When it comes to leading innovation in online higher education, Dr. Aaron Wijeratne knows what it takes. With years of experience as an educator and senior lecturer on topics like learning development, human resources, and leadership, Dr. Wijeratne combines his pedagogical expertise with forward-thinking leadership. He’s passionate about expanding access to quality education and building systems that empower learners and educators alike.

We had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Wijeratne about his role, current projects, and the future he envisions for online learning. His insights reflect why Boundless Learning continues to be a trailblazer in the education space.

“My role as Director of Academic Services is threefold. First, I oversee the academic delivery for our University of Adelaide and University of Oxford partnerships. This includes managing a talented team of academic staff who bring expertise to our programs, ensuring seamless delivery for learners.

Second, I’m focused on global bid management, which means developing strategies for how Boundless Learning positions itself in new markets as we grow. This entails differentiating our service offerings and building a coherent, global vision for the future.

Lastly, I work closely on defining our product roadmap, particularly our learner lifecycle models and educational service offerings. We’re innovating ways to enhance learning design and make Boundless Learning’s strengths in academic delivery and subject matter expertise more apparent in the market.

It’s an exciting mix of strategy, product development, and operational leadership.”

“My long-term goal is representing our business as a next-generation OPM with a strong focus on integrating tech, data, and design in our practices.

I want to take the skills, capabilities, and experience that we’ve gained over 30 years in the business and share them more broadly.

That could be through fee-for-service offerings, but it’s also through training and professional development for organizations to enable them to build their educational businesses.

We’ve really transformed how we look at our relationships with the educational sector and we are now driving educational growth in a number of areas. We’re the experts in doing this, and we’re happy to share that knowledge to build the industry as a whole.”

“AI represents the shift that education has needed for decades. For too long, higher education has used the same model to share information with students.

Through generative AI, I think we’ll see a shift away from content generation and toward the learning process. It’s not just about knowledge acquisition, it’s about ensuring that students can understand what they’re learning.

For the overall architecture of a learning ecosystem, AI will offer on-demand learning when and where learners want it. Moving forward, students will have access to personalized tutors that can provide live support.

From a Boundless Learning perspective, we can combine AI with the real-person support system of our Student Success Teams. It’s exciting to consider how we’ll use AI to enhance the student experience and ensure that we’re operating at a high level.

Online learning and teaching can be perceived as taking on an additional workload, but educators can utilize AI tools to streamline repetitive work processes and complete research efficiently, allowing them to focus on what they’re meant to do – educate.”

“I have to talk about Boundless Learning Academy. Moving from a small product offering in Australia to what’s going to be a global product – that’s one of our biggest accomplishments of the last year. Expanding its scope and applicability is a huge opportunity for us to make a difference.”

“As part of our partnership with the University of Adelaide, we needed to develop their internal capabilities around online learning design, online facilitation, and how they could transition their academic staff into a purely online environment.

This program started about five years ago and is designed by academics, for academics. Designing and delivering education in the online environment is very different from the traditional face-to-face classroom. It’s a different type of experience and it requires skilled educators to really be able to do it.

We have a team that understands online learning, and we share that knowledge with colleagues across institutions. We’re enabling universities to develop the capabilities to deliver high-quality online education.

Formal academic training doesn’t often involve developmental training through online facilitation. A lot of training and learning is done on-the-job. With Boundless Learning Academy, we give institutions access to a range of courses to upskill their academic staff quickly so they’re ready to effectively teach in an online environment. It’s for inexperienced academics as much as it is for experienced academics, so we’ve got a range of options. The courses are very practical and give the staff skills that can be applied to their jobs right away.”

Discover more about Boundless Learning Academy and other learning solutions here.

About Dr. Aaron Wijeratne: Dr. Wijeratne is an accomplished higher education leader who is currently the Director of Academic Services at Boundless Learning. Before stepping into this leadership role, Dr. Wijeratne built a strong foundation as an educator and a senior lecturer in leadership, designing and teaching courses on organizational leadership and management.

Through his blend of academic expertise and forward-thinking leadership, Dr. Wijeratne continues to shape the future of online higher education. He is dedicated to driving innovations that expand access to quality education and foster an environment where academic excellence thrives.