I intend to give a view across the sector, pulling together changes in research and in teaching from our colleagues in the field, and showing how the ‘“Wikipedia” way’ supports those emerging trends in practice.  For example, JISC has already been involved in improving Wikipedia entries by getting academics and Wikipedians together – as you can see from this blog post by my colleague Sarah Fahmy.

easel.ly

Martin Poulter, who is organising the conference, told me: “This is the first Eduwiki conference and hopefully the first of many.  We see immense mutual benefits in working with educators and academics and really welcome the involvement of the Jisc community.”
I’m keen to widen the circle, too.  Some key questions that we’re looking at to help lead institutions through the changing scholarly process include:

How can students and researchers make best use of Wikipedia?  And importantly, how do they verify and cite their reading?
What’s different about the way people approach the scholarship on Wikipedia?
How can universities and colleges use that platform to raise the profile of their work?
How does the Wikipedia approach to openness impact on the way people are doing their research and reading online?

I’d welcome your thoughts.

And that brings me to our recent decision in the University of Edinburgh to join our colleagues in North America and offer our own MOOCs – or massive open online courses – through the Coursera consortium.

It has been a very busy few weeks. After taking the in principle decision, there has been a tsunami of sorting the legals (you might be surprised at how much of this there is when you place your courses with another organisation, even if those courses are free!); choosing the MOOCs to develop; making sure we have enough capacity for shooting a lot of short videos in a tight timeframe; informing senior colleagues and University Court; organising publicity and responses to queries – at times it has felt over-whelming.

I must acknowledge here my academic colleagues for their enthusiastic response to our search for suitable MOOCs, and my real indebtedness to two of my staff, Sarah Gormley and Amy Woodgate, who have worked tirelessly on the big stuff and on the details.

So, why did we decide to ‘go MOOC’? My colleagues and I have been watching MOOC developments since their earliest days, aware that they offer interesting opportunities to explore new ‘educational spaces’ in which the scale goes way beyond large on-campus classes, and where assessment has to be thought about differently.

Of course, much of what we are designing is based upon experience with technology for on-campus courses and for our expanding range of fully online taught Masters programmes, and technology in our open LLL/CPD courses, but nevertheless it does have different dimensions. Over the years JISC has helped enormously, with our participation and learning from others through programmes in pedagogy, learner experience, open content etc – its easy to forget that, because so much knowledge just becomes internalised.

For me, MOOCs sit as part of current thinking in open educational practices (OER, OCW, OERu, connectivism etc) – ways to flex and bend the constraints that much of our traditional HE formats impose on us, and on our learners. Currently, we are exploring some of this in an EC project OERtest, especially routes to offer credit for OER/OCW/MOOC-based learning. Out of the MOOCs we expect to learn about different course designs, to reach learners from a much wider base than normal, and of course, there is reputational value for us too.

So, the preparedness was there – the big decisions were How?, With partners or solo?, and When (early adoptor or mainstream)? An invitation to join Coursera, extended by Daphne Koller to our Vice Chancellor Tim O’Shea (Chair of JISC Board) whilst he was on study leave in California, gave us the opportunity to answer all those questions, and we decided after some brief but intense reflection that now was the time and with peers in the US was the route.

This meant that we didn’t need to build our own infrastructure but could concentrate on the pedagogy and course construction.

We shall offer our courses *as a university* rather than from individual academic staff working without our support or formal involvement. We will quality assure all our courses to ensure appropriate quality. They will be short (5 weeks in the first instance) as we feel these learners may find sustained study at a distance hard going (as do those on taught online courses), and we will also stick to first year undergraduate level.

What did it cost, and is it sustainable? As with all online courses, the costs are front-loaded but even more so for MOOCs of this type, where the delivery cost (especially teaching) is low. We will spend effort and money on all our courses to get them to the right quality. We didn’t find that we had most of what we needed to hand to ‘re-arrange the pieces’ to form MOOCs, so we are going back to the design stage and creating new where necessary. One example is video lectures; we do have lots of 50 min video lectures but they really are not what we want to offer – we want shorter, focused segments with associated study and assessment. Ditto for assessment. So, it isn’t cheap for the typical university course to ‘go MOOC’. On the other hand, no knowledge is free and as we wish to explore this space, we feel the return will be worthwhile to us, and to those who take our MOOCs.

How will we sustain it? The model is to share with Coursera of the modest charge for the ‘certificates of completion’, and we will use that income to pay for our support for learners, offered in the light-touch form that these types of MOOC use. It should break even!

And for the future? I am cautious as to where the ‘MOOC movement’ will go. Some of the wilder speculation about ‘free online degrees’ and the ‘end of HE as we know it’ doesn’t help serious debate. Currently we know little about MOOC learners, about how to design and deliver successfully in a range of subjects, and most importantly at a range of levels (eg final year undergrad). Is the experience helpful to learners, and do they get value from their certificates of completion? Much more research is needed, and perhaps JISC might find this a useful area in which to support the UK HE community.

I can see openings where MOOCs might find a useful place in HE – enabling those in less privileged HE settings to access courses in subjects that they cannot take, individuals with weak formal qualifications who might demonstrate competences at advanced levels as part of portfolios for recognition of prior learning, as a more formal way to learn for those ‘just interested in that subject’, and for teachers in universities to pick up new ideas as to how to teach and learn online.

MOOCs won’t suit everyone, any more than on-campus courses or distance education suits everyone but extending the menu of choices is valuable. They may not be suitable for all subjects.

I am sure the next few months up to launch of our courses and then through first delivery will be fun, and also hard work. I am really looking forward to it, and I must continue to resist the temptation to keep checking how many thousands of people have registered interest

It was the final plenary on 30 May in Old Billingsgate. I was on stage excitedly introducing the video of John Hayes MP, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning who was launching two new JISC TechDis services.

John Hayes couldn’t be there in person but he was so enthusiastic about the BIS/JISC TechDis partnership projects that he wanted to introduce them to the ND2012 delegates himself.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I should explain here that JISC TechDis has been working with the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) on three projects to ‘improve take up and understanding of assistive and mainstream technologies for the benefit of disabled and disadvantaged learners.’ These projects: the TechDis Voices, TechDis Toolbox and the Small Business Research Initiative were presented to the audience and explained more fully in a  video montage.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was pleased with both films and felt they had turned out very well , and even from where I was sitting there seemed to be conversations going on immediately with delegates asking each other about the TechDis Voices.   When I talked of the other project – Toolbox -  I really wanted people  in the audience to understand how important technology can be, how liberating, how empowering and enabling it can be for people with disabilities. That’s why I asked Robin Christopherson from AbilityNet to deliver the next bit of the plenary.   TechDis works with AbilityNet on a range of accessibility issues including testing the accessibility of our website and providing us with supporting materials for topics such as our senior manager briefings.

I have known Robin a good number of years and knew he could deliver an expert overview of the Toolbox and the  stress the importance of its message to other disadvantaged users.

Robin, who has been blind from birth, talked about how technology has enabled him over the years. He explained how when he was young it was necessary to purchase specialist equipment that cost thousands of pounds. But things have changed and he now has a computer in his pocket in the form of his smartphone. Robin demonstrated how he can use voice recognition on his phone to undertake research on the internet. He showed how he uses the camera and an app to tell him if the money he is holding in his hand is a twenty, a ten or a five pound note. Many of the features that were once considered specialist are now part and parcel of everyday technologies.  Robin has also been a part of the story of Toolbox  and some of the video footage to come,  will show Robin and his skill with technology at work and so I felt it important that the topic came to life at the launch event.

As I sat on the stage with the other keynotes in the TechDis slot;  Robert Mullins of Raspberry Pi fame and Saul Nasse – controller of BBC  Learning, I was aware of the hush in the room.   Robin finished his speech speaking eloquently and emotionally about how without technology he would not have been able to complete his studies and earn his degree. Without his degree he would not have been able to get meaningful employment with AbilityNet. If he had not had employment he would not have moved to Warwick where he met his wife and ultimately, without the help of technology he would not be the father of two gorgeous children.

It was very moving and I was not the only one with tears in my eyes.

After Robin’s slot he (plus guide dog Tenby)  and I sat on the stage together and I explained to him what I was watching – ie  that many people were actually mopping their eyes, and at the end of the session when one of the  photographers   came on stage – I thought for a group picture  – instead he grabbed me by the arm and almost hugged me and then shook Robin’s hand (nearly shaking it off) saying how we, but in particular  Robin had changed his outlook on life  and that he had phoned his friend (another photographer) saying – in tears as he spoke   – how he could not do his job without his sight and he had never valued it so much.

Robin and I took great delight in then talking to him of the many blind photographers we knew and I mentioned the work of another good friend of TechDis, Artur Ortega (ex Yahoo) who set up the Blind Photography Yahoo Groups -  – but that is a whole other story.

That evening the Digital Leader’s dinner took place and I lost count of the people who came up to me and congratulated TechDis and AbilityNet for walking the walk and talking the talk and in most cases moving them to tears.

image from BPSUSF on Flickr

We heard this week that too many young people lack the social skills needed to get their first job.  The report by the Work Foundation (PDF) doesn’t explicitly mention digital literacy, but perhaps it should. With an estimated 90% of UK jobs requiring some level of IT competency, the notion of digital literacy – those capabilities that equip an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society – is becoming a key requirement for employability.

But will they really make graduates more employable? Why are digital literacies important to institutions and students? Is this something new or the same old skills agenda just repackaged again?

These issues and more are explored in a two part series of JISC on Air radio programmes that looks at how institutions have recognised the strategic importance of digital literacies of all staff and students working in a digital world.

In the sixth episode we are exploring how universities and colleges can help teaching staff, researchers, support and administrative staff to develop their digital literacies – those capabilities which prepare an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society.

One trend I’ve noticed is that when it comes to ‘keeping up’ with their tech-savvy students, institutions are realising that this is no longer a race they can win.  Instead they are looking for approaches that allow them to continue to meet the needs and expectations of learners in the 21^st century.

These issues are explored in a two part series of the JISC on Air radio programme that looks at how institutions have recognised the strategic importance of digital literacies for staff and students working in a digital world.

Find out more about how JISC is investing in the area on our website.

Watch videos showing how different institutions are implementing digital literacies at a strategic level with our funding

To follow the ongoing developments of the JISC funded Developing Digital Literacies projects visit the Netvibes page which collates all the project blog postings and subscribe to the Developing Digital Literacies programme blog for up to date information about the developments in the programme

Join our digital literacy mailing list to contribute to discussions around digital literacy and how it affects your institution.

JISC On Air Podcast Episode 7: Developing digital literacies for working in a digital world
(Duration: 15:48)

Listen now

Subscribe via RSS

Subscribe via iTunes

Download MP3

This is the compelling pitch offered to millions of prospective students from a bewildering array of start-ups and initiatives. Building on the open educational resource movement to create immersive online learning courses scalable to a global audience, and then giving them away. It seems like hardly a week goes by without another powerful announcement concerning another Massively Open Online Course (MOOC).

Examples include EdX (MIT/Harvard), MITx, Udacity (Stanford/Independent), Coursera (Princeton, Standford, Michgan, Pennsylvania), OERu (Abathasca), Khan Academy (Independent).

All share a similar business model: free content, free learning experiences, paid accreditation and additional support.  A business model that ALT-C 2010 attendees may find hauntingly familiar.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(video taken from a presentation given by Heather Price and David Kernohan from JISC,  Li Yuan and Sheila MacNeill at JISC CETIS, at the Association of Learning Technologists [ALT] conference in 2010)

Like any buzzword the term MOOC has shifted in meaning as use has expanded, from a specific set of pedagogic assumptions around networks and learning, to a term for any large online course with no initial fee.  These initial framings of the idea drew heavily on concepts around connectivism, and saw the learner as an active participant both in the design and the delivery of the course, alongside a network of peers.

My own experience with ds106 has brought home to me the power and possibilities of this “classic MOOC” model.  As a MOOC on Digital Storytelling, the course is actually taught in a number of locations to paying students, and uses the huge numbers of open participants to support, direct and encourage creativity. For me, the power has been in the community not in the course.

In the UK, the experiments of Jonathan Worth and Coventry University with open online courses around photography (for example PHONAR and PICBOD) have seen similar results.  Students on the PICBOD course spontaneously organised and ran their own well received end-of-course exhibition.

Clearly the power of this form of MOOC works, in ways related to more traditional university outreach activity, to engage and inspire people outsides of the confines of an institution.  And bringing the interested amateur into contact with the ideas and processes of academia can only be a good thing for student recruitment.

A parallel movement, which could be exemplified by Anya Kamenetz’s “DIYu” and “Edupunk’s Guide”, sees the MOOC as a replacement  rather than an enhancement for institutional study. Courses within this tradition, despite the revolutionary trappings and “Education is broken” sloganeering, tend to be far more traditional in structure. Indeed it could be argued that only the zero cost of entry separates them from millennial initiatives like Fathom and UKeU.

The learning itself tends to be more pragmatic, with a skills/mastery rather than an understanding/practice focus, and there is a clear demarcation between tutor as source of knowledge and student as consumer.

To me,  it is this revolutionary strand of MOOCs that is reinforcing the traditional model of education,  and the institutionally-based pedagogic experiments of people like Jim Groom, Jonathan Worth and Stephen Downes that are challenging it.

For those of us who saw Blackboard’s aggressive acquisition of commercial competitors WebCT and Angel, and have seen the patent litigation they unleashed against Desire 2 Learn, the idea of Blackboard pledging to be a good open source citizen may seem a bit … unsettling, if not 1984ish.

But it has been clear for a while that Blackboard’s old strategy of ‘owning the market’ just wasn’t going to work. Whatever the unique features are that Blackboard has over Moodle and Sakai, they aren’t enough to convince every institution to pay for the license. Choosing between VLEs is largely about price and service, not functionality. Even for those Blackboard institutions where price and service are not an issue, many departments persist with some other VLE, for all sorts of not entirely functional reasons .

In other words, the VLE had become a commodity. Everyone needs one, they are fairly predictable in their functionality, and there is not that much between them, much as I’ve outlined in the past.

So it seems Blackboard have wisely decided to switch focus from charging for IP to becoming a provider of learning tool services. As Blackboard’s George Kroner noted, “It does kinda feel like @Blackboard is becoming a services company a la IBM under Gerstner.”

And just as IBM has become quite a champion of Open Source Software, there is no reason to believe that Blackboard will be any different. If only because the projects will not go away, whatever Blackboard does with the support companies they have just taken over. Besides, ‘open’ matters to the education sector.

Interoperability

Blackboard had already abandoned extreme lock-in by investing quite a bit in open interoperability standards, mostly through the IMS specifications. That is, users of the latest versions of Blackboard can get their data, content and external tool connections out more easily than in the past- it’s no longer as much of a reason to stick with them.

Providing services across the vast majority of VLEs (outside of continental Europe at least) means that Blackboard has even more of an incentive to make interoperability work across them all. Dr Chuck Severance’s appointment also strongly hints at that.

This might need a bit of watching. Even though the very different codebases, and a vested interest in openness, means that Blackboard sponsored interoperability solutions – whether arrived at through IMS or not – are likely to be applicable to other tools, this is not guaranteed. There might be a temptation to cut corners to make things work quickly between just Blackboard Learn, Angel, Moodle 1.9/2.x and Sakai 2.x.

On the other hand, the more pressing interoperability problems are not so much between the commodified VLEs anymore, they are between VLEs and external learning tools and administrative systems. And making that work may just have become much easier.

This post originally appeared on the JISC CETIS website

Amber Thomas, programme manager at JISC, knows the issues well because she works on our open educational resources programme and gave a presentation earlier in the month (see her slides here) which outlined the benefits of content sharing and reuse.  Amber says, “Personally I welcome the provision of easy content creation tools, and the ability to create attractive usable content.”

However, she also raises concerns about the proprietary nature of Apple’s resources, adding, “What concerns me is that Apple control a ‘technology stack’ through devices, software apps, content collections and delivery platforms. I am not sure that the drivers on them to ensure interoperability will be strong enough to avoid their business model being a form of vendor lock-in.”

There are complex issues around intellectual property when it comes to sharing resources.  Amber says, “We all need to be savvy about the ownership of our content and data these days, so that we are at least aware of the trade-offs we are making, and the effect it has on our ability to share content with each other.”

If you’re concerned about these issues you might be interested to consult the advice in our infokit around the legal aspects of OER.

Doug Belshaw, of JISC Infonet, echoes Ambers concerns.  Doug is a practising teacher and  former Director of e-Learning and he welcomes Apple’s new software.

He says, “Yes, it involves significant vendor lock-in, but so long as you go into it with your eyes open there’s potential for really engaging, contextualised content to be produced by both teachers and learners.”

Doug points out as others have done, that “where Apple leads others tend to follow.”  His hope for the future?  “We’ll end up with equally shiny, but more open, versions of iBooks Author.”  That remains to be seen – but it wouldn’t be the first time that Apple’s announcements act as a catalyst.

Which leaves the final say to JISC programme manager and OER expert David Kernohan, who is a staunch supporter of the move.  He agrees with David Riley who blogs about it here that “the announcement is an outright win for advocates of affordability and open textbooks.”

David explains, “iBooks looks like an attempt to prove that the idea of a text book (the single, codified, unmodifiable, static source of information) is still pedagogically and technologically valid.”

However he does have concerns about using the web effectively for learning and is concerned whether we are simply replicating analogue artefacts.

He concludes, “The question should not be how cheap textbooks should be, or how shiny, but whether we need them at all.”

If you’re new to ebooks, you can learn more by joining in the JISC Advance webinar on ‘getting started with ebooks’ http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/surgery

What do you think about the Apple iBooks?  Have you used any in your classes?  We’d be interested to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Image from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit © The Imperial War Museum

The legacy of World War One in terms of social, economic and political global change cannot be overstated; it changed the individual’s view of society and their place within it with far-reaching effects into their future and our past. In the words of H.G. Wells: ‘This is the end and the beginning of an age’.

To mark this event in international history is therefore a key priority for custodians of heritage and educators alike.

We’ve already made considerable efforts to preserve online the memories and writings of those active during the First World War.  The popular Great War Poetry Archive was funded by JISC to digitise precious documents relating to the poetry of the Great War – including Wilfred Owen’s original notes for the well known poem Dulce et Decorum Est.

It also includes podcasts with eminent historians and veterans including the writer and broadcaster Ian Hislop talking about his grandfather’s experience in action and why he is so ‘obsessed’ with the First World War.  The Serving Soldier collection might also interest you as a way of finding out about the lives of soldiers from 1899 to 1918, a period which spans the Second Boer War, Younghusband Expedition and World War One.

But now it’s time to commemorate the 2014 anniversary.  Higher and further education has a  unique part to play in the WW1 commemoration because it can offer an academic appraisal and reappraisal of themes, events and perceptions.  To help people in education who are studying the period, we are promoting a joined-up approach across many different organisations that currently hold audiovisual, images, text based works and film relating to the First World War. JISC wants to explore how providing this in a more seamless way could help those working in education and research to access the resources. So as a result we’re planning two activities:

• JISC WW1 Discovery programme- to aggregate digital content such as films from a range of digital collections and find new and innovative ways of presenting this content for the benefit of education and research on WW1.

• JISC WW1 OER project- to create innovative Open Educational Resources around WW1 relevant across disciplines for embedding in teaching and learning using a range of content pertaining to WW1 in the UK and internationally, ready for release in March 2012

JISC’s overriding goal for both activities is to work for researchers, teachers and students to produce digital content and resources that are comprehensive, open and sustainable, but that answer differing, specific needs within higher and further education.  The plans are underpinned by a common strategic ‘direction of travel’ which is outlined most clearly in the JISC Statement of Intent.

I look forward to updating you further as these projects progress.

To find out more about what’s planned visit the blog.

With the uncertainties of a new funding model to deal with, it is becoming harder than ever to convince institutional managers to support nice-to-have projects. Everything needs to be justified, both on a balance sheet and within a wider battle for hearts and minds. But the way in which open educational resources (OER) allow institutions to meet their strategic goals alongside making the world a better place means that it is moving from being nice-to-have to becoming an essential component of academic practice.

More than 10 years on from the formal establishment of the OpenCourseWare project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that the case for OER (materials suitable for learning and teaching, made available for reuse under an open licence) had been made and accepted. MIT, alongside many other institutions, both great and small, and including Nottingham, Oxford, University College Falmouth and the Open University in the UK, is currently supporting the ongoing release of resources with their own funds. The likes of YouTube and iTunes are establishing themselves as platforms for the discovery of learning material, and institutions are beginning to see open resources as a major component of their student recruitment strategies. But it can often feel, as Javiera Atenas described last week, as if we are going round the same discussions without building on what already has been discovered.

To try and condense some of the vast amount that has been learnt about the benefits of OER releases in the past 10 years, the Higher Education Academy and JISC have developed an InfoKit. This now includes materials specifically aimed at advocacy to senior institutional staff, talking about business models for openness and making arguments around institutional ethos, alongside sound evidence-based advice about every aspect of getting to a stage where releasing materials openly online is as natural as creating them. We also have an interactive tool – how open are you – which uses your responses to make a recommendation concerning how much openness your institution is ready for.

Jorum, the UK’s national learning repository, is refocusing itself around OER, introducing new features and tools to aid the deposit and discovery of resources. It is now as easy, – and increasingly, as expected – to deposit in Jorum as it is to upload to Youtube, WordPress or Twitter.

There are parallels between OER releases and the ways in which universities and colleges have begun to make more intelligent and active use of social media. For example, in following major political stories readers, bloggers and professional journalists are increasingly making use of sites such as British Politics and Society at LSE, Nottingham University’s Ballots & Bullets and the University of Oxford’s Politics in Spires to understand the background and meaning of news stories, drawing on the passion and expertise of academic specialists to further their own understanding. Strictly speaking, only the last of these is available under an open licence allowing for reuse, but all of these bloggers expect to be retweeted, quoted, referenced and their work drawn upon. It’s the point of blogging, and in many ways the point of academic practice.

One theme emerging from the research around OER is the idea of open academic practice – it comes out strongly from our ongoing evaluation and synthesis of the UKOER programme, and from other linked research such as a recent Oxford University study into the practicalities of academic reuse. Open academic practice draws a link between OER, open access to research outputs and research data, and the general practice of “professing” (in the late-medieval sense) a subject, by what we now call a “public intellectual”. By seeing OER as a component of what is traditionally expected of academia, rather than as a new imposition, we are arguing from a much stronger foundation based on what many in the sector see as their primary motivation – to explain to people the importance and relevance of the subject specialisms they have devoted many years to understanding.

Evidence is increasingly being identified that students, both traditional, and wider open learners, are getting a lot of benefit from openly available materials. From on-campus students having access to a range of supporting materials (as reported by Steve Carson at MIT), to prospective students using OER to think more clearly about subject and institution choices, there are a range of benefits that can be accessed. A recent literature review highlighted these issues, but also alerts us to gaps in our understanding where further research would help improve our understanding.

JISC and the Academy have recently supported a range of new projects (under UKOER phase 3, details to be announced soon), investigating ways in which we can use the approaches and affordances of OER to meet other key societal goals. Goals such as supporting alternate forms of delivery, making meaningful links with employers and publishers, working across sectors even preserving subject areas and teaching approaches that would otherwise be lost.

The world of OER may not be as new and as ground breaking as it was 10 years ago but for such a radical idea to survive for 10 years, and to become almost mainstream in the process, is an incredible achievement of which the global OER community, and in particular those working in the UK, should be proud.

This blog post first appeared on the Guardian Higher Education Network on 28 October 2011.  Visit the Guardian site

In addition, the rapid growth in personal ownership of new and more powerful technologies such as mobile phones and tablet PCs, along with the pervasive use of social software is changing the way we work, socialise, communicate and collaborate.  It is only natural that students will expect to see the powerful benefits these technologies offer – technologies that are common-place in many aspects of our working lives – used to support their learning ambitions as they endeavour to balance the competing pressures of study, work, caring and social responsibilities.

So how are colleges and universities responding to these challenges and preparing for the future?JISC’s new guide on Emerging Practice in a Digital Age shows how colleges and universities are continuing to embrace innovation in use of mobile technologies, social software and virtual worlds despite constraints on public funding.  The guide shows how they are harnessing new and emerging technologies to enhance the learning experience and respond to changes in economic, social and technological circumstances in a fast-changing world.
Through the three themes of: working in partnership with students, developing students’ employability potential and preparing for the future, the guide demonstrates how considered and innovative use of technology can enhance learning. It highlights opportunities to transform practice and explore some of the benefits and challenges using written, video case studies and podcasts of expert voices from the JISC 2011 Emerging Practice symposium.
For me, key messages include the need to go beyond listening to students to working with them as co-collaborators of their own learning, the need to focus on learning design as an integral aspect of introducing new technologies, the importance of working with employers and the need to develop digital literacy skills for both staff and students.

The change in culture and shifting locus of control from institution to learner is something that David White, Co-manager, Technology Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL), Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford highlights: “I think we need to accept that the culture has changed, that institutions don’t need to own or control that culture but they need to take advantage of it and to equip their students to engage with it in new forms of literacy. We can’t just slide across traditional forms of literacy, and I think that is where the challenge is set.”

With an emphasis on emerging practice, the guide makes the case for strong leadership at a senior level to ensure the vision and opportunities presented by these emerging technologies are realised with due consideration to the support mechanisms necessary to make their introduction successful.  The need to look ahead, embrace change and create the right culture by developing strategies that engage staff and students is something that Clare Killen, the author of the guide suggests is likely to lead to longer-lasting transformation, “in the longer term, efforts to create the right culture and to engage others in the process of change may prove to be more valuable and lead to more sustainable and responsive practice in a world of rapid change”.

For information about the JISC e-Learning programme, visit: www.jisc.ac.uk/elearningprogramme

Planning and designing the curriculum involves every aspect of the business from market research and course development to quality assurance and enhancement, resource allocation, timetabling, recruitment and assessment.

During the past two year I have been working  on the Transforming Curriculum Delivery through Technology Programme which funded 15 projects based in universities and colleges  with the aim of enhancing curriculum design and delivery through innovative uses of technology.

This work has focused on some of the key challenges that universities and colleges all face such as: improving  motivation, achievement and retention;  managing large cohorts; supporting remote and distance learners; engaging learners with feedback; ensuring ongoing responsiveness to stakeholder needs and delivering resource efficiencies which enhance rather than reduce the quality of the learning experience. By exploring new, creative and flexible models of delivering curriculum we have learned more about how and where technology can  add value and even transform the way in which the curriculum is delivered in different contexts.

We’ve found, for example, that students’ learning can benefit from efficient, integrated systems. At Lewisham college, for example, students on the new 14-19 diploma course are no longer dealing with printouts but getting instant access to their timetables, attendance and punctuality records through the college’s new learning portal.  The result is more motivated students who are more in control of their own progress, as student Sherrane Scott highlighted, “I use [the portal] for many things. The main use for me is to check my work in the courses section of the site. I use it because it is useful and convenient. It is also set out in a clear and understandable way.“

If you are interested in finding out more about this project, and the other work in the programme and want to understand more about the potential of technology-enhanced curricula on , our new guide Transforming curriculum delivery through technology: Stories of challenge, benefit and change is now available. This guide provides an overview of the outcomes from the programme and offers some insights into the ways in which institutions and individual curriculum areas can make use of technology to respond more robustly to the demands of a changing world. Copies can be downloaded or ordered from www.jisc.ac.uk/curriculumdeliveryguide (allow 2 weeks for delivery). For further information about the work of the projects and access to all our programme-related resources, please see the Design Studio. A recording of a presentation I gave recently providing an overview of the programme and its achievements, is also available.

Accompanying the guide, our latest radio show in the ‘JISC On Air’ series looks at how technology can deliver curriculum changeand  includes interviews with representatives from projects involved in the programme whodiscuss the impact achieved in two very different contexts and disciplines.

In an example from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity, a virtual learning environment-based blogging tool has been used to enhance the dynamics of tutorials and seminars and to improve the consistency of students’ engagement with more challenging elements of the curriculum. Following successful trials commencing in 2005, the School of Divinity has used blogging as part of a wider blended learning strategy to develop student skills of critical thinking and reflection.

The detailed case study is a word doc you can download: Engaging learners in critical reflection – University of Edinburgh

What are the advantages?  In my experience, group blogging helps to unite a diverse body of students and makes it easier to identify individuals’ difficulties. The quality of discussion on the blogs is often high, with more competent students raising the performance of weaker students, and contributions made as part of these discussions can later become aids for revision. The time involved in monitoring blogs has not proved excessive – in fact the blogging activity may have reduced the time spent supporting students experiencing difficulties.

What’s your experience of using blogs with students? I would welcome your comments.

Find out more about JISC’s work in online learning

As Eric pointed out, being innovative can help show prospective students that the university means business when it comes to staying at the top, thereby helping to drive revenue from course fees.  It can also support widening participation by reaching out to students in non-traditional areas – as at the University of the Highlands and Islands, where technology is conquering geography and allowing students to tap into the network of over 80 different learning centres from their own homes and workplaces.  There’s no doubt that smart technology use can enhance students’ experience of university, whether that be keeping in touch with a tutor out of hours or logging on to an online learning environment -  like the University of Bristol’s online laboratory ChemLabs, which better prepares undergraduates for their real-life practical work.

Technology can drive income from business, too. I’m aware that the vast majority of the work that goes on between universities and their business and community partners is heavily dependent on virtual collaboration through email, telephone or web tools and resources.  Last year a JISC project at the University of Glamorgan developed a ‘listening zone’ for feedback, ideas and partner-making, and acted as a marketplace for business referrals and contacts.  Building an online community takes time but can be a valuable way to add value to what’s happening every day between local entrepreneurs and academics.

Now that higher education is entering an unregulated market, we’re bound to see increased competition between universities.  But shared services can achieve cost savings by providing economies of scale. The recent upgrade of JANET, the UK’s education and research network, will save £63.2 million over its five years of operation.  We’ve also seen the success of the Bloomsbury Colleges group in London which was set up in 2004 to collaborate together in academic administrative matters to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort while maintaining the colleges’ independence.

In addition to sharing these strategic approaches, we need to get better at learning from one another about which technology works, and where.  Risks taken by individual institutions need not be repeated.  For instance, JISC has investigated the possibilities for an academic cloud specifically for researchers – and decided that at the moment, the arguments are not persuasive.  You can read the report from 2010. There are countless examples of good technology use available across the sector and it’s encouraging to see groups like the enterprise architecture practice group for strategists coming together on a regular basis to ask how we can discover from each other.

I sometimes feel that the word ‘technology’ sounds expensive.  You can estimate how much your ICT equipment is costing your university and the environment using the JISC carbon footprinting tool. But the simplest technology can have a really big impact.  We’re all aware, for example, of the potential for energy saving light bulbs to help us cut our bills at home, and the same principle can be applied to green ICT on an institution-wide scale. JISC funded a project at Cardiff University to make better use of storage solutions for files that aren’t being accessed every day.  It’s simple technology but when put into full production at Cardiff, it is anticipated that this will save 10kW of energy (approx 51 tonnes of CO2) per year, which at current prices is around £10,000 per annum.  A green agenda can also help you make better use of space on campus by strategically outsourcing ICT functions using cloud computing, resulting in lower cooling costs and new space that used to be taken up with servers.

Having said that, there’s no doubt that investing in new ICT facilities can be costly.  As universities try to prioritise, what should they do if buying a new system becomes unavoidable? JISC ProcureWeb is a shared service which enables institutions to save money through efficient procurement and was estimated to have saved the sector £1,350,000 in 2008/09. You can read JISC’s advice on getting the best price for any new equipment you’re consider on the JISC Infonet contract negotiation infokit I’d also encourage universities to ensure that they’re not paying more than they have to for their existing services.  For example, there’s a searchable list of all the free and discounted licensed digital resources available through JISC at the content website.  In 2009/10 alone, JISC Collections saved UK colleges and universities over £50m on subscription costs.

You can find out more about how JISC can help you in the reducing costs area of our website – which focuses on how we can help support your institution with strategic thinking, background documents, practical advice and downloadable resources on all the topics I’ve mentioned in this post.   By wisely investing in technology, I believe a university can save costs, generate revenue and share the burden of spending – but I also don’t want us to lose the innovative spark that keeps UK plc at the forefront of research globally.  We must continue to take calculated risks with technology if we want to support our students and researchers with their bright ideas and ensure that our universities attract people who are themselves forward looking and innovative.

This blog post first appeared on the Guardian Higher Education Network on 18 April 2011.  Visit the Guardian site

Our parallel session at the JISC Conference 2011 was entitled Using Digital Media to Improve Teaching and Learning.

Between our speakers we had a wide range of knowledge, skills and experience: each of our speakers was a cartographer of the digital media landscape, mapping not only the Ariel perspectives of policy and future trends but also individual bumps along the road. Rather than promoting digital media as a pedagogical ‘magic bullet’ our session focused on ways to mitigate the problems of using digital media:

- view ‘workflows’ themselves as useful tools in a similar way to open source software. Workflows can be shared, refined and recirculated amongst communities to help us learn from the experiences of others (Zak Mensah, e-learning officer at JISC Digital Media)

- support  your students as producers of digital media, a concept of importance as resources are cut and students are encouraged to take ownership of learning resources (Dr Jane Williams, director of e-learning within the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Dentistry and Medicine)

- where possible be aware that the idea of ‘attendance’  needs to develops in line with new technologies. Learners  ‘in attendance’ may be using a webcam at home or contribute to discussion via Twitter (Doug Belshaw, JISC Infonet).

In summary, our session suggested that the use of digital media really can enhance teaching, but also poses the risk of only passively engaging the learner.  No single individual or even institution in isolation could possibly ‘keep up’. Only by pooling knowledge and sharing stories of what works and what doesn’t can we use successfully integrate digital media into our teaching and learning.

Find out more at the virtual goody bag for this session.

Lord Browne’s recommendations this week remind us that the majority of students (or their parents) will be stumping up an increasing amount for a place at university. It is no surprise then that they want to be 100% sure that their education will be worth the money.

Those of us in the business of delivering and supporting higher education want to enrol students who are well prepared – if students know what they are letting themselves in for they’re more likely to flourish and stay the course.

This is easier said than done. Typically, course publicity, application, selection and enrolment generate an overwhelming amount of information. The trick is making sense of it all.

In the first of a new series of online ‘radio’ programmes – JISC on Air – we explore how digital technologies are helping universities to share reliable and consistent course information and support new students throughout the recruitment process.

Listen now
Episode 1: Successful Student Recruitment (Duration: 18:22)

Subscribe via RSS

Subscribe via iTunes

Download MP3

More information on this programme: http://jisconair.jiscinvolve.org

Photo by Tom Wills: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomwills/5036718688/in/set-72157625060586946/