Beyond Standard Scripts: Introducing the Fellows of the OUM-CENDEF Global Fellowship (2026-2027)
The Global Fellowship is the flagship initiative of the Centre for Digital Education Futures (CENDEF) at Open University Malaysia (OUM). Each cycle, it convenes a small group of distinguished scholars whose work is shaping the future of open, distance, and digital education, bringing them into a year-long engagement with the University through research, public dialogue, and strategic exchange. By drawing leading international thinkers into sustained collaboration, the Fellowship advances OUM’s mission of delivering critical, inclusive, and forward-looking digital education, and affirms its standing at the frontiers of the field.
Now in its second cycle (2026–27), the Fellowship brings together five Fellows. They are Prof Lim Cher Ping (The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR), Prof Felicitas Macgilchrist (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany), Prof Bart Rienties (The Open University, United Kingdom), Prof George Veletsianos (University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, United States), and Prof Emeritus Shinobu Yume Yamaguchi (United Nations University, Japan). Between them they bring expertise across learning technologies and teacher development, the cultural politics of educational technology, learning analytics, digital learning environments, and education policy for sustainable development.
"What is lost when learning is reduced to what can be measured or predicted?"
This cycle takes as its theme “Beyond Standard Scripts: Imagining New Futures in Digital Education”. It is a rejoinder to the current discourse on digital education, which is shaped largely by narratives of efficiency, automation, and optimisation, framings driven by commercial imperatives and short-term thinking. The theme invites a different starting point. It asks whose values are encoded in the systems being built for education, what is lost when learning is reduced to what can be measured or predicted, and how educators, institutions, and communities might become active authors of digital education futures rather than passive recipients of systems designed elsewhere.
The Global Fellows will deliver public lectures at OUM’s 2nd Annual Public Lecture Series (APLS) on 5 August 2026 at the Tun Dr Ismail Hall, World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur. Each lecture takes up the theme from a distinct vantage point. Prof Yamaguchi asks higher education to confront the missing pieces in current AI narratives, Prof Veletsianos makes the case for a slower tempo in digital education, Prof Lim examines scale and localisation in teacher professional development, Prof Rienties argues for human-centred futures beyond intelligent automation, and Prof Macgilchrist traces rage, hope, and care as grounds for imagining new educational worlds.
Ahead of the APLS, two of the Fellows have contributed short essays introducing the concerns that animate their lectures. Their essays follow.
Copyright © Open University Malaysia 2018 – 2026 inspired All Rights Reserved.
No part of inspired may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written consent of the Editor of inspired.