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Session chair: Dr. Christine Rubas, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tubingen (Germany)

Dr. Dinesh Balliah , University of  Witwatersrand,  Johannesbourg (South Africa)
Prof. Jane Duncan , University of Glasgow, Glasgow (Scotland) 
Prof. Brigitte Wessels , University of Glasgow, Glasgow (Scotland) 

Reflections on an African/ European research and journalism-led teaching collaboration on equitable and just digital societies

This proposal is for a joint tandem talk to be provided by three members of the CIVIS micro programme, Equitable and Just digital society: developing interdisciplinary skills and knowledge. The talk will focus on the experiences of delivering research and journalism-led teaching as part of a new CIVIS micro-programme, focussed on empowering students to develop critical knowledge and practical skills to become interactional experts in research for an equitable and just digital society. The micro-programme was co-taught for the first time in the 2024/5 academic year by leading experts from various European and one African University (Wits University). The micro-programme included workshops on power and justice in the digital age from an international perspective. These examined how digital technologies are being used in the exercise of state and private power internationally, the relationships between digital surveillance and social inequalities, and the role of public agency, including journalistic agency, in ensuring accountability. They also focussed on strategies for students to become interactional experts on issues relating to surveillance, data privacy and social justice journalism, and looked at ways in which research projects can be designed to maximise potential for knowledge exchange and impact. The workshops also provided a research team being hosted by the University of Glasgow, on public oversight of digital surveillance for intelligence purposes in southern Africa, with an opportunity to integrate research findings into the teaching. Researchers from Angola and Zimbabwe presented on challenges relating to public oversight of digital surveillance in both countries. The workshops provided opportunities for the researchers and students to think together about how to shape more just and equitable digital societies in countries still weighed down by authoritarian legacies, while facing new forms of digital inequality and authoritarianism. This presentation will reflect on the experiences of this European/ African collaboration in the micro-programme.

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Prof. Ikbel Charfi , University of Sfax, Sfax (Tunisia)
Prof. Sonda Kammoun , University of Sfax, Sfax (Tunisia)
Inclusive approach to instructional design for sustainable development: The Case of Federated Projects at ISAMS-USF

In the evolving landscape of higher education, innovation increasingly relies on emerging strategies, methods, and tools that are centered on pedagogical design rooted in an inclusive and open approach (Potvin, M. 2014). This involves all stakeholders, engaging the instructor, the student, the socioeconomic partner, and sometimes an international partner in the same educational project, in order to achieve better scientific outreach and equity in educational opportunities. This approach fosters inclusive education and opens up opportunities for students with limited resources by providing them access to information and advanced technology (David Alis, 2005)... while maintaining openness to local and global contexts. In this context, most federated projects at the Sfax University, particularly those involving ISAMS, are committed to including students in a project-based learning system focused on professional integration, by fostering linkages with the socioeconomic world (P. Cordazzo, 2013) on the one hand and international partnerships on the other (Hsin-I Lee · 2025). Sustainability in higher education (A. Barthes, 2025) refers precisely to this dual integration of technology transfers into curricula and to mobilizing holistic actions from the classroom level. In this scientific contribution, the aim is not only to share an experience of open pedagogical design adopted in projects such as MUSAE, EPE, and PALETT-A, but also to address the major issue of student competency development. The internationalization of higher education hinges precisely on the following questions: To what extent can we meet the demands of an exponentially growing market and establish an international position? How can we bridge the gap between the rudimentary knowledge offered by the university system and the technological apex that pervades today's world? Can international projects facilitate mediation between graduates and their professional integration environment, and if so, how? Such open questions can deepen research at the intersection of technology and education.​