 We'll move now to Mark Brown and the particular question he's been asked to respond to is developing a shared vision and goals for digital learning nationally. Is this a realistic aspiration and or how might it be approached? Mark. Well thank you Jim and I too was feeling rather intimidated in front of this audience and those online before Larry got up but now I'm feeling even more intimidated because I have no prompts, no tea tree oil, no batteries, I can see next time I may only have to come more prepared. I'd like to just start by thanking you for the opportunity, particularly thanking the National Forum for the opportunity to contribute to today's panel discussion because I really think that this type of event is precisely the type of initiative that's required to help build a stronger sense of vision for digital learning in Irish higher education. While I have a bit more background to the report and Jim thankfully you didn't entirely steal my thunder it's useful I think to anchor this discussion in some of the key observations or just a single key observation from the strategic and leadership perspectives report that Jim produced. Based on the compact analysis or the analysis of the compact agreements the report in particular concludes quote the overall pattern is something of a patchwork that does not present a picture of higher education of a higher education sector with a shared understanding or cohesive vision for capacity, digital capacity I guess. One subtle point, an important one nonetheless is digital capacity or in this context capacity is not the same as digital learning and I think we need to kind of just uncouple that a little bit and get our heads around it. Nonetheless the report also makes the point that there is confusion and Jim referred to this around terminology. Developing a shared vision is always going to be somewhat problematic when there is no agreed definition or understanding and policy but more importantly even in practice of what would mean by digital, flexible, blended, e-learning so on and so forth. So I think although the terms are always multifaceted and sometimes there's a tendency to be far too simplistic in our thinking there's certainly not single entities when we're referring to digital learning. It's something that we do need to address if only because of the pressure to be more accurate in the reporting and our monitoring and measuring of progress. So my first key point really follows on and I've got three points probably I really want to make. The first key point follows on from what I've just said as I think the extent that we place a focus on digital learning as opposed to teaching and learning per say still needs to be open for some debate and in some respects we've kind of already talked about this in talking about how the digital, the technology enhanced learning note how we've already used different language is subservient to the goals that we're trying to achieve for teaching and learning. They serve those goals. So I guess is digital learning the end game or merely a key vehicle in achieving a much bigger vision? I think as I said we should leave it open for debate, give our self the option rather than just singling out the benefits of a specific digital focus to allow us to look at the opportunities and potentially the advantages of longer term focusing on teaching and learning per say may actually outweigh the disadvantages or potentially the advantages of the digital focus that we currently have. A short term focus for a longer term goal. Would we benefit then from shifting the current focus away from the language of digital learning in the near future and the foreseeable future to an emphasis on a developing a vision for our preferred learning futures? And I quite like this notion of learning futures or probably my preference is actually education futures to locate our vision building process in the futures that we have available to us. So many respects the guiding question that I was given you've got before you could be rephrased how do we develop a shared vision and goals for the future of teaching and learning nationally. Hope that's not too kind of trivial. In many respects and doing a little bit of investigation and homework for this panel you could argue that a future focus vision for higher education in Ireland which subsumes learning and teaching actually already exists. The National Strategy for Higher Education, the HUNT Report states, I'll just remind you, quote, in the decades ahead higher education will play a central role in making Ireland a country recognised by innovation, competitive enterprise and continuing academic excellence and an attractive place to live and work with cultural vibrancy and inclusive social structures. In my view that kind of statement really meets the criteria or the definition of a vision as it sets out our aspirations for the future. In many respects it offers a sense of where we want to go in the future with or without digital learning and with a moral purpose which is an important trait of visions, good visions. Any vision for digital learning or as I used before the term education futures and the related goals would I think benefit from being really tightly philosophically grounded within and aligned with the type of vision I've just already stated that exists for us. I think it's quite a good beacon. Of course Jim alluded to this under such a vision one of the goals that we would set would be to develop a more inclusive funding model that increases flexible access to higher education for all, which digital learning now makes possible and observed by the report on the modernisation of European universities, one of the key points that report makes. At the same time this point really highlights that vision with our adequate funding is always going to be problematic, there's no point having visions, aspirations that don't match the kind of environment that we're in. My second key point is really I think that the current discourse around vision needs to shift from the reactive language of education in change and there I say even the language of the need for a step change to more proactive debate, to more proactive discussion about higher education for change. Adopting a wider perspective that I'm advocating anchored in the language of societal inclusion and the change is actually that we're seeking to achieve and I've cited just one example but I've happened to think it's a good example from the Hunt report and the changes that we're trying to achieve may help to overcome the problem that in many respects history teaches us that visions can be blinding, often are framed overly narrowly and potentially hide competing change forces. Similar people use the language of the visions for different ends. And history is actually littered with over the ages people who have been quite dangerous and morally corrupt visions which naively many of us have followed. I won't name individuals but Europe has a long history in actual fact of this. I think it's important to acknowledge that the digital roadmap phase one rightly acknowledges that digital learning is not benign. Some of the visions for the future present being presented to us by others, not necessarily by educators within the sector are infused with the language of globalization, neoliberal policies and the increase in commercialization of higher education. These are all things that we have to confront, maybe reasons why we need a vision. This point recognizes the debate in the educational change literature about the role that visions play or not in successfully implementing complex change. I'm sure many of you are familiar with some of the conventional change models advocated by people like Cotter who promote vision building as one of the first steps in bringing about large-scale complex organizational change. In contrast, I'm sure there are many of you also familiar with the work of people like Michael Fulham who argues that vision and strategic planning come later. It is what you end with rather than what you start with. Put simply, you cannot mandate, you cannot mandate what matters. Or to quote Professor Jeff Scott from Australia, and I'd advocate that you look at some of his work, change is learning and learning is change. Change is complex, change is process and change is a journey, not a blueprint. So any efforts to develop a shared vision for digital learning or our education futures need to be mindful of the importance of the journey. And this is part of that journey. My third key point is really that there's an important difference to be made here between macro level visions and defining an institutional level mission. I don't want to argue too much about what a word means, and a word will mean what it means to you. But for me, vision is a process of identifying what matters most to people. Making our choices explicit and stating our preferred futures. Vision is, so mission as opposed to what I've described for vision is about actually how we get there. And so in a complex and diverse sector, each third level institution is likely to have quite a different mission. I don't find this at all surprising in terms of Jim's analysis of the agreements, the compact agreements. After all, your mission is inextricably going to be linked to your institutional culture and the goals that you set for serving your respective communities. In fact, the digital roadmap phase one noted that very point, quote, each institution must define its own path in this new and complex context. Unquote. So there is no single path. At the same time, that's not a cop out to say that there is no way in which we can provide pathways. How you define and implement your mission within our overarching vision is really important. And I'm sure there are many of you in the room that have much more experience than I have at institutional level in doing this. But the mission needs to bring people with you. It also needs to value resistance as a real source of insight. And the truth is, in the case of digital learning, we haven't got all the people with us. There's lots of resistance, resistance because of academic workload, resistance because of lack of funding and resources and so on. These are all issues that we should turn as a strength to help vision and imagining and in building rather than see as barriers. We also need to recognise the creative tension that exists between bottom-up and top-down approaches. Or even the middle-out, if you want to find some middle ground. Neither centralisation nor decentralisation works. We know this from the literature as individual learning and organisational learning at whatever level are inextricably linked. So from this type of perspective about change, complex change in large organisations and in large systems, every person is a change agent. It follows that we must not underestimate the importance of building, articulating and influencing personal visions because ultimately, people make change happen. In conclusion, Jim, you talked about adopting the metaphor in an atlas rather than a roadmap, and I find that quite interesting. In many respects, just kind of borrowing the metaphor and in danger of extending it beyond the point of having any substance, I do see the challenges facing us more akin to staring a pathway through uncharted frontiers where there is no complete roadmap, no real well-developed atlas of the digital cosmos. What we really need is more a compass, a set of optical tools and the right kind of new vehicles to help us see and explore current practices and future possibilities. Getting lost along the way may actually be a valuable part of the journey which contributes to new knowledge. Evidence may actually come out of that journey. So with this point in mind, I think envisaging our education futures will always be a work in progress as the future remains on the horizon. And this is a very important thing I think that the policy landscape needs to recognise this is never going to be done. It is a conversation that continues. Lastly, I was asked to offer something concrete, mindful that I wanted to throw some ideas out there and it'd be interesting to get some reflection at some point. But I want to give you three concrete things that perhaps academics are not always good at doing that would help build a more future-focused, digitally-enabled higher education sector. That has a sense of vision. The suggestions built on my metaphor of a digital compass is the initiatives we undertake are not framed to manage digital innovations but rather help steer pathways and promote conversations towards more digitally creative and innovative institutions, teachers and learners. So very briefly, the first initiative that I think would have some value is developing a set of national guidelines for digital learning. We may want to argue about language, but the point of this is as an inclusive process to engage in a common language, not to provide a robust and constraining framework, especially where there's such a framework already exists with quality assurance standards, but a common language for discussion and decision-making and enabling process. So in many respects, the process is more important in the outcome and in fact the guidelines would need to be completely revised on a regular basis. Secondly, to develop a national benchmarking toolkit for digital learning. We need to understand from a systems approach that some of the whole is greater than the individual parts. There are a number of existing toolkits already available, but we shouldn't borrow from other cultures in context. We need something unique for the Irish sector with a very strong focus as distinct to quality assurance on quality enhancement. And then lastly, probably more, something that I'm passionate about in light of vision, and I really am passionate about vision in our education futures, is the importance of developing toolkits for different education scenarios, a planning toolkit for education scenarios. A tool for planning for uncertain times, uncertain futures, to help articulate the options available to us and to help mature our thinking about what might be our preferred futures. There are opportunities for all of those things, but at the same time, resourcing also has to be matched with reality. Thank you.