We are now seeing the culmination of a months-long ploy by Donald Trump to Delegitimize the selection because he knows the odds of him just winning legitimately are diminishing. He could still win fair and square That's a possibility However, he knows that there has to be some plan in place to get him to cling to power if Joe Biden pulls ahead And he is using his bully pulpit the institutional advantage that he has as an incumbent president to make sure that He wins by all means necessary even if that means cheating So he's been griping about mail-in ballots lying about how they lead to fraud now This is a lie, but he's been conditioning his supporters So now most people who support Donald Trump probably buy into his lies about how dangerous it is to vote by mail And they will most likely show up to vote in person However, Democratic Party voters will be more likely to vote by mail Probably being more concerned about the pandemic than Donald Trump supporters And so what we're going to see is a lot of people Vote by mail who are Democratic and a lot of people who are Republican show up in person to vote for Donald Trump So he tweeted this out the election should end on November 3rd not weeks later Think about what he's saying here He is literally calling for us to invalidate millions of ballots because it has never been the case that Any state has certified the results of an election on election day. That's never happened We've seen projections of who will win in the media because they basically take their data analysts And they crunch the numbers and make an educated prediction based on who is ahead in certain states But it's never been the case that states have finished the count and certified the results on the same day But what he's saying is listen all of the votes that come in on November 3rd That's it. Whatever doesn't get counted isn't getting counted And he has lawyers ready to basically try to stop the votes from being counted the minute the clock strikes 1201 now David Pakman made a really good point that you know while the polls are closing in Hawaii for example Well, it's already November 4th In New York on the East Coast so I mean Donald Trump It doesn't even make sense what he's saying But this is all his ploy to cling to power because what is probably going to end up happening is a lot of Republican Party voters Will show up in person those votes will get counted first and it will look like Donald Trump has a pretty sizable lead However, as states shift to counting the mail-in and absentee ballots Well, we may see the results change and so what Trump is trying to get his supporters to believe is that that's actually Rat fuckery that's happening. It's not just that we're counting the mail-in ballots Which we're expecting to lean heavily in favor of the Democratic Party. That's just Democrats Stealing the election that is called the red mirage. It is not something that is illegitimate. It's not electoral theft or fraud It's just that we are at a certain Point the states are at a certain point in the process of counting the ballots There's nothing nefarious about that But Donald Trump wants people to believe it's nefarious because he wants to try to try to use that as ammunition To steal the selection because what is he gonna do? Well, if it does look as if he's in the lead He is going to prematurely declare victory even if he has not won So Jonathan Swan of Axios details Trump's plan to declare a premature victory in this article that isn't surprising But I mean nonetheless, it still is pretty terrifying. He explains president Trump has told confidants He'll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's ahead according to three sources familiar with his private comments That's even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania Speaking to reporters on Sunday evening Trump denied that he would declare victory prematurely Before adding I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election Is over Trump has privately talked through this scenario in some detail in the last few weeks Describing plans to walk up to a podium on election night and declare He has won for this to happen his allies expect He would need to either win or have commanding leads in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia Trump's team is preparing to falsely claim that mail-in ballots counted after November 3rd a legitimate count Expected to favor Democrats are evidence of election fraud many prognosticators say that on election night Trump will likely appear ahead in Pennsylvania though the state's final outcome could change Substantially as mail-in ballots are counted over the following days Trump's team is preparing to claim baselessly that if that process changes the outcome in Pennsylvania from the picture on election night Then Democrats would have stolen the election Trump's advisors have been laying the groundwork for this strategy for weeks But this is the first account of Trump explicitly discussing his election night Intentions now we're about to find out what happens if he's able to do this He can't pull this off if it's a blowout and Joe Biden wins pretty quickly and decisively So this really will hinge on a few key battleground states Now the reason why people are worried about this is because if Trump uses his bully pulpit and starts partying at the White House As if he won well that can create this sort of bandwagon effect where corporate media will feel pressured to Respond to OAN and Fox News likely announcing that Donald Trump has in fact won Now it is the case that since 2000 which is when basically Fox News announced that George W. Bush had won and other corporate media outlets followed suit They did make some changes so that way there isn't a like this scenario where one media outlet will announce and then we'll see this Domino effects basically the New York Times lays all of this out in an article the data analysts of all networks including Fox News They're actually separated from the news anchors who are reporting on the results as they come so that way these data Analysts won't feel pressured to make the call too early and producers won't be in their ear about you know Pressuring them to say who won or will win so that is something that is encouraging the problem However, is that even if Donald Trump says that he won and outlets say Trump falsely claims that he won His supporters aren't going to listen to the news outlets So just the mere fact that he is speaking this into existence They're going to take his word as if it's gospel and they'll think okay Well, he won he said he won so I trust him over the fake news media. So he won and So he's setting up the situation where his supporters are going to sow chaos as they believe the media or Democrats are trying to steal This election away from Donald Trump when in actuality that's not happening now. What could they do who knows? I mean they could try to stop more votes from being counted they could disrupt the counts intimidate voters at the polls depending on how early he tries to declare victory and We don't necessarily know how this is going to play out although again We'll find out soon, but Trump is hinting that violence might actually occur So as Lachlan Markey of Daily Beast explains a Supreme Court decision extending time frames for states to count mail-in votes may result in Physical violence President Donald Trump predicted on Monday. They made a very dangerous situation And I mean physically dangerous Trump said at a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania He was referring to Supreme Court decisions allowing officials in Pennsylvania and North Carolina to continue accepting and counting mail-in ballots in the Days after Election Day, they did a very bad thing for the state They did a bad thing for this nation Trump said of the decision the danger that could be caused by that extension and especially when you know What goes on in Philadelphia? He added Trump and his allies have described mail-in votes Tallied after Election Day as tantamount to election fraud and insisted that a winner of the presidential contest should be declared on Tuesday So understand what he's saying here. He's not technically advocating for violence So, you know, he's speaking in a way that gives him plausible deniability But what he's saying is because these states are going to be able to count all of the ballots and since that might take a while That's going to lead to violence Well, where's the violence going to come from he knows where it's going to come from his supporters who over the weekend have been shutting down highways and bridges to intimidate voters and Literally ran the Biden campaign out of Texas. I mean, he knows that they're not going to believe the media They're going to believe Donald Trump So as we try to warn voters that we might not get the results on Election Day We warned them about the possibility of a red mirage situation where it seems as if Donald Trump is ahead from the in-person votes And then the mail-in votes tip it in Biden's favor He is trying to undermine our attempt to inform voters And he's trying to use the red mirage at worst to seal the election But at best to sow chaos and division throughout the country using his very loyal Cultist supporters who will do whatever he wants at the behest of his presidency And it's not like they're only implying that, you know counting all of the votes It's tantamount to Democrats dealing the election. His advisors are saying explicitly If we count the votes past November 3rd past today, then that is Election death that is them stealing this election. It's a different world now George And that's why we're trying to turn out our supporters We feel good about it and one final thing George if you speak with many smart Democrats They believe the present Trump will be ahead on election night probably getting 280 electorals somewhere in that range and then they're gonna try to steal it back after the election We believe that we will be over 290 electoral votes on election night So no matter what they try to do what kind of high jinks or lawsuits or whatever kind of nonsense They try to pull off. We're still gonna have enough electoral votes to get president Trump reelected Now that wasn't some random Trump supporter That is a senior Trump campaign advisor who literally just said on national television to no pushback mind you That if Donald Trump is ahead based on where they're at when they're counting the votes Well, if Joe Biden somehow pulls ahead that it's tantamount to Democrats stealing this election So he's literally saying that if all the votes are counted and Who is in the lead? Shifts throughout the process as we count all the votes that is election theft That is insanity This is anti-democratic Rhetoric, they don't want the votes to be counted They want to just look at who voted in person assuming that that will most likely be Trump supporters disproportionately and then stop all the votes Stop the rest of the votes from being counted pause Where we're at when Trump is in the lead and then that's it we claim victory But that's not all because Trump's deputy campaign manager sent out this email to supporters warning that it's actually the Democrats Who are trying to delegitimize this election as they warn about a red mirage? Situation saying Democrats are panicking because Joe Biden has not run up a large enough lead in early votes in Battleground states and they know that President Trump's in-person votes on election day will make up the difference and propel him to victory Biden's political operatives have been distributing talking points and research to delegitimize election day results by coaching Surrogates to refer to the president's election day success as a red mirage The operatives are advising surrogates and media to create a smokescreen by casting blame all around Imagining postal delays or falsely claiming that mail-in ballots that have simply not been returned should be considered a legitimate Votes that need to be counted none of this will be true But it will be held up as proof that President Trump's victory is a so-called red mirage. No one should fall for it Now this is of course incorrect. This isn't Joe Biden surrogates talking about the red mirage It is data analysts who are warning about the red mirage Anticipating more Republicans to vote in person and more Democrats to vote by mail It's not a talking point from the Joe Biden campaign and all that people are saying is that we should count all of the votes See the problem is that what they want to do is if somebody mails out their their ballot and it doesn't get there on election Night by November 3rd. Well, even if they sent it in weeks ago and it's postmarked for before November 3rd They want to say nope that is no longer acceptable that ballot is illegitimate They want to invalidate that ballot not count that ballot and the argument that they're making well if we count that ballot That's Democrats dealing the election. I Mean this is projection because that's exactly what they're trying to do now We don't necessarily know what's gonna happen like it could be an anti-climatic evening, right? Joe Biden could end up winning quickly Trump could end up winning quickly We don't know what's going to happen But even if Donald Trump isn't able to steal the selection by using the red mirage to you know Create some sort of legal battle or try to stop the counting process Still the amount of chaos that he's trying to sow is truly astounding


Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Today's video is going to be my week of 25 Workout journey update slash Chloe Ting challenge I have a couple huge announcements that I'm gonna get into but first let's just go through what I did this week because It's kind of just the same as last week But I'm just gonna run through it really fast because I like to document these things So starting off on Saturday July 4th I did nothing because it was the 4th of July and you know, I use any excuse not to work out Then Sunday July 5th, I did the new 20-minute workout. So I actually wanted to try out and it's really nice It's not like hard cardio. It's more like ab focus So that's one thing to consider if you're gonna try that one Then I did the toned arm workout and then I did the hip dips workout with my purple resistance band So Monday July 6th, I did the 2019 shred like normal The Heather ab challenge, I don't know. I'm just like giving it a name now But Heather Elise Harples like ab workout, which I still have to take breaks so much And I also did the bra bulge exercise, which that's probably one of my favorite exercises Tuesday I do not work out. It is my day off then on Wednesday the 8th I did the 15-minute workout plus the Alexis Wren ab challenge I really like that challenge because it's like intense But like perfect for a day that you don't really want to work out then on Thursday I don't work out and today Friday the 10th I did the 30-minute full body workout that workout makes me sweat so much And you know when you do a workout for quite a while you kind of get used to it I can honestly say I've not gotten used to that one I don't know what it is about that specific workout, but I really enjoy it That's why I try to do it like once a week because I can barely get through it still to this day And I've been working out for forever So don't think that like just because you've been doing something for a while it doesn't make it like easier I mean sometimes for some people that works, but you know, then I did the back workout the bra bulge And then I did the booty workout, which I love the last exercise always kills me because like you're just stuck in like one position I guess that's pretty much it for all I did this week Now let's get into the updates which my first update is not as exciting as the next update So I want to say I feel like my form is getting a lot better and I got a comment on that Which is really cool that you guys are kind of noticing. I don't know if you can kind of tell in the time-lapse I know it goes by pretty fast, but I'm really happy and when I see myself in the camera and stuff Like when I do a plank at least I mean I'm pretty flat Like that was definitely not the case in the beginning and you can go back and watch those videos and this playlist if you Would like I'm pretty proud that like my form has gotten so good over the past 25 weeks now for the big announcement big announcement I've been getting a lot of questions if I'm going to try another person's workouts because I've been doing Chloe Ting for a while Now and I really do want to try another person just to have variety spiced it up a little bit Maybe create a new like little workout plan that I see fits my body now at my new level Because I feel like I have even though I can still barely get through the 30 minutes full-body workout and the 26-minute workout that I do by Chloe Ting I still feel that I should like challenge myself even more just because I've gotten Better and I have higher stamina now. I am going to be trying Pamela Reeves workouts I believe that's how you say her name, but I have in my workouts playlist check it out If you haven't already I've already set aside videos in that playlist and they're all under the Chloe Ting workouts and stuff and other Workouts I do so I have this big group of of new videos that I've kind of like reviewed and I'm like, oh, I want to try that one Personally, I like to pick and choose just cuz like I can kind of know like oh I want to try that one because of this specific workout or just the timing I'm really big on timing. So if like there's 20 minutes. There's like a 20 minute video on like Legs, I'm like, I don't need to do legs for 20 minutes.  I'm not gonna do Chloe Ting's. No, that doesn't mean that but like probably for the first couple weeks I'm only gonna do Pamela's workout because I really want to see what it's all about And I actually found her because a lot of people do her butt challenge and as you guys know, I Want like a cuter, but I know that sounds really weird But yeah, so I found her butt challenge Whatever and I was like, oh, okay, and then she has other workouts Obviously kind of like how people found Chloe Ting through her like ab workout And then they noticed she had other videos geared towards other parts of the body and stuff That's kind of how I found Pamela. Leave a comment down below. Have you tried Pamela Reeves workouts? I've heard good things about her I know that I really want to try a mad fit, but her videos are just so long for like one exercise Sorry, I just hit my mirror over here. Oh another update I wanted to mention was I had chips and dip on the 4th of July because it was the 4th of July and it was So good. All right, so now let's get on to the photos So Alex on the left is last week and Alex on the right is this week Here is the side view of that my legs Falling asleep. I've never been able to sit on my like knees for a long period of time Okay, moving on to the pre-workout photos So Alex on the left is pre-workout Alex and Alex on the right is now and then here is the side view of that So hope you guys enjoyed this video and give it a thumbs up if you did Don't forget to subscribe to my channel for new upcoming workout Updates does that even make sense? Anyway, I will see you guys in my next video. Bye


So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to new Eden series of webinars, our autumn initiative, Education in Time of New Normal. I'm very happy that we were able to start with this initiative after the spring one, which was very successful. And just let me remind you that in the spring, we started with our Eden webinar initiative, which was called Education in Time of Pandemic. We had 11 webinars with 35 speakers and moderators with more than 3,500 participants from all over the world. We started on the March 13th and lasted till the June 8th and also all recordings are available. High attendance of participants showed us that it is important that such initiatives continue. And now, as we are in the autumn, hoping that pandemic will go away, but it hasn't. We saw that now we have to continue and to be present as well. And to help teachers and university leaders to take next steps how to ensure high quality teaching and learning in a situation we face today. Although we all thought that we will be able to go back to universities, to classrooms, still the chance for that is not so high. This is the reason why many universities didn't decide to move fully online. Others universities more traditional decided for the blended mode of learning and some still hope that they will be able to have their students in the classroom. This pandemic is just a catalyst for educational organization to implement online teaching and learning systematically. Because before that, usually it was not so much a strategic decision. And also what we have to think about now is that spring time when we had the first round of COVID and a lockdown of schools, universities, but also of people staying at home. We had mostly emergency remote teaching, which is not online education in the full sense. And it was, I would say, SOS decision to save the academic year and to ensure continuity of teaching and learning. This was something which was good at that moment, but cannot be taken as a good example for the autumn. And now today we start with our initiative with topics online transformation of universities having faced the challenge of the pandemic. Are they prepared for the new normal? I think this is very, very important topic because university leaders have to reflect on what's have been going on so far and how to continue. There are many aspects which have to be taken into account from technical, organizational, pedagogical and so on. So today I'm very happy that I have speakers with me who are experts in this field. So I'm very happy that with us is Sir John Daniel, Professor Blažen Kadyviak and Professor Antonio Tešera. I hope that during our webinar today we will be able to provide you with some advices and maybe insights into how to organize and how to manage situation in education today when we are not able to have things back to the time which were bought before the pandemic. I wouldn't say to the time which were normal before because we are talking a lot about normal and new normal and what does normal actually mean. Is it normal to have in 21st century only classroom teaching and learning? So there are lots of questions here, but we will try to reply on them during our session. Let me present my speakers first. Sir John Daniel served for 17 years as University President in Canada and UK at the Open University before joining UNESCO as Assistant Director General for Education in 2001 and moving back to Canada as President of Commonwealth of Learning from 2004 to 2012. He has been involved in the development of open and distance learning for 40 years. Nighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1994 for services to high education, he has received 32 honorary doctorates from universities in 17 countries best known as a scholar for his book Mega Universities and Knowledge Media Technology Strategies for High Education. The most recent of his 330 publications include Making Sense of MOOCs, Using in Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility and the Guide to Quality in Online Learning. And also, I'm very happy to say that he is former President of Eden, that he was engaged in the establishment of Eden organization and I'm very happy that he is very active Eden member still today. Thank you Sir John and Daniel for being with us today. Let me present my second speakers and now I will go to ladies. I'm very happy that I know Blaženka personally for quite number of years. He was usually my boss but today we are colleagues. But I was very happy to work with her while she was saying what I have to do. So Professor Blaženka Divjak was creation Minister of Science and Education from June 2017 to July 2020. So basically a month ago almost. She was leading four major reform processes since then. Curricular reform of general education, reform of vocational education and training, enhancement of relevance of high education and excellence of research. She was chairing European Union Council of Ministers for Education and Council of Minister for Research and Space during Creation Presidency. We all know that Croatia was chairing this in the first part of 2020 and we are not guilty for having COVID during our presidency. In that period she led the process of adopting several council conclusions, future teachers, future jobs, brain circulation and so on. As well as coordinating the European Union response to COVID-19 crisis in education and research. She holds PhD in Mathematics from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Science and Mathematics and she is full professor at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Organization and Informatics. She served as vice rector for students and study programs at the University of Zagreb in time of 2010-2014. She is author of over 100 scientific and professional papers in field of mathematics, strategic planning in high education and research, mathematical education, project management, high education, reform, curriculum development, learning analytics, e-learning and science communication. So I'm certain that you will all agree that she is more than an expert in this field and I'm very happy that she has joined us today to be with us. And last but not least, my dear colleague Antonio Teixeira, also Eden, former Eden president, who was also, who is associate professor of open distance and network education at University of Dadea Bertha in Portugal. He is also researcher at the University of Lisbon and collaborates with the University of Rome 3. He was projector for information in distance learning at University of Dadea Bertha from 2006 to 2009 and president of Eden from 2013 to 2016. As a projector at University of Dadea Bertha, he conceived and managed the successful and speedy strategic transformation process of the university from reprint-based distance learning institutions to fully online one. Throughout the years he has integrated several boards of directors and many expert committees and task forces in high education institutions and organization at national, international level. He is currently an external expert at AQU Catalonia, Agency for Quality Assurance in Catalonia and also ACPUA, Quality Assurance Agency in Spain and the Research and Innovation National Agency of Uruguay, I'm sorry, among others. Antonio has also participated in over 30 international research projects and authored over 100 scientific articles and other publications. He is also Eden Senior Fellow and member of the Board of Council of Eden Fellows and I'm very happy that also he is the host of Eden Research Workshop, which is going to be now in autumn. And before going to my speakers for introduction and representation, these are the questions you have all seen at our Eden Web, which are going to be discussed today. You can see that there are a number of issues which we found important and would like to talk about and I hope that you will all get some ideas and insights after the session on how to proceed with organization of education in high education. And also, as I said, Antonio is going to host our Eden Research Workshop, which is going to be from October 21st to 23rd, planned to be in Lisbon, but eventually being online, call for papers is open, so please join and contribute because I think now, in this time, research is very important and based on our research, we can have good teaching and learning methods which we can apply in education. So I will stop with sharing of my screen and now I would like to ask Sir John Daniel to give his introduction and representation in our session. Thank you very much, Sandra. It's a great pleasure to be with you. I'm in Vancouver, Canada, where it is only eight o'clock in the morning and it's almost still dark because the city is being invaded by the fires that have been, the smoke from the fires that have been burning in the states south of us. So it's a very peculiar atmosphere, but it's a pleasure to be with you and I was a founder, as Sandra said, I was founder of Eden back in the early 90s but since then, for the last 15 years, I've been living in Canada. So I haven't been able to participate as much as I would have liked in Eden activities and it's a pleasure to be doing so again. So my title today is online and distance learning what the students need to succeed and as you've implied, when COVID-19 erupted in the early months of 2020 higher education institutions had to vacate their campuses and go online in a very short time. Now most teachers thought that they cope surprisingly well with this challenge although I think the students were divided between those who were more or less satisfied and those who felt that they were getting a substandard product. Meanwhile, the pandemic has spread and its evolution varies widely around the world. Some jurisdictions appear to have got it under control. Others this week indeed are seeing new waves of infection when they thought they'd got it under control and in some large population countries, notably Brazil, India and the United States they've lost control of the virus such that the number of cases worldwide may soon reach 30 million and this makes it very difficult for higher education institutions to plan for the future. They cannot know when and how the pandemic will end nor what legacy it will leave behind. Will all HEIs make regular use of online learning or will most of them return? In some cases I'm sure very happily to face-to-face teaching only times will tell. Today I'm going to make three assumptions. First that higher education institutions need to develop resilience so that they can face future crises which means they should retain the capacity to switch to online operations even if only in emergencies and I'm sure we'll discuss whether it will go beyond that. And of course as you've said Sandra it's essential that if there is use of online learning that students consider that what they're getting is at least satisfactory. So I'm going to present an analogy of what I believe makes online learning successful for students and I ask you to think of this analogy as the student in online learning sitting on a three-legged stool. Now and that stool the three of its legs are student support both synchronous and asynchronous good learning materials and efficient administration and logistics. Now of course a three-legged stool requires all three legs to support its weight. So by analogy online learning will only work properly for students if each of these three legs is strong and can support the weight. If they're not then the student will fall or in academic terms will fail. Now I think it's true to say that in this year's rapid transition to online learning most effort was involved in preparing learning materials usually putting lectures online synchronously. And of course good learning materials are vital to distance learning. It's important to remember too that it's just as important to have asynchronous materials that students can study when they like as well as synchronous lectures with the professor. But today I'm going to concentrate on the other two legs of the stool because I think they're sometimes forgotten. During the scramble to go online in the early months of this year I was able to observe a small higher education institution here in Vancouver the Accender School of Management make this transition. And I was surprised and pleased by how successful it was. Now of course there was a lot of online teaching and I think why Accender was successful was because it put a very strong emphasis on student support and on administration and logistics. So let me start with the leg of student support. I think it's helpful to distinguish three areas where student support is needed. Of course to be successful students need to engage with the academic content of their courses and many require more help than they will get in their formal online classes. So their first need is to be able to ask questions and to be challenged about their understanding of the concepts. And this can be done by the instructor themselves in group or one-to-one sessions but I believe that if the class is large this is best done by hiring special part-time people who can be trained for this special support function. The second area is administration. When students are on campus they can usually solve their administrative questions by finding a professor and going to talk to them. But when everyone is off campus this support has to be provided through clear information on websites, a friendly helpline, regular email updates and quick and accurate replies to a large volume of email. Then there is cultural support. Undergraduate students in particular look to their campus for exciting cultural activities and the opportunities to meet other students. Now on campus these usually happen informally but once you're operating online the HGI has to organize them which means using technology to offer events like trivia quizzes, music nights and so on and debates. At Xcender we found that the student ambassadors who are senior students selected for their extrovert qualities also organized some very successful cultural events and one of the striking things about the whole process was how important these student ambassadors became so that they were almost integrated into the student services function. And finally there is social support. Online study and confinement during lockdowns can be lonely particularly for new students. They need opportunities to meet each other even if only virtually and to talk about personal issues that worry them. And each HGI has to decide where to draw the line between providing social support itself and making referrals to official psychological and counselling services that some countries provide through the state or through voluntary organizations. But I think HGI should be careful about taking responsibility for student issues that actually should properly be dealt with by the state social services or even by the police. Let me now talk about the third leg of administration and logistics. Now of course much of this will be done by the learning management system and Accender trained its faculty to use both Zoom and Big Blue Button. It was good to have two options because as you all know in the early days of crashing into online learning there was so much pressure on all these platforms from higher education institutions around the world that they did indeed often crash. In the end we found that the Accender teachers preferred Zoom but it was good to have the other system as a backup. Effective online operations also depend on having an effective registry and student management policies that have been translated into smoothly operating procedures. This means user friendly IT systems and telephone help lines so that students can get a human to deal with problems that they want to discuss with a real person. And of course as you all found the use of email will explode and the institution has to be ready to cope with that. So in conclusion I leave you with this analogy of a three-legged stool. My focus has been on the two legs of student support and logistics but I expect my colleagues, professors, Divjak and Tashera will say more about learning materials. It's been a pleasure to work with Eden again and I wish you all well as you move into the new normal wherever you are and whatever that is. Thank you. Thank you, Sir John. Really a good point of how to support students. We have a question here from Alison Morrisrow from the European University Association who is asking a question although online services are widely available. Is there any way of knowing if they are truly fit for purpose for all students? I think the only way of knowing is to see how the students respond. Certainly in the experience at Accender I think we found out fairly quickly what was needed and what was missing because one of the advantages of online for students and perhaps one of the disadvantages for the institution is that students can make their feelings felt much more quickly and share those impressions with other students so that everyone knows what is going on. I remember in the 90s when we were moving the Open University UK online and we were trying to persuade students that they should embark on this. One of the things we did was to equip the members of the student executive with computers at home so that they could get online. Now this was kind of a good idea but it came back to biters because the students could bring together all the complaints that other students had very quickly and present them very forcefully. And since at that time we had about 150,000 students you could not ignore what they were telling you was wrong with the system. So I do think one didn't worry too much about getting adequate feedback from students in an online environment. Thank you. Thank you. I wish to move on but in the meantime please look at the question and answer session. There are questions there so you can also answer some questions in writing. We will go back to these questions later as well. But I would like now to move to our next speaker to Antonia Teixeira. So Antonia, please share with us your introduction and presentation. Well, thank you very much Sandra. I would like to start by thanking the kind invitation by Eden. It's always a pleasure to be here and to share my ideas with all the community. And of course a special word also for acknowledgement to my dear friend, well, the panelist Blazhenk and Sarjan. And I hope this will be meaningful for the ones who are following us. I'm going now to share the slides. Okay. So first of all, the topic. The topic that I chose is a little bit following the same lines as has already been the presentation by Sarjan. My focus here will be slightly different however in terms of what are the main aspects to be considered at this point. The topic that I'm suggesting is universities going online. What are they ready at this point for the challenges of the new normal or the normal that we are now facing. This has already, well, this is what happened in the start of the year. And this is most probably what will happen again. And this is my first point here. I believe that has been the management of communication, especially by the politicians worldwide, has been very much in the sense of, well, this is a situation that will be overcoming soon and quite easily or more or less easily. And this will not happen again. The first thing that probably we need to take into consideration when we talk about planning in terms of, well, being the higher efficient sector or the other efficient sectors as well, is that, well, we need to be prepared not only for the repetition of this, but for new emergency situations that may come along in the future. And as we've been clearly understanding from this example, we are not ready for them. So as Sir John has already pointed out, universities have to be better prepared for unknown emergencies. And we have to prepare for that, not just institution, but also our own frame of mind. So this will most probably happen again, not necessarily probably in the same way, but some of the phenomena will be repeated. And this, of course, has led to universities taking, and Cambridge, in Europe, Cambridge was the first one to take this decision to go fully online for the next academic year. There's also something that I would like to point out regarding the management of communication and special political communication from what has happened so far, is that there was kind of a sense generated in many countries that going online was a kind of contingency that would be, that the best thing would be to try to avoid. So in the sense that online learning was not the real thing. It's not actually what we should be hoping for. Of course, what should be clear for us, and this is a message that I believe institutions should repeat, is that online education can be very effective, can be very successful, but depending on the way that the practices is planned and executed. So of course, if we do it in the right way, online learning can be as effective and has successful as any other form of learning. Of course, we need also to face an issue, is that all the models that we have, the theory that we have developed, the practices and the experience that we have carried out throughout the years, have not prepared enough for dealing with learning situations related to children or early ages and so younger students. But at the higher education level, we should be ready, better prepared in that sense. So in this frame of mind, we should be clear that when we're talking about universities going online, it's not something a firm, well, contingency that is representing a kind of going back in terms of quality, but on the other hand, it could be an improvement in the quality that learning that institutions are providing. But in order for this transition and this transformation to be successful, it's not just a question of methodologies and procedures. It also has to imply, as I was trying to point out, a transformation in the teaching and learning cultures. Another thing that we should also face is that most of the experience that we've had accumulated over the years and sure as high degree of quality in terms of online learning was designed in social environments which are a little bit different from the ones that we are now facing. Even for the experienced universities, online universities, we are now dealing with students that are at home in their homes that don't have enough conditions to be the entire family working together using the same computer sometimes. And so this is a kind of additional stress that we were not prepared for. And we need to take into consideration in revising our own practices and models as well. But going online is basically to do what this suggests, this model from GSTEP was developed in just in UK, is to actually design the transformation of the learning experience based on the digital experience that our own students and our teachers, teaching staff and administrators have already have. So it's a continuation, it's a continuum, it's not something entirely different. And so we are already working and living online, we should be learning online. This is a very simple step that has to be done in this sense. Are our universities ready for this? Well, this is the European framework for digital content educational organizations. This is a good model in the sense that it brings together the main aspects that should be taken into consideration from the management and governance model to the training of teachers to the content curricula and all of this. As you will be, I'm sure that you'll be having access to the slides later on. I will not get into detail at this stage, but this is a very important model to take into consideration in order to measure your own context in terms of the organization readiness for the digital learning. But one important aspect as well that governments have been stressing out, at least some governments in Europe, is that most of our programs and courses are now being delivered online when they were not accredited to work online, to be delivered online. And this is something that we have to take into consideration from management point of view and also from the perspective of the staff of the scholars. Of course, we have to take into consideration the aspects that are critical in terms of calling to show us for online learning. Of course, on the left you find a good model, which is a model from the UBC in Canada. Well, I'll leave it to Satsang to actually discuss it further, if you will. But on the second or on the right, you'll find kind of a reference to what is the European model that was designed by Encore, the European Politician's Agency, well, association, that of course governs the old national Politician's Agency. From all the standards that you have here, and these are the typical standards for evaluating programs in Europe, these are the four, this is a work that has been developed by Esther Werters from the Catalan, well, a group that was led by her from the Catalan Politician's Agency, these four are absolutely essential. The change in the policy for quality assurance, the aspects related to the standard of student standard learning and teaching methodology in this sense, of course, also the training that will teach the staff and the preparation and support of the teaching staff and the learning resources and student support has already been stressed by Satsang. Well, this gives you a more, well, kind of a breakthrough of the standards and what have to be particular, taking particularly into consideration. I'll just skip even the limitations in time to this kind of summing up. First of all, I would recommend to adjust the governance and leadership model of the institution to an educational investment framework. This is absolutely essential. Otherwise, it doesn't work. It's just a kind of adoption of techniques, of resources, but it's not a transformation of the institution. Also, the opening up of the educational ecosystem, meaning here not only the learning environment, so the technological side, but also the pedagogical design, as John was also pointing out, also the process of having a full administrative structure and financial to make this transition as well. Many universities, even if they provide online learning, their own internal structure is not working online. So this is something that has to be taken in consideration. It's not an easy thing to do. Of course, I'll focus a lot on the importance of implementing open educational resources philosophy. This is quite important. Of course, the other services are already mentioned there. I would also stress the importance of developing an online pedagogy, starting with the adoption of a reference model for teaching and learning in your institution. That would be helpful to, in a way, serve as a guidance for the teachers and the faculty to make this transition. And also for the students to understand what is the model, what is implied, what is expected of them, how can they actually co-manage the learning process and also the other two aspects, promoting curriculum development, innovation, openness, flexibility, personalization. Of course, the issues linked with accessibility have already been mentioned. And digital inclusion is something that is now seen with different ties regarding this experience, because we thought that digital inclusion was very much now focused on accessibility, not as much on social inclusion, but now we have seen that it's the opposite, it's social digital inclusion that has to take probably into more consideration. And of course, a change in this kind of move to a participatory or mainly participatory learning culture. And a very important aspect that has been also one of the lessons learned from this experience has been the importance of E-assessment for online assessment. Online assessment can be reliable, but what has also to be understood is that we have to change the methods that we're using and not organizing assessment in the same way that we are just doing it in a commercial way, basically mostly in exams. Well, but probably the most important factor of all this with the students and the learners is of course the preparation of the teacher staff, the faculty, and how they can be best trained for this new scenario. Well, this is the digital competencies framework for educators that is quite known. This is a very useful reference model and of course this is the same, but well, presenting in a different way. As you can see here, the preparation, the training of teachers have to be, well, designed in a more holistic way. It's not just the teaching and learning, so the aspects related to the teaching with the guidance with a more focused on collaborative learning, but also the issues regarding how to produce, reuse, re-use, to remix, to produce visual resources, especially on an online context. Well, it's also assessment, also empowering learners. All of these aspects have to be taken into consideration. And so to sum up and to finalize, because I'm challenged by time as well. These are the challenges that I believe are more important at this stage for digital professional development. First of all, to redesign the models in order to increase the focus on training for innovation and this rapid change. Teachers have to be more ready than ever to exercise their practice in unfamiliar settings for which they were not trained before. Also, to introduce immersive online best training practices. It's no use and that has been a clear lesson learned. It's not useful to train teachers as online teachers if we're doing it in a conversional setting. If you do not experience previously, priorly, what is the experience of learning online? They cannot teach online because they cannot understand in the best way how to manage time, the importance of communication, how does it affect you. All of these learning, all of these aspects that are very important to manage, of course, the cultural experience of online learning have to be first experienced by the teachers in order for them to be prepared to act as teachers afterwards, digital teachers afterwards or online teachers in this sense. Of course, the use of teachers resources in authentic contexts is clearly becoming ever more important. Of course, promoting flexibility and personalization of learning. The participation of learners and students in this sense in co-designing their own learning paths, their learning processes, introduction of course, the new assessment models, and new forms of certification. Already talked about the preparation to work in fully open learning environments. Very importantly, this has been also a lesson learned to raise awareness for task overload and digital fatigue. It has been clearly a problem in the first half of the year. And of course, a large integration of the informal learning. These are probably the most important aspects that will say are the main challenges for digital professional development at this stage. Well, I'll leave you just with a couple of resources. These are very well known and could be very helpful. Well, this is an example of how we at the University of Portugal also look at teacher training while designing it in the form of a MOOC. So this could be shared and could be the experiences itself could be generating new knowledge in an open environment. Well, and thank you very much. And well, back to you, Sander. Thank you, Antonio. Very interesting. We could talk for a long time about topics and issues you have pointed out here. Just a brief question from you. You will look for the other questions in the question and answer session. So which one for the first one is from James Rutherford. Do you have models or examples that demonstrate this transformation of learning and teaching cultures? It was from the beginning of your presentation. Well, well, there are some while there we cannot say that there are models in this in the traditional sense. The theoretical models in this sense, of course, they are theoretical approaches that can be useful. But they are very good examples that institutions that have managed to do so. Well, such on as just to mention one, I could also mention the experience of the Open University when it made a transition some 10 years ago. And there are other very interesting stories that can be shared. And I believe this is probably more useful at this point more than just to give you theoretical models to share with you best practices of how this has been done. The most important topic I would say is to involve the entire institution in the changing process. That is basically a cultural process more than just a technical process or a change in methods. Thank you. Thank you, Antonio. We will continue with discussion later. So please look at the questions and question and answer session. And now I will move to Blaženka for her introduction and representation so that we get her point of view as a former minister. She is very much acquainted with the situation at universities and have firsthand experience when chairing the creation presidency of EU. So Blaženka, floor is yours. Thank you very much, Sandra. I'm really happy that I can participate and first of all that you invited me to this panel. And I would like to also thank to the participants to join us to share with us and especially to Sir John and Antonio for a very interesting presentations, the first two presentations. And now I'm curious if you can learn something more from me after their presentation. Yes, you're right that during the first half of this year when I was chairing the EU Education and Research Ministers Council, there were a lot of... Actually the only topic was COVID-19 and how the educational systems are actually adjusting and how they are dealing with this new challenge. But we also learned from that case that we are really stronger together if we are working together, if we are sharing and if we are open, at least at the European Union level. And it was really surprising for some of the people there. And that is one of the reasons why I entitled my presentation today, let's size the opportunity, let's size the opportunity, let's see what we can learn from this situation. So because of the COVID-19, of course, we experienced challenges for the education systems all around the world. There were a lot of improvisations, delayed responses, sometimes even chaotic behavior like Brownian movements. But also at the same time what we experienced is the strengths of education systems, innovation capacity of teachers, resilience of students, support of parents, especially in pre-tertiary education. And that's the reason I really hoping that we learned a lot from this first phase. And we also had certainly massive evidence of rapid digital transformation of higher education institutions. So it's not just introduction of new methods of teaching and learning, but also assessment methods. And also what we probably are not still research, it is student development of new skills because all the time what people are discussing and still have been discussing it is about what kind of the skills and knowledge the students are missing because of the pandemics and digital education and so on. But very rarely we can hear about the students actually developed a lot of new skills that couldn't be developed without the situation we were pushed into. Like problem solving, but also met the cognitive skills, the knowledge and the experience about their own progress, then taking responsibility for their progress, then independent learning, research, decision making on a daily basis. So this is really a huge playground for researchers to discover what kind of new skills students have developed. Of course, when we talk about teaching and learning, let us embrace the new teaching and learning methods because these, all of these challenges, they are opportunities for us. I remember when we started 20 years ago, with the Bologna reform in Europe, there were a lot of discussion about the changing structure for achieving certain degrees, levels and so on. But the best institutions nowadays then actually caught that they should rediscover their own identity about the teaching and learning practices. And what Antonio said before is it is about transformation of teaching and learning culture. So it is a time to analyze it, to pose a problem and to solve problems, to have a kind of a situation analysis. And also to show our students that we know how to do it, how to analyze, how to pose a problem and also how to provide some solutions of the problems. So this out of the box thinking and also thinking about grassroots initiatives we have all around our educational system since it is really an opportunity for us to do so. Of course, we have to be aware. I think that all of us certainly are aware that it's necessary first to choose a good methodological approach and then to consider the appropriate technology to support it. Of course, in this emergency reaction in the first half of this year was a little bit, as I said, chaotic. But now for the next academic year we should be really aware that we first of all need to consider a methodological, pedagogical approach and then technology as a second. And as basic indicators of quality of teaching and teaching and learning. So it is invariant of teaching online or face-to-face teaching. I would single out three indicators, one, three groups of indicators, sets of indicators. First one achievement of learning outcomes indicators, then interaction indicators and then satisfaction motivation indicators. And Sir John already said that this interaction is something that we really should consider in different environments and put a lot of effort to have all these interactions, students materials, students, student and teacher, teacher, student or student teacher. And we should really think about our practices considering at least these three sets of indicators. I choose here to single out flip classroom because it's very exciting even though not entirely new concept of teaching. I have been using occasionally since 2014, but due to the prevalence of online teaching, I think it's very important to again to stress out how we can use flip classroom and that enables different types of interactions, even in online environment as I mentioned before, also to engage students, to support students as independent learners and also researchers. Yes, as you know, and some of you also experienced there are a lot more work for teachers when preparing this kind of sophisticated learning environment and then just have delivery of material or some traditional, traditional methods. But it's worth it. But I also would like to stress because of this enormous amount of effort and preparation you should put into the flip classroom approach. It is really very, very good to share to really use education, open educational material as Antonio mentioned before. So I think that we can really learn from that a lot. And then let me let me go back to another topic that Antonio mentioned. It is about assessment methods because all of us know that it's very important how we assess students because students usually learn what they need for for assessment. And as Nal and Vistul said, assessment guides learning. And it is, it is not something that we can practice that we just, okay, so we, we, we have very much on problem solving critical thinking and then when we assess them, we just ask them some routine task to, to perform or just to copy what we said on different presentations and, and lecturing. So it is really important that we ask ourselves gain, which is essential for students to know, to know, or to be able to do in my course in my study program and to answer it honestly. And then to put that really in this learning outcomes we are, we are very fond of. But when we think about it, we, we should really have a much broader approach in a way to, to see what is relevant on a long run, what is essential for their profession. And also to use authentic examples and tasks whenever we can, and ask from them to have this deep approach to learning. So I, I coined this read acronym for that, but all this, in my opinion should be covered. And it's invariant of the main media, it can be used online or it can be used face to face. And as I said, to be aware of this implicit knowledge I mentioned before. Of course, there are a lot of opportunities for formative assessment, use of peer and self assessment to, to boost this metacognitive skills of our students. And of course, during my mandate as a minister there are a lot of questions about how to prevent cheating, how to have assessments that are reliable. And of course, there is no unique answer, but in general there is a balance. If you, if you have a routine tasks, then you should really use much more control and new methods, how to perform, especially E assessment, even though of course you can use banks, banks, huge banks with questions and so on. But still there is a need for more control. But if you have a complex, this read task, then it needs less control, more fun for students, but more time spent on preparation for teachers as well, as I said before. And then my last slide here, it is some general slide on a digital transformation of higher education because we really experience that it can be done, but it should be done having in mind the goals and also the proper methods and lessons learned. And again, sizing the opportunity for complete makeover. It's not just how we can prepare ourselves for the next emergency, but how we can really analyze situation and learn from that about teaching and learning, supporting students and teachers as well. And is really a big opportunity for new players. So emerging universities for the future, because the carts actually are shuffled again on a basis of which university is, let's say much more vivid, much more resilient and much more eager to change and to change in a way to lower the quality, but really to enhance the quality with the new means. So acceptance of grassroots initiatives, experimentations and co-creation of new learning environment. So this hybrid learning as a new normal for all integrated, so face to face and online learning, the best from both worlds. Of course, those who are entirely online is different, but let's say that for traditional universities, it's really a very strong push for change. And of course, the last but not the least, better accessibility and for all students and equity can be provided having all this in mind. So thank you very much for your intention and I'm looking forward to answer your question if there are any. Thank you, Blaženka. Number of topics which are very, very important and very interesting at this moment. Just looking at the questions, maybe one to comment, more for a comment than actually giving reply. Online and in person are very different and there it is not obvious that online is as good as in person. We need to be very cautious about differences and not to assume it's all the same. This would ignore the fact that education is very heterogeneous field of work with very different values. What would be your comment on this statement? Yeah, I would say that there is no one answer for all. So there's the reason why it's very difficult to provide with a one model or one approach. But I really believe that when we are talking about traditional universities that they can use this face to face component for strength and those activities and those, let's say, social interactions that are very meaningful, but at the same time to move online and use the online tools and digital tools for enhancement of the, let's say, teaching and learning, let's say, material interactions, peer assessment and so on. So there is no one solution for all. And that's the reason I said it is really a time to size the opportunity to rethink out our practices that we are using. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not going to open discussion. We have some questions in our question and answer session. Most of them are focused on accessibility of students to technology, also teachers, as well as how to make the online learning effective because it's not always equally effective for all students. And this question for all of you as a panelist, are you concerned about cascading effects of this worldwide shift to online learning for students for whom online may not be a good fit. So maybe Sir John, what would be your comment on this? Well, I think early on we've all been talking about resilience and clearly looking forward if online is going to be a major component of education systems. There is a lot of responsibility, it seems to me, on governments at least to provide networks throughout their countries that people can readily access. So that's the first part of it. And of course in some countries which don't have that, there are actually some very intelligent solutions being developed by people like the Commonwealth of Learning for local systems that can provide the equivalent of the internet over a short range. But I think it's a very difficult, much more difficult question, who equips people with the equipment to work from home. Some universities are rich enough to do that, most are not. But I think as we go forward out of the pandemic, the whole of societies will realize that access to online and digital things, not just for teaching, but for all kinds of things is a much more important thing that governments and everyone else has to look at. The second point I'd make is that it's clear that online is not for everyone. And I personally believe that while the experience this year has showed that it works very well in many cases at the university level, it certainly doesn't work off as well at school level. In fact, I don't think it works at all at elementary level, at secondary level, it's a bit more nuanced. But we're having the most terrific debates here in British Columbia about whether the kids should go back to school and risk getting infected or should stay online. And what's been very interesting to me is that our public health authorities and the people who said, we think it very important that children go back to school. Because so many things happen in school that are important for the development. And we, the public health people, are prepared to take what we think, at least in the case in British Columbia, is a rather small risk of infections and COVID spreading and so on. Because we think it's much more important that the kids get back into face-to-face teaching situations. But as I said, I don't think that applies at university level. So that's a different question. Thank you, Sir John. Can I make an additional comment on this? Yeah, of course, Antonio, please. Yes, well, I've also replied to this question in the Q&A. And following up on what Sir John has said, well, I have a slight difference in a sense regarding this. Of course, it is absolutely right in the comment that is made, of course, from an objective point of view. What I believe also is that we are answering the question based on the current reality and not on the possibilities of changing the reality itself. You guys, basically, when we look at the non-university sectors, of course, starting by early childhood, which is quite challenging, because we don't have even much theoretical models to work with from the perspective of online learning. There hasn't been much expertise produced on this. So we cannot have much on that regard. But I believe that research will be focusing now on this as well. And so we'll be changing and will acquire a lot of expertise that we don't have at this stage, but will be developing in the coming years. So my difference regarding the perspective of Sir John is that, okay, I agree with him on what he said, but we also should take, convey a positive message in the sense that it's also the responsibility of our own community's research effort to change some of those conditions. Regarding the accessibility, of course, I also agree with Sir John in the sense that it's not just the responsibility of governments. And we have seen that a lot of investment has been done in terms of infrastructure in the first decade of this century. And apparently it was not as successful as we thought it was. And so, of course, there's need to be a larger investment in terms of creating conditions for people to have access to Internet, but also to invest a lot even more now on training teachers and also on changing institutions in order for them to be able to meet those requirements that are not meeting at this point. Well, this is just something to stress. Just to ask you a question, you said the training for teachers, it's very important. And my question to you would be, who is, who should be in charge to organize such training for teachers? Are these teachers by themselves, institutions, government, who should take care about this? Because definitely it's question of training teachers to be able to teach in new environment. Yeah. Well, I believe that is should be a shared responsibility. Of course, governments need to play their role here because the effort is multi-institutional in the sense that it's global. And so it requires also the adaptation of the legal frameworks of how their teacher's career is organized for professional development. So it's much more than just allowing them to have a kind of a brief training course. So in this sense, I think that it should start by governments, possibly in Europe even with some intervention by the European Commission as a kind of umbrella organization. And also because funding is required for this. Well, a lot of funding. But on the other hand, of course, it should be also the responsibility of their institutions themselves. In some cases, as for instance, we're talking about universities. When we're talking about the other education sectors, of course, the involvement of city halls and regional and local authorities is also quite important. At the university level, I believe universities are more autonomous in that sense and should play a larger role. Of course, in support organizations as ours, as Eden and others, should also play an important role in sharing the experiences, sharing the expertise and providing resources in that sense as well. Thank you, Antonija. I will now continue with this question, the first one which Sir John started with answering to Blaženka. You were able to prepare the action plan there actually for education institutions for the autumn, for the new academic and school year. And taking into account that maybe online is not fit for all and a hybrid model as such, not all people think it's also so good. What was your idea, how to organize, how to propose to organize teaching and learning in universities and in schools? Thank you for asking that, Sandra. Actually, I think that the first, at first in spring when we started online, it was the only criteria we took into consideration was pandemic, nothing else. But now we should consider at least two sets of criteria, those that are connected to the health issues, but also those that are connected to the conditions that different universities and schools have. So the action plan was proposed like that we should really take into consideration both so conditions, so it means not just buildings, but also human resources, materials, equipment for students and so on. So I agree with Antonio that it has much more responsibility when you are minister to organize the school teaching and learning than university because you're always in trouble when you try to interfere with autonomy in universities except when universities are asking for more funding than you're really welcome to interfere as a government. But let me say that what we try to do is to take care about all three components. So we said it depends on the situation we try to have as much as we can in physical environment, especially for schools. It doesn't mean universities are different, but for schools as much as we can. Then we should, if the conditions are such that we should use the blended learning in schools or at universities, we should provide in three areas. First of all, it is about the equipment. So to provide some additional funding for students and pupils, for pupils in schools actually we bought quite a big amount of laptops and also tablets and for teachers as well. At university we tried to motivate and even support universities to rent equipment to students, not to force them to buy, but to rent them. And then the second is education. So additional training for students and for teachers, regardless of the model we are going to use, it's good to have this training as we learned before. Not just about how to use technology, but how to use technology for learning and especially to use it with a certain goals and purposes I talked about. So this is the second and third is strategic approach to that. So it means to empower schools and universities to have really good tools for strategic decision making and also to use agile lean approach to decision making and strategic planning. Not to have a long processes with a lot of actors and very deep and very complicated structure, but to have agile one. So I think that's, I try to answer it as fast as I can, but you can find even on a Ministry of Science and Education English page you can find the whole document in English so you can probably find some other answers I haven't provided so far. Thank you. We are going quite with our time. We have already passed an hour so I will try to summarize and try to conclude the session. So for each of you, I would like to ask you if you were to give a short answer to the questions when we are talking about digital transformation of universities. What do you think? How much they are prepared today for digital transformation because I'm very happy to know that there are universities who did already digital transformation but I would say the majority of them are still in this process or are just starting with this process. And what would be your first, what would be your recommendation for the first issue to think about when doing digital transformation of the university? So Sir John, I hope it's not too difficult. No, it's interesting. One of the most exciting things I've been involved in in the last few months have been dropping sessions for the faculty at this little Alexander School of Management here in Vancouver. Now these are part-time faculty. They teach at a number of institutions but the Vice President has convened dropping sessions every couple of weeks for them to exchange experience of doing what they've been doing. And I have been amazed by the quality of these and the richness of what has been exchanged so that I think it's fair to say that most of the training that has taken place in this little management school has been actually one faculty telling another faculty member what has been successful for them. And if you pull all their knowledge, they have a quite amazing knowledge of the technologies and all the rest of it. So I'm not sure this necessarily requires a sort of top-down government-led or even institutional-led approach. Someone has to take the initiative. But I think these people understand the way the world is going. They want to be part of it. And I think if you appeal to them, you'll get far more back than you expect. Thank you. Very good answer. Yes, we have to always count on people. Thank you. Antonija? Well, I'm building up a little bit on what has already been said. I believe that the key issue is to tell people, to be able to convince them, that to conduct digital transformation is also a way of increasing the quality of the learning experience, the quality, the flexibility, the efficiency of the learning experience. Well, it might be, it's interesting. I was just recollecting my own experience. What actually was used by us 10 years ago at the Open University of Portugal to convince the faculty to do this transition was actually telling them that this would increase the quality of what they were doing. And they discovered it. Of course, nothing important as, and they were happy about it. Some of them were not happy at first. And this is something that has to be taken into consideration when you're managing such a process. The response will, you'll have the response in two, three, four years time. So the first year or second, it will be hard. And many will react because people don't like to change. Opposite to what is common knowledge. Now, people don't like to change. And so the importance here is to show what they can watch each one of them, the students, the teaching, the teachers, the, well, what everyone involved, families and so on, the community is able to gain from this process. And I would just reinforce this message that making this transition to online learning is not a way to decrease the quality of the learning that is provided, but actually should be the opposite, should be a way to increase that quality. And also the possibility of personalization, adjustment, flexibility, and each one will have a different experience from the other one, but a meaningful experience. So that would be in short, my message. Thank you. Thank you. And Vazhenka, from your point of view. Thank you. I think that we certainly are much more prepared today than we were a year ago, but it was not because we decided so, but because it just happened. But now we can react in two different ways. First, what I really strongly recommend, let us size the opportunity, especially for newcomers, new institutions, teachers that probably haven't considered their teaching and learning practices properly. In the past, but now it is opportunity to size the, to this new, new push, but at the same time, I think there is another way, another behavior we can, we can see around. It's kind of a reaction like, let us just close our eyes and let us wait for all these pandemics and everything to stop. And then we are going back to our happy, old, very comfortable way of dealing with things. And unfortunately, we have such, such reactions for the top people from different systems, universities and so on. And I think that is very, very, let's say dangerous answer and attitude and behavior nowadays. So what I would like to emphasize, size the opportunity, try to find co-creation principle in your institution and open up. Open up because we are now, let's say in a position that we can say, yeah, it's difficult. We should learn from each other. We are not perfect, but we are eager to learn, but show our students that we can really deal with the situation. That's actually learning by doing. Thank you. I think we pointed out very good that actually from what I have read behind your messages that as ancient as it is that talking to people from generation to generation, but now from people to other teacher, manager to other manager, headmaster to other headmaster is the most important thing. Because by sharing these practices, we actually learn a lot and what was working in some other situation can also work well in our situation or we can adapt it for our situation. And definitely, there's a lot of differences, but I'm certain that listening and sharing the others, we can find the solutions away how to implement things into our environment. Yes, we need technology, finances and other issues, but I think with the goodwill and openness to new challenges and to embrace them, we can encounter everything. I would also very much enjoy that I can wake up tomorrow and everything is going to be the same as before a pandemic. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. Otherwise, I would dream about every day to make me younger and go back 20 years ago, but it's not going to happen. So I would like to thank my speakers today, very good panelists for very good topics and insights and advices. I'm certain that the participants have gained quite good ideas. Also, I would like to thank all our participants for being with us today from all over the world. And I would like to announce that next session on the same topic, but from different perspectives, will be on the next Monday with different speakers. So please join us again and also think about at the same time how to prepare the paper for the research workshop in Lisbon. I think that the research is very important because based on research, we can have new methods. We can have new insights and new ways of working which will enable us in the end to provide high quality teaching and learning, which is the aim of us all. So thank you again and all the best. See you next Monday. Bye. Thank you, Sandra. Thank you. Bye, everyone.


Hello and welcome to Newsweek. Today, we have Professor Satyajit Rat and we'll be discussing first the WTO round of discussions again on the question of waiving various intellectual property rights by those who hold it. In this case, particularly vaccines, but also a whole range of now pharmaceutical products which are available for treating virus in the early stage, monoclonal antibodies, for example, as well. So there's a whole range of things which actually we should be discussing, not just simply vaccines, which of course are the more public face or what the debate is all about. Satyajit, to ask you the brutal frank question, do we really need waiver of patents on vaccines? Because under the Doha round, actually we could use compulsory licensing if we want. So why is this not looking at compulsory licensing but looking much more on the trips waivers, new waivers that is being demanded, which is, of course, what was started by South Africa and India. And rightly so, because we're talking of a range of other issues as well, including reagents, including other things. But just for vaccines, why do we need this waiver? So there are two issues here, I think. The first issue is what will be ostensibly pointed out. And that ostensibly pointed out issue is the fact that vaccine manufacture for all the vaccine platforms, the mRNA platforms, the adenovirus platforms, quite certainly, and even the protein platforms, involves transfer not simply of access to patented information and material, but also access to specialized reagents and the confidential information associated with the manufacturing process, the manufacturing technology and process. Effectively, the more complex the manufacturer is, the more likely there are to be trade secret components. And since vaccine manufacturers are fairly complex process in industrial terms, there's a fair number of trade secrets. And therefore, simply countries declaring compulsory licensing, except in rare instances, may not actually lead to successful manufacturing production. So negotiations are going on. The other component, of course, is that there is an implicit acknowledgement all around that the doha accords and declarations are not being held as the starting point. Instead, the starting point is the far more modest text that was proposed two years ago. And that seems now to be even more focused and watered down. And the last point I would like to make, before I hand it back to you for commentary on the political economic issues involved, is let us be clear that these things have been discussed for almost two years now without an outcome in the middle of a pandemic which in the interim has killed millions. And that itself underlines a substantive failure of the process. And it's also interesting, Satish, when you talk about it. Initially, we had a few of the European countries who shed crocodile tears about wars, only if it happens in Europe, not anywhere else. But at the same time, they do not seem to have too much sympathy or never had shown too much sympathy for the victims of COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the third world countries. Because if you look at the European Union, they have been at the forefront of the opposition to any weakening of the intellectual property rights. So that has been their position from the beginning. And of course, the United States initially, but in the Biden, they said, yes, we are willing to wave off. But what appears now is that the wading off is really a facade behind which the basic controls of the technology will still stay. So we come back to Bill Gates' understanding that only when we support transfer of technology can these countries, which are really poor, underdeveloped, don't have science and technology, like India, for example, can they really manufacture such vaccines without us? They can't do it. So that's the nutshell what is being talked about. But it's also what we understand from what we see of the proposals. They're also restricting India, Brazil, and China, the three countries which are intermediate level countries who could then, even if they got a waiver, could perhaps manufacture these things themselves, then they are not allowed to do so. And it becomes particularly interesting that all of these processes that we are talking about have not been developed by the private companies, but have been really developed out of government grants, other grants being given. They come from public money. And the governments which have given these grants want really monopoly profits there for their vaccine companies. And as we know, the largest money spinner for the vaccine companies has been the COVID-19 vaccines, whether it is modern or which never had a successful product, or the other vaccine, which is what is widely being used in the West, because that's also one of these mRNA vaccines. And there again, the major profits have come from essentially this year or last two years really come from this particular vaccine. It started the BioNTech vaccine, the later on became, I'm sorry, what is the company? Pfizer. It started the BioNTech vaccine. Now it's being called Pfizer vaccine, because Pfizer bought international rights for it, of course, not in competition with BioNTech. So how do you look at this? So interestingly, this entire effort over the last two years, which is effectively a matter of trying to do something about the stable door after the horses disappeared over the horizon. But this entire process, even at its own glacially slow pace, is directed at a very narrow set of waivers and exceptions to be granted. And to be granted, as you point out, to very, very specific countries that will desperately need active tech transfer aid in order to be able to manufacture. So countries like India, China, Brazil have not been excluded by name. But by imposing the condition that countries which export more than I think a 10% threshold will not be eligible for these waivers. All of this is essentially in conjunction with the slow pace of negotiations. And the commercial damage limitation exercise to all intents and purposes rather than a public health facilitation exercise. If we look at the final figures even today, Africa has got less than 20% of its population fully vaccinated. Well, we have seen in advanced countries a more than 100% vaccination, meaning that people have got the two doses plus they have the third booster dose and some places also the fourth booster dose. And starting now to also go down the age groups. That's not no longer, there's the adult population, children as well and even younger children. So this is a very dismal outlook for the world that after looking at the AIDS epidemic what all was said that we should not repeat the experience of the AIDS epidemic where Africans were really denied a life saving medicine. South Africa had to fight a long court battle against companies which said, you can't import from India life saving AIDS drugs. You should instead import from us even if you can't afford it and even if your people can't afford it that's just too bad. So in spite of the warnings that this should not be repeated we seem to have repeated in the game. And now I guess we are all into looking at Africa getting quote unquote heard immunity the way Boris Johnson wanted for England. Basically yes, but let me point out that rather than putting this at the door of profit making companies alone what we should keep in mind is that so-called democratically elected governments across the world have been complicit in this entire profit oriented shift of the social commons of public health as a social group. And that is the far more worrisome prospect going forward the complicity of democratic governments in the privatization of social group rather than simply companies doing what they will do which is maximize their profit. So the other part of it that we've discussed this enough earlier as well that the more we do this the more we expose everybody including the people in the advanced countries who supposedly they are protecting well we actually really open them out to future variants and we already have seen two major variants which have spread in the world after I mean this would be the third if you include the alpha variant as well as not the original virus then we get alpha then delta which is really a huge hit in terms of everything including people dying, trade, everything. And then we now have Omicron and we have the Omicron variants which seem to be quite different from the what the earlier Omicron variant was. So we are going to open ourselves again and again to new variants coming up and therefore this seems to be retrogressive in global terms because the global economy has taken a huge hit because of COVID-19 pandemic. It is absolutely regressive as a public health response not to do inclusive aggressive vaccination coverage with community informed participation. And both components of this have been lacking and I will fault governments, democratic governments once again for not reaching out to communities informing and empowering communities to participate in vaccination programs as much as I will fault what we've been talking about which is the supply side shortages of vaccine delivery, particularly vaccine deliveries to remote locations and sites across much of the poor areas of the world. I must however point out something else that's beyond vaccination in the context of the question you asked and that is vaccination, especially vaccination based on 2020 strain information which is what our vaccines are quite efficiently it prevents serious illness and death even by today's strains, including by Omicron strains. There's been some loss of protection but not a dramatic loss of protection. However, transmission prevention is nowhere near efficient by the vaccine for today's virus strains. In other words, Omicron has spread across the world in vaccinated populations quite efficiently because vaccination even though it prevents serious illness does not particularly efficiently prevent transmission. It does but not very much. As a result, declaring that the pandemic is over which governments across the world have tacitly or even explicitly done, including here in India has led to the fact that we have ceased to behave with any care or caution at all none of us is using masks. No government has taken on a public health responsibility to provide efficient reusable masks to its citizens. This has never been done in the pandemic and now of course we've ceased to think that the pandemic is still active and therefore we even more don't worry about masking. Unless of course it takes China into account which is trying a very different philosophy. Absolutely, but the fact of the matter is that this is resulting in a very large pool of viruses that are circulating, virus strains that are effectively growing out there and making it easier and easier for new variants to keep popping up which is what is happening in the Omicron lineages. One word about China. Yeah, sorry, as you said, just about the introduction. As you said earlier, in fact, you've told us a number of times that vaccine escape is what is obviously the evolutionary path for the virus since most people, a lot of people are vaccinated. One point of view about the Chinese effort. Now the Chinese effort makes sense in some ways from the Chinese point of view where they may not be able to handle for their vast population, huge numbers of sudden seriously ill people and therefore they have gone in because they can throw technology and social support for extended lockdowns and testing at this problem. They've adopted the zero COVID policy. This may not be practicable for other countries. The problem I think that the Chinese approach is facing is paradoxically the same one that we are talking about namely that this is not a national problem, this is a global problem. And so long as the world is bringing up virus variants, China's borders are going to be battered steadily by newer and newer and newer variants. And the Chinese policy is going to run no matter how successful their zero COVID approaches are over the short term, they're still going to run into better and better transmissible variants. And therefore the bar for their success is going to keep rising. Again, this is not to say that the Chinese policy is right or wrong, but to underline the fact that we need a global inclusive thought out integrated policy that treats public health as a global social good. Last point, we did not discuss apart from vaccine the other issues, but whether you take, particularly if you take the small molecule which is also what is now being made available for the people who are to fall in. Though as we have said various riders, it has to be, if you want to have an antibiotic, it has to be early, it has to be taken in the first two, three days, not beyond the three days, definitely. And the monoclonal antibodies are not working against, of course, the newer variants. Taking all of that into account, at least for the small molecules, of course, we have the old not-piped into drugs also being used and some of them seem to have some antiviral properties too. Do you think that is also an active area that we could encourage people to take out compulsory licenses and use them? Well, it's certainly very much part of what I would consider an integrated global response to the pandemic. And therefore making available, especially the oral antiviral drugs under compulsory licensing, drugs such as molnupiravir, drugs such as paxilovid, there are one or two more that are in advanced stages of development. All of these will very, ought to very much form part of the conversation, but the current texts are somewhat hazy about whether they are properly part of the conversation or not. Again, underlining the fact that this entire discourse is beset by commercial considerations and profit considerations rather than a full-throated endorsement of public health across the world as a social government. Essentially protecting markets and profits as the objective under the cover of providing some relaxation because of the pandemic seems to be the thrust that we are talking about at the moment. And even this is, doesn't seem to be a vigorous rearguard action to will by the countries which are most affected by it. And that doesn't seem to be there. So in some sense countries like India, South Africa, Brazil seem to be co-opted into this policy, though it was originally South Africa and India who raised the flag in WTO. It seems that our response now has become much more, shall we say, weak in the response that this draft really warranted. We don't see the kind of battle that India, for instance, or Brazil fought, or South Africa fought during WTO. So that's a political commentary, not really a health commentary, I guess. Satyajit. Yes, but unfortunately that's how it looks. Satyajit, thank you for being with us and exploring some of these issues which really are not barely health or dealing with COVID-19, but really dealing with the political economy of health and the larger issues thereof of society. Thank you very much. This is all the time we have today for our discussions on COVID-19. We'll come back to you with this and other discussions and maybe broaden it out to involve Satyajit on discussing about global health in general, not simply COVID-19, because after all we now have monkeypox which is roiling at least the communities that are looking at it, particularly communities like you Satyajit who look at immune responses and so on. And we also seem to be seeing other issues that are coming up. We did also discuss perhaps WHO's discussions about where the COVID-19 originated from, even if it is merely a historical footnote. Thank you very much. This is all the time we have for NewsClick today. Do keep watching NewsClick and do visit our website.