In the landscape of Irish higher education, the “how” of technology-enhanced learning, including tools, platforms, dashboards, and analytics, is often foregrounded, while the “who”, namely the programme teams tasked with interpreting and acting on these systems, remains in the periphery. This abstract responds to the EdTech 2026 theme by asking who gets to define educational quality in an era of data-informed decision-making, and how TEL decision-support tools can be designed to sustain, rather than displace, professional judgement (Fawns, 2022).

The support for the collective sense-making required at programme level frequently concedes to current institutional systems that privilege compliance, optimisation, and individual-level analysis. As a result, complex decisions about delivery modality, assessment balance, learner pathways, and alignment with institutional intent are often made implicitly, or retrospectively justified through documentation rather than supported through design-time dialogue. We argue that an overemphasis on the mechanics of “how” educational initiatives are implemented risks narrowing educational judgement and obscuring the relational and contextual nature of programme-level decision-making.

In response, this paper presents a design-based account of an evidence-informed, interoperable ecosystem of programme-level TEL decision-support tools developed within an Irish higher education institute. The ecosystem includes tools for modality selection, assessment mapping, learner pathways mapping, and institutional alignment, all grounded in a shared design philosophy and data structure. The tools were built iteratively, evolving from early Power BI dashboard prototypes into lightweight web-based tools that ingest routinely available programme artefacts (for example, module catalogue exports, assessment plans, and programme structure spreadsheets) via a common schema, producing programme-level visualisations alongside short narrative prompts to support interpretation. Rather than prescribing solutions, the tools use transparent heuristics and visual representations to surface patterns, trade-offs, and tensions, supporting reflective dialogue among programme teams during programme design, review, and enhancement activities. The presentation will draw selectively on illustrative features from across the tool ecosystem to show how specific design choices, particularly in relation to modality selection and programme-level assessment mapping, make educational reasoning visible without automating decision-making (Boelens, De Wever, & Voet, 2017).

Institutional educational frameworks are positioned not as fixed research outcomes, but as design briefs that require interpretation by local academic experts, employing a variety of tools. This paper reflects on how programme teams engage with these tools in practice, the kinds of conversations they enable, and the design decisions taken to avoid compliance-driven or technocratic use. The contribution lies in offering a practice-oriented perspective on how TEL decision-support tools can be designed to centre programme-level judgement, coherence, and educational responsibility.

References
Boelens, R., De Wever, B., & Voet, M. (2017). Four key challenges to the design of blended learning: A systematic literature review. Educational Research Review, 22, 1–18.
Fawns, T. (2022). An entangled pedagogy: Looking beyond the pedagogy–technology dichotomy. Postdigital Science and Education.