WHAT WE’VE DECIDED

• Our focus should be on the impact of the newest technologies, those that support collaboration, participation and interaction. Essentially, these are Web 2.0 - the Social Web – technologies, broadly defined as technologies that support group communications (paraphrased from Shirkey C, 2003).
• It should also be on the constant issues for higher education (excellence, relevance, quality, development, challenge …) rather than on actual and potential innovations in hard and software.
• At the same time, we should look at the future from the perspective of gaining a purchase on the more probable scenarios with a focus on technological developments.
• The experience and expectation of young learners should be the baseline for the Inquiry, this group being the yardstick for the future.
• We should draw as far as possible on existing sources of information both to avoid duplication and to remain within our timescale of nine to twelve months to report.

• The learner population is extremely diverse (stats on profile, including modes of attendance, from Brown N and Ramsden B for UUK, March 2008).
• The direction of the key demographics (Brown N and Ramsden B for UUK, March 2008).
• The development of workforce skills, including skills to continue learning, in order to achieve higher and sustainable economic growth is at the top of the agenda of the UK and devolved governments.
• The generally accepted statement of the purpose of higher education: We believe that the aim of higher education should be to sustain a learning society. The four main purposes which make up this aim are:
• to inspire and enable individuals to develop their capabilities to the highest potential levels throughout life, so that they grow intellectually, are well equipped for work, can contribute effectively to society and achieve personal fulfilment;
• to increase knowledge and understanding for their own sake and to foster their application to the benefit of the economy and society;
• to serve the needs of an adaptable, sustainable, knowledge-based economy at local, regional and national levels;
• to play a major role in shaping a democratic, civilised, inclusive society. (NCIHE (Dearing) 1997)
• Responsibility and authority in the matter of the contents of particular courses and the manner in which they are taught, supervised or assessed is one dimension of the fundamental principle of academic freedom under which universities operate (HE Act 2004).

• On related programmes: there are several in the UK, each sponsored by different bodies and agencies (JISC, HEA, Becta etc), supporting a wide range of projects and studies bearing on the use of technology in education, but seemingly only very recently beginning to pay attention to the behavioural and sociological consequences of the web technology that’s now an integral part of everyday life.
• On digital technology: that it is pervasive (Ofcom stats on internet penetration and access, including broadband access).
• On the ‘digital divide’: that it has not been entirely overcome and persists in several dimensions: in access to technology and also in capability, both between learners and between learners and teachers/lecturers.
• On learner experience:
• That young people have grown up with digital technology; it’s so familiar to them that their grasp of it is referred to as ‘intuitive’. Their capability, however, tends to the broad rather than deep.
• Older age groups are catching up fast, with an arguably deeper capability across a range that is, for the time being, narrower.
• Degrees of engagement are variable, but all people - including sceptical and/or reluctant educationists - can be drawn in with an appropriate hook, usually a personal interest.
• Constants in young people’s use are games, communication, looking up information. E-mail and instant messaging is almost ubiquitous at age 16, and a very high percentage at that age will have at least one social networking account. Most are, however, consumers rather than producers of content.
• On entry to university, nine out of ten students will be regular users of a social networking site.
• The internet provides learners with access to an unparalleled range of sources of information.
• On learner behaviour
• Young people’s approaches to technology tend to the unsystematic and unreflective - trial and error.
They’re also uncritical. They need support in search and evaluation of information in particular, and also with understanding and managing other aspects of the internet, e.g. persistence of data.
• They have a general capacity to marshal information from a range of different sources and to carry out processes in a parallel rather than a linear fashion.
• On learner attitude
• Young people’s disposition – in synergy with the technology – is to share. They have an extremely strong sense of communal identity and also of web spaces e.g. personal, group and public, and of who and what properly belongs where.
• Learners on course are primarily concerned to achieve their qualification; the means by which they do so is less important than that end.
• On learner expectation
• Young people approaching university are unsure what to expect but, at a basic level expect universal internet access; to be able to use their own equipment with university systems; a level of technical support for admin systems; all members of the university to have a web presence; and online back up for course material.
• Young people currently have little sense of how technology might be used to support learning - as opposed to their social lives - and in consequence are undemanding on that front.
• There is an argument that shifts apparent in educational practice in schools will feed through into a more sophisticated level of expectation of technology deployment in learning in higher education.
• Where technology is used in higher education, young people expect it to be used appropriately - where it adds value – and, equally importantly, competently.
• They also expect - and place a high value on - interaction with staff, acting not necessarily as absolute authorities, but as mediators and facilitators of debate.
• On drivers to use of technology by universities
  These are cited, variously, as:
• Digitisation of learning materials.
• A receptive audience.
• Accommodating an increasingly diverse learner population.
• Supporting a particular view of pedagogy, e.g. learner centred, community based, process driven and focused on learners’ interests.
• A richer educational experience, i.e. pedagogy supporting a higher quality learning experience?
• On the future
• The workplace will [continue to] need a skill set that encompasses constructive thinking, complex problem solving, communication, teamwork, networking etc.
• Appropriate pedagogy will be the key consideration and not technological developments per se.
• Acknowledging the significance of process as much as, if not more than, content to pedagogy is critical.
• Higher education will be a commodity that’s traded globally. Excellence is the best guarantee of survival in that market place.