Building a Membership of Higher Education Innovators with Foresight Research

Educating the incoming generation of workers and citizens amidst changing technological and social issues is a large field of concern many of us, across borders and cultures, have in common.

EDUCAUSE is a global nonprofit association of 2,100 member organizations, including higher education institutions, companies that serve the higher education technology market, and other education-related organizations. It integrates foresight into its data gathering processes to empower its members with informed insights on the future of higher education. Join us on Wednesday, January 24 at 10am PST when IFTF talks to three of their senior staff, Kathe Pelletier, Director, Teaching and Learning Program; Betsy Reinitz, Director, CIO and Senior Technology Leaders Program; and Jenay Robert, Senior Researcher. We’ll dive into EDUCAUSE’s foresight journey—how it started, how it’s transformed, where it’s going—, examine in detail their research panel process, and discuss their tool for turning foresight and insight into an action plan.

We’ll end the hour with a brief guided, interactive session where webinar participants can use Padlet (https://padlet.com/jrobert38/what-int..., a tool EDUCAUSE uses to catalog signals of change.

Learn more about IFTF Foresight Essentials. https://www.iftf.org/foresightessenti...

IFTF Foresight Talks: Moderated, publicly accessible, hour-long sessions that introduce some of the world’s foremost foresight strategists, designers, and leaders, IFTF Foresight Talks broaden the conversation within the global foresight community. Each offers a unique futures perspective that supports IFTF’s mission: to shape a better future for all.

00:00 - Intro
01:32 - What is IFTF?
06:15 - What is Educause?
09:25 - What was Educause’s journey like, integrating foresight into its research?
11:30 - Foresight activities like "Find Future Me" are useful ways to engage planning groups.
14:06 - Educause Foresight Panel Process
24:40 - What is it like to be on an Educause Foresight Panel
25:12 - Look Back to Look Forward, a tool to appreciate historical context
27:28 - What is a signal? What is a trend?
31:39 - How Educause looks at future scenarios.
36:28 - Moving from Insight to Action
39:55 - How to justify the use of foresight to your team.
44:03 - Encouraging people to take action with interactive reports
50:06 - Padlet is a tool for a group people to collect drivers of change or trends, with evidence