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This was the first edition of Startup in Residence EdTech
From more and high-quality responses to course evaluations to monitoring students’ academic writing skills. Since October 2022, startups and higher
16 March 2023
The final year of the Acceleration Plan has begun. In January, the zones and working groups presented their plan of action for 2022 to the steering group. The steering group was positively surprised by the ambition in the plans for this final year. In addition, everyone was pleased to see the results achieved over the past three years. A lot has already been achieved and developed!
You can find a short summary of the plans here. Do you have questions about any of the plans? Please contact the teamleader of the relevant zone or working group. You can find their contact information here.
“Institutions are focused on and connected with society”. The cooperation between businesses, education, and research in the field of digitalisation are central to the projects of the Human Capital zone this year. The focus is on creating awareness of the importance of digital skills in higher education. The zone does this by cooperating with advisory bodies and companies, but also by ensuring students graduate with digital competencies and are future-proof. The zone promotes a hybrid learning environment in which educational institutions and the labour market work closely together.Â
“Building on trust and connectedness, and focusing on structural impact.” Â That is the motto of the Secure and reliable use of education data zone. The focus this year is on completing, transferring, and securing the results that have been achieved the past three years. A lasting national impact, is also high on the agenda. The zone will cooperate closely with other zones in the Acceleration Plan. The projects the zone will complete this year are: expansion of the website doemeermetstudiedata.nl with an interactive dashboard, a manual with practical examples that will help institutions along, and the launch of the national Privacy and Ethics Reference Framework with the accompanying Dilemma Game.
The focus of the zone this year will be on the dissemination and application of the knowledge and experience gained, and the associated products developed. The zone will focus on four themes: sharing good examples, guiding institutions in the effective application of the various tools, broad use of the digital motion sensor, and collecting and sharing experiences across the sector. At the end of this year, the zone will launch a national knowledge exchange in the area of professional development of lecturers. The zone’s plans fit in well with the Transition Agenda the Acceleration Plan published late last year. The objective of the zone remains unchanged: to enable all instructors in higher education to use IT in their teaching and thereby improve education.Â
The zone will continue along the chosen path is in 2022. Putting evidence-informed education with IT on the map and making it commonplace within the institutions, is one of the zone’s main priorities. The focus of the three working groups will be: developing a digital library filled with good examples and tools, encouraging knowledge-sharing within the institutions, and developing pilot projects, including an e-module and toolkit. As in previous years, the cooperation with a number of other zones will continue.Â
At the start of the Acceleration Plan, the Flexible Education Zone formulated four student routes. These routes give direction to further make higher education more flexible at both a institutional and a national level. In 2022, the focus of the zone will be on information exchange, maintaining the networks that have been built, completing publications, and disseminating results. The zone will continue and expand the current projects, including the Microcredentials pilot and the Student Mobility pilot.Â
This year, the Naar digitale (Open) leermaterialen [Towards Digital Open Educational Resources] zone will focus on achieving the previously set objective: making the best possible use of the possibilities offered by digital learning resources in higher education. This year’s priorities include further development of the edusources platform, encouraging publishers to make their digital learning materials available, organising workshops for instructors, and developing a toolkit. These objectives tie in well with the transition agenda. The signing and publication of the Koersteam’s National Approach to Digital and Open Learning Resources statement is an important first step towards achieving the ultimate goal.
Following the start of the working group in 2020, three smaller working groups have been organised for the final year of the Acceleration Plan. The focus will be on professionalisation of digital education, underpinning digital education, and collaboration of lecturers from different disciplines. To this end, the working group is developing various tools for lecturers to evaluate and continue to develop, including a Living Lab. They are also starting up a community to increase involvement and visibility by means of webinars, meetings and a forum. At the end of this year, a basis will have been created to help institutions further shape their digital skills education.
After its start, the working group Remote digital assessment focused on the question ‘How to organise testing where supervision is required in the home situation?’ In the meantime, the COVID-19 measures have had less effect on the testing process and the working group has adjusted its course. What are the alternatives to existing forms of testing? Is there sufficient attention for formative evaluation, assessment, portfolios and assignments? Do the institutions have sufficient capacity to administer digital tests? And how will the institutions prepare themselves for the future? In the coming year, the working group will focus on these issues. The working group is developing various aids, such as a learning module. But also an online application to analyse and improve test quality. In addition, the working group is further expanding the Assessment selection tool. Furthermore, the focus this year is on knowledge sharing between institutions and teachers.
Creating space within institutions for educational innovation with Educational Technology (EdTech), is the goal of the EdTech working group. It aims to remove obstacles by setting up practical projects and providing tools for higher education institutions, thus contributing to a stronger innovation culture. The focus of the working group is on developing a strong EdTech community and products to further strengthen existing innovation processes in institutions, starting the Startup in Residence pilot and improving cooperation between EdTech providers and institutions. In doing so, the working group will make an important contribution to the objectives of the transition agenda.Â
Photo by Isabela Kronemberger on Unsplash
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