Digital learning finds its way, as if by stealth, into the mainstream of higher education. As educators, however, we are aware of a persistence of traditional teaching and assessment practices. Taking innovative and potentially transformative pedagogical practices to scale is a well known but poorly addressed challenge. Bottom up approaches to digital learning, however, often give rise to an unsustainable multiplicity of practices across disciplines and faculties, usually layered on top of existing practices rather than replacing them. On the other hand, top down institutional initiatives, intended for mainstream adoption, are often seen by pedagogical innovators as driving conservative or constraining decisions about technologies, platforms and learning spaces. Addressing this bottom-up, top-down dilemma is today's key challenge for innovation and modernisation of higher education. Our paper looks at one facet of this challenge, and how the perceptions of those in academic leadership roles are informing discourse and strategy development for digital learning in Irish higher education. In particular it looks at how leaders' insights have contributed to the development by the (Irish) National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education of a 'Roadmap for Enhancement in a Digital World 2015-2017', as a blueprint for the integration of digital learning and digital pedagogy consistently and at scale across the higher education sector as a whole. Academics in senior/strategic roles can provide unique insights into the challenges of scale and sustainability of digital learning innovation. On the one hand, with their influence over strategic direction, budgets and the seed funding of innovative pilots, they can create an enabling environment. On the other hand, the imperative to manage scarce resources and to ensure that institutional reputation and quality remain demonstrably on a sound footing can make it difficult to choose between competing demands for up-scaling, mainstreaming or simply sustaining successful pilots. Staff in these roles embodies the bottom-up, top-down dilemma and the development of the Digital Capacity Roadmap provided an opportunity to discuss this with them on a one-to-one basis, using a semi-structured interview approach. The insights gained were then cross-referenced with institutional funding agreements introduced for the first time in 2014, 'Mission-Based Performance Compacts', covering the full range of HEI activities, including the environment for teaching and learning. While many innovative digital learning projects and initiatives are evident in Irish HEIs, it has not been easy to assess their overall impact or to place them in the wider context of institutional strategic and leadership positions. By juxtaposing the interview process with staff in senior/strategic roles and the analysis of Compacts, it has been possible to gain a fruitful insight into how a range of innovative practices are viewed top-down. Taking as a model, Trawler's continuum from incrementalism (reform agenda) to reinvention (transformational agenda) a rich and complementary picture emerged of the day-to-day reality of fostering learning innovation in Irish HEIs. Dominant themes include strong support for academic staff CPD, for the professionalisation of the teaching role and for collaborative HE sector-level actions to deliver the required CPD. Much emphasis was placed on what was described as 'appropriate' integration of digital technologies, but there was agreement that current approaches are for the most part conservative ('doing the same in the old way but better). While learning innovation (digital) is taking place and bottom-up innovations are facilitated, there is little appetite as yet for strategic (top down) initiatives. There is broad agreement, however, that matters related to digital or online learning and digital capacity generally should be brought systematically into the mainstream of institutional quality assurance processes. Ultimately, the view from staff in senior/strategic roles is optimistic, but with wide agreement that clarity is urgently needed about the overarching vision and goals for digital learning in higher education nationally. Informed, concerted effort is required to embed quality assured digital learning consistently and at scale within Irish HEIs and the recently published Roadmap provides the necessary strategic vision and focus in a manner that is grounded in actionable implementation items and guidelines about how to address them.
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