Tag Archives: personalisation

Visionary – Weeknote #260 – 23rd February 2024

I have been working on a series of visions about how universities could be working differently in the future. The aim of the visions is not to predict a future, but to provide an insight into a possible view of what that future could look like and think about how these impact on your current position and thinking. We did something similar for Learning and Teaching Reimagined, and though I wasn’t personally credited with the authorship of some of the visions, I did create and write the visions. I tested them out with a few people and got the reaction I wanted as well as stimulating an interesting discussion.

One of those visions was about organisations merging. Coincidently in the news this week was the news that City, University of London and St George’s, University of London have agreed a merger – the new institution will be called City St George’s, University of London and commence operations from 1 August, “though full integration will take longer.” Current City president Anthony Finkelstein will lead the combined institution.

There has been much talk about the four day week, in the Guardian this week was an article on how some firms have made their four day week trials permanent.

Most of the UK companies that took part in the world’s biggest ever four-day working week trial have made the policy permanent, research shows.

Reports from more than half the pilot organisations said that the trial, in which staff worked 100% of their output in 80% of their time, had a positive impact.

For 82% this included positive effects on staff wellbeing, 50% found it reduced staff turnover, while 32% said it improved job recruitment. Nearly half (46%) said working and productivity improved.

TASO published a new report: Using learning analytics to prompt student support interventions.

How can learning analytics – data systems that help understand student engagement and learning – be used to identify students who may be at risk of withdrawing from their studies, or failing their courses, and what interventions work to re-engage students in their studies?

The key findings from the report were:

  • Neither HEP found a measurable difference in post-intervention engagement rating between at-risk students who received an email followed by a support phone call and at-risk students who received only the email.
  • Neither HEP found any significant impact of the additional support call on the likelihood of a student generating additional at-risk alerts.
  • Qualitative feedback indicated that students welcomed the intervention. For some, the phone call was appreciated as a means of breaking down barriers between themselves and the institution and stimulating their re-engagement with learning. For others, the email alone was cited as a sufficient motivator to re-engage with learning.

There was an article on Wonkhe on the report.

A new study from TASO seeks to judge “what works” in the use of learning analytics for student support, exploring whether students identified by engagement data as being “at risk” were better supported by email and phone contact or email alone. Large cohorts of students at two providers, Sheffield Hallam University and Nottingham Trent University, were divided into two random groups. In both cases, it was found that an additional support call created no measurable difference in at-risk students’ subsequent engagement and no appreciable change in the likelihood of the student generating subsequent alerts.

It will be crucial to robustly test the impact of any wellbeing interventions that analytics systems may trigger.

As many people already well known, the environmental costs of generative AI is soaring, and that also being kept mostly secret. In Nature is an article about the impact AI will have on energy systems.

Last month, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman finally admitted what researchers have been saying for years — that the artificial intelligence (AI) industry is heading for an energy crisis. It’s an unusual admission. At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Altman warned that the next wave of generative AI systems will consume vastly more power than expected, and that energy systems will struggle to cope.

Spent some time planning out Senior Education and Student Experience Group meeting for March.

Wrote a briefing update on the work I have been doing on the optimisation of operations and data work.

Had an interesting and informative conversation with a college about their smart campus aspirations.

Spent time planning next steps of my Intelligent Campus work.

Planning a meeting with an university for a follow up workshop on their smart campus planning, after successful workshop in January and their request for a 1-2 day cross university workshop.

Worked on creating and planning blog ideas in the personalisation space. Also worked on creating and planning senior management primer ideas in the personalisation space, and some use case ideas.

Spent time planning out ideas for Spaces events over the next 12 months.

Noted that this worknote represents five years of undertaking worknotes for the blog.

Space, the final frontier – Weeknote #259 – 16th February 2024

It was half term week in North Somerset, so I was off to the office for most of the week.

I posted a blog post What makes an intelligent campus? which was about the differences between a smart campus and a campus which is intelligent.

A dumb campus is merely a series of spaces and buildings. For example the heating comes on at 8am, off at 5pm, and is only switched on between November and March, regardless of the external temperature.

A smart campus uses data from the spaces and buildings to make decisions. For example, a thermostat controls the heating, as the room warms up, the heating turns off.

An intelligent campus uses data from across the organisation to make decisions and make predictions. For example, a team is out on an away day, so the intelligent campus, switches off the heating and lighting on that floor for that day.

I also updated a blog post I had written about the links between the university smart campus and the smart city (or smart community).

So how does the intelligent campus slot into the smart city? The reality is in many cities the campus and the city are not distinct spaces, and for many people they will move between city and campus across the day. If a university with an intelligent campus does not integrate or work with the smart city, then they won’t have the full picture and in some cases could be at odds with each other. Bringing in the full picture, all the data, a better understanding can be drawn from the experiences of the students and the city population at large.

Following on from the Intelligent Campus workshop I ran in January, the university has been back in touch to discuss planning a two day workshop with a wider range of stakeholders.

I had my Q2 review. As always, these notes come in useful for writing up that review.

I spent time reviewing the personalisation space I have on Dovetail and identifying gaps and further research required. The plan here is not to create the definitive guide to personalisation in higher education, but reflect on a shared understanding, the needs of the sector in this landscape, and where and how Jisc can help and support universities in moving to a more personalised student experience. I worked through a potential workplan and what the next steps are.

lecture theatre
Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

I have spent time working on learning spaces, and I undertook a second analysis of learning spaces scoping study we did last year, adding tags and insights to Dovetail space I have on learning spaces.

Phygital is not a word, ever…. – Weeknote #221 – 26th May 2023

Quite a busy week all in, including some time in London.

I liked this post by Lawrie on accessibility and inclusion: If you set a minimum standard…

The thing that we keep confusing is that accessibility is not the same thing as inclusion. In reality, we have not moved beyond the traditional concept of accessibility, something that is measurable, something we can benchmark, such as web accessibility “regulations” to a broader notion of inclusion. Accessibility has been a crucial stepping stone in creating environments that accommodate individuals with disabilities, but its language and approach can sometimes inadvertently complicate the goal of achieving true inclusion.

Talking about with a colleague about physical spaces, we discussed how ramps can make a building accessible, but doesn’t mean that the building is inclusive.

Wheelchair ramp
Image by Andrzej Rembowski from Pixabay

I was supporting colleagues interviewing for a position within their team. I haven’t done interviewing for a while now, so was an interesting experience.

There was quite a bit happening in the intelligent campus space this week. On Wednesday I was running the Intelligent Campus Community Event in London. Over 15 delegates attended the event, and there was lots of positive feedback.

Just wanted to say thanks for running that event yesterday – I thought it was very useful, also I was glad to make some new friends with similar interests!  You did a great job on running it!

On the same day, the Building the future intelligent library guide published on the web –  bringing together existing systems with innovative applications to improve learning, support the research lifecycle, enhance physical environments, and maximise resources.

To support the guide an Intelligent Library blog post published on the Jisc blog –  Libraries are the beating heart of every university and full of staff who are often proponents of digital-first thinking; so, they could take a leading role in exploring these exciting new avenues – deciding which technologies to adopt, how and why.

Library
Image by RHMemoria from Pixabay

On the same day as the Intelligent Campus Community Event I was also delivering  a presentation for the Advancing Blended Learning in Higher Education Event. I did a pre-recorded video for the event which was running at the same time as the community event.

I just wanted to say a huge thank you for being part of the event yesterday. Thanks for preparing such an engaging video. It was a really great addition to the event. 

Spent some time trying to resolve internal and external problems registering for ILTA EdTech Conference in Dublin next week, having had a paper accepted. The end result was, no resolution and no time, so had to withdraw my paper from the conference. The main problem for me was the short window from having my paper accepted and the date of the actual conference itself.

Have been writing up notes from the personalisation workshops I have been running over the last two weeks. Analysing content from workshops and formulating plan and next steps.

Started writing up notes from the intelligent campus community event as well.

Caught this tweet from Lawrie and responded with a GIF.

People have enough trouble having a shared understanding of terms such as hybrid we really don’t need to create new words such as phygital.

CrossCountry train at Cheltenham Spa Railway Station
CrossCountry train at Cheltenham Spa Railway Station

I have blogged about train wifi quite a bit in the past, I wrote this blog post in 2010.

I did wonder why CrossCountry Trains didn’t put in wifi as you find on the East Coast Main Line services and Virgin Trains Pendolino. Well it appears that providing wifi was part of their Franchise agreement with the Department of Transport. CrossCountry Trains was suppose to have wifi in place by November 11th 2009. They failed to meet this deadline!

I also asked about the lack of train wifi on First Great Western (now GWR).

My question though is much more, why isn’t there wifi on First Great Western services from the West Country to London and why wasn’t it in their franchise agreement? I travel with First Great Western much more than I do CrossCountry and would really like it if they had wifi.

Eventually both companies put wifi on their trains. However, the BBC published an article this week that said train wi-fi at risk as part of cost-cutting move.

Rail users could lose access to wi-fi on trains in England as part of cost cuts after the government said it was a low priority for passengers. The Department for Transport says cost pressures mean it will review whether the current wi-fi service “delivers the best possible value for money”.

Most times I travel by train these days I am more likely to use my own 4G or 5G connection as I still find train wifi unreliable. However I still think it should be on trains for those that don’t have their mobile connectivity.

A question for you to ponder this week.

What do you think is the difference between adaptive learning and responsive learning?

My top tweet this week was this one.

Even more personalisation – Weeknote #220 – 19th May 2023

A normal length week! What’s that all about then? A full week next week as well… Well at least the week after that we have another short week.

I reviewed the communication plan Intelligent Campus and Intelligent Library, as well as guides, there will be supporting blog posts and events. I wrote a draft blog post for the comms team.

I ran two personalisation workshops this week. One was a shorter online workshop, the second was an all day workshop in Bristol. In the first instance we were running the internal personalisation workshops to explore the following:

  • What do we mean and understand about personalisation?
  • What does personalisation mean in higher education?
  • What help and support do our higher education members need to deliver on personalised learning and the personalisation of the student experience?
  • What help and support can Jisc provide to our members in this space?
  • What was the past work Jisc has done in this space, what is the current work, and what future work is planned?

Following the workshops I spent some time writing up the notes.

campus
Image by 小亭 江 from Pixabay

On the 24th May I am running an Intelligent Campus Community Event in London. I spent some time planning and organising the event.

microphone

Also on the 24th I am presenting at an online event, Advancing Blended Learning in Higher Education. For that event I am doing a pre-recorded video, I spent time planning, recording and editing the video. I would like to have spent more time on this, but realised I needed more people to get the effect and impact I wanted.

I enjoyed reading Kerry Pinny’s reflections on ALT-C 2016.

#ALTC2016 was my first annual conference. It was held at the University of Warwick in September 2016. While I had been working in HE in IT Training and learning technology roles for ~6 years, I was not aware of ALT or the conference. My colleague introduced me to ALT and it remains a surprise (and source of shame) to me, all these years later, that I had not heard of the organisation at any of my previous institutions.

My first ALT conference was twenty years ago in 2003. I wrote about it in this blog post reflecting on my own ALT-C experiences.

The first Association for Learning Technology Conference (#altc) I attended was in 2003 in Sheffield. ALT was ten years old by now and well established in the world of what we called e-learning back then in the higher education sector, less so in further education. I was in the middle of a project called FAIR Enough part of the JISC FAIR programme and had been asked to deliver a short session on the issues of copyright that we had found as part of the project on sharing resources across our college consortium.

Alas my memory of the conference was one of disappointment, I found it overwhelming, very clique, way too much happening and spread too far across the Sheffield campus, lots of walking. Oh and the conference dinner In the Town Hall was a something of a disappointment.

I didn’t know many people and it was “quite hard” to get to know people without dropping into conversations over coffee, which can be challenging. What I did learn from this is this how other people, new to ALT-C must feel?

Pleased to see that my ILTA EdTech Conference submission was accepted.

Why does no one care about my digital strategy?

The pandemic gave universities challenges and required creative thinking to provide solutions.  Universities have needed to act at pace and scale with restrictions. Digital gained more prominence during the emergency response. Now the question is what role will digital play in the post-pandemic strategic priorities of the university?

There are two key questions facing universities?

  • Does the strategy still meet the needs of the university in a changing and uncertain landscape?
  • What is the role of digital in the strategic aspirations of universities?

The digital lens approach can enable effective and transformational behaviours. There is a history of people talking about applying a lens to challenges, to look at things differently. (Phipps and Clay 2018) To give a different perspective on what has been written or talked about.

In this session we will reflect on the  various ways in which universities  can respond to these questions, you may want to create new strategic priorities, which reflect the new landscape in which universities will operate. Some universities will want to consider creating a digital strategy, or giving their existing one a major overhaul.

Phipps, L and Clay J (2018) Delivering digital change: strategy, practice and process. Senior leaders’ briefing paper Jisc

Clay J (2018) Why does no one care about my digital strategy? – eLearning Stuff – eLearning Stuff.

Another quarter goes pass that means another review meeting, so I did the paperwork last week, these blog posts are very useful for that.

It was with minimal disappointment to read in my inbox this from IFTTT.

Starting on May 23, all free users will be limited to 2 Applets and unable to access Twitter Applets. We hope you understand this change is designed to help us support our community and continue to focus on improving IFTTT. To ensure that your existing Applets continue without interruption, consider upgrading to Pro or manage your Applets via My Applets.

Though I like IFTTT I don’t use it enough to justify paying for it. So, expect less photos in my Twitter stream form May 23rd.

What do you mean “Yay”?

My top tweet this week was this one.

Personalising – Weeknote #219 – 12th May 2023

Lynton and Lynmouth

Another bank holiday, which resulted in another shorter week this week.

I had a blog post published on the Jisc website, Laying the foundations for an intelligent campus.

The pandemic changed the whole concept of the campus. From being a physical hub for staff and students, the campus is becoming more of a platform for extending teaching and learning. As a consequence, the importance of data analytics to enhance the learner experience is increasing.

Big Ben
Image by Andreas H. from Pixabay

I was in London this week running a personalisation workshop. I spent some time this week planning and organising the workshop. I decided to go for an open and conversational approach to the workshop. We did ramble now and then, but I got some real insights into what some colleagues think and feel about personalisation.

Library
Image by RHMemoria from Pixabay

I was reviewing another draft of the Intelligent Library guide. This was originally written a few years ago, but last year we did some additional research and updated the guide. Even to I had to research some broken links and sources for the guide. It’s at times like this that I wish I had a date based search engine that could search like it was the past, so, search the web as though it was 2013.

I have been planning and writing Intelligent Library blogpost to supplement the publication of the guide.

campus
Image by 小亭 江 from Pixabay

On the 24th May I am running an Intelligent Campus community Event looking at the guide and providing feedback on what Jisc should do next.

This community of practice gives people a chance to network, share practice and hear what various institutions are doing. You will have the opportunity to discover more about intelligent campus projects and our work in this space. The focus of this community event will be where do we go next? You can read the new guide to the intelligent campus and reflect on your own journey in this space, and where you feel we can provide help and support. This will be an opportunity to discover more about the history of our past and current work in the intelligent campus space as well as hear from others about their work on this exciting topic. People working in the area of the intelligent campus who have an interest in the work being undertaken in this space.

Book here.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Another quarter goes pass that means another review meeting, so I did the paperwork, these blog posts are very useful for that.

This week was Jisc’s Connect More, I attended a few sessions and chaired some more.

Read some interesting thoughts on Generative AI from Jisc and HEPI.

Jisc published a Generative AI Primer.

Publishing an intro to generative AI is a challenge as things are moving so quickly.  However, we think things have now settled down enough for us to bring together information in a single place, to create a short primer.  We aim to publish this as a more formal guide that will be updated regularly, but we are posting an initial version as a blog post to get feedback on whether it is useful and if there is other information you would like included.

HEPI published a blog on How are HE leaders responding to generative AI?

Given some of the recent media coverage of the rise of generative AI and its potential impact on universities, especially around assessment and academic misconduct, it would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that university leaders are running scared in the face of ChatGPT. However, when the Jisc-Emerge HE edtech board of higher education leaders met recently to discuss the potential and pitfalls of generative AI, instead of a discussion about the assessment arms race, there was real curiosity and enthusiasm to explore the potential of the technology and what it holds for universities and students.

I am more than likely going to attend ALT-C this September. I read this update from the conference co-chairs.

Many of you who engaged with us in putting in proposals will have noticed we avoided using terms such as digital transformation, and digital strategy. This is because even though we know that staff at the conference will undoubtedly influence and shape those things, we wanted to use the conference to take a step back and recognise that we can not build strategies and roadmaps without first understanding the topography of the digital landscape and the people it will affect. That landscape is still being carved, by the unyielding forces of things like generative AI, political pressures and ideologies, and even social justice, and climate change, which are forcing us to rethink our relationship to educational technology.

My top tweet this week was this one.

The AI view of personalisation

laptop user
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

I asked ChatGTP what is personalisation of learning was and this was the response.

The personalisation of learning is a growing trend in the education field, with more and more schools and institutions adopting personalised learning approaches in order to better meet the needs of their students.

Personalised learning is an approach to education that focuses on tailoring instruction to the individual needs, abilities, and interests of each student. This can be achieved in a number of ways, including through the use of technology, such as adaptive learning software, which can adjust the difficulty of content based on a student’s performance.

One of the main benefits of personalised learning is that it allows students to progress at their own pace, rather than being held back or pushed ahead by the pace of the class as a whole. This can help to improve motivation and engagement, as students are more likely to be interested in content that is challenging but achievable for them.

Another benefit of personalised learning is that it can help to foster a deeper understanding of the material. By allowing students to explore topics in more depth and at their own pace, personalised learning can facilitate a deeper level of learning and retention.

In addition, personalised learning can help to address the diverse learning needs of students, providing support for those who may struggle with certain subjects or have learning disabilities. It can also provide opportunities for advanced learners to challenge themselves and pursue their interests more deeply.

Overall, the personalisation of learning is a promising approach that has the potential to improve the educational experience for students of all abilities and backgrounds. While there are still challenges to be addressed, such as the need for adequate resources and teacher training, the benefits of personalised learning make it an approach worth exploring and investing in.

Not really anything special, then you read this article by Jisc’s Michael Webb and you realise that the shallowness of the content is a result of how ChatGPT works, it is at one level scraping content and then using predictive style text writing for the content.

There are huge opportunities here – this sort of AI really is going to revolutionise how we write and access information, very much in the same way the internet and computers have in the past. If we understand more about the technology, and more about its limitations as well as capabilities we’ll be in a good position to make the most of it. The technology in this area is evolving at a rapid pace, so we’ll continue to monitor and report on progress, and we will provide more guidance in the future on the best ways to make use of emerging tools.

If you didn’t know anything about the personalisation of learning, then you might think this content was it, however personalisation of learning in higher education is a lot more complex, has many layers and is more than what we see here. For example where is personalisation based on geo-location or connectivity or time?

Getting it wrong – Weeknote #160 – 25th March 2022

I spent the week working from home, there was a combination of factors which influenced this decision, from home-schooling, builders, and plumbers. Next week I am in Manchester for the UCISA Leadership conference.

I spent some of the week working on a new sector group that can provide feedback to Jisc. This group will advise on Jisc’s strategic direction in the support of learning, teaching and assessment, and the student experience in higher education, and help to inform and shape the implementation of the HE sector strategy:

  • Advising on the current state of play and future direction of learning, teaching and assessment in the HE sector
  • Reflecting the views and user needs of senior managers in learning, teaching and student experience, as Jisc members and stakeholders
  • Helping to define the kinds of (digital) products, services, support, and sector engagement/advocacy which will be most beneficial to universities.

The Office for Students (OfS) launched their new strategy targeting quality and standards.

The OfS’s work on quality and standards aims to ensure that students receive a high quality academic experience which improves their knowledge and skills. Much provision in the English higher education sector is excellent – the focus of the OfS will be on challenging provision that falls short, and taking action as needed. On access and participation work, the OfS will encourage higher education providers to work in partnership with schools to raise attainment. These two areas of focus are mutually reinforcing, with effective regulation of quality helping to ensure that students from all backgrounds have the support they need to succeed in and beyond higher education.

From my perspective in supporting the OfS strategy is how digital and technology can support improving the quality of the student experience and widen participation in higher education.

OfS has also commissioned a report on the quality and impact of blended learning. I found this Wonkhe articleinteresting on how David Kernohan still hasn’t got over the last one

A notably independent review chair has been asked to produce a report drawing on evidence from the sector and from the wider literature. Because we need to know what “good” looks like in this mode of provision, so the regulator can ensure students are getting value for their fees.

David reminds us that a year ago the OfS published Gravity Assist.

Gravity Assist

Michael Barber could cite literature suggesting that blended learning may lead to better learning outcomes than in person alone, but as far as the national conversation is concerned this is now a deliberate ploy by universities to educate students on the cheap.

David continues…

Enter Susan Orr. Shortly to take up a Pro Vice Chancellor role at De Montfort University, and a creative arts educator and researcher of some repute, she – alongside an expert panel with membership yet to be determined – will report in the summer on: concerns that the poor quality of the online experience for some students during the pandemic has undermined the positive potential of mixing in-person and online course delivery

David’s conclusion is that Michael Barber must have got it wrong.

Campus
Image by Edgar Winkler from Pixabay

I had a meeting about updating the Jisc guide to the intelligent campus. We originally published the guide in 2017. This was at the time well received by the sector and continues to be the core guidance in this space. Since then, universities across the UK have been exploring how they can make their campuses smarter and intelligent.

Dr Kris Bloomfield (at the time CIO Durham) said of the guide This is an outstanding piece of work and massive kudos is due to those that contributed to the development and publication of this document.

As well as the guide there were numerous use cases that showed how the higher education sector could benefit from the intelligent campus concept.

Though I changed roles in March 2019, I have been talking about the intelligent campus space at various events. In July 2021 I spoke at the QAA conference with a presentation entitled: How will the growth in online learning shape the future design of learning spaces and our campuses? Last month I spoke at The Future of the Higher Education Estateonline event.

Obviously the covid pandemic had a huge impact on the university campus and how it was and will be used in the future. In last few years I have written some more posts about that aspect.

Intelligent Campus and coronavirus planning was a blog post on how the concept of the Intelligent Campus could help universities in their planning. I was reflecting how if the concept of the intelligent campus was further advanced than it is, how potentially more helpful it could be to support universities planning for a socially distanced campus.

The Intelligent Learning Space was a post based on my experiences on the Intelligent Campus project. As we design learning spaces, we can add sensors and mechanisms to collect data on the use of those learning spaces. It then how we analyse and use that data that allows those spaces to be initially smart and then intelligent.

campus
Image by 小亭 江 from Pixabay

Since the guide was published, there have been many changes to the landscape, as well as the covid-19 pandemic, there have been advances in smart campus technologies, and a new range of use cases.  We know from sector intelligence, member voice and Learning and Teaching Reimagined that the future of the campus is an important component when it comes to digital transformation. This has shown the need for Jisc to update their advice and guidance in this area.

This work would:

  • update the guide to reflect current thinking
  • add additional case studies from current practice
group
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I expanded on my previous post on personalisation by looking at Jisc’s sector strategy perspective of personalisationand what Jisc may do in this space. So why is this space important to the sector? When we developed the HE strategy, we listened to what the sector was saying, what it was telling us, what we saw, and we also looked at the wider sector context, the regulatory space, the political space and importantly the student voice in all this.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Expanding our understanding of personalisation

typing
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

In my role at Jisc I have been looking at how data and technology can deliver a personalised learning journey and we have in our HE strategy, Powering UK Higher Education, the following ambition statement.

We will explore and develop solutions to help universities deliver personalised and adaptive learning using data, analytics, underpinning technologies and digital resources.

We know that there are very different opinions and views of what personalised learning is. In exploring and developing solutions for universities, the key is not necessarily to come up with a definitive definition, but what definition you use is understood and shared with others.

So one of the things I do need to do is to take that ambition statement and expand it into a clear explanatory statement, so that key stakeholders are clear about what we mean and why this space is important to higher education.

So why is this space important to the sector? When we developed the HE strategy, we listened to what the sector was saying, what it was telling us, what we saw, and we also looked at the wider sector context, the regulatory space, the political space and importantly the student voice in all this.

We know that universities are wanting to put the needs of the student are at the heart of the student experience. They want students to benefit from a personalised learning experience, one that effortlessly melds the context, preferences and needs of the individual learner. It recognises who and where a student is on their journey and is a combination of human and digital interactions and interventions.

group
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Though we have yet to come to a shared understanding of personalisation of learning, I do find an adaptation of the QAA definition somewhat compelling. 

Personalised learning is an educational approach that aims to customise learning for each student’s strengths, needs, skills and interests. Students can have a degree of choice in how they learn.

Over the next few years Jisc will explore how universities can deliver personalised and adaptive learning. Jisc will start to develop solutions that help universities deliver personalised and adaptive learning. These solutions will take advantage of data, analytics, underpinning technologies and digital resources. As well as exploring the potential of current and future technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). We will consider some of the advantages, as well as the challenges, the ethical and legal issues and how we will need to be aware of the bias that can be found in algorithms.

Of course personalisation is only part of the challenge, can we make the experience adaptive? Well that’s another blog post on understanding what we mean by adaptive.

Making it personal – Weeknote #157 – 4th March 2022

For the first time in at least two years (if not longer) I spent three days in a row at our Bristol office. The office was much busier than it has been on previous visits, and there was a (little) bit of a buzz in there. I did have a few in-person ad hoc interactions with people, who I might not interact with online. You can create these online, but it isn’t easy.

I was asked if I preferred working from home, or working in the office. My response was I prefer to have the choice. The challenge I found with lockdown, was that I had no choice. Though I have preferences about space when I have specific things I need to do, I really quite like working in different environments and spaces.

I had to upgrade the Twitter client on my iPad. The old one, which I liked kept crashing and I couldn’t get it to stop. The new one, I do not like.

group
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I posted a blog post on my early thinking about personalisation.

What do we mean by personalisation, what can we personalise, what should be personalise and what are the challenges in personalisation?

I have been looking at how data and technology can deliver a personalised learning journey and we have in our HE strategy the following ambition statement.

We will explore and develop solutions to help universities deliver personalised and adaptive learning using data, analytics, underpinning technologies and digital resources.

We know that there are very different opinions and views of what personalised learning is. One of the things I do need to do is to take that ambition statement and expand it into a clear explanatory statement, so that key stakeholders are clear about what we mean and why this space is important to higher education.

The ICC in Birmingham
The ICC in Birmingham

I have been preparing for Digifest next week where I will be attending both days.

I am also speaking at Digifest on Wednesday9th March 2022 from 11:45 – 12:30 in Hall 7B.

In this session, James will showcase Jisc’s HE sector strategy, Powering HE, and why and how we developed the strategy. He will explore what Jisc is doing and planning to do in the HE teaching and learning space. He will bring the session together with the impact the strategy is having on university members across the UK.

I enjoyed the WonkHE 404 page.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Personalisation

group
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The process of making something suitable for the needs of a particular person.

What do we mean by personalisation, what can we personalise, what should be personalise and what are the challenges in personalisation?

Across higher education over the years many have spoken about personalisation.

The QAA in their digital taxonomy define personalisation as follows:

Personalised learning is an educational approach that aims to customise learning for each student’s strengths, needs, skills and interests. Students can have a degree of choice in how they learn as compared to the face-to-face lecture approach.

The document explores different levels of personalisation through the use of digital and arrives at this view of personalisation

The entire learning experience is designed to be personalised by the student. Students will determine how they engage with every aspect of teaching and learning to meet their expectations. While all digital resources will be available to students, not all students will engage with those resources in the same way. Teaching is designed to be experienced by a cohort asynchronously with students learning at their own pace.

Advance HE back in 2017 said this about personalised learning

Refers to a range of learning experiences and teaching strategies which aim to address the differing learning needs interests and the diverse backgrounds of learners. Often described as student centred learning this approach uses differentiated learning and instruction to tailor the curriculum according to need. Learners within the same classroom or on the same course work together with shared purpose but each have their own personalised journey through the curriculum.

Emerge and Jisc published a report in 2021 that promised:

Universities can deliver students a truly personalised learning experience by 2030

Another view of personalised learning is this perspective from the University of Oxford.

Oxford’s core teaching is based around conversations, normally between two or three students and their tutor, who is an expert on that topic. We call these tutorials, and it’s your chance to talk in-depth about your subject and to receive individual feedback on your work. Tutorials are central to teaching at Oxford. They offer a very rare level of personalised attention from academic experts.

In my role at Jisc I have been looking at how data and technology can deliver a personalised learning journey and we have in our HE strategy the following ambition statement.

We will explore and develop solutions to help universities deliver personalised and adaptive learning using data, analytics, underpinning technologies and digital resources.

We know that there are very different opinions and views of what personalised learning is. In exploring and developing solutions for universities, the key is not necessarily to come up with a definitive definition, but what definition you use is understood and shared with others.

So one of the things I do need to do is to take that ambition statement and expand it into a clear explanatory statement, so that key stakeholders are clear about what we mean and why this space is important to higher education.

So what does personalisation mean for you?