OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

Canada needs a national strategy for generative AI in higher education
Wiam Ben Karroum, Policy Options, 2025/09/24

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This sort of call is similar to many that have echoed through the years - no, not on AI, but on Canada's need for a 'national education policy' on this or that. Education in Canada is a provincial responsibility, so it's hard to see how a national policy could be implemented, let alone enforced. Generally, what we see is that a call for a 'national policy' equates to a call for 'federal funding' with the idea of influence through largess (you'll find it near the end of the article, right after 'a national regulatory framework'). But is this what is needed, really? Would we even reach a national consensus AI in education that defines acceptable uses, data protection, cultural sensitivity and integrity & accountability?

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Testing Times & Interesting Discussions
Alex Usher, HESA, 2025/09/24

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Interesting post about "a Chatham House rules session at RBC headquarters... which attracted a good number of university and college presidents, as well as CEOs" coinciding with the release of their report on learning and research (see below). Notable in the coverage: Alex Usher picks up on the sentiment that "universities were being hamstrung... by professional regulatory bodies" (he lets this drop, but I'm sure we'll see more) and also that "when they think about how higher education affects their business, CEOs seem to think primarily about human capital (i.e. graduates). They talk a lot less about research." Usher also underlines the idea (oft-repeated in the past) that "technological adoption might be the product of governments and firms not having enough people to use new technologies properly." This speaks directly to procurement, and I'm sympathetic, but there's a lot at play here.

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Testing Times: Fending off a crisis in Canadian postsecondary education
RBC, 2025/09/24

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I read this report (16 page PDF) recommended by Alex Usher this morning (see above) and my main thought was "I've read this before." Not literally, of course, but the recommendations are unchanged from what we've been hearing from the Canadian business sector for decades: increase funding and "tuition flexibility", "institutional mandates (to) develop their unique strengths and meet specific labour force needs", "programs and services need to be more aligned with the world of work", "dismantle regulatory roadblocks (including) professional regulatory bodies (and) labour unions", and "incentivize research that produces intellectual property (IP) or advances national priorities." Let me gently push back: the problem isn't with the teaching and the research, which though chronically underfunded are among the best in the world. The problem is a business community that - no matter what the incentives - simply doesn't invest enough in education and research in Canada. Making Canadian institutions work for them at their behest won't change that.

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Why Don’t We Ditch the Textbook?
TeachOnline |, 2025/09/24

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Contact North with an imaginary letter from a student to today's teachers: "I've been thinking a lot about how we learn and I want to be honest. The textbook just isn't working for me. Or for most of us, really. It's not just boring. It's static, uninviting and completely out of step with how we engage with the world."

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Chrome Switches on AI: The Future of Browsing Begins Now
Richard MacManus, The New Stack, 2025/09/24

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"Are the curtains being drawn on web browsing as we've known it for 30+ years?" asks Richard ManManus. It's a good question. Chrome is not alone in mixing AI with browsing - Microsoft's Edge and Mozilla's Firefox have already traveled down that road. But there are concerns that AI-enabled browsing puts a layer between the reader and the source content. This is a real concern not only for commercial publishers (who are asking professors to tell students to disable the AI function) but even people like me who share non-commercially; from my perspective, the big problem with social media algorithms wasn't just that they promoted clickbait and advertising (though they did) but also that even people who followed me were no longer seeing what I wrote. So what's the alternative? Stand-alone feed readers?

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Enacting assessment reform in a time of artificial intelligence
Jason M Lodge, Margaret Bearman, et al., Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, Australian Government, 2025/09/24

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The main message of this Australian report (20 page PDF) is that "Rather than investing primarily in detection mechanisms, institutions need to emphasise the redesign of assessment to capture authentic demonstrations of student capability and comprehension." But how? They offer three pathways: program-level assessment reform, which "creates multiple, interconnected, secure points of evidence"; assurance at the unit/subject level, which includes "assessments that restrict gen AI or other assistance"; and "a hybrid approach that combines elements of both program-wide assessment reform and assurance of learning at the unit/subject level." So, basically, just adding a program-level assessment to the rest. Not very inspired.

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We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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