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Guide

Innovation in higher education

A primer created for university leaders as part of the learning and teaching reimagined initiative.

About this guide

Authors

  • James Clay

    Head of higher education and student experience

  • Published: 2 November 2020
  • Updated: 2 November 2020

Contents

  • Introduction
  • Overview
  • Vision
  • Action plan
  • Recommendations
  • Exemplars
  • Support

Introduction

“It’s really important at this time that we spend time supporting our colleagues and give them permission to fail. Allow people to take chances and experiment.”

Vice-principal and pro vice-chancellor for learning, teaching and students, non-aligned university

In the current landscape, learning and teaching is open to innovation and new ideas. Innovation is defined as new or different, but not necessarily better than what was there before.

In very general terms, innovation means doing something new, whether that’s creating a new product, a new service, or something else. As technology brings an increasing pace of change into the sector, there is an onus on leaders to ensure innovation is aligned with pedagogy.

Impact of innovation

Integrating and embedding innovation into learning, teaching and assessment can:

  • Enhance and improve the student experience
  • Create new pedagogical experiences through the use of new technologies and digital services
  • Provide opportunities for growth and expansion
  • Enable efficiencies and make learning and teaching processes more effective

Innovation and experimentation can also come with risks, such as:

  • Inconsistent experience across subjects, modules, and cohorts
  • A focus on the technology over the pedagogy or end user experience
  • Inconsistent approach to innovation can result in opportunities being missed
  • Innovation for the sake of innovation

Overview of innovation in the sector

Innovation is often about changing what we do for a possible future in response to an external impact. It is always difficult to sit in front of a blank piece of paper and try and imagine the future. There are tools available that can help teams to identify new issues or opportunities and explore the implications of these identified issues or opportunities.

With external impacts, it can be challenging to avoid a kneejerk reaction as time and resources can be limited. The opportunity to reflect on the longer-term implications can sometimes be missed as you try to achieve a swift solution in the given situation.

There might be disciplines or schools where innovation flourishes but whole-institution approaches to innovation are rare, with a few very notable exceptions. Universities vary widely in their levels of innovation maturity and there is a substantial knowledge and experience gap, both within and across institutions.

It can be easy to forget that people do not always like innovation, and that innovation does not automatically always mean better. Much of the time innovation for a lot of people is not better. And sometimes it can be worse than what was before. Most of the time it will just be different.

When talking about innovation, it’s important to be aware that innovation as a buzzword is often used in marketing to sell aspirations and technology, and also by senior teams writing strategies that use innovation as a substitute for creativity and performance.

Innovation is much more likely to flourish organically in a supportive environment, compared with overloading staff and forcing innovation on to them.

Four-phase innovation model

Taken from our vision and strategy toolkit, here is one model of innovation which is divided into four phases. The four phases are presented here as linear, but reality tends to be messier and sometimes the phases may make more sense in a different order.

It may sometimes be more logical to adopt an iterative approach to the phases, revisiting them throughout the development and implementation of your plans.

The four phases are:

  1. Understanding the present – this section focuses on understanding how present issues may shape your long-term plans
  2. Imagining the future – this phase is designed to help you decide what future you want for your university
  3. Identifying solutions – this phase focuses on identifying new ideas to include in your plans, and once identified, picking the best ones, testing them and persuading others to back them
  4. Implementing plans – the final phase focuses on securing buy in for your plans

Understanding the process of innovation and ensuring it is embedded across the organisation will ensure a more holistic and encompassing approach to change.

A vision for innovation

A university that celebrates and embeds innovation across learning, teaching and assessment, while ensuring that the focus is on the end users. Innovation is part of the culture and is integrated into the strategy, operational plans and the vision.

Innovation action plan

Does your university have a shared understanding of what innovation in learning, teaching and assessment looks like?

Reflect on how innovation supports the strategic aims of the university specifically in respect to learning and teaching. What are you trying to achieve?

Make a plan to create a holistic and university-wide approach to innovation. Reflect on how innovations, once identified, are shared across the university and implemented to maximise impact. How is the process of innovation governed across the organisation without adding an overly bureaucratic overhead, but ensuring oversight.

Embed innovation into the university vision, strategy and planning to empower a culture of innovation. Ensure that it is built into objectives (appraisals, performance reviews) and that appropriate resources are allocated for innovation.

Celebrate success, but also learn from what doesn’t work.

Recommendations

University leaders need to identify, invest in, and champion their vision for innovation in learning, teaching and assessment – one that can adapt to change and uncertainty.

It’s important that people are at the heart of innovation. Leaders should ensure the focus is on the end user, whether that’s students, staff, or both.

Universities should be aware of the changing needs of staff in this uncertain and unsettling period of digital transformation.

Exemplars

Keen to change perceptions, Stuart Brown, director of digital technology services at the University of Reading, shares his experiences of using technology to make cultural changes.

"I learnt quite a long time ago that trying to change culture is a massive monolithic exercise.

You have to get the entire organisation on board and have a clear vision for everyone to buy into – it’s a long, slow and difficult process to get off the ground."

Help and support

There are many ways we, and other partners, can support you in transforming the student experience though the use of blended learning and supporting digital technologies.

Advice and guidance

  • Learning and teaching reimagined: emerging good practice - stories from across higher education of great ideas already put into practice
  • Applying the SAMR model to aid your digital transformation – as we start transforming the way we do things, we must remember that innovation doesn’t have to be all about using the most advanced technology
  • How we innovate – an overview of our R&D pipeline and co-design
  • Moving past the ‘tyranny of innovation’ - this feature explores how a supportive culture can allow innovation to thrive, without stifling creativity
  • Vision and strategy toolkit - A collection of tools curated for leaders in higher education who are devising and implementing plans for the future

Training

  • Digital leaders programme

Consultancy

  • Expert support and practical assistance to help you transform your organisation and practice through digital technologies

Edtech insights

  • Digital learning rebooted - this report highlights a range of responses from UK universities, ranging from trailblazing efforts at University of Northampton with its embedded 'active blended learning’ approach, to innovation at Coventry University which is transforming each module in partnership with learning experience platform Aula
  • Assessment rebooted – this report reviews how the higher education sector had to adapt their assessment practices to fit online delivery

“Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instil change is to do it with them. Create it with them."

Lisa Bodell, CEO, Futurethink

Learning and teaching reimagined

This primer has been designed to be used with other resources created as part of the learning and teaching reimagined initiative.

Explore more on this topic
Learning and teaching
Organisational change

About the author

James Clay

James Clay

Head of higher education and student experience, Jisc

As Jisc’s head of higher education and student experience, I coordinate Jisc’s overall strategy for HE learning, teaching and student experience and have lead responsibility for promoting the total programme and value and impact of all HE learning, teaching and student experience products and services delivered by Jisc.

I lead the ongoing review of Jisc’s HE learning and teaching strategy, positioning this work within the organisation’s overall strategy I ensure that Jisc’s portfolio of activity in this area remains in line with Jisc’s HE learning and teaching priorities and work closely with colleagues to develop Jisc’s understanding of the value and impact of all of our HE learning, teaching and student experience activities.

As head of higher education and student experience, I am also responsible for framing how current and future challenges in this area can be resolved by technological innovation and translating the key insights into actionable innovation pipelines that deliver real impact. I manage the monitoring of national and regional HE learning, teaching and student experience customer and funder priorities, and work with Jisc account managers to examine the value ascribed by customers to Jisc products and services in this area, the join up of intelligence from funders and customers and the internal sharing of this, as appropriate.

I also manage the process of directorates identifying and mapping operational activities to our HE learning, teaching and student experience priorities, and the tracking and measuring of impact, highlighting gaps, challenging work if it is not aligned to priorities and identify emerging opportunities as these materialise.

Phone
0117 450 0425
Twitter
@jamesclay
Email
james.clay@jisc.ac.uk

About this guide

Authors

  • James Clay

    Head of higher education and student experience

  • Published: 2 November 2020
  • Updated: 2 November 2020

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