Staff access to ICT
Further and Higher Education organisations are placing an increased reliance on Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) such as the use of email and intranets to conduct their business activities. However, this may be to the detriment of personnel who do not have access to such technologies.
Executive Summary
The project aimed to asses the extent of the restrictions in access to ICT by staff within FE and HE institutions in the UK, and to evaluate the impact on the effectiveness of individuals and institutions of any such restrictions. It also aimed to identify examples of best practice in extending staff access to ICT or in mitigating the negative impact of restricted access.
Research and findings
The overall research approach comprised a combination of desk research; a web-based questionnaire survey distributed to all relevant institutions in the sector; and in depth case studies at three FE colleges, a new university and two old universities. A post-project seminar is planned to disseminate findings and to further the sharing of best practice initiated by the project.
Around one third of all institutions in the sector responded to the questionnaire. Overall, there appears to be recognition at an institutional level that all staff should have some access to ICT, and in the majority of respondent institutions this has been formalised into policies governing the principles of staff access to ICT and/or corporate information dissemination. Provision of ICT hardware and network infrastructure appears now to be less of a problem than lack of ICT skills, lack of motivation either to use computers or to gain ICT skills, and line manager resistance to staff using computers in work time.
In both FE and HE, job function was the most frequently cited factor affecting access to ICT. Lack of access is more likely to occur with cleaning and catering staff, especially when these services are outsourced, and to a less extent, estates and maintenance personnel. Catering, cleaning and estates staff are also those least likely to have access to ICT training. This is shown to impact negatively on the implementation of new computerised systems that offer potential efficiency gains to institutions. However, there were also many examples of institutions who are taking initiatives to improve the provision of PCs and access to training for manual staff: some of these are described in detail in the report. In FE the combination of increased use of ILT combined with large numbers of part-time sessional staff and community-based staff also poses difficulties with regard to achieving universal access to ICT rests primarily in winning over the ‘hearts and minds’ of staff (and sometimes, those of their line managers). As a result of the current gaps in access, there is a need to duplicate much electronic information provision, either through the use of hard copy or via verbal briefings. Although currently essential in order to ensure inclusive access to information, this represents a resource-intensive process, that risks detracting from institutional efficiency.
Conclusions
The research identified a number of examples of good practice on the part of institutions. The report concludes that the main issue of concern for institutions is less one of access to computers as of access to information. Moreover the difference between information provision and the communication of information is highlighted: ensuring that relevant information reaches its destination, is read and understood, is not simply a matter of putting a document on an intranet or sending an email. Assisting institutions with the development and implementation of institutional communication strategies is therefore identified as an area where further work would be beneficial.