Creating the golden triangle of evidence‐informed education technology with EDUCATE

Abstract

EDUCATE is a London‐based programme that supports the development of research‐informed educational technology (EdTech), allowing entrepreneurs and start‐ups to create their products and services, and simultaneously grow their companies in a more evidence‐informed manner. The programme partners businesses with researchers who mentor, guide and support this research journey, a key aspect of which is the evaluation of the company’s EdTech product or service. However, conducting impact evaluations of technology in education is challenging, particularly for early stage technologies, as rapid cycles of innovation and change are part of their essence. Here, we present the pragmatic approach to evidence‐informed education technology design and impact evaluation, as developed and adopted by the EDUCATE programme. The research process is shaped by the core principles of evidence‐informed decision making detailed in the paper. The contributions of the paper are threefold. First, it defines and details an academia‐industry‐education collaboration model centred on a research training programme. Second, it presents emerging impact results of the programme. Third, it provides clear reflections on the challenges encountered during the implementation of the model in the EdTech ecosystem of London, which should be addressed if we are to move towards evidence‐informed EdTech globally.

Understanding the roles of ICT enterprises in promoting the ICT industry ecosystem in education: Case studies from China

“…Second, ICT enterprises, especially SMEs, are suggested to develop research‐informed educational technology (EdTech), and simultaneously grow their companies in a more evidence‐informed manner (Cukurova, Luckin, & Clark‐Wilson, ). iFLYTEK is a successful LSE which may be resulted from the Educational Information Research Institute of iFLYTEK, whose products covered all the four dimensions of the narrow educational market including teaching, learning, managing and evaluating (M1).…”

“…Third, according to M2, LSE and SME need to strengthen cooperation and uphold the open and win–win concepts. An effective tool for building and managing enterprise ecosystems is the platform business model “O” (Cai et al , ), which can integrate internal and external resources and allocate them. Tencent, eg, has adopted this platform‐based business model as an intermediary for cooperation.…”

Designing educational technologies in the age of AI: A learning sciences‐driven approach

“…We now progress to the second element of our argument: that in addition to applying the findings from the learning sciences, we also need to work across educational, technical and research stakeholders. This is what we aim to achieve through EDUCATE at University College London (UCL) (Cukurova, Luckin, & Clark‐Wilson, ), which we now describe. EDUCATE is available to any EdTech startup or company with fewer than 250 employees not just those who develop AI EdTech.…”

The “British” voice of educational technology research: 50th birthday reflection

“…. Hopefully, the BJET community may also make its contribution through continuing to publish more reports of cross‐community initiatives such as EDUCATE by Cukurova, Luckin, & Clark‐Wilson, 2019 and available in this Issue 2 of 2019.…”

“…However, unless a paper is "open view," these notes seem to remain hidden behind the publisher's firewalls-thereby rendering them invisible to most practitioners [Ed: This is actually about to change, to address precisely that disconnect!]. Hopefully, the BJET community may also make its contribution through continuing to publish more reports of cross-community initiatives such as EDUCATE by Cukurova, Luckin, & Clark-Wilson, 2019 and available in this Issue 2 of 2019.…”