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Scaling digital heights: Bath Spa's transformation journey

How Bath Spa’s collaborative working ethos has informed its approach to digital transformation.

Scaling a mountain is proving to be a powerful metaphor for digital transformation, according to the director of learning, innovation, development and skills at Bath Spa University. Professor Helen King says:

"We need to show people the view from the top of the mountain."

As she describes it, some people know the techniques and are happy to grab their ropes and make their way to the top of the mountain. Others are less familiar with the terrain and might need a guide to show them the way along a more looping pathway.

What ultimately matters for everyone is to know why they are ascending. They need to have the incentive and motivation to move forward if any progress is to made.

Helen says:

"They need to know this is what transformation will look and feel like. A shared language is part of that, so we can see that vision together."

A shared vision is fundamental to Bath Spa’s exceptionally strong collaborative ethos. Whether it’s collaborating across subject disciplines with professional service colleagues or between staff and students, developing shared understanding is a hallmark of the university.

Bath Spa’s collaborative working ethos has also been beneficial to its digital transformation approach. Key stakeholders have been involved in every aspect of the strategy development – though perhaps not necessarily those you might expect.

From the start, the university’s digital transformation journey was, by design, university-led rather than IT-led, with senior team buy-in deemed crucial.

Professor Georgina Andrews, vice-chancellor at Bath Spa University, says:

"We felt it was really important that digital transformation wasn't seen as something that was imposed on the university by the IT department. It was a deliberate strategic decision to have a digital oversight group that encompassed senior level academic representation and professional services representation from across the whole of the university.

"It's also absolutely vital that the senior leadership team embrace and champion any type of transformation project. It's about being authentic, showing that not only is a strategy something we've committed to on paper, but we have committed to it in practice, too."

This approach acknowledges that digital transformation is never 'just an IT thing'. Helen says:

"It affects every single person across the university, whether they work in catering, or as academic staff, or if they’re students."

One very visible way it affected everyone was through some of the major changes made early in the process, such as the university-wide migration from Google to Microsoft 365, plus moves from Blackboard to Blackboard Ultra, and signing up to be an Adobe Creative Campus. Rachael Johnson-Duval, Bath Spa’s chief information officer, says:

"The move to Microsoft 365 was the biggest change project we've ever undertaken, which was both daunting and an amazing opportunity to work with students and staff."

Benchmarking with Jisc

When the opportunity arose to introduce Jisc’s digital transformation toolkit and take part in the digital transformation research pilot to benchmark their whole-organisation digital maturity, the team at Bath Spa leapt at the chance. Rachael says:

"It was immediately obvious to me that this is something that would be very, very useful to us."

It came at a point where some of the changes made as part of the university’s digital transformation process were well established and it offered an opportunity to review and evaluate the work that had been done against what other institutions were doing. The iterative, interactive process of thinking through the framework helped provide structure around the team’s thinking and enabled a better strategy.

The team mapped Jisc’s digital transformation maturity model themes onto the university’s strategy to see how closely they aligned and engaged stakeholders throughout the university, working with them to complete a digital self-assessment to determine levels of digital maturity for the sub-elements selected from Jisc’s maturity model.

Much of the value also came from engaging outside the university, with the opportunities for benchmarking welcomed by the Bath Spa team as a chance to monitor progress and set objectives. Helen says:

"The networking opportunities, meeting other institutions who are also part of the pilot, hearing about what they're doing, sharing ideas, sharing challenges and problems and solutions – that’s all been really, really useful."

Georgina says:

"The support from Jisc has been really important to us at Bath Spa University because it provides that element of externality, of professionalism, which helps us to make sure we're not treating this as an insular internal project."

Fostering digital fluency

As a result of their use of Jisc’s framework and involvement in the research pilot, the team at Bath Spa have been focusing on digital fluency for three core user groups – students, academic staff and professional services staff. The term ‘digital fluency’ is used very deliberately in place of digital capability in the Bath Spa context.

Rachael says:

"Digital fluency is essential for Bath Spa. We realised early on that our huge investment in technology at every level will only take us so far. And we need to be in a position where our students and staff can capitalise on and confidently use the technology we've implemented and made available for them. So, digital fluency is the next logical step from the investment in technology to make sure our students are well equipped when they move out into the world of work, and they're able to use the technology with great confidence and with creativity.

"It's equally as important for the staff because we need to be encouraging everybody to use the technology to its greatest advantage, not only from a return of investment point of view, but more critically to make sure that the staff are happy in their work and that they're able to maximise their use of the facilities available to them."

It's been important to identify student needs in terms of support for digital fluency. While the academic skills team have tended to focus on workshops around standard needs such as using Excel, using Word and using generative AI ethically for their work, the team’s research discovered a gap in day-to-day support for topics such as accessing the VLE and – to their surprise – printing.

As a result, they are now employing student digital learning assistants, along with a graduate student on an 18-month placement as a graduate digital fluency engagement officer, working with students to discover their digital literacy needs and plan how to best support those.

Bath Spa is also using Jisc's building digital capability discovery tool to support staff and students.

Continuing the journey

While Bath Spa University has taken great strides in digital transformation, the team is well aware that the world is not standing still. Helen says:

"Digital transformation is perhaps a bit of a misnomer because it's an ongoing dynamic process. It's something we need to be continually thinking about. The framework provides us with the means to reflect on where we're going, where the world is, where we want to be and to support that continual change and development. We've done these big things which are transformational, but it's not going to stop. There's always going to be developments in technology."

With digital a critical strategic enabler for Bath Spa's future, the ongoing process of developing and streamlining the university’s digital estate is underpinned by constantly improving foundational elements on the one hand, and capitalising on emerging technologies on the other.

Closer sector collaboration, as universities respond to an unprecedentedly challenging external environment, is also a priority. Rachael says:

"Getting the balance right will be key."

Georgina agrees. She says:

"We're on a journey. We're delighted with the progress that we've made, but we know that there is still so much more that we can achieve."

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