Mark Nichols
President, International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)
Mark Nichols is a distinguished leader in the field of open, distance, and flexible learning, with over 25 years of experience in higher education. Mark's commitment to education is reflected in his role as President of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) since 2024, and he has also served on the executive committees of ICDE, EDEN, Ascilite, and FLANZ. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Learning Design & Development at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, where he leads a team of over 100 professionals in creating innovative, inclusive courseware. Mark is a current Commonwealth of Learning Chair, holds a PhD from the University of Otago, and is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA). His career includes time as a Director of Technology Enhanced Learning with The Open University in the UK, and over 40 scholarly publications. He is also a member of the editorial boards of several leading international journals in open, distance, and online education. Mark's professional philosophy centres on the principles of availability, inclusivity, scalability, and sustainability in education – and the design of education practices that include these principles. Mark's dedication to and leadership in open education continue to shape the future of learning in New Zealand and beyond. In November of 2025 Mark will co-convene the 30th ICDE World Conference in Wellington, New Zealand.
A learning society must seek to offer lifelong learning opportunities to as many people as possible, to enrich their lives and provide them with future opportunities. In lifelong learning, students might be from a local group, or be regionally dispersed; the subject might be for interest, or as a means of upskilling for work; students might be early career, or incarcerated. Lifelong education must be provided in many different ways, because no single model can apply across the many situations and learners who will participate. Teaching retired people traditional dance, for example, will be different to teaching mid-career professionals how to use Artificial Intelligence.
How do we design lifelong educational models, that make the most of digitalisation?
This presentation will describe different teaching and learning possibilities in support of inclusive, scalable, and sustainable education, using six different components that make up an education model. The six components are: learner activity; teaching activity; learning materials; timetabling; assessment; and success services. Each of these can be designed in ways that make lifelong learning as inclusive, scalable, and sustainable as possible.
The presentation will include a suggested process for designing educational models that includes digitalisation in a supportive role. By considering the six components, educators can design an optimal education model that thoughtfully applies digitalisation.
