Digital Strategy and Innovation Track

Marketing-at-Scale: Optimizing and Personalizing the Learner’s Journey in the World’s First Degrees-at-Scale
Track: Digital Strategy and Innovation | Level: Strategic
Location: Metropolitan Ballroom
Georgia Tech was the first university in the world to offer online degrees-at-scale that delivered high quality education at a disruptive price. But marketing-at-scale came with challenges to personalization and opportunities for efficiency. Learn how Georgia Tech has brought these degrees to market through the cornerstones of a rock-solid enrollment marketing plan utilizing research, personas, messaging, and a digital-first strategy emphasizing personalization. See how empathetic strategy and understanding the learner point-of-view drives targeting and segmentation to build awareness and drive the messaging and timing of interactions through the enrollment funnel.

• Mont Rogers, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Stephen Fain, Georgia Institute of Technology
  
• Chris Walker, Georgia Institute of Technology
  

Moderator: Keith Bailey, University of West Virginia

MicroMasters and Other New On-Ramps to Graduate Degrees
Track: Digital Strategy and Innovation | Level: Strategic
Location: Metropolitan Ballroom
In this cutting-edge session, examine the state of Harvard’s and MIT’s pathways initiatives, MicroMaster’s offerings, and overall growth on edX and other platforms. Through lively discussion, learn about what the future of modular, stackable, portable credentialing might mean to the ongoing unbundling of higher education.

• Tracy Tan, MIT
  

Moderator: Hunt Lambert, Harvard University

Higher Education Reimagined
Level: Strategic
Location: Metropolitan Ballroom
Reinventing higher education has become a well-worn trope in the Age of Disruption, though many higher education leaders have yet to engage in an authentic assessment of their campus’ response to disruption.  Are we really meeting the needs of today’s learners, who are nothing like the learners a generation ago?  Is our value proposition reflective of learner needs, or merely a product of our legacy business models?  Are we sufficiently responding to demands—from policymakers, employers, and the public at large—that reflect the needs of students and the communities we serve? Moderated by Paul Fain of Inside Higher Ed, this panel will explore some of the most promising emerging models of postsecondary education, and the impediments they face.         

• Nina Huntemann, edX
  
• Nelson Baker, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Sharon Leu, U.S Department of Education
  

Moderator: Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

The Online Thaw: The Long Awaited Emergence of International Markets
Track: Digital Strategy and Innovation | Level: Strategic
Location: Metropolitan Ballroom
International markets for online education lagged far behind those in the US for the past two decades.  The common explanation was that international students preferred on-ground learning and/or preferred to study in the US or elsewhere. With changes in federal immigration policies, coupled with a rise in acceptance of online learning, that dynamic appears to be changing.  Panelists will discuss growth opportunities that are driving their strategy, and share where these emerging markets may be headed.   
--Introduced by Allan Fisher, Emeritus

• Tom Gibbons, Northwestern University
  
• Mitsue Shiokawa, Old Domininon University
  
• Breeda McGrath, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
  

Moderator: John Caron, Endicott College

Winning Recipes for a Successful Design Team Structure
Level: Strategic
Location: Ravenna
Join us as we reveal the ingredients that have led to the creation of several successful curriculum design units. We will also cover our approach to refining our recipes to stay current and allow for opportunities for cross-institutional collaborations.

• Ryan Anderson, University of Wisconsin System
• Karen Dowdall-Sanford, University of Washington

Moderator: Camille Funk, University of California, Irvine/UPCEA

Building for Success and the New Innovation Imperative
Level: Strategic | Tag: Emerging Leaders
Location: Metropolitan Ballroom
Forward-leaning universities are increasingly realizing that while innovation “happens” on their campus, it is often not strategic or even necessarily intentional.  In some instances, innovation goes unnoticed in the digital and professional education space, and in other instances institutions spotlight innovation in discrete units charged with leading campus innovation.  This panel will share three models for approaching innovation, and will reflect more broadly on the nature of innovation in higher education, both today and tomorrow.  

• Kemi Jona, Northeastern University
• Sean Hobson, Arizona State University
• Sasha Thackaberry, Louisiana State University

Moderator: Richard Novak, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey