Chewing off more than we should have bitten
I write this message for the third edition of the QS Insights Magazine having just also finished the 2023 edition of the QS Yearbook. Both publications come out on the very same day. Compiling a summary book (of a meagre 360 or so pages) looking back at the year that was, while simultaneously putting together a monthly magazine looking at current and potential future trends is no easy task. But it is quite a fruitful one.
While the team and I were summarising the 2023 cycle of QS Rankings, running from June 2022 to April 2023, and shortening the articles we’d produced along the way, it provided us with some insight into what was and how it affects the present day. For example, as I reference in the introduction of the Yearbook, it was only in early November that we were thinking about the next big thing in higher education. Less than a month later, ChatGPT took the world by storm, and you can see its influence on higher education’s thinking already start to make itself aware in this edition of the magazine.
Generative AI is clearly front of mind for most of us. The team and I recently-ish sorted through the submissions for next month’s EduData Summit in San Francisco, and AI in all its form featured prominently. There are a lot of thoughts and perspectives already on how generative AI could be incorporated into the curriculum for the benefit of students.
Reading the thoughts of those who submitted essays for this edition and proposals for the summits, the thing that strikes me is the energy of those thinking about how to improve higher education. In the requirements that make up the role of an educator, where do people get the energy? What drives people to strive to be, if not the agent of change, the enablers of change?
Personally, this month proves a significant one for the editorial team. Two publications, with two very different intentions, released on the same day. It is a task that saw us taking on more than we should have in the time we had available to us. What drove us, however, was the passion of those in the sector who continue to push for innovation and change while also carrying their regular burden.
Continue innovating and thinking about the future. We’ll keep ensuring you remained informed to achieve your goals.
Stay safe out there.
Anton John Crace
Anton is Editor and Program Designer at QS Quacquarelli Symonds. He was the former Asia Pacific editor of The PIE News and was recognised as the Universities Australia Higher Education Journalist of the Year in 2019 at the National Press Club of Australia.