EdTech Innovation Alliance

The Global Victoria Education Innovation Alliance (EIA) was an innovative program managed by EduGrowth and funded by Global Victoria ($800,000). Monash University and Deakin University developed and implemented both a efficacy and partnership model that formed the backbone of the alliance.

The alliance aimed to expand Victoria’s educational technology (EdTech) industry’s reach into international markets, improve product development processes, and build research and development capability. In this project, nine Victorian EdTech companies each engaged in a ’sprint’: a short pilot where their product was used in a Victorian and an international educational context.

The research arm of the EIA was focused on supporting each EdTech company to develop their capability to understand and demonstrate the efficacy of their products.

In order to achieve this Professor Henderson (HEDI) and Professors Bearman and Dawson (Deakin University) developed (1) an EdTech efficacy model to provide structure to each sprint’s research, and (2) a partnership model to implement it.

The EdTech Efficacy Model is made up of four components::

1. Process: how a product is developed, implemented, and communicated.
2. Intended Outcomes: what impact the product is meant to have, which includes but is not limited to benefits to student learning. It also includes potential unintended outcomes.
3. Acceptability: The extent to which people like, appreciate and are willing to use the product.
4. Feasibility: The logistics and cost-benefit of using the product.

In addition to the edtech efficacy model, the research team also built a partnership model to support sprints to evaluate the efficacy of their products. In this model, researchers acted as critical friends for specific sprints. Research mentors were carefully selected academics who were aligned with the companies’ needs. The researchers did not do the research but instead they worked alongside the sprint teams to help build their capabilities for independent research that would extend beyond the sprint lifespan.

The alliance was a great success involving nine sprint partners, 165 educators and over 4,000 learners.

Lead investigators