The COVID-19 pandemic and, now, the rapid emergence of GenAI represent two recent “Black Swan” events (Potter, 2023) that have disrupted business-as-usual in higher education. They will not be the last. This session explores what institutions can learn from these moments of accelerated change: how we respond, how we adapt, and how we build preparedness and resilience for future disruptions.

Drawing on research in natural hazard management and the concept of “Positive Panic”, the talk will explore our institutional reactions to GenAI (Potter et al., 2023) and consider how these human responses to uncertainty shape decision-making, leadership, and culture. While GenAI serves as the core case study and point of departure for discussions, a wider framework is discussed that applies equally to other unpredictable, high-impact events.

Following the keynote-style presentation, participants will be invited to engage in a short Padlet-based reflection -- a light-touch activity designed to inspire thinking across key themes (namely teaching, learning and assessment; operations; policy; ethics; scaling our efforts). The session will conclude with an open Q&A.

As the AI evolution/revolution continues at full pace, it can be very difficult to keep up with the latest developments. One significant recent development is the wide availability of functional, user-friendly agentic AI, both as a standalone service and integrated to browsers, which can autonomously complete tasks on our behalf (e.g. finding and comparing products, making purchases, completing surveys, and even completing course work). In this session, Nick Baker will provide an introduction to the capabilities of emerging, publicly available agentic AI and explore some of the implications of these tools for teaching and learning, research, creative, and daily work tasks. The session will include demonstrations of some of the emerging capabilities of agentic AI.

This webinar explores the evolving role of strategic leadership in navigating the complexities of AI in teaching, learning, and institutional development. Drawing on practical experience from project leadership, staff and student training, resource development, and guidelines implementation, this session takes stock of lessons learned and offers a critical reflection on what meaningful AI integration looks like in practice. A structured framework of strategic pathways is proposed with emphasis placed on collaboration, capacity-building, and the cultivation of AI literacy as foundational components of effective leadership in this rapidly evolving HE landscape.

In this talk, Professor Nic Whitton will argue that the greatest potential of generative AI in higher education lies in its capacity to disrupt established practice, prompting a fundamental rethinking of learning, teaching, and assessment. Drawing on the theoretical framing of the “magic circle” for learning, she will explore the positioning of AI as a tool that can be used to create magic circles by drawing on characteristics of both games and playfulness to create spaces for learning from failure.

As generative AI tools rapidly transform the educational landscape, they raise both exciting possibilities and urgent ethical questions. How can open pedagogy—which foregrounds access, equity, agency, and collaboration—help us navigate this moment with care and creativity? This talk will explore the intersections of open educational practices and generative AI, highlighting ethical considerations while showcasing practical strategies to thoughtfully integrate GenAI into teaching while maintaining a commitment to justice, inclusivity, and learner agency.

Generative AI, as a conceptual, policy, and strategic influence on higher education, has accelerated the complexity of assessment design and the technological reactivity of the architectures underpinning how and what we teach. It disrupts policy, integrity, curriculum, student experience, and employability. Engagement with AI is rarely a safe space for academics, practitioners, or students, yet its use is mandated and shaped by industry, regulators, vendors, and leadership.

This highly interactive workshop invites participants to engage with the existential challenges of identity, value, leadership, and professional status that have shaped higher education through recurring crises. Generative AI has added fresh urgency, intensifying the complexity of assessment design and reshaping the digital infrastructures that underpin teaching and learning. Working in small groups, participants will explore how AI enables, challenges, and unsettles traditional practices, asking: How do we find equilibrium, while continuing to innovate in a sector defined by uncertainty and rapid change?

Participants will leave with fresh insights into how complexity and crisis shape teaching practice, and with strategies for navigating—and transforming—the abundant in-between.

Generative AI burst onto the educational scene in late 2022, sparking widespread concern among educators and prompting predictions in some quarters about the demise of formal education. Since then, higher education institutions (HEIs) have primarily focused on the threat to academic integrity, while industry has explored a much broader spectrum of advanced applications. It is critical, however, that HEIs start to consider the implications of working alongside intelligent machines for their educational offerings. In this short talk, Mairéad will put AI developments into context for education, introduce the concept of ‘the new hybrid’ and ‘generativism’ as a design approach. By the end, you will have the high-level information you need to start thinking about your plans to create an AI-enabled curriculum

New technology trends and practices often present both challenges and opportunities for higher education. Recent developments around AI and chatbots, big data analytics, and digital credentialing, to name just a few, all suggest new ways in which teaching, learning and assessment can or should be organised. The recent global experience of emergency remote teaching and the massification of online learning across the world continue also to provoke discussion and concern with respect to the changing needs and expectations of our students and the increased globalisation and marketisation of higher education itself. How are higher education institutes navigating these challenges and opportunities and how can we distinguish the hyperbole from the reality? Tune in on March 2nd to join us in conversation with Professor Frank Rennie and Dr Leigh Graves Wolf as they offer their thoughts and experiences on a number of these important and interrelated trends.

Rich digital connections support interaction and collaboration between people and organisations and offer us new ways to work, live and learn. In the context of new Irish and European education and regional development policy, as well as recent local and global experiences of remote working and remote teaching, this seminar event invites us to consider the many ways in which the worlds of work and education are changing and converging as we move toward an ever-more digitally-enhanced future. Join us on May 25th to hear Grainne O’Keeffe (Ludgate Digital Hub), Professor Frank Rennie (UHI, Scotland) and Professor Keith Smyth (UHI, Scotland) offer their perspectives.

The emergency that gave rise to emergency remote teaching may now finally be receding. What will the enduring legacy of this period be for our sector and what has the pandemic in general taught us about our ideas and intentions with respect to teaching and learning and the role of all things digital? What are the specific opportunities and challenges now facing MTU in this context ? Tune in or come along on March 2nd to hear Dr. Donna Lanclos and Prof. Lawrie Phipps share their thoughts and insights from their own work in the UK and US on digital transformation (DX) and digital practice in higher education.