topics, because they offer a chance to slow down the recording and understand the material better. “We still encourage students to turn up physically, partly because it gets them out of bed. It’s more for their health and well-being. The physicality of coming in is a good thing. They still have the content that they can go through later,” she remarked. Apart from the individual student experience, though, Professor Terry noted that the literature was unclear whether face-to-face or online learning was best, although at the University of Queensland students were keen to come back to campus. In fact, hybrid may be the preferred option, especially if attention is paid to how best to deliver on the value-added campus experience. At Ruhr University Bochum, Professor Paul said that their preliminary studies also suggested the hybrid model was best and they had invested in equipping seminar rooms to accommodate this. But he saw two major challenges, not only for universities but wider
society. Loneliness and isolation had become a big problem, exacerbated under COVID-19 restrictions. Moreover, the polarisation of views was intensifying both on campus and in the community. “We need to use our campus experience to create an atmosphere where you can have a difference of opinions. We need to invest in creating this atmosphere of responsibility, social interaction and citizenship,” he stressed. Another focal point of discussion was the traditional role of universities as discoverers and disseminators of truth and knowledge, particularly as AI becomes pervasive in both positive and challenging ways and questions arise about how to use and regulate it within universities and the wider society. “Should the university system be more on the front foot in setting regulations around knowledge and truth and the veracity of it?” Professor Tracey asked the panellists. Professor Terry responded that students learn through assessment and experiences. Universities should embrace AI but adopt multiple forms of assessment.
normal and is implemented through a network connecting students across the University’s multiple campuses. Programmes have also been introduced to help teachers make use of AI and new technologies in their courses. Peking University is also building on global exchange platforms by partnering with 30 universities around the world to launch the Digital International Development Education Alliance – or DI IDEA. “Now that we know digital intelligence has become the new engine driving the development of global higher education, we should face this,” Professor Gong remarked. At Nagoya University, there had long been discussions about how to use IT in education but, like most other universities, it was the pandemic that forced their hand. Professor Sugiyama said that they switched quickly and successfully to online teaching. But while that went well technically, a survey after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted told a different story. Respondents liked that online classes offered more free time and easier access to classes, but face-to-face classes had the highest satisfaction rate, followed by on-demand, and then online live lectures. The findings convinced the university to go back to face-to-face classes, while also continuing to adopt the better aspects of technology in the classroom. For instance, medical students work in a virtual operating room that lets them perform virtual operations. A recent experiment also allowed students from Nagoya
University and from another university 50 kilometres away to work through the same experiment at the same time. Nagoya University has also been boosting entrepreneurial education by establishing a new centre on that topic and requiring all first-year undergraduates to take entrepreneurship classes. In terms of internationalisation, it has a PhD exchange programme with the National University of Singapore and is preparing to meet a new target of the Japanese government to admit 500,000 foreign students to the country and send 400,000 Japanese students abroad every year by 2033. The panellists also engaged in discussion among themselves on what the nature of the university experience should be in the age of AI, how to sustain intercultural engagement, and what might be lost as well as gained from more online classes and how this might be mitigated. Student mental health was spotlighted by several of the panellists. Professor Sugiyama mentioned that students who had spent their first three years of study online due to COVID-19 restrictions were still struggling with depression and in extreme cases, some even committed suicide. “It is human nature that we need face-to-face communication,” he said. Professor Tracey echoed that view. Students had craved the return to in-person classes, but they also like online lectures, especially for more conceptual
New technology is bringing opportunities and challenges which we have never seen before. How do we bridge the digital divide and open up more resources and offer fair and higher quality education for students?
Professor Qihuang Gong President, Peking University
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