Tens of thousands of students are attending academic high-tech and data science courses through the International Campus IL Platform

The PBC/CHE attributes a great deal of significance to promoting digital studies at higher education facilities in Israel, as a tool for developing innovation in the context of teaching and learning, as well as extensive access to higher education and strengthening the position of Israeli academia around the world. Accordingly, this issue was included in the multi-annual program for the development of higher education in 2016-2022.

In order to promote digital learning at institutions, the CHE/PBC – in collaboration with the headquarters of the national project titled “Digital Israel” (National Digital Department) sent five invitations to budgeted institutions (2016-2020) to formulate digital academic courses. At present, the invitations of 26 academic institutions have been successful. Since the beginning of that initiative, 60 courses were launched in the framework of the National IL Campus Platform in several languages (Hebrew, Arabic and English). In addition, the international platform includes 25 courses in English (edX.org), under “IsraelX.” An additional 25 courses are expected to be launched in the course of the next academic year on the IL Campus Platform.

It should be emphasized that the fourth digital learning invitation focused on high-tech and data science, and included the budgeting of 22 academic courses (approximately 90 credits). At present, 10 course have been launched on the Campus IL Platform, of which three were concurrently launched on the International IsraelX Platform, and two were also produced in Arabic. During the first semester of 2021-2022, an additional 10 courses in this field are expected to be launched, resulting in a total of 70 credits. The number of attendees of the aforementioned courses is currently 40,000 (as of 2020), some of which form part of academic degree studies and some of them are “lifelong studies.” In addition, in the framework of previous invitations, three additional high-tech courses were launched on the Campus IL Platform, which were attended by 50,000 students since 2018.

In order to prepare for the challenges caused by the increased use of digital learning within the higher education system and in view of the COVID pandemic, and to simultaneously exploit the potential of those new opportunities, the PBC allocated 70 NIS million to encourage, establish and consolidate infrastructures for the facilitation and strategic development of digital studies at higher education institutions. These infrastructures include technological infrastructures, technological human capital infrastructures and techno-pedagogic infrastructures (training, support, development, incorporation of innovative tools for digital learning, and more), follow-up mechanisms, control, and data collection and analysis for the purpose of assessing and optimally developing digital studies.