Ensuring Ethical and Equitable Access in Digital Learning

WCET’s 7th Leadership Summit facilitated a discourse on three important goals that institutions of all sizes and sectors should embrace:

1. Equity as a demonstrated priority for the institutions’ students, faculty, and staff.
2. Accessibility as the lens through which the institution examines its resources, policies, services, and infrastructure.
3. Data and evidence-based decision making for student success and ethical questions underlying analytics engines and edtech products.

The Summit retained the unique qualities of previous summits by creating a venue for thoughtful conversation, learning of exemplar successes and disappointing failures, and facilitating honest and open dialogue among college and university academic, business, and technology leaders.

WCET encourages colleges and universities to consider how issues of equity, accessibility, digital learning tools and teaching practices, and data-driven decisions are stand-alone priorities or woven into today’s contemporary fabric of how each of these critical issues all contribute to student success.

WCET wishes to thank all the exceptional speakers who were part of the Summit program. Their expertise and passion for student success contributed to a Summit discussion that was thoughtful, informative, and inspiring. The Summit panels covered these topics and more:

• Inclusion in Higher Education: Beyond a Promise to Action.
• Institutional Exemplars: Digital Learning Implementation Strategies to Improve Student Success.
• Ethical and Effective Uses of Student Data (by the Institution, the Faculty, and the Students).
• Moving Toward a Campus Climate of Universal Access for All.
• Building a Campus Culture for Inclusion: What Does This Look Like, Who Has a Role, How Do We Know When We Know We Have Achieved Inclusion?
• Thinking Beyond the Institution: Other “Actors” to Advance Ethical and Equitable Access to Education and Opportunity (a Spontaneous “Design Thinking” Discussion).
• Freshman Class of 2022. What Will Your Institution Do to Best Serve These Students? How Do Your Faculty Utilize All of the Digital Learning Resources that May Improve Student Engagement and Learning?