Keynote Speakers

(In alphabetical order by surname)

Title: Generative Online Course: An Innovation in Theory & Practice for Adult Education in the Age of AI

Li CHEN
Professor and Former Vice President
Beijing Normal University

Profile

Prof. Li Chen is a PhD supervisor at Beijing Normal University. She is the Vice President of China Association for Educational Technology, CAET. She was formerly Vice President of Beijing Normal University.

She is the leader of Master Program and PhD Program of Online Education in Beijing Normal University. Her research is mainly focusing on Online Learning and Lifelong Learning. She is deep engaged in policy consulting in Online education and lifelong learning. She has authored and published more than 10 books and 200 papers.

Keynote address

The speech will present how generative online course can provide more valuable content to adults. Generative Online Course (GOC) is a new type of online course, which is based on the Regressive View of Knowledge and Connectivism. Generative online course is a knowledge community, not knowledge transfer activity, which is focusing on production and sharing of practical knowledge instead of theory. The speaker has been devoted to the research of GOC for 9 years with a team from Beijing Normal University. The team developed the third-generation online platform, which has offered more than 10 pilot courses of DOC in Mainland of China. The speech will present the theory, the practices, and findings from the date of pilot courses. The speaker wishes to emphasize that traditional courses are not good at delivering practical knowledge, which is the key nutrients for adult. The online space and AI can support the production and dissemination of practical knowledge by DOC, which is a historical opportunity for adult education in age of AI.

Title: Designing for Learning: Pedagogical Innovations Through AI

Shen Yong HO
Principal Lecturer, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Former Executive Director, Institute for Pedagogical Innovation, Research, and Excellence (InsPIRE)
Nanyang Technological University

Profile

Dr. Ho Shen Yong was Executive Director of the Institute for Pedagogical Innovation, Research, and Excellence (InsPIRE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) from July 2021 to March 2026. A graduate of Imperial College, he taught at Hwa Chong Junior College (1998–2003) before completing his PhD in Physics at the University of Toronto (2009) and conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined NTU in 2011 as a Physics lecturer.

A passionate and innovative educator, Dr. Ho has developed activities to enhance students’ thinking skills and bridge theory with real-world applications in the large-class Freshman Engineering Physics course. He co-launched the “Making and Tinkering” course in 2014, where students design and build prototypes of their choice.  To date, there are more than 160 completed student projects. He has won many teaching awards, including the Nanyang Education Award (Gold, 2018), and was promoted to Principal Lecturer that year. He has served as Provost’s Chair in Physics since 2019, and as Assistant Dean and subsequently Associate Dean (Academic) at the College of Science from January 2018 to March 2022. He has also helped develop university-wide interdisciplinary core courses.

In recent years, Dr. Ho has led NTU’s faculty efforts on AI in education, developing pedagogical frameworks and spearheading initiatives to prepare faculty and students for the transformative impact of AI on teaching and learning.

Keynote address

AI has opened up many possibilities in teaching and learning. While it can augment good pedagogical practices, used poorly it will equally amplify poor ones. In this talk, I begin from a pedagogical framework grounded in established learning theories — including Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and the SOLO Taxonomy — to ensure that the capabilities of AI are harnessed in educationally meaningful and theoretically principled ways.

I will share how Google’s prompt-coding tool, Antigravity, can be used to create engaging educational assets such as physics games that support active learning. These are not merely interactive novelties — they are designed with clear learning objectives and scaffolded to move students progressively toward deeper understanding. Beyond configuring AI chatbots, I will explore other approaches to personalising learning, including AI roleplay and teachable AI, each grounded in the same pedagogical framework.

A key theme running through these innovations is the deliberate collection and use of learning data. Physics games, e-assessment tools, and student conversation histories with AI systems together form a rich data ecosystem that feeds into learning analytics — enabling educators to better understand student progression, identify misconceptions early, and make more informed pedagogical decisions.

Finally, I will discuss how AI can assist with certain aspects of grading — improving productivity, consistency in marking, and the quality of feedback — while reflecting on the importance of keeping the human always in the loop. Educators bring contextual judgment to assessment that AI cannot replicate, and these must remain central to any AI-assisted grading workflow.

Title: AI Will Shape Universities. The Question Is Who Governs It?

Graham KENDALL
Vice-Chancellor
GlobalNxt University, Malaysia

Profile

Professor Graham Kendall is an experienced higher education leader with a distinguished career spanning university leadership, research strategy, innovation, and international academic development across the United Kingdom and Asia. He currently serves as Vice-Chancellor of GlobalNxt University, Malaysia. Previously, he served as Provost and CEO of the University of Nottingham Malaysia, Vice-Chancellor of MILA University, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the global University of Nottingham.

In recent years, Professor Kendall has become a recognised advocate for research integrity, ethical publishing, and responsible research assessment. His work explores publication ethics, bibliometrics, predatory publishing, and the challenges facing the global scholarly communication ecosystem. He is a frequent commentator on issues relating to research quality, academic standards, and the responsible evaluation of research performance.

Prior to becoming Provost and CEO, he was Vice-Provost for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, where he led the university's research agenda and strengthened its international research profile and industry engagement. His association with the University of Nottingham spanned more than twenty years across both the United Kingdom and Malaysia. After completing his PhD in Computer Science at Nottingham, he joined the academic staff, progressing to Professor of Computer Science. In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the title of Emeritus Professor when he left the university in 2021.

Professor Kendall began his career in the Information Technology sector, holding senior management positions before entering higher education as a mature student. He graduated with a First Class degree in Computation from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).

An internationally recognised researcher, Professor Kendall’s work has focuses on solving real-world problems through Operations Research, Artificial Intelligence, and evolutionary computation. He has published around 300 peer-reviewed papers and has held several senior editorial positions, including Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games and Associate Editor of the Journal of the Operational Research Society.

He continues to contribute to international higher education through visiting, honorary, and distinguished professorial appointments in Hong Kong and India, while supporting universities in their pursuit of research excellence, innovation, and global engagement.

Keynote address

Artificial Intelligence is transforming finance, healthcare, logistics, media, and government. It is reshaping business models, decision architectures, and governance frameworks at strategic scale. Higher education presents a paradox. While universities are centres of knowledge creation, AI adoption across the sector remains fragmented and institutionally under-coordinated.

Lecturers, students, and research groups are utilising AI. Yet these developments are often disconnected from institutional strategy. AI is being embedded in practice without investment in governance, infrastructure, or long-term design. As a result, there is a risk that technological convenience replaces strategic intent.

A deeper concern is that universities are becoming consumers of AI rather than leaders in its development. Although research on AI is prolific, the sector is not consistently translating that expertise into institutional capability. Increasing reliance on external analytics providers, bibliometric platforms, automated writing tools, and AI detection or “humanisation” services reflects a market evolving faster than university strategy. Commercial incentives are shaping educational environments in ways that do not always align with academic priorities.

Governance is therefore the central challenge. Boards and executive teams acknowledge that AI is transformative, yet institutional oversight often lacks technical depth, data interrogation, and strategic coherence. Decisions are often informed by AI-derived data, predictive analytics and by relying on press reports as a main source of information. When fragile data underpin strategic judgement, institutional risk is amplified.

This keynote argues that the future of open and innovative education will not be determined by how quickly universities adopt AI, but by how deliberately they govern it. If higher education does not strategically shape AI, AI will shape higher education, and that will be detrimental to the sector.

Title: Artificial Intelligence and Open and Innovative Education

Mark NICHOLS
President, International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)
Executive Director, Learning Design & Development
The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand

Profile

Dr Mark Nichols is a global leader in open, distance, and innovative education, known for his contributions to the advancement of learning systems that expand availability, inclusivity, scalability, and sustainability. He currently serves as Executive Director, Learning Design & Development at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, where he leads education design and the adoption of artificial intelligence into curriculum design.

With more than two decades of experience across the tertiary and international education sectors, Mark has shaped policy, research, and practice in open and distance learning worldwide. He is President of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) and a Commonwealth of Learning Chair, roles through which he contributes to global dialogues on the future of technology enhanced education. He is also a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA), an EDEN Fellow, a founding member of the Aotearoa Tertiary AI Network (ATAIN), and a lifetime member of the Flexible Learning Association of New Zealand (FLANZ).

Mark's research spans the pedagogical implications of digital innovation, organisational capability and strategy, and the ethical and strategic integration of AI in education. His published work includes contributions to international journals, books, and edited volumes that foreground openness, learner centred design, and system level transformation. A sought after keynote speaker, Mark is recognised for his ability to connect rigorous scholarship with practical insight. His work emphasises not only what AI can do for education, but what it should be based on – a clear vision of what education is and how learning works.

Keynote address

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds significant promise for transforming open and innovative education, yet many institutions struggle to move beyond small scale experimentation. A recent 2025 report highlights that while organisations are increasingly engaging with both agential and generative AI, few achieve meaningful, scalable implementation or realise measurable efficiencies. This ambiguity is amplified in open education contexts, where the potential applications of AI span learning, teaching, and administrative domains, but adoption remains uneven and largely operational rather than strategic.

This keynote introduces a practical, institution-wide framework designed to help open universities harness generative AI in ways that create genuine improvements for students, academic staff, and administrators. The framework emphasises the importance of a clear vision, coordinated strategy, and deliberate integration of AI supported practices across the organisation. It explores how institutions can cultivate experimentation while maintaining momentum toward sustainable implementation, balancing innovation with accountability, with the result of embedded AI capabilities that endure.

By focusing on process rather than output and grounding AI adoption in scholarly curiosity, reflective practice, and meaningful human oversight, the keynote argues that universities can raise institutional capability and deliver demonstrable improvements. Ultimately, it offers actionable guidance for navigating the complexity of AI adoption through an “all-of-university” perspective, ensuring that AI contributes positively and strategically to the future of open education.

Title: The Role of AI and Digital Assistance to Transform Higher Education: Lessons Learned from the Open University UK

Bart RIENTIES
Professor of Learning Analytics
Director, Institute of Education Technology
Open University (UK)

Profile

Dr. Bart Rienties is Professor of Learning Analytics and Director of the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at the Open University UK (OU). Since IET was established in 1970 we have been central to the OU's mission to be the world leader in researching, innovating and delivering supported, open and distance learning. As educational psychologist, he conducts multi-disciplinary research on work-based and collaborative learning environments and focuses on the role of social interaction in learning, which is published in leading academic journals and books. His primary research interests are focussed on Learning Analytics, Learning Design, and the role of motivation in learning. Furthermore, Bart is interested in broader internationalisation aspects of higher education. He has successfully led a range of institutional/national/European projects, currently leads the £5M Research Capacity Hub for ESRC, and has received a range of awards for his educational innovation projects. He is President of the Society of Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), the largest researcher community on learning analytics. He has published over 300 academic outputs, and is the 1st most published and cited author on learning design and learning analytics in the period 2014-2023 (Drugova et al. 2024), the 2nd most published author on learning analytics in period 2004-2024 (Kılıç & İzmirli, 2024), Networks in Education in period 1969-2020 (Saqr et al. 2022), and social network analysis in period 1988-2022 (Gandasari et al., 2024).

Keynote address

The World Economic Forum (2025) has estimated that around half of all employees would need reskilling due to technology adoption, underscoring how learning must be continuous and adaptable. Lifelong learning – embracing both new technologies like AI and the transition to a net-zero economy – is becoming the cornerstone of individual resilience and collective progress. Many students and educators already use publicly available Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, or Mistral for academic purposes. However, there are concerns around the use of such tools, particularly in terms the impact on the quality of education, data privacy, intellectual property, and obviously academic integrity. Furthermore, many higher education institutions and distance learning organisations like The Open University (OU UK) have substantial learning materials and data about students that they may not want to share with others.

Therefore, the OU UK has been testing for 24 months with 1000+ students and 50+ staff in eight consecutive studies their own version of AI Digital Assistants (AIDA) using multiple methods and data sources (including surveys, interviews, think-aloud, alpha- and beta-testing of i-AIDA, live implementations). The findings indicated that 24/7 immediate feedback relevant to academic learning was essential for learners. Those who use AIDA are three times more engaged, and academic staff indicate that AIDA shortens their course production with 40-50%. At ICOIE I look forward to share our latest research findings of various AI applications and pedagogical innovations.

Keynote Speakers