FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Samantha Becker, Senior Director, Publications & Communications, NMC
512.445.4200 | communications@nmc.org
Rosa Vivanco, Senior Associate: Education, Communications Strategy Group
815.954.7867 | rvivanco@wearecsg.com
NMC and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Release the
NMC Horizon Report > 2017 Higher Ed Edition
Annual explores the trends, challenges, and technology developments poised to disrupt higher education worldwide.
Houston, TX (February 15, 2017) — The New Media Consortium (NMC) and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) are jointly releasing the NMC Horizon Report > 2017 Higher Education Edition at the 2017 ELI Annual Meeting. This 14thedition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are placed directly in the context of their likely impact on the core missions of universities and colleges. The topics are summarized in the accompanying infographic.
Top 10 “Talking Points” About the Report
1. For the first time ever, the Introduction looks back at the trajectory of NMC Horizon Report > Higher Education Edition topics for the past six years. Over time, Blended Learning Designs has been the most pervasive trend, competition from new models of education the most targeted challenge, and learning analytics the most impactful technology development.
2. The topics in the report were selected by a diverse panel of 78 experts. Institutional leaders, educators, instructional designers, technologists, industry leaders, and other key stakeholders from 22 countries comprise this year’s expert panel. They engaged in a three-month virtual discussion to share how the trends, challenges, and technologies are materializing in their environments.
3. The Executive Summary presents ten highlights capturing the big picture themes of educational change that underpin the 18 topics.Among the themes are the notions that advancing progressive learning approaches requires cultural transformation and that digital fluency is more than just understanding how to use technology.
4. Icons are placed next to each topic in the report to signify the broader categories they belong to. They are: Expanding Access and Convenience, Spurring Innovation, Fostering Authentic Learning, Tracking and Evaluating Evidence, Improving the Teaching Profession, and Spreading Digital Fluency. The NMC intends to carry through these “meta-categories” from edition to edition as benchmarks.
5. The report illuminates examples of compelling trends, solutions, and technology initiatives already in practice at colleges and universities. Institutions seeking inspiration, models, and tactical insight around strategy and technology deployment can look to these exemplars from across the world.
6. New to the Higher Education Edition are the challenges of the Achievement Gap and Advancing Digital Equity. The expert panel’s inclusion of these topics signals a need to devise technology-enabled solutions that increase access and equity for students of all backgrounds with college completion and student success at the heart.
7. Both Next-Generation LMS and Artificial Intelligence are new technology developments to this edition. The former topic reflects the desire for enabling educators to unbundle all of the components of a learning experience and allow them to remix open content and educational apps in unique and compelling ways. The latter has the potential to enhance online learning, adaptive learning, and research processes in ways that more intuitively respond to and engage with students.
8. Advancing Cultures of Innovation and Deeper Learning Approaches are identified as the two most impactful long-term trends. This means that both trends have been present in higher education for quite some time and will persist as key priorities for institutions. Both topics reflect an emphasis on learning environments that stimulate creativity and the acquisition of real-world skills.
9. Managing Knowledge Obsolescence and Rethinking the Roles of Educators are considered the most wicked challenges. Processes must be established for both technology and pedagogy discovery so higher education professionals can filter, interpret, organize, and retrieve information in an efficient and insightful manner. The shift to student-centered learning requires educators to act as guides and facilitators.
10. Translations of the report are planned for six languages, which will all be made publicly and freely available on NMC.org: Chinese (Beijing Open University); German (Multimedia Kontor Hamburg); Japanese (Open University of Japan); Korean (Korea Education & Research Information Service – KERIS); Russian (Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO); and Spanish (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja – UNIR).
“The NMC Horizon Project has now informed strategic planning and decision-making around technology for 15 years and we are incredibly grateful for ELI’s partnership,” says Eden Dahlstrom, Executive Director of the NMC. “It’s exciting to see the expert panel surface visions for technologies that support the student-centric learning ecosystem that is ripe for innovation to help facilitate deeper learning.”
“With respect to teaching and learning, higher education finds itself in a time when it is buffeted by inflection points and the NMC Horizon Report is an invaluable tool for plotting a course through them,” says ELI Director Malcolm Brown. “The ELI is very pleased to be able to contribute to the report’s development. The triangulation of trends, challenges, and developments in educational technology makes the report a unique resource. “
The NMC Horizon Report > 2017 Higher Education Edition is published under a Creative Commons license to facilitate its widespread use, easy duplication, and broad distribution.
> Download the report (PDF)
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About the New Media Consortium (NMC)
The NMC is an international not-for-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations committed to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. The NMC is world-renowned for its NMC Horizon Project, which produces the NMC Horizon Report series, charting the uptake of emerging technologies in various learning sectors worldwide. Since 1993, the NMC and its members have dedicated themselves to analyzing and developing potential applications of emerging technologies and progressive approaches for teaching, learning, research, and creative inquiry. To learn more, visit www.nmc.org.
About EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI)
EDUCAUSE is a higher education technology association which helps higher education elevate the impact of IT. The ELI is the division within EDUCAUSE that is focused on higher education’s teaching and learning mission. The ELI’s vision is that learning is best served by the confluence of a learner-centered approach, the incorporation of learning principles and science, and the creative application of digital technology. For more information on the ELI, visitwww.educause.edu/eli.