Most of the plenary keynotes, including one from me and Tim Kidd from JISC tomorrow, will be live streamed here. Can't wait for it to start!
Tuesday, 17 March 2015
UCISA 15 is here
Well, for the past year I've been chairing the Organising Committee for the Annual UCISA Conference - and now it's finally here! I'm in Edinburgh, at the conference centre, waiting for it to start. The programme has come together really well, as far as I know all the speakers are turning up, the social events and the exhibition are organised and well under the control of the UCISA office.
Most of the plenary keynotes, including one from me and Tim Kidd from JISC tomorrow, will be live streamed here. Can't wait for it to start!
Most of the plenary keynotes, including one from me and Tim Kidd from JISC tomorrow, will be live streamed here. Can't wait for it to start!
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Digital vs Human
Final keynote of this DigiFest is from Richard Watson, writer, speaker and consultant who advises organisations on the future.
His talk was entitled Digital vs Human, and was actually about reducing, or limiting our use of technology. Some brief notes from an entertaining speech:
This year there will be more phones than people.
75% of 10 year olds in UK have a phone.
Voice traffic going down, text and image based rising.
Increasingly we are communicating with each other through a screen. Does it matter?
With text, there is no tone, no body language.
Even with Skype lose important elements of communication.
Can lose as much as 90% of clues without voice tone and body laguage
We are communicating more than before, but how much is being understood.
Recent research shows that on average we check our phones once every 390 seconds.
This sort of activity leads to "Constant partial attention"
When it comes to things that matter, nothing is better than face to face contact
Digital communications should be used to enhance relationships, not replace them.
Average office worker gets distracted every 11 minutes, can take 40 minutes to get back to where they were. A constant apprehension of being distracted causes big productivity loss
Could smart machines end up taking our jobs?
Possibly. Robots in have been in car assembly since 70s
But we are now on the cusp of smart machines making in-roads into many jobs.
Gartner suggests 1:3 jobs redundant by software by 2025
Robots are already being used in kindergartens and care homes in Japan
So, what can we do that machines are dreadful at? What makes us different?
Humans are curious
Like to interact physically
Highly creative
Care about welfare of other humans
If you can connect with people emotionally, your job might be safe :-)
Some consequences of interacting with digital and mobile devices. We are making conscious choices to avoid people, physical relationships. Simulations of life are more captivating than real life.
Attention spans are shorter now in children. Books are too long and boring. Solution, - more screens and more interactive content. But, isn't that making things worse?
There is a loss of deep thinking. Screens are great for finding and discovering stuff. But no focus, no contextual thought.
Only 1% of people searching on Google get past the first page of search results.
Digital technology should be used to enhance human skills and behaviour not replace it. It's not digital vs human, but digital and human
Three suggestions from him:
Switch off
Ritualise being without our devices for a day a week. Switch off work device after 7. Switch mind off. If you want to have a good idea, stop trying to have a good idea. Silence, stillness, slowness should be valued.
Understand strengths and weaknesses of different technologies
Match the technology to the task. Paper and pixels are different. Screens are useful for connecting short bits of information. Great for collaboration and finding stuff
Paper good for complex arguments, contextualisation.
Work out the best technology to use. A pencil is much a piece of technology as an iPad
Sleep
Important to get enough. Essential for physical and mental health and ideas.
Sleep on it is a good phrase. When we sleep the brain processes information and assimilates information as memories. Filters stuff. Links ideas to extract meaning.
Used to go to bed to sleep. Now bedrooms are media rooms or offices. Type of light in kindles and iPads disturbs our sleep patterns.
People used to sleep around 9 hours a night. Recommendation used to be 8 hours, now it's 7.
Sleep on that.
So, at the end of a Digital Festival, we have a call to reduce our use of digital. Interesting ;-)
Great conference, really enjoyed, it apart from seriously spraining my ankle and having to limp around for most of the day.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
His talk was entitled Digital vs Human, and was actually about reducing, or limiting our use of technology. Some brief notes from an entertaining speech:
This year there will be more phones than people.
75% of 10 year olds in UK have a phone.
Voice traffic going down, text and image based rising.
Increasingly we are communicating with each other through a screen. Does it matter?
With text, there is no tone, no body language.
Even with Skype lose important elements of communication.
Can lose as much as 90% of clues without voice tone and body laguage
We are communicating more than before, but how much is being understood.
Recent research shows that on average we check our phones once every 390 seconds.
This sort of activity leads to "Constant partial attention"
When it comes to things that matter, nothing is better than face to face contact
Digital communications should be used to enhance relationships, not replace them.
Average office worker gets distracted every 11 minutes, can take 40 minutes to get back to where they were. A constant apprehension of being distracted causes big productivity loss
Could smart machines end up taking our jobs?
Possibly. Robots in have been in car assembly since 70s
But we are now on the cusp of smart machines making in-roads into many jobs.
Gartner suggests 1:3 jobs redundant by software by 2025
Robots are already being used in kindergartens and care homes in Japan
So, what can we do that machines are dreadful at? What makes us different?
Humans are curious
Like to interact physically
Highly creative
Care about welfare of other humans
If you can connect with people emotionally, your job might be safe :-)
Some consequences of interacting with digital and mobile devices. We are making conscious choices to avoid people, physical relationships. Simulations of life are more captivating than real life.
Attention spans are shorter now in children. Books are too long and boring. Solution, - more screens and more interactive content. But, isn't that making things worse?
There is a loss of deep thinking. Screens are great for finding and discovering stuff. But no focus, no contextual thought.
Only 1% of people searching on Google get past the first page of search results.
Digital technology should be used to enhance human skills and behaviour not replace it. It's not digital vs human, but digital and human
Three suggestions from him:
Switch off
Ritualise being without our devices for a day a week. Switch off work device after 7. Switch mind off. If you want to have a good idea, stop trying to have a good idea. Silence, stillness, slowness should be valued.
Understand strengths and weaknesses of different technologies
Match the technology to the task. Paper and pixels are different. Screens are useful for connecting short bits of information. Great for collaboration and finding stuff
Paper good for complex arguments, contextualisation.
Work out the best technology to use. A pencil is much a piece of technology as an iPad
Sleep
Important to get enough. Essential for physical and mental health and ideas.
Sleep on it is a good phrase. When we sleep the brain processes information and assimilates information as memories. Filters stuff. Links ideas to extract meaning.
Used to go to bed to sleep. Now bedrooms are media rooms or offices. Type of light in kindles and iPads disturbs our sleep patterns.
People used to sleep around 9 hours a night. Recommendation used to be 8 hours, now it's 7.
Sleep on that.
So, at the end of a Digital Festival, we have a call to reduce our use of digital. Interesting ;-)
Great conference, really enjoyed, it apart from seriously spraining my ankle and having to limp around for most of the day.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Research Objects and Location beacons
Day two of Digifest kicks off with a session from Carol Goble, professor of Computer Science at Manchester University
Really interesting session about research methods, and how our knowledge flow is too slow. Research is published as a PDF, or as spreadsheets and the supporting data is embedded in a paper. Can be difficult to get at the actual data and often very hard to reproduce the actual experiments as methods are not included.
This is especially important in computer science, as researchers need to be able to inspect the software used in the research. Her assertion was that broken software equals broken science.
She introduced the concept of research objects, which I found fascinating. Rather than explain them, it's probably better to look at the web site if you're interested.
It's all about metadata......
Then a session on "bringing location indoors" using location sensors, iBeacons, GPS etc indoors. Floor plans extremely important. Lots of clever algorithms enable things to work together.
IBeacons. Low energy Bluetooth devices. Prices start at $5. Use some clever nanotechnology to stick to surfaces. An app will detect them from about 1m away. They work either in the background creating a proximity circle around the device which detects when you enter it, or ranging, which is when the app searches for any beacon in range. In theory can get pinpoint location from 3 beacons, but not very accurate at the moment.
Can use them to identify movement between location, eg by setting up virtual tripwires. Can use this for navigation.
Also use them for nearables. Finding and gathering content about specific nearby objects.
Some example use cases:
Indoor navigation
Estates and buildings reporting and ticketing esp for accessibility issues. Eg open an app and it will already know where you are so can flag a problem immediately.
Student recruitment events/open days, esp navigation and information
Conference and event navigation, better than maps
Social location sharing
Smart lecture room, to pick up digital information eg lecture notes
Study desk reservation
Student attendance monitoring which we're hoping to roll out soon using our iSheffield app. Details in an Ombiel press release.
Apple and Google both offering "submit a floor plan" service currently prioritising big commercial venues
Projection of a floor plan into 3d can make it easier to find your way round.
Good session, and we perhaps need to think about what else we can use the iBeacons for in our lecture theatres in addition to attendance monitoring.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Really interesting session about research methods, and how our knowledge flow is too slow. Research is published as a PDF, or as spreadsheets and the supporting data is embedded in a paper. Can be difficult to get at the actual data and often very hard to reproduce the actual experiments as methods are not included.
This is especially important in computer science, as researchers need to be able to inspect the software used in the research. Her assertion was that broken software equals broken science.
She introduced the concept of research objects, which I found fascinating. Rather than explain them, it's probably better to look at the web site if you're interested.
It's all about metadata......
Then a session on "bringing location indoors" using location sensors, iBeacons, GPS etc indoors. Floor plans extremely important. Lots of clever algorithms enable things to work together.
IBeacons. Low energy Bluetooth devices. Prices start at $5. Use some clever nanotechnology to stick to surfaces. An app will detect them from about 1m away. They work either in the background creating a proximity circle around the device which detects when you enter it, or ranging, which is when the app searches for any beacon in range. In theory can get pinpoint location from 3 beacons, but not very accurate at the moment.
Can use them to identify movement between location, eg by setting up virtual tripwires. Can use this for navigation.
Also use them for nearables. Finding and gathering content about specific nearby objects.
Some example use cases:
Indoor navigation
Estates and buildings reporting and ticketing esp for accessibility issues. Eg open an app and it will already know where you are so can flag a problem immediately.
Student recruitment events/open days, esp navigation and information
Conference and event navigation, better than maps
Social location sharing
Smart lecture room, to pick up digital information eg lecture notes
Study desk reservation
Student attendance monitoring which we're hoping to roll out soon using our iSheffield app. Details in an Ombiel press release.
Apple and Google both offering "submit a floor plan" service currently prioritising big commercial venues
Projection of a floor plan into 3d can make it easier to find your way round.
Good session, and we perhaps need to think about what else we can use the iBeacons for in our lecture theatres in addition to attendance monitoring.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Digital students
This morning went to a session on the JISC Digital Student project.
The JISC project is well documented on the digital student blog
It has been running for a couple of years, and has involved literature reviews, stakeholder consultations, and school focus groups. Looking at what students think, and what they expect from university technology.
They found there was a clear difference between "entitlement" and "enhancement"
Entitlement, what they think should be there, as a matter of course:
Wifi, unblocked
Hardware/software. Students own all the technology they need to do their course, but there is an expectation that the university will provide it as well
BYOD
Lots of digital,resources
Non mandatory support
Entitlement, didn't expect it, but if there, will use it.
Lecture capture
Organisional info
Use of technology in lectures
Social media, questionable, mixed views
Learning and teaching, very little expectation that this would use technology to be interesting. Expectation that university was about sitting in lectures.
This stuff slowly moving into entitlement.
Technologies will always creep, if find out others have it. Expectations are changing all the time. So, you need to have conversations with students.
The project has produced a lot of resources for institutions to use:
50 institutional exemplars
Digital students are different posters
Enhancing the digital experience cards
The student digital experience in 2020
"Enhancing the student digital experience: a strategic approach" guide.
Then there was a panel discussion with students doing different courses from different backgrounds, but their answers were very similar.
What did you expect when you came to university?
Reference point is college or 6th form.
Expected email, wifi, access to digital resources. Software to do their course. Not a lot else
How does online life overlap with the digital platforms provided by university?
Email. Have own personal one, usually user friendly available on mobiles etc. University uni one not very good. So they all forward their uni email to their personal gmail account.
VLE not accessible on mobile devices
Storage, want to use Dropbox, Google drive etc
Uni computer labs only used because of storage space. Their own laptops have better software on than university managed computers
Things like Dropbox are blocked.
Don't like using uni storage because servers down so often.
Systems not reliable
Synchronise all uni timetables to google calendar
If students want to collaborate, they set up a closed facebook group
What are your favourite tools or techniques when using technology in your course?
Google docs
Skype
Lecture capture
Google hangouts
GitHub
Tend to use a lot of stuff the university doesn't provide
Loan of equipment, cameras etc
Powerful macs
Google sketch up
Iphone
Very apparent that students are using their own software, often free to download especially Google, Dropbox etc.
One thing they all asked for is some way of students sharing good practice in what free software they could use. Mainly self discovery, or from peers. No formal system. Importance of induction.
Introduction of £9k fees has changed expectations. If software is a year and a half out of date or wifi doesn't work, don't feel they are getting value for money.
It led me to ask, what mechanisms do we have to capture this sort of information about what our students do?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The JISC project is well documented on the digital student blog
It has been running for a couple of years, and has involved literature reviews, stakeholder consultations, and school focus groups. Looking at what students think, and what they expect from university technology.
They found there was a clear difference between "entitlement" and "enhancement"
Entitlement, what they think should be there, as a matter of course:
Wifi, unblocked
Hardware/software. Students own all the technology they need to do their course, but there is an expectation that the university will provide it as well
BYOD
Lots of digital,resources
Non mandatory support
Entitlement, didn't expect it, but if there, will use it.
Lecture capture
Organisional info
Use of technology in lectures
Social media, questionable, mixed views
Learning and teaching, very little expectation that this would use technology to be interesting. Expectation that university was about sitting in lectures.
This stuff slowly moving into entitlement.
Technologies will always creep, if find out others have it. Expectations are changing all the time. So, you need to have conversations with students.
The project has produced a lot of resources for institutions to use:
50 institutional exemplars
Digital students are different posters
Enhancing the digital experience cards
The student digital experience in 2020
"Enhancing the student digital experience: a strategic approach" guide.
Then there was a panel discussion with students doing different courses from different backgrounds, but their answers were very similar.
What did you expect when you came to university?
Reference point is college or 6th form.
Expected email, wifi, access to digital resources. Software to do their course. Not a lot else
How does online life overlap with the digital platforms provided by university?
Email. Have own personal one, usually user friendly available on mobiles etc. University uni one not very good. So they all forward their uni email to their personal gmail account.
VLE not accessible on mobile devices
Storage, want to use Dropbox, Google drive etc
Uni computer labs only used because of storage space. Their own laptops have better software on than university managed computers
Things like Dropbox are blocked.
Don't like using uni storage because servers down so often.
Systems not reliable
Synchronise all uni timetables to google calendar
If students want to collaborate, they set up a closed facebook group
What are your favourite tools or techniques when using technology in your course?
Google docs
Skype
Lecture capture
Google hangouts
GitHub
Tend to use a lot of stuff the university doesn't provide
Loan of equipment, cameras etc
Powerful macs
Google sketch up
Iphone
Very apparent that students are using their own software, often free to download especially Google, Dropbox etc.
One thing they all asked for is some way of students sharing good practice in what free software they could use. Mainly self discovery, or from peers. No formal system. Importance of induction.
Introduction of £9k fees has changed expectations. If software is a year and a half out of date or wifi doesn't work, don't feel they are getting value for money.
It led me to ask, what mechanisms do we have to capture this sort of information about what our students do?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, 9 March 2015
Bit of controversy at digifest....
One of the sessions this afternoon was a panel session, to launch the latest JISC report on The Changing Role of the IT leader. It's been a joint piece of work between JISC and Educause with senior IT leaders from the U.S.and the UK looking at what it takes to be an IT leader.
You can download and read the report here.
This is their model for IT leadership:
The only real thing I disagreed with, was the assertion that technology is at the heart of everything we do, and therefore you must have a technology background to be an IT leader. In fact you must be passionate about technology. Well, as I pointed out to them, that rules me out then. I think you have to understand technology, and understand what it can do, but you have to be passionate about the services you provide. If you are too passionate about the technology it can actually get in the way. I understand the panel were not unanimous in this, and even the ones who said it in the session, did back down slightly when challenged in the discussion.
You can download and read the report here.
This is their model for IT leadership:
The only real thing I disagreed with, was the assertion that technology is at the heart of everything we do, and therefore you must have a technology background to be an IT leader. In fact you must be passionate about technology. Well, as I pointed out to them, that rules me out then. I think you have to understand technology, and understand what it can do, but you have to be passionate about the services you provide. If you are too passionate about the technology it can actually get in the way. I understand the panel were not unanimous in this, and even the ones who said it in the session, did back down slightly when challenged in the discussion.
Gadgets
Digifest is an interesting concept - designed to be more like a festival than a conference, there are some nice touches. There were a group of students using iPads to paint images of what was going on. This one's a picture of my favourite little robot - Nao.
Nao is so cute, and quite easy to programme. Well, it looked easy when someone else was doing it.
Plenary sessions are held in the main auditorium, but breakout sessions are held in "pods" which are part of the main exhibition and social area
As well as Nao, there are some neat gadgets here - an augmented reality dummy for training medical and nursing staff. Full of electronics, so that you can even inject it with drugs and it will react accordingly, with augmented reality video on an iPad
A 3D printing pen which you can use to draw 3D models
And my favourite - a 3D display of outstanding quality which you control with a virtual pointer. this is John looking a 3D fully animated heart which you can turn, rotate, expose bits. I could have played with it all day!
And finally, that little robot can dance....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Plenary sessions are held in the main auditorium, but breakout sessions are held in "pods" which are part of the main exhibition and social area
A 3D printing pen which you can use to draw 3D models
And my favourite - a 3D display of outstanding quality which you control with a virtual pointer. this is John looking a 3D fully animated heart which you can turn, rotate, expose bits. I could have played with it all day!
And finally, that little robot can dance....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Securing mobile devices
Went to an interesting workshop this morning about securing mobile devices, and whether people bringing their own devices onto campus makes a difference. Led by Andrew Cormack from JISC we talked a lot about technologies, including mobile device management, automatic wipe of lost devices etc. But, I think we concluded it came down to two things. People, and risk. People are the most important factor, and an interesting fact was that in a recent survey by BT, 82% of people were not interested in the security of corporate data on their mobile device. And the figure increased, the higher up in management you were. The question is, how interested are people in the security of their own data. Most mobile devices now have a lot of personal information on. Access to bank details for example. I know I would be very concerned if I lost my laptop that I had lost my family tree data, not my work stuff which is all recoverable from somewhere else. The question is, can we get people interested in the security of their mobile devices by talking to them about their personal data.
The other thing we discussed on our table is risk. Everything is down to risk management and mitigation. We must assess the risk of information loss, and manage it appropriately. Too many organisations try to put measures in place to protect the most sensitive information and apply them to everything. And of course, this results in people finding a way round them. Forwarding all of your business email to your personal gmail account for example.
So in summary, know your risks, and use the security of personal information to educate users.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The other thing we discussed on our table is risk. Everything is down to risk management and mitigation. We must assess the risk of information loss, and manage it appropriately. Too many organisations try to put measures in place to protect the most sensitive information and apply them to everything. And of course, this results in people finding a way round them. Forwarding all of your business email to your personal gmail account for example.
So in summary, know your risks, and use the security of personal information to educate users.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Digifest kicks off, MOOCs and the future of Universities
So, we're at Digifest at the ICC in Birmingham. Bit of a festival theme... .
Posts will probably in note form. Haven't got time to put them into English
It kicks off with a keynote from the CEO from Futurelearn. Launched in 2012, the platform on which 40 Universities in the UK offer their MOOCS.
Worked in BBC radio, and with the onset of the Internet, talk was of the death of the radio, all music would be on demand. BBC rose to the challenge, and, launched 5 new digital radio services, put radio everywhere, and made it available on demand. Then moved to TV and headed up digital services. More hype. Assumption that live TV watching, channels and schedules would be wiped away by services like Youtube. Again, BBC didn't sit back and let it happen. IPlayer launched, on demand, on a variety of devices.
Now in HE, debating whether there's a future for Universities as we know them in this digital world. MOOCs obvious subject of discussion, but it's not about MOOCs, it's about the Internet. There is a bewildering range of opportunities facing HE. What do you prioritise? No right answer, just informed bewilderment. :-)
A number of different things to think about:
Accessibility
Opportunity to open up access to much wider range of audiences, on a wider range of devices, globally. Open up the huge range of expertise and knowledge locked up within its walls to everyone.
Futurelearn platform built from scratch, available on any device. Simple design and interface.
The ability to reach globally will change the mission of the University.
Good map of world showing the reach of a course run by Southampton University about the spread of the Ebola virus and its impact. Impact of the course already profound. Some of highest participation rate. Excellent feedback from medical staff in affected areas, to educate locals.
Just at the beginning of what's possible in opening up access to our knowledge.
Discovery.
Over 1m registered on Futurelearn in just over a year. 60% from overseas. Have overseas partners, from Korea, China, Europe.
Opportunity to recruit new students. Free, online courses can be an important recruiting ground, especially for international students. Can register interest in paid courses.
Need to make content open, shareable, discoverable on the web. Some of their step pages are now open to make them searchable by Google. Increase the digital footprint beyond the course. Some excellent content on courses, at the moment, is hidden.
Social learning
The ability to interact with content and engage with other participants is an important part of platform. All happens alongside the content they are consuming, enabling rich discussion. All participants have personalised profile page, and social networks can be built up.
Biggest course is Exploring English Language and Culture run by British Council, over 100,000 people participated. Lot of social interaction.
Enhancement
Enhancing and improving the teaching experience using digital technologies is essential if universities are going to keep pace with the increasing expectations of their learners. Have to work hard to make sure these courses are not just a load of videos on the web. Need good storytellers.
Also, put the learner first
Simple, delightful flexible user interface
Not just for MOOCs, but for on campus learning as well. Can be used for blended learning
Extension
Of the 1m signed up, more women than men, broad age range, and broad socioeconomic backgrounds. Enables universities to reach groups they would not normally reach. Courses for school leavers, professional learners, CPD, personal development. Wide range of motivations.
Futurelearn owned by OU. Free, but piloting different business models. Are producing a statement of participation, if complete most of the course, costs £29. Big uptake.
Courses are free, but are exploring other options for revenue generation.
Creation
Audience no longer a passive recipient of content. Are creators in their own right. Need to facilitate and enable that. Eg Help people create and develop games. Share photography on astronomy courses. Develop and share coding skills.
This is not the end of Universities, but an amazing opportunity for them to reinvent themselves in society.
Good start to the conference. Will be interested to see where MOOCs go....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Posts will probably in note form. Haven't got time to put them into English
It kicks off with a keynote from the CEO from Futurelearn. Launched in 2012, the platform on which 40 Universities in the UK offer their MOOCS.
Worked in BBC radio, and with the onset of the Internet, talk was of the death of the radio, all music would be on demand. BBC rose to the challenge, and, launched 5 new digital radio services, put radio everywhere, and made it available on demand. Then moved to TV and headed up digital services. More hype. Assumption that live TV watching, channels and schedules would be wiped away by services like Youtube. Again, BBC didn't sit back and let it happen. IPlayer launched, on demand, on a variety of devices.
Now in HE, debating whether there's a future for Universities as we know them in this digital world. MOOCs obvious subject of discussion, but it's not about MOOCs, it's about the Internet. There is a bewildering range of opportunities facing HE. What do you prioritise? No right answer, just informed bewilderment. :-)
A number of different things to think about:
Accessibility
Opportunity to open up access to much wider range of audiences, on a wider range of devices, globally. Open up the huge range of expertise and knowledge locked up within its walls to everyone.
Futurelearn platform built from scratch, available on any device. Simple design and interface.
The ability to reach globally will change the mission of the University.
Good map of world showing the reach of a course run by Southampton University about the spread of the Ebola virus and its impact. Impact of the course already profound. Some of highest participation rate. Excellent feedback from medical staff in affected areas, to educate locals.
Just at the beginning of what's possible in opening up access to our knowledge.
Discovery.
Over 1m registered on Futurelearn in just over a year. 60% from overseas. Have overseas partners, from Korea, China, Europe.
Opportunity to recruit new students. Free, online courses can be an important recruiting ground, especially for international students. Can register interest in paid courses.
Need to make content open, shareable, discoverable on the web. Some of their step pages are now open to make them searchable by Google. Increase the digital footprint beyond the course. Some excellent content on courses, at the moment, is hidden.
Social learning
The ability to interact with content and engage with other participants is an important part of platform. All happens alongside the content they are consuming, enabling rich discussion. All participants have personalised profile page, and social networks can be built up.
Biggest course is Exploring English Language and Culture run by British Council, over 100,000 people participated. Lot of social interaction.
Enhancement
Enhancing and improving the teaching experience using digital technologies is essential if universities are going to keep pace with the increasing expectations of their learners. Have to work hard to make sure these courses are not just a load of videos on the web. Need good storytellers.
Also, put the learner first
Simple, delightful flexible user interface
Not just for MOOCs, but for on campus learning as well. Can be used for blended learning
Extension
Of the 1m signed up, more women than men, broad age range, and broad socioeconomic backgrounds. Enables universities to reach groups they would not normally reach. Courses for school leavers, professional learners, CPD, personal development. Wide range of motivations.
Futurelearn owned by OU. Free, but piloting different business models. Are producing a statement of participation, if complete most of the course, costs £29. Big uptake.
Courses are free, but are exploring other options for revenue generation.
Creation
Audience no longer a passive recipient of content. Are creators in their own right. Need to facilitate and enable that. Eg Help people create and develop games. Share photography on astronomy courses. Develop and share coding skills.
This is not the end of Universities, but an amazing opportunity for them to reinvent themselves in society.
Good start to the conference. Will be interested to see where MOOCs go....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Planning and Digifest
The end of last week was a bit of a blur. I had a lot of meetings, and we had to get out planning statement in on Friday. This is the document which sets out what we're going to do next year, and what resources we need to deliver it. A lot in it about our proposed new Research IT Support service, and also many developments in Digital Learning. I'll distill everything down tothe key points sometime this week and post up a summary.
Also met with two more of our faculties for our Strategic Liaison meetings - both went very well.
Now I'm in Birmingham for Digifest - JISCs Digital festival. Last year it was excellent, so I'm looking forward to it. All of the keynotes and many of the sessions are streamed for free on line - you can register to see them here.
Also met with two more of our faculties for our Strategic Liaison meetings - both went very well.
Now I'm in Birmingham for Digifest - JISCs Digital festival. Last year it was excellent, so I'm looking forward to it. All of the keynotes and many of the sessions are streamed for free on line - you can register to see them here.
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Final thoughts on strategy forum
A quick round up of a couple of other sessions from the Higher Education Strategy Forum, and a summary of thoughts about the event.
We had a really good session from the VC of the University of Greenwich on Universities in the Digital Age. He outlined the key drivers that are impacting us at the moment, ( these are not new btw...)
Cloud computing, Mobile, Social Media, Openness and MOOCs and how we can turn our Information Systems from liabilities to assets
His conclusions were that the speed of technology development is scary but exciting, student expectations are high and Universities are struggling to keep up. His final point was that technology is a means to an end, not the end itself. which is of course true. Great talk from a VC who is obviously very clued up about technology.
We also had a session from Chris Hale, Assistant Director of Policy at Universities UK about the efficiency agenda.
The Efficiency and Modernisation Task Force was established in 2010, (I was a member of it) and it produced a report with 17 recommendations, commonly referred to as the Diamond Report. It set out a challenging agenda and there have been several successful outcomes, especially around collaborative procurement where sector wide savings of £435m have been demonstrated in two years.
Phase 2 started in November 2013, which identified 6 key work streams and the report was published last week. You can download and read a copy from here. Starts with an interesting infographic about the economic impact of Higher Education.
As well as the sessions I've posted about, we had a number of presentations from the vendors who had sponsored the event, individual business meetings with them and a "speed dating" hour where each vendor had 4 minutes to pitch to a small group of us. Overall I found it very useful. It wasn't just aimed at IT Directors, and there were VCs, PVCs, Deans and Directors of other professional services there, so some good networking opportunities. Most of the vendors were also pretty clued up on what we wanted to discuss. There were some excellent talks, and some not so good, quite a mixed bag, as often happens at these events. There were several things which could have been improved - the wifi coverage was dreadful, one of the days was too long( 0850 to 1905 with very short breaks only), and everything was very regimented. But, the venue was lovely, and when I did manage to escape for a short walk, I found this fantastic carpet of snowdrops and aconites under some trees.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
We had a really good session from the VC of the University of Greenwich on Universities in the Digital Age. He outlined the key drivers that are impacting us at the moment, ( these are not new btw...)
Cloud computing, Mobile, Social Media, Openness and MOOCs and how we can turn our Information Systems from liabilities to assets
His conclusions were that the speed of technology development is scary but exciting, student expectations are high and Universities are struggling to keep up. His final point was that technology is a means to an end, not the end itself. which is of course true. Great talk from a VC who is obviously very clued up about technology.
We also had a session from Chris Hale, Assistant Director of Policy at Universities UK about the efficiency agenda. The Efficiency and Modernisation Task Force was established in 2010, (I was a member of it) and it produced a report with 17 recommendations, commonly referred to as the Diamond Report. It set out a challenging agenda and there have been several successful outcomes, especially around collaborative procurement where sector wide savings of £435m have been demonstrated in two years.
Phase 2 started in November 2013, which identified 6 key work streams and the report was published last week. You can download and read a copy from here. Starts with an interesting infographic about the economic impact of Higher Education.
As well as the sessions I've posted about, we had a number of presentations from the vendors who had sponsored the event, individual business meetings with them and a "speed dating" hour where each vendor had 4 minutes to pitch to a small group of us. Overall I found it very useful. It wasn't just aimed at IT Directors, and there were VCs, PVCs, Deans and Directors of other professional services there, so some good networking opportunities. Most of the vendors were also pretty clued up on what we wanted to discuss. There were some excellent talks, and some not so good, quite a mixed bag, as often happens at these events. There were several things which could have been improved - the wifi coverage was dreadful, one of the days was too long( 0850 to 1905 with very short breaks only), and everything was very regimented. But, the venue was lovely, and when I did manage to escape for a short walk, I found this fantastic carpet of snowdrops and aconites under some trees.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Space...
First up was the University of Warwick's PVC for planning talking about estates planning
Some interesting figures about UK University estate (all figures exclude student accommodation)
Capital expenditure on estate was £2bn in 2012/13. Revenue cost of supporting the estate is £1.9bn/yr
Size of HE estate is just behind NHS. About 7 times the size of Tesco estate!
Currently there is pressure on capital expenditure, little government funding now, most has to come from reserves or borrowing.
But there is a massive investment in the University estate because space is:
Central to operational effectiveness
Crucial to staff and student experience
Critical in ensuring ability to meet many different demands
Provides a competitive advantage
A third of students have rejected an institution based on the facilities they observed
80% of students say the quality of the facilities have influenced them to accept an offer.
Are issues about how we creatively use space, and space use and utilisation is very important. The effective use of our space is a particular concern of government
Analysis of space usage indicators over last decade tells a positive story, the total net space per fte student is down by 9%. However, the office space for academics is only down by 0.6 % We are not using office space efficiently.
Space norms and metrics can provide information against which opportunities and constraints offered by existing buildings can be reviewed.
Expansion of the estate in relation to growth can be forecast.
Expectations regarding space allocation between departments and amongst colleagues can be managed
But difficult to benchmark as few universities publish space use
Estate is core to the delivery of the academic missionStudent expectation, staff recruitment, retention all depend on high quality facilities.
Capital spending has to be linked to improvements in space management and utilisation
You need space norms, metrics and benchmarking to inform decision making
The sustainability agenda is very important
Last week's UUK efficiency report has a section on delivering value from the HE estate, and emphasises the need for academics and estates departments to work closely together. You can read the report here.
This was followed by talk on helping students to use technology in learning spaces. Primarily it focused on providing power for mobile devices using USB, not 240volts!
Previously discussions have focused around raised floors and floor boxes, but this is now unrealistic. Devices are less hungry for power and USB is fine.They have some neat little devices, including this which is basically a big battery, which when charged up will provide 8 students with power all day. There are lots of configurations for using them - in middle of round tables or near soft seating and they can be built into furniture or a building.
I was quite impressed with them- so much better than floor boxes!!
They also had some neat collapsible computers in desks, can use space for computers or as desk space.
Finally we had a talk from DBS who design and install technology in teaching areas, residential areas and hotels. They shard a case study on what they'd done at Kings college for some new student accommodation.
They had had built 700 bedrooms, and put enough infrastructure in for at least 7 devices per student.
All the rooms had a flexible digital screen, and wired and wireless networks so all devices can connect to it. It delivered free IPTV and gave access to learning materials, streamed lectures etc
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Tuesday, 3 March 2015
From free to fee
Next session is a speaker from the Open University talking about changes in Higher Education, and how we should respond.
OU has been on a journey from late night BBC programmes, (they are proud of training the most number of inebriated physicists ) to co producing programmes like Frozen Planet with the BBC. 45% of people in UK watched at least one episode of it. The OU built on this to sell their Frozen Planet course. From free to fee.
We don't all have relationship with the BBC, buth there are other Free to Fee channels we can use. For example, YouTube. one of worlds top search engines. The OU have created lots of very short courses as tasters for their substantial ones. We cod all do the same.
Another channel is iTunes. OU have been on iTunesU for 2 years and have just passed 75m downloads. They are the most downloaded university in the world, beating institutions including Harvard.
We all need to embrace these new methods of delivery and marketing to leverage from free to fee.
The OU Anywhere app was launched last year, and provides everything for a course in one place, lecture notes, videos etc. available on a mobile device. The world has moved to mobile and tablet - 75% of logins to facebook now are from mobiles - we have to accept that the desktop is dying and we need to move to mobile delivery.
The OU was a partner in establishing Futurelearn, the UK MOOC delivery platform which currently has 41 Universities set up, and partners with BBC and British Library. They built it for mobile first, had an engaging environment and had employment outcomes at the start of the journey. Completion rate is 3 times higher than major rival and it hs a 75% student satisfaction rating.
There is a huge appetite for a UK education globally, and we should capitalise on that.
From free to fee. :-)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
OU has been on a journey from late night BBC programmes, (they are proud of training the most number of inebriated physicists ) to co producing programmes like Frozen Planet with the BBC. 45% of people in UK watched at least one episode of it. The OU built on this to sell their Frozen Planet course. From free to fee.
We don't all have relationship with the BBC, buth there are other Free to Fee channels we can use. For example, YouTube. one of worlds top search engines. The OU have created lots of very short courses as tasters for their substantial ones. We cod all do the same.
Another channel is iTunes. OU have been on iTunesU for 2 years and have just passed 75m downloads. They are the most downloaded university in the world, beating institutions including Harvard.
We all need to embrace these new methods of delivery and marketing to leverage from free to fee.
The OU Anywhere app was launched last year, and provides everything for a course in one place, lecture notes, videos etc. available on a mobile device. The world has moved to mobile and tablet - 75% of logins to facebook now are from mobiles - we have to accept that the desktop is dying and we need to move to mobile delivery.
The OU was a partner in establishing Futurelearn, the UK MOOC delivery platform which currently has 41 Universities set up, and partners with BBC and British Library. They built it for mobile first, had an engaging environment and had employment outcomes at the start of the journey. Completion rate is 3 times higher than major rival and it hs a 75% student satisfaction rating.
There is a huge appetite for a UK education globally, and we should capitalise on that.
From free to fee. :-)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Higher Education Strategy Forum- Student Experience and Digital Lancaster
I'm at a Higher Education Strategy Forum at the moment, which is an interesting event, but more on that later...
Lots of short presentations, so I'll see how I get on posting about them.
First up is about the student experience, particularly in relation to their learning experience, and what we should be doing to improve it. Important to understand the current experience, concentrate on what you can do something about and take action. Need to engage with students and gain their trust. Needs to be a much deeper engagement than just talking to student officers. Engage them in course design and development. They can bring elements around the curriculum, a broader picture to make sure it is engaging and relevant. Involve students in co production of knowledge, not just about the flipped classroom, but creating a space where students and staff can interact. My question was how do you get students to accept this way of interactive learning, our experience in some areas has been " I've paid £9,000, now teach me". If something isn't credit bearing, or it involves a lot of work, they're not interested. Of course, I've exaggerated slightly, but our recent experience of "Achieve More", where all of our first year students had to take part in a week long cross faculty exercise designed to teach them a number of transferable skills including team work, problem solving etc was very illuminating. The biggest complaint was that it had no credit attached to it, so why did they have to do it. Their learning experience didn't come into it. If it didn't contribute to their marks, they didn't want to do it. I found that really sad.
Next up was Paul Harness from Lancaster University, talking about Digital Lancaster. They have a five point Digital Strategy.
The world in changing, and many organisations have had to change and develop digital strategies including the music industry, retail, banking, cities and even the government. Universities are no different, and a digital strategy should attempt to answer the question:
How will our organisation survive and thrive in a digital world?
They used a model from Gartner, which was a lens on the university strategy to look at digital opportunities and threats facing the institution, and then looked at capabilities and gaps.
Vision is aspirational and ambitious. Trying to use digital technology innovatively to give them an edge, and make the institution think differently, ie about culture, not about technology.
They've put together a number of resources, including a one page summary and a video which you can see here.
Important that this isn't seen as an IT strategy, but a University strategy. Different parts of the strategy are assigned to different senior managers to oversee implementation.
Some examples of implementation:
1 Mobile applicant engagement.
Have a mobile app, 0.5 FTE working on it, rest of team are students. Have built a lot of functionality. Have developed an app tailored to the needs of applicants. iLancaster. Went into schools and talked to students about what they wanted. Information sent to them about the app with offer letter. Hoping it will improve offer take up. It contains welcome information, accommodation information, 3d tours, booking for visit days etc. Each academic dept can put their own content into the app. Also can initiate live chat sessions.
2 Innovation Hub
Small team of two people looking at innovation and ideas generation, operate in highly agile and flexible way. Operate like a start up, challenging existing processes. Partnering with computer science software development programme. Have created on line ideas platform where ideas can be submitted and voted on.
One of the ideas which came out of this was the Minecraft campus.
The student gaming team comes into their department one afternoon a week and are building the campus in Minecraft from info provided by estates. Can fly through etc. Has cost very little apart from engaging with students.
Some great ideas from Paul. I'm very keen to develop a Digital Strategy, and am hopeful that we can deploy our ideas platform, Ideascale very shortly. I also like the idea of partnering with computer science, and we have our very own company EpiGenysis, who might get a call when I get back. And as for building the campus in Minecraft, genius!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Lots of short presentations, so I'll see how I get on posting about them.
First up is about the student experience, particularly in relation to their learning experience, and what we should be doing to improve it. Important to understand the current experience, concentrate on what you can do something about and take action. Need to engage with students and gain their trust. Needs to be a much deeper engagement than just talking to student officers. Engage them in course design and development. They can bring elements around the curriculum, a broader picture to make sure it is engaging and relevant. Involve students in co production of knowledge, not just about the flipped classroom, but creating a space where students and staff can interact. My question was how do you get students to accept this way of interactive learning, our experience in some areas has been " I've paid £9,000, now teach me". If something isn't credit bearing, or it involves a lot of work, they're not interested. Of course, I've exaggerated slightly, but our recent experience of "Achieve More", where all of our first year students had to take part in a week long cross faculty exercise designed to teach them a number of transferable skills including team work, problem solving etc was very illuminating. The biggest complaint was that it had no credit attached to it, so why did they have to do it. Their learning experience didn't come into it. If it didn't contribute to their marks, they didn't want to do it. I found that really sad.
Next up was Paul Harness from Lancaster University, talking about Digital Lancaster. They have a five point Digital Strategy.
The world in changing, and many organisations have had to change and develop digital strategies including the music industry, retail, banking, cities and even the government. Universities are no different, and a digital strategy should attempt to answer the question:
How will our organisation survive and thrive in a digital world?
They used a model from Gartner, which was a lens on the university strategy to look at digital opportunities and threats facing the institution, and then looked at capabilities and gaps.
Vision is aspirational and ambitious. Trying to use digital technology innovatively to give them an edge, and make the institution think differently, ie about culture, not about technology.
They've put together a number of resources, including a one page summary and a video which you can see here.
Important that this isn't seen as an IT strategy, but a University strategy. Different parts of the strategy are assigned to different senior managers to oversee implementation.
Some examples of implementation:
1 Mobile applicant engagement.
Have a mobile app, 0.5 FTE working on it, rest of team are students. Have built a lot of functionality. Have developed an app tailored to the needs of applicants. iLancaster. Went into schools and talked to students about what they wanted. Information sent to them about the app with offer letter. Hoping it will improve offer take up. It contains welcome information, accommodation information, 3d tours, booking for visit days etc. Each academic dept can put their own content into the app. Also can initiate live chat sessions.
2 Innovation Hub
Small team of two people looking at innovation and ideas generation, operate in highly agile and flexible way. Operate like a start up, challenging existing processes. Partnering with computer science software development programme. Have created on line ideas platform where ideas can be submitted and voted on.
One of the ideas which came out of this was the Minecraft campus.
The student gaming team comes into their department one afternoon a week and are building the campus in Minecraft from info provided by estates. Can fly through etc. Has cost very little apart from engaging with students.
Some great ideas from Paul. I'm very keen to develop a Digital Strategy, and am hopeful that we can deploy our ideas platform, Ideascale very shortly. I also like the idea of partnering with computer science, and we have our very own company EpiGenysis, who might get a call when I get back. And as for building the campus in Minecraft, genius!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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