Reframing assurance of learning in the age of AI, moving from detection to program-level evidence.

This six-episode season of The Thought Bubble explores how higher education can credibly assure learning in an AI-enabled world. Drawing on OES’s Connected Assurance Framework, the series brings together academic leaders, learning designers and policy experts to examine how learning is designed, supported and evidenced over time. Focused on quality, equity and trust, it offers a practical, sector-facing conversation on building defensible evidence of student capability.

Episode 1 of OES's series about Assurance of Learning opens the season by reframing how we think about the process of teaching, and assessing what has been learned, in the age of AI.

While much of the sector conversation has focused on detection and academic integrity, this episode argues that these responses are symptoms of a deeper issue: the challenge of generating coherent, program-level evidence of learning over time.

Hosted by Amanda Ford (Associate Director of GenAI at OES), this episode features a conversation between Chief Academic and Partnership Officer, Dr Erin Jancauskas and Senior Academic Adviser, Sue Kokonis, who explore how AI is both exposing and accelerating long-standing tensions in assessment, evidence and academic judgement.

You’ll also hear perspectives from Rebecca Hall, OES's Director of Government Relations and higher education policy expert, Chris Gartner, bringing policy, regulatory and sector-level context to the discussion.

A key idea explored in this episode is the distinction between artefact security and evidentiary validity, and what it means to build confidence in learning through multiple signals across time, rather than relying on single assessment events.

This episode introduces the Connected Assurance Framework, which underpins the rest of the season. This framework is discussed in OES's positioning paper on Assurance of Learning which can be found here: https://oes.edu.au/assuranceoflearning/

Published by OES (Online Education Services) – www.oes.edu.au
Recorded in Melbourne, Australia.