Enable your staff to work with digital technologies
The issue
With the continuing emergence of new digital technologies, universities and colleges need to be flexible enough to embrace to their potential. If not managed effectively, this kind of innovation and change can be unsettling for staff, disruptive to working practices and therefore counter-productive.
What you can do
In order to embed new technologies most successfully, institutions must encourage and support staff through any changes and in their digital development. We’ve looked at some aspects you’ll need to consider in order to give your staff and institution the best chance of adapting to these new technological working practices.
Planning: the bigger picture
When introducing new ways of working, the impact on the processes already in place are just as important as understanding and integrating the new technology itself. You’ll need to assess its likely impact, whether your organisation has the right policies and practices in place, and finally how and where to begin building capacity for the new practice.
Help staff adapt to change
The introduction of new and innovative working methods and systems can be disruptive to both staff and the overall running of an institution. Applying good practice to change management is essential for happy staff and overall success of the change.
- Supporting staff through technological change
- Jisc on air - episode 6: Digital literacy - delivering the agenda within colleges and universities
Keeping a competitive edge
We’re working with a number of organisations to develop professional standards in digital literacy. Benchmarking your institution’s performance against national standards is an effective way to incentivise improvement.
- UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) (pdf)
- Developing a guide to implementing the UKPSF in the digital university
Continue to support professional development
Encouraging the development of staff from across your institution is key to improving the quality and profile of your teaching, learning and research. Digital literacy is just one area in which this investment is key.