that if they can go back and talk to their own students and help them to actually get an understanding from their data and their own context, I think that would be really useful. I'm coming to talk about institutions, right? What institutions, that's the one thing that you'd like your institution to change. Access to reliable Wi-Fi, want to top on the list, consistency in the use of the VLE, more access to lecture recordings. Any of those are surprised here? No, no, it's definitely not. Even if I think of my own time as a student, they are the kind of the key things, and if the Wi-Fi is unreliable in certain lecture rooms or certain seminar rooms, it's very difficult for staff to be able to utilize new technologies because the technologies are going to be dependent on the use of Wi-Fi. In terms of the work to learn in the environment, that often comes up in terms of the issues that students often encounter, and it's that need for there to be a consistent use, that's particularly important because students will be studying on a number of different modules, and if one module really uses the virtual learning environment to deliver a blended experience, whilst in other, the virtual learning environment is simply just a depository for the key course information, then it's difficult for them to fully get a grasp of how best to use it because there sucks in inconsistency of use. So, yeah, that's certainly something that I did expect to see come up and not surprised to see how many students felt very strongly about that. And then on the final point around lecture recordings, again, that's around the flexibility and the accessibility of education. It's that students are able to go back and I suppose recap on the lectures that they've been part of, recap when they're studying for exams or working towards assignments. And it's about that whole piece where students can continually enhance their learning and continually go back and recap on their learning too. And so the desire further to be enhanced, access to lecture recordings is something that I'm not entirely surprised to see. Yeah, and I'm just, I think we're in our conversation here. We're showing just the variability in the Wi-Fi up there, wherever you are, Kevin, and down here in Wicklow. So we're examples of what can work very well and when it works very well, it works very well and when it doesn't, well, it's a little bit dodgy. But we'll continue anyway. I was interested that one of the top four was also access to reliable hardware and software. Yeah, I suppose for that, there's a number of things that you can claim. And I suppose maybe to refer to the situation we found ourselves in over the last couple of months. And there has often been an assumption that all students have access to laptops and have access to all that is technology. And that's not always the case. And we have seen that with the pivot to online learning as a result of COVID-19. A lot of students have been unable to access their teaching material because they don't have access to personal laptops at home and institutions have been working to respond to that and provide access to hardware as much as they possibly can within reason. But in terms of that piece, I think it comes to that. It comes to students who don't necessarily have their own laptops or they're reliant on the use of computers or laptop length and schemes within the institution. And again, looking at programs where there may be use of additional digital technology too, it is extremely expensive for somebody who's on, for example, a photography or a film production program who needs access to lots of quite expensive technology or indeed access to software to allow them to edit programs, things like that. And students are already paying a lot in terms of their accommodation, in terms of their fees as well. So being able to have the resources and the means by which they can procure those products is quite difficult and a lot of students are coming as the first in their family too. So having access to that sort of hardware and software is the sensibility to allow them to prosper in the course. And often it's having to rely on technology that's lent out and there's only so many pieces of equipment per student in the class. So those reasons the students often encounter. And it's something that I think students are readily aware of and would like to see solutions to. And also things that software packages being made available and that students can download onto their own personal devices is another issue that I often hear of. And tell me now we do have, as I say, nearly 25,000 students have responded to this survey. Okay, and on behalf of the students who've responded to this survey, what advice would you like to give the higher education sector now that it has this data set to actually build on? Well, I suppose to distill it down into the two distinct areas in terms of an institutional level. First of all, it's not to take these results in isolation, take these results as it snaps up into the perspectives of students on the ground and staff on the ground. But these should be the basis for an ongoing conversation with all students and all staff around the use of digital technology and the use of online learning inside and outside of the classroom. And that needs to be a piece that every institution commits to having an ongoing and a meaningful dialogue about so that they can act upon the feedback that they receive from the indexer survey. But also that they can ensure that students feel that they have, and staff feel that they have a buy-in into that piece too, because I can't remember the statistics, but it was quite a low proportion of staff and quite a noticeable proportion of students who felt that they didn't have meaningful involvement in decision making around digital technology within their institution. So there is an idea, sir, that all staff and all students do have a means by what they can engage in those conversations. Then at the national level, I think there's a need to consider how the overall sector can support the needs of staff and students who can support institutions in delivering upon those needs. So it's about making available access to grant funding or project funding for projects that allow staff and students to work together to enhance the digital experience at an institutional level. But also it's about serious conversations around upscaling the infrastructure, the digital infrastructure within the country, because we've seen it from COVID-19. There are so many students and staff who are living in rural communities who don't have access to reliable Wi-Fi and that is such an inhibiting factor to being able to fully engage in online learning. And so that's probably stage one of what I think needs to be a multifaceted approach to enhancing the digital experiences of everybody within higher education. Good advice, Kevin. Again, thank you again for all of the hard work that you put in to make sure that we actually have this data set that we can now use. Thanks very much, Terry. Thank you, milling, Kevin. And now for a completely different perspective, I'm going to ask Claire McGee from iBeck to join me on my virtual couch. Hello, Claire. Hi, Terry. And thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it. Claire, there was some interesting data I came through on the index survey around how students thought about the importance of digital for the workplace. Let's just have a look at what they said. Okay, so it is clear that students think that digital is important for the world of work. But it was an interesting statistic there that only just under half of them thought that their courses actually prepared them for the workplace. What do you make of that? Well, as you say, I think it's really interesting and quite positive that a lot of the students have kind of registered that digital skills will be incredibly important. If you think back over the last 10 years on all the major innovations, like cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, even social media and smart communications, all of those require some form of digital skill. And while we may associate those with big, large companies, they're actually supporting every single business in Ireland at the moment and every single organization. So digital skills are incredibly important to citizens, incredibly important for businesses large and small and also incredibly important nowadays to access a lot of government services. So hugely important that we have strong digital skills, not just for careers, but also in life. I think what that gap maybe between what the students think and actually how their course is preparing them for them is going to be a big challenge for Ireland looking into the future. People ask me quite often, what are the skills that are going to be needed for the next 20 years? And I think the world of work is changing at such a fast pace. It's very hard to be very prescriptive on the type of technical or academic skills that you're going to need for the future. And what you're going to need are a lot more of the transversal interpersonal skills. So that ability to bring, you know, your human elements into an organization coupled with your digital skills. And that's really what's all behind industry 4.0. How do you marry the technology, the hardware, the software and the human and the interpersonal skills together? So looking at how data is used and interpreted and then re-communicate it back out to people. It's not just, digital is not just always sitting behind a computer screen and writing code. It's a huge enabler for every organization and every business and I'm thinking now about businesses who may not traditionally have ever engaged in digital capability in the past, but they're using it now to communicate with their customers to source new products, to sell new products. In Ireland at the moment, we are online sales, for example, are growing year on year, but we're still losing about 60% of that to overseas suppliers. How can we get more Irish businesses to enhance their digital capability? And it'll be this cohort of students who will be going into those small to medium enterprises and into those large companies who at least see that there is a gap there and are perhaps willing maybe to show it. So for the people coming behind them within the higher education institutions, we really need to see maybe a greater focus on digital skills and how they marry well with your transfer or your other employability skills. Because if we look at the world of work, it's actually those hybrid teams that are coming together to solve some of those biggest problems around, I suppose, water challenges, climate emergency challenges, aging demographics, new consumer supply chains. And the bridging of those two types of people with those totally different backgrounds will be the ones who come up with the best solutions to that. And we must also reflect on the fact that the people who are going to survive the best are those who are most adaptable and agile. And digital skills give you an opportunity maybe to be a little bit more responsive, a little bit more agile and a little bit more adaptable. That's what advice would you give the higher education institutions and students about addressing for the other half? I think it's a case of maybe looking through the curriculum and looking for opportunities at every point in that curriculum to enhance them. And it's a case of maybe saying if every single assessment is still carried out in a very traditional way through an essay, for example, could that maybe be communicated in a completely different way through something like this? Maybe remote video enhancement. Because this, we have to move at a greater pace to be able to say things are changing, the forms of communication are changing. We may have traditionally wanted to be all present together, but circumstances are beyond our control. So therefore we've had to reconsider that. And just because maybe the essay format may have worked the last number of decades, now we're probably realizing maybe there's a new way to do it. So looking through the curriculum and looking for opportunity within the curriculum to maybe trial and test some of those other opportunities to assess maybe through digital capability. The other areas I would also look at is maybe some of the extracurricular activity and how has that been managed and mapped? And is there scope there? I mean, there's many students who are participating in clubs and societies. And maybe when I was in college, that was a little bit more you showed up and you signed up on a day. I would imagine they have completely pivoted online and that's how they've communicated. So there's a huge opportunity. I mean, there's huge experience. I would imagine many students are developing their own podcasts. Can you imagine being able to go into a company and saying, well, I've been running my own podcast for the last three years. I can get your brand out there through a podcast. Huge opportunity. So we need to give the students the language and the terminology to explain the experiences that they've done through while developing their digital skills. It's not just enough to do it. It's actually empowering them to say the reason why they're doing it and be able to then, I think, explain that when they meet with an employer for the very first time. And it doesn't matter where you're actually going to find employment, be it within the business community, be it within the public sector, be it within a non-for-profit, all of those organizations are going to need digital skills in the future to deliver better services for their target audience. We didn't have this data before, but we have it now. So I think we're in a very good place to make really good decisions going forward. Absolutely. And that's the beauty of this. Actually, decisions and digital skills, they're all informed by data. So it's great that actually the higher education institutions can also use this data to help inform their decisions into the future, because that's how you know it will work. You'll have, you know, you're being pulled into this through the student body to say, they know this is important. We want to help support and enable that to happen into the future. Absolutely. Thank you, EmMillionClaire, for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Terri. Thank you very much. And I think we've had a lot to think about. Claire's talked about how the results can inform how we develop our programs for the workplace. Deirdre's talked about the importance of having a data site like this and how we're going to be in-lead internationally. And Kevin has made it very clear how important it is for institutions to look at the data and to work with their students and their staff to see what it means so they can build their future together. And I think that probably is a very good introduction for the next part of our launch this morning, because we've gone to the institutions and we've gone to the staff and the students and we've asked them about the data. So my first guests that I'd like to invite to talk about it are from Manoos University, Michael Butler from the Union of Students of Ireland and Aidan Mooney who's a lecturer at Manoos University. Good morning, Michael. Hello, how are you? Good morning, Aidan. Hi, Terri, how are you? Very well, thank you. And thank you very much for joining us. You're very welcome. It's great to be here. So what we're actually trying to do this morning is to try and make sense of some of the data that the index report has actually gathered. So have a look at what I'm just going to play here and we'll talk about it then. Okay, so as you saw there, Michael, perhaps if I start with you, there was some interesting data there around students, their online activity, the way that they are used being polls. What do you make of that from your own experience? I think actually from the student perspective, using polls is something that I think students do use a slight bit more than we would think. Do you know on Facebook and messengers and in group chats, students often put in polls to try and get data from students. So I can see why that will be slightly bit higher than the staff ratio for using the likes of polls because they might have to gather information as quickly from big groups. Whereas if you've won rep or won student and they're trying to get quick feedback from a class to say, is this sort of data or is this type of teaching working? I think that's probably why it's that fraction higher than it is for staff. And that's kind of what I feel for that one. Yeah, I think so. I've used polling in class for many years now, different forms, and I find it extremely useful for getting instant feedback in terms of what's learning has taken place in the class. It's extremely useful with big classes where there's no way I could engage with every student individually. So having this quick feedback through a clicker or an app like Mentimeter allows me to gauge quickly how the class are doing and whether I need to revisit a topic or not. It does really work because every student is engaging so no one feels left out. And if people are participating and engaging in a class that would make them feel like the class is more valuable instead of only one person that's either really strong getting to get their opinion or one person that's really weak. So we're getting to keep the grounding across the whole class and you get such quick instant feedback from maybe 300 students. Yeah, it's good to write Aiden. Can I just ask you, there's an interesting statistic there around the number of staff that have actually had in October already thought online. And now when you compare the Irish figure to the UK figure, we're actually slightly better when we're benchmarked against the UK. The UK figure for the same stat was 74%. Did that figure surprise you, Aiden? It did in one sense, I suppose traditionally the third level institute in Ireland is a face-to-face format. So a lot of people see it as being the best way of delivering content to students. And I guess with more certificates and master's programs now going fully online, you have more people that are turning and seeing this as an effective way to teach also. Yeah, I think perhaps the current crisis would have changed it quite significantly just now anyway. Absolutely, I think we're seeing people that probably would never have considered using these technologies before this crisis and now being forced to use it. And hopefully they will get to see some of the benefits that come with it and be able to incorporate them into their teaching as the years go on from here now. Wise words, it's indeed. And Michael, can I just come to you? One of the tagline for the survey was let's see where we are so we can build our future together. So for the first time, we actually have student voices of Manuth, but we also have the staff. So we know the digital capabilities of both staff and students. How do you think that Manuth, for example, would be able to build on that? I think actually, considering the current situation that we're in, I think we've built on it very rapidly. Okay, look, that is absolutely super. Look, thank you both for your time. I really, really appreciate it. No bother, thanks very much for having us. Thanks, Terry. We've also asked Leo Casey from the National College of Ireland and Kira Dean from the National College of Ireland to tell us a little bit about how they're looking at the data around what staff we're saying in terms of how they're supported by institutions to develop their digital skills. Well, hello Leo. Hello Kira. Thank you very much for joining me here today. No problem. So before we start, let's just have a look at what the staff actually said. Perhaps if I start with you, what do you think are some of the main things that the staff are actually seeing that we could interpret from the responses from the survey? I think it reinforces the perspective that we need to look at the full capabilities of an institution. So that includes the capabilities of students and the staff together as well as the technical infrastructure. So if any component is in deficit, that we can't get all of the positive learning experiences that we might. So I think looking at it from the insights we get, we feel that maybe in the past, people have considered what the technology requirement is, or even at what the learning perspective from the students perspective should be. But from the survey, we feel that we've really got to focus on the staff capabilities at the same time. And what's reassuring is that staff want this to happen. They want to build on the positive capabilities of technology, and they want to bring as much of their skills, their teaching skills as possible to bear and to be able to enhance the learning experience from the students perspective. I agree, and from a sort of a staff perspective, Kira, what hit you about the findings? I think in our institution, I think we're very lucky with the Learning and Teaching Department that we actually have and all the courses that are actually available to us. And just the support staff that are actually there, I would be proud to be a part of that. I would be possibly old school in my teaching, and it's great that the college are actually willing to give me the opportunity to learn about different techniques and different tools that are actually there. But I wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't actually have the training and the staff there to actually help us. Yeah, that was quite interesting for some of the other data. It was very clear that staff were saying that they would be delighted to adapt technology and they see the reasons why they should do it and they're supported in doing it. Would that be your experience, Leo? Yes, and I think in the past also, we might have assumed that we introduced some new technology, we provide some training for that, and then it just proceeds. Whereas I think the need for ongoing support and to view the adaptation of digital technology in higher education is ongoing, that it's something that is a journey that we have our staff and we need to accompany our staff on that journey continuously. So we're never going to reach a point of adequacy. As a matter of fact, I'd be very worried if staff said we know everything we need to know. I think that idea of attention of saying we really would like to find out what the next piece of capability is there from a digital perspective. I think that's a really healthy sign. It shows the commitment to teaching and it shows the commitment to innovation among the faculty. And Kira, have you used, have you developed your technology skills very much over the last few weeks? Oh, it has improved. And a lot of it is because we had no choice. There was a sink or swim situation. And it's been very interesting and very exciting to see the different tools that are there for me, particularly from a computational perspective, and how students are interacting with that and how they're actually engaging with us. So it is something that I'm looking forward to developing. Certainly when we go back to the, I suppose, traditional setting from my own classroom perspective, I try and keep things as practical as possible. So I'm really looking forward to trying to maybe use some of the technology to try and help students with that, particularly over the next couple of months because that, I think, would be challenging. Oh, fantastic. Look, thank you both very much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I think it's very clear that the INDEC survey is telling us some important things about the kinds of support staff need if we want them to develop their digital skills. The survey also is telling us a lot about how staff and students are involved in digital decision-making and how much they know about how their own data is protected and how much they can access resources for their health and well-being online. And to talk about some of those issues, I've invited Geroadine Hulavoy and Aung Nguye He to join us this morning. Good morning, Geroad. Good morning, Aung Nguye. Thank you for joining me. Delighted to be here. I have some very hard questions for you now because some of the data that we got from the survey was around students, the staff involvement in digital decision-making and in data privacy and their well-being. Hold on one minute and I'll just show you some of the data that came across. So that was quite interesting. So Aung Nguye, maybe if I start with you, what the staff and students were saying about their opportunities to be involved in the decision-making around digital services? What do you make of that? How could we interpret that? I think, I'm very interested in all the perceptions and it was somewhere where the students and the staff seemed to agree to a reasonable extent and I think it affords a wonderful opportunity to bring the whole digital experience into the conversation and the student-staff's partnership space. Terry, you've done fantastic work in that in recent times and I suppose as we have addressed the current issues that have risen since the survey in relation to COVID-19 and our planning there, I think we need to, just because we're not on our campuses, we can actually look at student-staff partnership first and making that remote and running it remotely and then we can certainly, I think, use the student-staff partnership model that's been worked out with, say, following our own experience in Cork and within step now to drive that conversation in relation to, I suppose, each partner's feedback of their experience in terms of digital and to, I suppose, learn from each other. Perception is everything in this conversation. So I feel by the students sharing their experience, the staff sharing their experience, I think each can learn from the other to, I think, enrich the experience and then to look at the decisions that need to be made and taking them to the top table in the higher education institution. I agree, and I agree with you, the importance of staff and student partnership in that. Geroid, have you got any comments or how are you interpreting it from your sort of role? Yeah, thanks, Terri, and thanks, Anja. So I suppose it is kind of the extreme results, really, isn't it, that's going to be the most interesting from a kind of a business intelligence point of view. Anja touched on it there that, you know, the data might relate both to perception and to reality. Of course, one has a habit of turning into the other. I do know in my own institute and elsewhere that, you know, digital services and platforms are typically rolled out or configured on a kind of a pilot basis in consultation with staff and students. Maybe not all students are aware of those kind of processes, but, you know, often the student data, at least their log files or their analytics would be picked up and picked over quite a bit in terms of determining the best way forward or determining if it's worth mainstreaming something or changing something. Often some qualitative research would be done with perhaps a smaller sample, you know, you think of focus groups or user research, so we would have done a lot of usability testing, for example, when we're moving towards a new institute, LMS or VLE. But I suppose, you know, as to say perception is everything, I think it is very important to include staff and students, as Anja has said, very important as well in terms of the rollout of these digital services. Yeah, well, that brings me, that segues nicely now into the next part, so we have all this data from students and you saw from the data there that students, you know, they differed in their views about they knew how their data or their institution protected their data privacy and that there. I mean, I would say, and it's not to push back on the data that, I mean, some of this information has been shared with students, you know, there is a sort of a kind of an implicit contract with students that we have through things like the student regs and, you know, that covers things like the mutual obligations and mutual exchange of obligations and gives us our, you know, duty of care and our disciplinary rights and the students, the rights to appeal and stuff. So it is all kind of bundled up with that. I know a lot of institutes would share privacy notice sometimes as part of the prospectus. So I suppose, you know, the stuff is there, but it is to come back to your question about finding a better way to communicate this and about making it more maybe than even kind of factual knowledge of things, you know, getting people to, as I said, place a different kind of value on data, understand what data kind of means to them and maybe in the bigger scheme touches on things like preparing people, you know, for a digitally enhanced future and preparing people to be digital citizens and understanding the kind of data footprint and data trails they're leaving behind them and where those could end up and what might be done. Okay, Oynir, what do you think from your perspective? Certainly there was a lot of work done in this area as Garot has referenced as we led up to the implementation of the GDPR and I suppose, you know, a lot of that was more focused on compliance, making sure, you know, we were meeting all the requirements that the legislation set down, that the regulations set down, but I think, you know, we can now move into a new phase in terms of the enhancement and I suppose showing the students, as Garot has said, the value of the data in driving decision-making, not just in relation to the digital experience but in relation to the overall provision and equally with staff. And I think it's been very powerful about this survey, by the way, that it's been done with both staff and students. It's fantastic, I think, because certainly it gives me a fantastic platform to go in armed with the findings of the survey and to be able to give people numbers and then get that qualitative data. So in relation to that, that's even a little example of how, you know, data used properly and used properly can enhance life for both the students and the staff alike, but in doing so, we absolutely protect it as well. So I think it's about giving the relative parties the rationale for the need to gather the data and the fact that we just gather what data is necessary to drive the decision-making and we gather it in different formats, quantitative and qualitative and that once we gather it, then we mind it because it's very valued. And I suppose for me as a senior manager, the worry is that if we make a mistake and, you know, that that actually threatens confidence that the relative part, but the respective parties to the process and actually impede progress. So again, there is much to learn there. I actually think that as I said to you, I want to congratulate you on the idea and the forum on this dual-facing survey because it's very rich that basically the staff and students alike have completed the survey and it's a very good starting point for a new conversation in this space. Could I come in for a second and just say, I just think that's such a great point and I should have mentioned it as well. I think there's so many reports on the future of ed tech that kind of begin in the future. If you know what I mean in some kind of far off transhuman sort of future instead of starting with where we are right now. And I think whatever we do with this data, I would be seeing it as a really, whether it relates to perception or reality or what have you, I'd be seeing it as a really, really useful baseline. I'd also be very interested in I suppose the variability of the data. So if we are getting what we regard as being negative results, are there more positive results elsewhere? Could that be the basis for us to surface better practice, let's say in particular areas or a better understanding of how colleagues in other institutes in this country and beyond are doing things. So I think a great springboard for discussion and for educational intervention. Yeah, I'm not sure there's such a thing as bad data. Maybe coming from the data background. I think we have data and it's about saying, well, maybe it isn't what we expected, but it's what's there and it actually gives us an opportunity, as you said, on yet to actually have conversations around it, which is the most important thing. Thank you both very, very much. All of the data is available in the report and the report is now live on our website. But we wouldn't have had a survey and we wouldn't have had a report if we didn't have a very dedicated team driving the survey and spending days and nights putting the report together to make sure we made May 7th, which was we initially promised. And all of that effort was coordinated by our very own Dr. Catherine Tronen from the National Forum. And I'd like to hand over to Catherine. Hello, Catherine. Hi, Terry. Thank you so much. I mean, I appreciate the thanks to me personally, but it was very much a team effort on behalf of the National Forum, but even more. So it was a collaborative national effort, absolutely. So I suppose maybe I could just take a couple of minutes just to thank some of the people who were involved from the start, Terry. Well, first of all, I mean, before I even name anyone in particular, the staff and students, the almost 30,000 people who completed the survey since we launched it, I'd like to thank each and every one of them. And there were very many more, even than 30,000 that completed the survey who worked within their respective institutions to engage students and engage staff and really make sure that the survey was a success. So thanks to every single one of those people. The group that worked with us from the very, very beginning was the Index Steering Group, which was made up of staff and students from each of the participating institutions. And those people worked with us really from the idea stage until today. And we hope to continue to work with them, of course. And there was an institutional lead who was a staff person from each institution, but then there were key student representatives and student partnership was really instrumental in the entire project. So again, we don't see today as an end of that. We see these conversations continuing so we can make the most of the data and the findings. There was another group that was really involved from the start, and that was the Digital Education Advisory Group who also worked with us from the start. And that group has advised us and consulted with us about a lot of what we're doing in the whole digital area in the national forum. So thanks to each of those people as well. Darryl Ryder and his team from ahead consulted with us. And so we were able to do work around inclusivity and assistive technologies which would not have been possible for us on our own. So many thanks to Darryl and to ahead. StudentSurvey.ie consulted with us a number of times just to share with us some of their experience of running a national survey to warn us or lie ahead. So thanks to them. And there were steering groups and representatives also from key international projects like the IUA Digital Teaching and Learning Project and the CUA I-Note Project. So, you know, those are groups that are very much working in this area already and have been involved so far and will really be using the findings in a particular way. And finally, we adapted an existing survey as most people know that was designed by the Digital Experience Insights team at JISC. So we'd very much like to thank that Digital Experience Insights team for their help as we adapted and ran the survey. They were a great support. And Helen Betham, who has done a lot of work with the Digital Experience Insights surveys internationally was also a consultant for us as well. So can I just mention one more person? I don't know if you've mentioned her already and that is Catherine McBride from the National Forum Team. Everyone on the National Forum Team was instrumental in bringing this to fruition but Catherine McBride was the research assistant on this project. And when you talk about working days and nights and lots of hard work, Catherine was terrific and I just want to thank her especially. Thank you very much, Catherine. And I'd just like to echo my thanks to all those who helped to make the index survey a success. When we were at the launch in October, we had a very important person at the event and the person was James O'Farl. And James did a major call to action because James was going to be in college in 2027. We thought was only right that we'd invite James back here today to have the final word at the launch of this report. Hello, James. Good to see you again. Good to see you again as well. I tell you, you did great work at that call to action because nearly 25,000 students and nearly 5,000 staff answered the call and responded to the survey. That's pretty cool, isn't it? Yeah, it is. You didn't think your words were going to have that much power, did you? No. You've been trying out, learning online yourself over the last few weeks. How have you been finding it? It's been very good. What kind of things do you like? Well, I liked the fact that my teacher, Montor Fiona, she can send home video links of things like fun stuff to do and she can send home links to websites for like maths or English or Irish if you don't understand it properly. The one thing I do miss about the virtual learning is that there's no teacher because you can't ask questions via the virtual learning system. So you can't ask questions and what about your classmates? Yeah, I miss them as well. That's good then. Do you think that you'd like to continue learning like this all the time? If there was a teacher, if we could find some way to have a teacher with you in the virtual world, then yes. Oh, OK, that's praise indeed for the virtual environment. But what's going to happen now is all of the senior managers and all of the teachers in higher education are going to be looking at all the data that we've collected from this survey and they're going to be deciding what to do next to get their institutions ready for you and your classmates when you come in 2027. Have you got any advice for them? What would you tell them to be thinking about? So there should be a course where people can do like what sort of what they're comfortable with and what they want to do. And have you anything else to say to everybody that's listening? We've over 200 people listening in here. This morning, if you any other advice to give them, James? I say that with the information you've gotten, you should because now you know, like what everyone is good at in the technology and how different people have a different understanding of the technology. So the colleges should try and find a way of teaching them. So if someone was good at writing a report, but they weren't good at sending email, the colleges should try and find a way to teach them using language and ways they understand to teach them how to do the things that they're not the best at on the internet. That's good advice indeed, James. And thank you very much for joining us again. We look forward to having you and Irish in our one of our colleges in 2027. I look forward to it as well. James, many, many thanks for joining us again today. We're coming to the end of the launch, but it's only really the beginning. It's the beginning of us using the evidence base that we've gathered to inform the decisions that remain in every single higher education institution in the country. We'll go back as the National Forum and we'll interrogate the data further and we'll get more insights to help our decision-making. Before I close, I'd like to thank the minister, Mary Mitchell O'Connor for joining us today, Alan Wall, my chair, Lynn Ramsey, and all those who joined me on the couch. The report is available. It's on our website, www.teachingandlearning.ie. And I look forward to working with you on the report and on the data set over the coming months. Thank you all for joining us here today. Bye-bye for now.