Supporting digital teaching and learning with media: Policy Recommendations Report for European Higher Education

This document reports on an investigation carried out by the TransACTION! project partners into the operational practices and concerns of educational media producers and integrators in higher education institutions (HEIs). It brings together what we have learned and assimilates it into a set of recommendations aimed at both those working in the sector as well as those policy and decision-makers responsible for such services within higher education institutes (HEIs). It has been produced and disseminated in the final 6 months of the project lifetime.

This report is written against the backdrop of considerable change in the European higher education sector. Such change is driven by several factors. These include the drive towards a greater take-up and use of digital technologies, including advances in audiovisual services. At the same time, many higher education institutions are facing considerable challenges in terms of diminishing resources, which is often having a negative impact on the operation of those services responsible for promoting and integrating multimedia into the learning offer.

The four partners who have contributed to the report are all support providers in their respective universities in Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium, and while they have much in common, they are all structured and operate in different ways. However, taken together, we are confident that they provide a good representative sample of many such centres and therefore the contexts they describe and the challenges they face are common to many centres, which includes centres for teaching and learning, audiovisual centres, learning innovation centres, course design and development services, etc.

Much of our report is taken up with a description of how these centres operate and the aspects of good practice that they portray. They share a common belief in the importance of good communication and the promotion of a co-creative process with academic teaching staff. They offer a significant number of different formats while always espousing the importance of ensuring the pedagogical value over any other factor in their choice of technology or technique.

The main takeaway from our report is a set of recommendations emerging from this investigative process. These recommendations are aimed at those responsible for the operation of such centres as well as policy- and decision-makers who play a role in the overall operation of such centres within their respective HEIs.

When it comes to the structure and operation of units responsible for educational media production and integration, we recommend direct contact with academic teaching staff as much as possible, the promotion of an agile approach to production, as well as fostering a spirit of interdisciplinarity whenever possible. We also recommend the avoidance of too much change in the direction, structure, and objectives of centres, along with good planning, adequate resources, and representation of senior staff in relevant institutional decision-making structures.

In terms of design approach and format options, we recommend an expansion in support to DIY, adoption of a co-creation approach where possible, a critical but open approach to AI developments, and a more structured approach to the involvement of students.

Finally, to maximise the impact and value of educational media production, we recommend that new teaching staff should be encouraged to include more multimedia given the demands of students nowadays. Furthermore, centres should be far more engaged in carrying out research into the pedagogical effectiveness of their outputs than currently is the case.