Prof. Dr. Kenan Dikilitaş (University of Bergen), project leader of HyComm, presents a talk at the YÖMEGA event on the professional development of academic staff in the Norwegian higher education system, and introduces the HyComm project.
About the talk
The talk shares how the professional development of academic staff is designed and implemented in Norwegian higher education. More specifically, it focuses on how such programmes are run: their institutional framework, their content, the ways they are delivered, and their quality assurance and monitoring processes.
In Norway, professional development programmes for academic staff are largely delivered face to face. Some programmes include online components, but these are mostly limited to synchronous sessions, and fully asynchronous programmes are almost non-existent. A professional development programme for academic staff designed with a truly HyFlex approach, combining face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous learning options according to participants’ needs, is therefore not yet common in Norway.
As an example of an innovative initiative in this field, the talk then introduces the Erasmus+ HyComm project, carried out in partnership by the University of Bergen (Norway), Özyeğin University (Türkiye) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). The project aims to develop a HyFlex-based learning model for the professional development of academic staff in higher education and to demonstrate its applicability in different institutional contexts.
About the speaker
Prof. Dr. Kenan Dikilitaş is Professor of University Pedagogy at the Faculty of Education, University of Bergen, Norway. He spent around 25 years of his academic career at various universities in Türkiye and has continued his work in Norway since 2019. His research initially focused on foreign language teacher education, action research, teacher identity and researcher identity; in recent years it has focused on the professional development of academic staff in higher education, university pedagogy and educational development. He teaches in these fields, runs professional development programmes for academic staff and continues his research.