webinar series #5 COMPASS: Where Does Your Institution Stand in Digital Learning?

COMPASS (Comprehensive Organizational Model for Pedagogical and Academic Support Systems) is an open framework for assessing the digital maturity of higher education institutions. It works as a compass: it helps institutions locate themselves, set a trajectory and make informed decisions grounded in research and current practice, while leaving each institution free to define its own pedagogical choices.

The model covers eight dimensions, each assessed on a scale from 0 to 4:
1. Governance & Strategy
2. Tool Portfolio
3. Professional Development
4. Teacher Competencies
5. Student Competencies
6. Support & Helpdesk
7. Projects & Innovation
8. Recognition & SoTL

Three non-negotiable cross-cutting principles run through all of them: accessibility and Universal Design for Learning, GDPR and data governance, and responsible AI.
In this webinar, Jean-François (Jeff) Van de Poël, who designed the framework, will:

• present the purpose, structure and philosophy of COMPASS
• walk through the eight dimensions and the three cross-cutting principles
• demonstrate the online self-assessment: questionnaire, maturity radar, results by dimension and tailored recommendations
• discuss with participants how COMPASS can support strategic dialogue within an institution, a faculty or a support unit 

Jean-François (Jeff) Van de Poël is Senior Scientific Coordinator of eduhub+ at the Switch Foundation, where he supports collaboration and knowledge sharing on digital learning across Swiss higher education institutions. He designed COMPASS as an open framework to help institutions assess and develop their digital maturity.

Alongside his role at Switch, he is Head of AI in Teaching at Unil.IA, the University of Lausanne's AI unit, and serves as AI Referent at HETSL (School of Social Work and Health Lausanne). He also works as an international consultant in digital learning and AI in education.

Active in digital learning since 2002, he previously led Digital Campus and MOOC projects at the University of Liège.

Guided by a digital humanist approach, in which technology serves as a means and people remain the ends, he publishes his frameworks and tools openly under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence at ialliance.ch.