The Đigi:Đổi Consortium – Scaling-up a Sustainable Digital Ecosystem for Higher Education (HE) in Viet Nam, a project under the British Council’s Going Global Partnership programme received the UK prestigious ALT Award on 4 September 2024. The project is a partnership led by Liverpool John Moores University and Phu Xuan University, supported by Jisc – a UK world leader in technology for education, research and innovation and other six UK and Vietnamese universities and organisations.
To date, this large-scale digital education programme and group mentoring have:
- initiated over 300 project-based assignments with staff and students and 10 Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) projects.
- involved more than 500 staff and over 3,000 students across partners in the UK and in Viet Nam, with more projects in development.
Highlighted transformations from the project include:
- fundamental changes in pedagogical approach from ‘sage on stage’ to technology-engaged, experiential and flipped pedagogies. For example, some projects have used Amazon stores across countries to simultaneously support local farming organisations as well as enrich the authenticity of learning. As part of the experience, students have built agile learning resources for other students and local organisations, contributing to the development of digital learning culture. This approach has significantly enriched student success and education innovation in Viet Nam.
- fundamental changes in pedagogical approach which integrates artificial intelligence as a ‘third voice’ to pedagogy. Projects which demonstrate creative use of technology to enhance the student experience: the adoption of artificial intelligence learning tools, by students, for other students – here, students created and tested group learning and assessment planning tools powered by AI to help student teams organise, schedule, monitor and successfully complete group assessment tasks. This digital tool has empowered students to actively manage group learning and assessment performance using language accessible by students.
- fundamental changes in the institutional process, for example, the co-development of a shared-service teaching and research workload system that empowers staff to actively monitor and manage their own pedagogic research in line with complex governmental expectations and detailed student feedback across campuses. This digital tool empowers staff to understand complex information and decide priorities for enhancement activities to balance teaching and research.
From the collective learning, the project team believes other universities can learn the following from their work:
- the scale of digital transformation can be significantly enhanced through collaborative consortia, each member bringing unique expertise and experience.
- combining intercultural learning with technological learning creates enriched learning for multiple agendas, creating many mutual benefits including energy.
- collaborating with the ongoing, long-term vision for positive, mutual gain fuels and drives ongoing benefit and is more likely to support cultural change, even at a national level.
‘The national training programme for digital transformation has enabled enhanced student experience in many Vietnamese universities… its strategic leadership has involved in encouraging, supporting, and influencing women leaders in Vietnam.’ Dr Tien Ho, Former Vice Chancellor and current Vice chairwoman of Phu Xuan University Council.
‘This work led to new opportunities at LJMU and nationally for digital education in collaboration with ASEAN colleagues, thereby upskilling in alignment with our values of inclusion through intercultural learning. This work is informing wider university strategy.’ Professor Phil Vickerman, Pro Vice Chancellor of Education and the Student Experience.
‘Embracing the digital shift, Da Nang University of Foreign Languages is ascending through its transformative journey. This process empowers educators to better manage student learning assessments and integrate additional extracurricular assignments into the classroom. Despite lingering challenges, this marks a significant leap forward in education,’ said by delegates from the training programme.
About the project
Digi:Doi is one of the projects supported by the British Council's Going Global Partnerships programme (GGP) in Viet Nam. With a thematic focus on digital transformation, the Going Global Partnerships provided grant support for UK Viet Nam partnership to address emerging areas of digital transformation in higher education institutions in Viet Nam. This demonstrates the British Council's commitment to supporting the Ministry of Education and Training Viet Nam's priorities in higher education development and internationalisation.
Đigi:Đổi means ‘digital transformation’ in Vietnamese. The consortium’s work is building a future-proofed, scalable digital transformation hub in Viet Nam underpinned by digital inclusion, well-being, and net zero. This work has generated a national-level framework and roadmap for change and demonstrator-project-based training underpinned by student partnerships augmented by group mentoring for deeper behaviour change.
To inform its approach, The Consortium generated one of the largest studies on digital transformation in higher education with more than 1,300 responses. This is the first national survey of its kind, which can help – with credibility and relevance to the Vietnamese context – participants in the training/mentoring to decide where to focus their digital transformation. The Consortium then used this data to co-create a national training and mentoring of Vietnamese leaders in digital transformation with 50+ organisations.
The training programme has been mapped against The Association for Learning Technologists Certified Awards at different levels (Associate, Member, and Senior Member), and as a result, the UK’s Professional Standards Framework, SEDA’s Awards for Leading and Embedding Technology-Enhanced Learning and the Awards for Supporting technology-enhanced learning. The group mentoring programme has been mapped against the European Mentoring and Coaching Council Standards.
This work was underpinned by research and scholarship, leading to more than 36 peer-reviewed articles in journals, and a new Springer volume, called Digital Technologies to Implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
About the ALT Award
ALT – Association for Learning Technology - is the leading professional body for Learning Technology in the UK. They support a collaborative community for individuals and organisations from all sectors including Further and Higher Education and industry and provide professional recognition and development.
The ALT Awards celebrate and reward excellent research and practice and outstanding achievement in Learning Technology. Established in 2007, the Awards have set a benchmark for outstanding achievement in Learning Technology on a national scale and attract competitive entries from the UK and internationally. All entries are reviewed by an independent judging panel chaired by the President of ALT. ().
For more information about the project, please contact:
- Prof Tony Wall, Liverpool John Moores University, T.Wall@ljmu.ac.uk
- Dr Tien Ho, Phu Xuan University, tien.ho@pxu.edu.vn