Public Sector, Education & Research

PHOENIX – October 30, 2026 -- Kelly Hermann, vice president of Accessibility and Student Affairs at University of Phoenix, co-presented two sessions at the WCET Annual Conference, focusing on audit-ready accessibility documentation and cross-functional governance in digital learning.

WCET, the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies, covers practice, policy and advocacy for digital learning in higher education. The three-day conference ran Oct. 14-16.

Preconference workshop targets defensible accessibility records

Hermann co-presented "Making Accessibility Defensible: What to Document and Why," which examined how institutions can build programs that support governance, audit readiness and consistent decision-making across digital learning environments, course materials and support services.

Wiesbaden – October 30, 2026 -- Germany's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) will publish four datasets on Thursday, 5 November 2026, led by September manufacturing orders and turnover, and will follow on Friday, 6 November with the September production index.

Thursday brings manufacturing, services and labour cost data

Release No. 385 covers manufacturing orders and turnover for September 2026. Destatis will also publish services turnover for August 2026 (No. 387) and the labour cost survey for 2024 (No. 388).

Release No. 386 covers the projected development of private households through 2050.

Production index for September follows on Friday

Release No. 389 on 6 November delivers the production index for September 2026.

WHITTIER, Calif. – October 30, 2026 -- Healthcare education must shift toward critical thinking, clinical judgment and interpersonal skills as AI spreads through care delivery, according to Tamara Rozhon, EdD, Provost of Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCU).

AI already supports imaging, clinical decisions and research

AI tools help healthcare professionals analyze medical images, support clinical decisions and advance research. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration maintains a list of AI-enabled medical devices authorized for marketing. The World Health Organization identifies AI applications across clinical care, drug development and health systems management.

Singapore – October 30, 2026 -- Singapore Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon told judges that the closer artificial intelligence comes to exercising judgment, the greater the need for restraint, and that human judgment must stay central to the administration of justice.

Menon delivered the speech, titled "AI and the Judicial Function: The Limits of Artificial Judgment," on 9 October at the 28th Annual Australian Judicial Officers Association Colloquium 2026 in Brisbane. He said AI has already entered the justice system through the parties, the profession and the tools used to administer courts.

PHOENIX – October 30, 2026 -- University of Phoenix, Boise State University, Johns Hopkins University and the Medical University of South Carolina will present a joint session on implementing the Digital Education Council AI Literacy Framework at the AAC&U Conference on AI and Higher Education, held Oct. 28-30 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Four institutions report on one framework applied across different missions

The session, titled "One Framework, Four Missions: Implementing the Digital Education Council's AI Literacy Framework Across Diverse Institutions," draws on the experience of four institutions that took part in AAC&U's 2025-2026 Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. University of Phoenix will be represented by Susan Hadley, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the College of General Studies.

Raleigh – October 30, 2026 -- The North Carolina Community College System has seated a 10-student Student Innovation Council to feed student input into technology and service decisions across its 58 colleges. The Council held its first working session Oct. 20 at Lenovo's global headquarters in Morrisville.

Council targets the systemwide learning management system and CRM platform

Student recommendations will inform improvements to the systemwide learning management system and the customer relationship management platform. The System says the goal is to tie student experience directly to how these services are designed, prioritized and implemented.

The Council's mandate has three parts: gather student views on challenges across the college journey, advise System leaders on technology and services, and bring recommendations to the 58 colleges.

BOULDER, Colo. – October 29, 2026 -- Creative Educators Network (CEN) will host a Nov. 11 benefit in Boulder to fund 30 Colorado public educators at the inaugural Colorado Educators Summit, held during the Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 27-29, 2027.

The event, called The Power of Story, starts at 6:30 p.m. at eTown Hall, 1535 Spruce St. Tickets cost $65. All proceeds go to the Summit, which coincides with the festival's first edition in Boulder.

CEN selected 30 educators from more than 80 applicants

The first cohort includes film and media instructors as well as general education teachers. Every dollar raised covers the following:

Berlin – October 29, 2026 -- The EUstay project will produce ten multimedia content packages over the next 12 months, each covering one EU-funded Interreg cohesion project, and make them available free of charge to local media and stakeholders.

Each package contains four assets in six languages

Every package includes an editorial video for broadcast and online use, a short vertical clip for social media, a photo set for print, online and social channels, and a news feature. The feature draws on people who shape the projects or experience their effects. Content is produced in German, English, Danish, Dutch, French and Polish.

The packages target local media on both sides of EU internal borders and in member states, local Interreg secretariats, Interreg project leads, and communication teams of EU-funded projects and regional institutions.

IRVINE – October 29, 2026 -- Seventy percent of K-12 parents worry their children are not learning future-ready skills, up 17 points from 2023-24 and 63% higher than in 2020, according to the 23rd Annual Speak Up Report from education nonprofit Project Tomorrow.

The 2026 Speak Up Research Project gathered input from more than 95,000 students, educators, administrators and families in rural, urban and suburban schools.

85% of parents tie their child's future success to effective classroom technology

The report, titled What's Tech Got To Do With It?, finds that classroom infrastructure is largely in place. The main opportunity now is helping teachers use technology to build the skills families want. Project Tomorrow CEO Dr. Julie Evans said students and families want classrooms that prepare them for 2027 "and not for 1977."

Düsseldorf – October 29, 2026 -- Germany scores 5.1 out of 10 on the Educate to Empower Index, a measure of how well schools balance new technology with traditional learning tools, according to a study commissioned by Epson. The result reflects a gap between classroom hardware and its teaching value: 59% of surveyed teachers and 67% of school IT leaders say investment in digital devices and applications moved faster than schools could find sensible pedagogical uses for them.