Welcome to this edition of the Co-Lab Brief. In this issue of The Co-Lab Brief, we ask:
How do we design digital learning environments that match the complexity of learners’ lives?
At The University Design Institute, we keep coming back to a simple but easily forgotten principle: start with the learner, then figure out the tools. It sounds obvious. In practice, it rarely happens that way. Digital transformation efforts in higher education often begin with a platform, a rollout plan, and a timeline, and then work backward toward the student. What we're learning is that this order matters enormously. When institutions lead with technology, they end up designing for the system. When they lead with learners, they design for people.
That means getting honest about who students actually are and where they are: their schedules, their access to systems and artifacts, their responsibilities outside the classroom, the cultural contexts they bring with them. It means asking faculty not just to adopt new tools, but to help shape how those tools fit into real teaching relationships. And it means accepting that no single platform works everywhere, for everyone, in the same way.
The contributors in this issue reflect that thinking from a range of settings and perspectives. What they share is a conviction that technology's value isn't fixed; it depends entirely on how well it fits the people using it.
From e-Learning to Institutional Transformation: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa
Dawn Straw is the Executive Director of Services for the University Design Institute at Arizona State University, and Safali Patel serves as the Associate Vice President for Educational Outreach & Student Services. Together, the two are part of a collaborative team at ASU supporting Phase II of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program e-Learning Initiative, advancing digital transformation with 10 institutions in eight countries. ASU is the implementing partner for Phase II, and UDI is leading the implementation in partnership with several units across ASU.
Drawing on work with ten universities in eight countries through the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program e-Learning Initiative, the authors show how efforts to expand digital learning inevitably surface deeper questions about student support, flexibility, and institutional design. Their essay challenges a common assumption that digital transformation is primarily a technological undertaking, arguing instead that the most important work lies in redesigning universities around the realities of learners' lives.
