Digital Universities task force: upskilling the MENA region through online learning

The global job market is changing fast, with employers increasingly demanding skills that transcend traditional boundaries of academic disciplines. These valued characteristics span from interpersonal skills once labelled “soft” skills to more technical know-how in the form of digital literacy. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is no exception, so how should higher education providers in the region respond?

We brought together four experts to share their expertise and seek solutions on how best to use online learning as part of higher education’s toolkit to upskill the region in line with new and evolving job requirements.

Hoda Mostafa, director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo; John Schwartz, head of business development at edX; Sabrina Joseph, provost and chief academic officer at the American University of Dubai; and Ahmed Al Shoaibi, senior vice-president of academic and student services at Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa University of Science and Technology all fed into a rich discussion on this topic. Here is a summary of what we learned.

What advantages can online learning offer over traditional face-to-face classes when it comes to building transferrable skills?

A flexible hybrid approach: Online learning is best used in combination with in-person learning. This hybrid space is where the opportunity lies for educators across the MENA region. Online modules, course elements or learning materials complement existing university programmes. Such add-ons enhance versatility, freeing learning from traditional educational spaces.

Personalised learning: Online tools enable students to build their own learning pathways, personalising learning for students with varied prior knowledge, learning preferences and paces.

Pedagogical benefits: Digital tools such as breakout rooms and forums make collaborative learning and group work easier than in a physical classroom. The poor results of “lecturing” online have forced a rethink of teaching towards more student-centred pedagogies.

Challenges: There are accreditation restrictions and negative perceptions that pose barriers to remote instruction. The pandemic exposed the risk of “screen exhaustion” and disengagement among students studying fully remotely, so extracurricular and social elements of higher education should not be overlooked. This is where a balance of in-person and online learning is helpful.

“Online and in-person are not two discreet options but a continuum, and the opportunity lies in a mix of the two where you can get the best of both,” said Dr Al Shoaibi.

“The world is now hybrid; any university or college that doesn’t embrace that hybrid model, understanding the benefits for the learners and institution themselves, could be left behind,” said Mr Schwartz. “The fact you can go into a catalogue of online content and shape it around the needs of the learner and meet the learner where they are is a huge advantage.

“It is not one or the other – being able to pick and choose a set of courses to give to someone to develop the well-rounded skills they will need in this new world is critically important. You can take engineering and the next day you can take empathy and DEI training and really round out the learning experience.”

How can online tools facilitate more authentic skills-focused assessments?

Innovative assessment design: Online teaching has moved assessment away from the written essay model towards more creative, varied ways for students to apply and demonstrate knowledge and skills. These assessments should be clearly linked to the desired learning outcomes. This can take many forms – formative, summative, collaborative, project-based – all of which can be supported by online platforms.

Start with the pedagogy: With so many online tools available, it is best to start with the pedagogy, decide how you want to teach and assess a particular learning outcome, then seek the digital solutions to support this. Often the best tool is the most simple, for example, an online meeting platform where a class can come together and share work. Educators should resist the temptation to use overcomplicated, flashy tech.

Using clear rubrics: Alternative assessment design should be supported by clear rubrics for faculty and students. This, in turn, enables students to better understand the assessment process, what is expected of them and to engage in peer marking, review and feedback. These rubrics should be aligned to skills, knowledge and attitudinal outcomes – such as teamwork, communication, empathy or self-learning – that are likely to prove valuable in the future workplace.

Broader student engagement: Online communication fosters better engagement and participation among students who are typically quiet when present in the physical classroom – this avoids class discussion being dominated by a few vocal characters.

Dr Joseph explained how forum-based learning, for example, can help improve student outcomes: “Through a forum-based learning approach, teachers were able to get students to motivate one another by posing particular questions in the forum, by having students respond with ideas for projects they were going to work on or selecting paper topics. Other students then got involved. This tied back to rubrics they had created to promote participation and engagement.”

Tackling plagiarism: When you assign a project, essay or paper, it should be broken up into stackable parts rather than being tackled as a single project. Faculty should consider how best to subdivide projects, so they are completed throughout a semester with smaller rubrics linked to different components. This helps reduce academic integrity issues.

Harnessing online assessment data: Online assessment provides valuable information for both educators and students. For teachers, it highlights which areas of a course were not as successful so they can go back and revise that material or teaching, while students can access detailed feedback to identify their strengths and where they need to focus efforts.

Taking the example of EdX, Mr Schwartz explained how the online course provider can track the “keystrokes” of its circa 50 million learners taking 130 million courses, then collate and analyse that data to see where engagement drops off or where they might need to add a video or a quiz to keep people on track.

“We can look at courses on an ongoing basis and track and re-evaluate what is proving effective and what needs refinement,” he said.

How can employability and skills building best be incorporated across an online curriculum?

Embedding employability skills: A university’s employability framework and graduate attributes should be mapped throughout the educational journey. Employability skills – both technical and interpersonal – should be embedded into core programmes but also supported by supplementary professional development courses.

Dr Al Shoaibi said universities now had a role to instil soft skills and values as part of their teaching: “Interpersonal skills are no longer something extra which we can assume students will learn at home, and ethics, professional ethics, for example. Universities have a role to teach and instil these values since these young people are going to be the decision-makers of tomorrow.”

Business partners can provide real-world case studies, expert lectures, work placements and experience or help set up project-based learning exercises. Challenge-based learning, for example, involves students working on solving a particular problem for a challenge partner that might be an NGO, business or external organisation.

Unpacking the challenge and working on it together is key to implicitly building all the future skills that are so in demand, explained Dr Mostafa, such as empathy, communication, digital literacy, critical analysis and research skills.

“Taking wicked, complex, paradoxical problems and tackling them is what we want our students to be able to do when they go into the workplace,” she said.

Using data to shape courses: Institutions can use a wealth of online data to make informed decisions about curricula and courses they develop based on the most in-demand skills and job vacancies.

“We are marrying two worlds of employability and learners. We spend a lot of resources aggregating every job posting and every open résumé globally to figure out where the most in-demand job skills lie,” said Mr Schwartz.

Taking the example of cybersecurity, which is one of the most advertised job roles globally, he said: “We go to universities and say: ‘We need more courses in cybersecurity’ and can dial into specific disciplines within this to make sure we provide skills-based competencies that are usable in the real world. It’s really becoming a well-oiled system for matching competencies and capabilities to employers.”

Is there a role for employers in shaping online curricula?

Linking students with employers: The growth of online education has facilitated a more formalised system linking employers with learners who are taking courses.

“This is where the largest opportunity exists,” said Mr Schwartz. “We are taking a leadership role in the formulation of how we can make a direct match between courses and employers. Tech companies can look at who has taken, for instance, a Java programming course and, where learners wish to, they might pay for them to take two more courses and then interview them for a role.”

While online specialists such as EdX are leading the sector in this area, more traditional institutions are also moving in this direction.

University-industry partnerships: Universities are under pressure to build closer partnerships with employers. A growing number of students ask about industry partners when assessing courses, according to Dr Joseph. Employers are more actively seeking out these partnerships and approaching institutions to design microcredentials or modules to build certain skillsets.

But she urged caution when selecting which businesses to work with. “At institutional level, you have to be very strategic when you engage with industry, so we have tried to make sure all the engagement we’re involved with maps to our strategic plan, has measurable KPIs [key performance indicators], a champion who is responsible for overseeing the work and ensuring it is linked to the curriculum, projects and research that faculty are engaged in,” she said.

For Dr Mostafa, such partnerships must start with a conversation to find out what the employer is looking for in their graduates. This can then lead to specific partnerships linked to certain courses. Universities can also direct their students to supplementary online courses such as Moocs (massive open online courses), microcredentials and elective modules, which will train them in the relevant skills.

“Students are already doing this intuitively,” said Dr Mostafa, pointing to a clear need for universities to start proactively building such professional development into their courses.

Dr Al Shoaibi added that students at Khalifa were hungry for courses clearly matched to industry demands. “A prestigious employer in the UAE mentioned that they were looking for graduates who were skilled at Python. They did a virtual presentation to our students. The next time we offered Python as an elective, the course was full within an hour,” he said.

“It’s really powerful when information is available and we bring employers, the students and academia together.”

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