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Harry Day��Matteo Di Benedetti

Institutional Inertia & Digital Revolution

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Objective

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  • Identify actions we can take (as institutions) to improve our responsiveness to rapidly evolving digital technologies.

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HE Role in Society

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  • Current HE ensures Engineering graduates are ready to….

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HE Role in Society

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  • Current HE ensures Engineering graduates are ready to….
    • Work with current state of the art tech
    • Engineer something, deliver a product
    • Depth not breadth?
    • Holistic/societal systems thinking?

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HE Role in Society

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  • Current HE ensures Engineering graduates are ready to….
    • Work with current state of the art tech
    • Engineer something, deliver a product
    • Depth not breadth?
    • Holistic/societal systems thinking?

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  • Established practice may no longer be effective, relevant, competitive, or aiding societal good.

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HE Role in Society

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  • Current HE ensures Engineering graduates are ready to….
    • Work with current state of the art tech
    • Engineer something, deliver a product
    • Depth not breadth?
    • Holistic/societal systems thinking?

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  • Established practice may no longer be effective, relevant, competitive, or aiding societal good.

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Reactive enough?

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HE Role in Society

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  • Current HE ensures Engineering graduates are ready to….
    • Work with current state of the art tech
    • Engineer something, deliver a product
    • Depth not breadth?
    • Holistic/societal systems thinking?

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  • Established practice may no longer be effective, relevant, competitive, or aiding societal good.
    • Climate change?

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HE Role in Society

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  • Current HE ensures Engineering graduates are ready to….
    • Work with current state of the art tech
    • Engineer something, deliver a product
    • Depth not breadth?
    • Holistic/societal systems thinking?

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  • Established practice may no longer be effective, relevant, competitive, or aiding societal good.
    • Climate change?
    • Digital revolution & AI?

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HE Role in Society

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  • Current HE ensures Engineering graduates are ready to….
    • Work with current state of the art tech
    • Engineer something, deliver a product
    • Depth not breadth?
    • Holistic/societal systems thinking?

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  • Established practice may no longer be effective, relevant, competitive, or aiding societal good.
    • Climate change?
    • Digital revolution & AI?

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Two Provocations

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“HE is not agile enough to accommodate digital revolution.”

“AI can replace most parts of an academic’s role.”

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Discussion Questions

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1a) What is Agile in the HE context?

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1b) How much does institutional inertia conflict with an Agile approach?

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1c) Actions?

2a) Risks/opportunities of AI in HE?

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2b) How much should we embrace or resist academics being replaced by AI, individualised learning systems and analytics?

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2c) Actions?

“HE is not agile enough to accommodate digital revolution.”

“AI can replace most parts of an academic’s role.”

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Discussion Questions

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“HE is not agile enough to accommodate digital revolution.”

“AI can replace most parts of an academic’s role.”

1a) What is Agile in the HE context?

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1b) How much does institutional inertia conflict with an Agile approach?

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1c) Actions?

2a) Risks/opportunities of AI in HE?

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2b) How much should we embrace or resist academics being replaced by AI, individualised learning systems and analytics?

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2c) Actions?

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Agile Approach

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What is Agile? (recap)

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  • Reflecting and rapidly respond to change (rather than follow a plan)
  • Success is a useful working product (rather than arbitrary documentation)
  • Collaborate (rather than negotiate)
  • Valuing people (rather than processes)

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Agile Approach

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What is Agile? (recap)

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  • Reflecting and rapidly respond to change (rather than follow a plan)
  • Success is a useful working product (rather than arbitrary documentation)
  • Collaborate (rather than negotiate)
  • Valuing people (rather than processes)

…additional prompts on your table

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Odd# Tables

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1) How much does institutional inertia conflict with an Agile approach?

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Discuss as you see fit, but here is some food for thought:

  • Perhaps we are agile enough already? If not, how can we be more agile?
  • To what extent should we give up established (perhaps rigorous yet slow) systems to allow agility?
  • Do institutions need to be more agile in a world of rapidly accelerating advances?
  • Can we teach Graduates to be Agile while remaining non-agile as institutions?

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Even# Tables

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2) How much should we embrace or resist academics being replaced by AI, individualised learning systems and analytics?

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Discuss as you see fit, but here is some food for thought:

  • Is it too early to decide?
  • How can we prepare for future unseen changes, and advances?
  • Are there elements of academic roles which cannot be replaced? Or elements that shouldn’t be replaced?
  • Is a revolution in HE inevitabile?...or will it be gradual and readily manageable?

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Activity

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Outputs

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On your group’s paper/jambord

  • Record your key discussion points
  • Key actions/recommendations

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Get ready to share a 30 second summary

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Outputs

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On your group’s paper/jambord

  • Record your key discussion points
  • Key actions/recommendations

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Get ready to share a 30 second summary

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Discuss & Answer

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“HE is not agile enough to accommodate digital revolution.”

“AI can replace most parts of an academics role.”

15 mins (Paper/Jamboard)

1a) What is Agile in the HE context?

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1b) How much does institutional inertia conflict with an Agile approach?

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1c) Actions?

2a) Risks/opportunities of AI in HE?

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2b) How much should we embrace or resist academics being replaced by AI, individualised learning systems and analytics?

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2c) Actions?

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Ideas Swap

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30 Second Summaries

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Odd# Tables

  • How much does institutional inertia conflict with an Agile approach?
  • Actions?

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Even# Tables

  • How much should we embrace or resist academics being replaced by AI, individualised learning systems and analytics?
  • Actions?

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Follow-up Discussion

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Room Discussion

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With the remaining time we have

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Closing

remarks

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/engineering/cee

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Digital/AI Prompts

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Consider the following

  • Big Data & Analytics
  • AI & Machine learning
  • Physical, Cognitive, & Emotional Labour
  • Cognitive technologies (autonomous decision making)
  • IoT
  • Hyperconnectedness (communication networks)
  • Cyber-physical systems
  • AR, VR & Digital Twins

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Agile Prompts

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Consider the following

  • Flexible, fast, and continuous improvement (effective)
  • Working in small phases rather than one big project
  • Each phase guided by customer feedback
  • Embraces changing requirements to ensure product is useful
  • Constant comms. between developers and stakeholders
  • Success metric is value to the customer (‘working software’ rather than documentation)
  • Sustainable pace for staff
  • Work Smart not Hard (essentials only, minimize unnecessary work)
  • Self-organising teams - more ownership (less management)
  • Routine reflection and adjustment