Fundamental technology services every college should embrace during area review implementation

Introduction

It’s every college’s goal to successfully meet the needs of learners throughout their educational journey.  It’s also every college’s goal to create a robust, efficient and effective learning environment and back office structure, underpinned by the relevant technology services to meet these needs.  

However, does your college have the fundamental technology in place to create a solid digital foundation on which to build a successful institution?  What’s more, will this technology be able to provide a launchpad for future innovation?

How we established our list

As education technology experts, we are in a unique position in further education and skills to provide a holistic view of the use and benefits of digital technology services and solutions across the sector. 

Based on our expertise, we’ve created a technology checklist that outlines the fundamental technology services that we believe every college should aim for as standard, which is supported by the Department for Education1 and mentioned in their recent area review guidance.

Backed up by sound evidence and years of expertise, these technology services are the basic building blocks we believe are fundamental for your college to address, in order that you to maximise the range of benefits that digital technology can provide. 

Service providers

Given our vision is to make the UK the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world, the technology fundamentals naturally incorporate Jisc services, many of which are freely available to your college as they are supported by core grant funding provided to Jisc from the Department for Education. 

Our main objective is to ensure that your college succeeds and that you embrace the technological options available to you.  On this basis we’ve also highlighted a combination of other relevant services and solutions from commercial providers that support the technology services to varying degrees. 

This list is not exhaustive but aims to provide examples of alternative technology solutions should your college wish to explore them further.

How this can help you post-area review

Colleges transitioning to a new state post area review, be that as part of a merger, federation or academy, are ideally positioned to adopt these fundamental technologies as part of the area review implementation phase.  Once the fundamentals are in place, your college will have the springboard to take advantage of additional technologies which can drive further quality improvement and derive efficiencies. 

Examples of effective practice are already emerging, such as the use of interactive and stimulating virtual and augmented reality content.  As outlined in our report on the evolution of FELTAG, this iterative guide surfaces many examples of effective practice from across the sector, giving other colleges the opportunity to replicate.  

Getting started

Before your college even begins to consider implementing any technology, you need to have a clear vision regarding what your institution wants to achieve.  Therefore an essential component of the technology services is obtaining digital technology advice and guidance.

Obtaining guidance early on in the area review implementation phase will prove to be indispensable.  It will support your college in the creation of a digital or e-learning strategy and help you understand your current levels of digital maturity and outline the roadmap to achieve your goals. 

The fundamentals

Each of these includes example solution providers; a snapshot of services, policies and initiatives2. 

Resilient high-speed broadband (primary secondary connectivity)

A reliable, high-speed broadband internet connection is essential to back-office business functions, teaching, learning and assessment. High-speed broadband ensures further education (FE) colleges, their staff and learners have fast, reliable, secure access to services, and information on the internet.

With most FE college business and teaching systems reliant on internet connectivity, a second connection for resilience is recommended which underpins business continuity and mitigates against the risk of operational business failure and reputational damage: teaching, learning and assessment, finance and HR systems are almost all reliant on internet connectivity.

Cyber security

Each college has a duty of care to their staff and learners and to meet Prevent duty obligations.

The risk of cyber-attacks, hacking and extremist grooming is on the rise and colleges need to ensure they adequately protect their staff and learners.

Digital technology advice and guidance

Colleges need expertise to optimise technology for supporting learners, improving teaching and learning, for organisational efficiencies and fulfilling strategic potential. Piecemeal support at individual college level is often prohibitively expensive. 

To meet their learner aspirations, it’s essential that colleges obtain guidance in their creation of a digital strategy.

Learner enrolment and tracking (institutional systems)

Colleges need to enrol, track and monitor learners. Products and services that enable this include:

• Online enrolment
• Management information system
• Learner tracking, monitoring and feedback including individual learning plans
• Timetabling
• E-register

Blended learning content

Digital content is often cheaper per head than traditional textbooks, is easily updated and adapted, and benefits from economies of scale.

The cornerstone of blended learning is high quality, targeted content aligned to a college’s curriculum used by teaching practitioners and learners in classrooms and independent learning environments.

Learner management systems

These include virtual learning environments (VLEs), e-portfolio systems, student-monitoring and target-setting as well as individual learning plans.

Business continuity including disaster recovery

Colleges’ data and IT systems are critical to business continuity. Most information collected by colleges is now in digital format therefore appropriate IT-related business continuity plans including disaster plans need to be in place for business survival.

User identity management/single sign-on

Colleges need to safely and securely provide staff and learners with access to college systems and resources.

As more colleges merge or federate, staff and learners will become more mobile. Single sign-on solutions will enable learners and staff from different institutions to access the internet on different campuses without the need for expensive systems integration.

Cloud-based/shared services

Further education colleges purchase internal infrastructure, file servers, software licensing and the electricity to keep these going, commit resources to pay the staff who maintain them – all reducible costs through new cloud and/or data centre services.

Colleges can save by migrating learner, email and electronic storage to cloud-based services and shared data centres, freeing up real estate and staff.

The use of cloud and data centre services means data is held and backed up off-site, avoiding catastrophic data loss in the event of fire or flood.

Cross-workforce technology continued professional development (CPD)

Staff with developed technology skills are needed to optimise teaching, learning and assessment in colleges. The delivery of education technology workforce transformation training was catalysed by the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (FELTAG).

Nationally-produced CPD content and resources which enhance the digital capabilities of practitioners can make significant savings for colleges in staff training and development.

Business support systems

Colleges should consider other ICT systems to manage and improve business process and efficiencies, including:

• Finances
• Human resources
• Estates
• Timetabling
• Website
• Service desk
• Library services
• Customer relationships

These systems are available from a wide range of suppliers. They vary in price, ease of use and functionality.

It is important to consider any specific data transfer requirements you have between systems at the time of selection.  Obtaining assistance regarding selecting systems should be considered as part of digital technology advice and guidance (outlined in section three), to include any relevant compliance standards that is likely to ensure optimal interworking with other systems and general longevity of usefulness.

Many colleges are moving to a shared services model to improve efficiencies across business functions.  User identity management/single sign-on (outlined in section eight) can help you to streamline access to these systems and resources in a cost effective and secure way.

Further information: get in touch

For guidance on how to draft a digital strategy and incorporate the fundamental technology services during implementation, contact your dedicated Jisc account manager or contact our customer contact centre on customerservices@jisc.ac.uk to discuss your college's individual needs.