digiTAL 2026

Explore a range of crucial subthemes, including Post-Digital Pedagogies in Unequal Contexts, with an emphasis on blended and culturally responsive teaching approaches. We will examine Assessment and Academic Integrity, in light of emerging AI technologies, explore Ethical AI and Data Justice to ensure responsible use within educational settings, and discuss Policy and Institutional Transformation for effective leadership in post-digital environments.

Additionally, we will address pressing issues of Equity and Inclusion, promote positive Student Experiences and Wellbeing, and investigate the changing nature of Academic Work and Labor in the digital age. Through collaborative discourse, we aim to foster meaningful connections and actionable insights that will drive positive change in the global higher education landscape.

• Teaching and learning beyond the pandemic in resource-constrained environments
• Blended, hyflex, and low-bandwidth pedagogies in the Global South
• Human-centered and culturally responsive AI-supported teaching
• Decolonizing curriculum and pedagogy in digitally mediated universities
• Rethinking assessment in contexts of generative AI and uneven access
• Authentic, community-engaged, and work-integrated assessment models
• Academic integrity, trust, and ethics in post-digital universities
• Institutional and national policy responses to AI-enabled assessment
• Responsible AI adoption in African and Global South universities
• Learning analytics, surveillance, and student data protection
• Algorithmic bias, language, and epistemic injustice
• Developing context-sensitive AI governance frameworks
• Leading post-digital universities in developing contexts
• National, regional, and institutional policy alignment (AI, EdTech, QA)
• Capacity-building and professional development for academics
• Reimagining quality assurance in digitally mediated education
• Digital divides, infrastructure gaps, and access in the Global South
• Gender, disability, and inclusive design in educational technologies
• Post-digital feminism and women’s participation in STEM and AI
• Technology, ethics, and social justice in higher education reform
• Student agency, identity, and belonging in post-digital campuses
• Mental health, wellbeing, and techno-stress among students
• First-generation and rural student experiences in digital universities
• Graduate attributes for uncertain, AI-driven labour markets
• Academic labour, precarity, and workload in post-digital universities
• AI, automation, and the changing role of academics
• Professional learning and digital capability development
• Ethics of productivity technologies and performativity
• Open education, micro-credentials, and lifelong learning pathways
• Open education, micro-credentials, and lifelong learning pathways
• Immersive learning, simulations, and low-cost innovation
• University–industry–community partnerships in the Global South
• Sustainable, frugal, and environmentally responsible EdTech
• AI-assisted research: opportunities, risks, and ethics
• Open science, data sovereignty, and indigenous knowledge systems
• Challenging knowledge hierarchies and epistemic dominance
• Interdisciplinary research for complex Global South challenges
• African universities in the post-digital era
• African universities in the post-digital era
• Comparative studies across the Global South
• South–South collaboration and knowledge exchange
• Global partnerships grounded in equity and reciprocity
• Practitioner, student, and policymaker perspectives
• Case studies from South African and African universities
• Translating research into institutional and national action