A shorter week this week with Good Friday at the end of the week. I did go to the office on Thursday which was quiet, as expected, as many people were going on leave.
I had quite a few meetings this week.
I did see on WonkHE briefing about a potential £360m fund for restructuring higher education. David Kernohan digs into the detail.
If we have indeed found evidence of DfE plans to prop up the sector, what might such a scheme look like? So is there really £360m in DfE for loans available to help the higher education sector restructure?
Many higher education institutions have been asking for funding to support collaboration, this restructuring fund may be an option. However, this is a loan, so collaboration would need to result in enough savings to pay back the loans. There will probably also be conditions. The WonkHE article does dive into the similarities that we saw some years back in the FE sector and their restructuring.
Last week I was in Oxford for the HESCA conference. I have been a regular presenter at the Higher Education Smart Campus Association (HESCA) conference, and for the third year running I delivered a keynote presentation on collaboration.
I was talking once more about working together, but taking more of a reflective look on where we are as a sector. I was presenting a state of the nation look at collaboration and why the higher education sector is not doing more collaboration. In many ways the focus of my presentation was based on my blog post on building bridges.
The presentation went down well, and as well as a range of questions, my talk was referenced by other speakers during the rest of the conference.
There were a range of presentations at the event, some from vendors, and a fair few from the sector. Actually this year a considerable number of the speakers were from universities. It got me thinking that many of the talks would be of interest to many in the sector, and due to the number of sponsors the event is free to those from colleges and universities.
There isn’t really another event like this, the AUDE conference does cover some of the topics, likewise Jisc events cover the technology side of things. The smart campus and intelligent campus space which spreads over estates and IT is often missed, but this is an ideal event for presentations and discussion about that landscape. So, something to think about for HESCA 27 next year.
This week I was in Oxford for the HESCA conference. I enjoyed the conference and it was good to hear a range of diverse viewpoints on the use of technology to support the student experience.
I was talking once more about collaboration, but taking more of a reflective look on where we are. I was presenting a state of the nation look at collaboration and why the higher education sector is not doing more collaboration. In many ways the focus of my presentation was based on my blog post on building bridges.
On my way back from Oxford I did pop in and have a meeting at our offices in Milton Park before then heading back to our Bristol office.
I have been having conversations and discussions with colleagues inside Jisc on digital credentials and digital wallets. Within the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework one of the use cases is about how a student can communicate their educational credentials to both other educational institutions and employers. There has been quite a bit of work done in this space, what I was interested in was what has been happening in Jisc.
I wrote a blog post about the impact of student loans on peoples’ lives.
Over the last couple of years I have been saying across various conversations about the impact of paying back student loans could have on future student recruitment. I would talk about how the next generation of students will be the first whose parents were required to take out student loans to pay their fees and for the maintenance. Their parents would have the seen the real life impact of their student debt on their lifestyle. It would reduce their real income and would have had an impact on other financial choices such as mortgage affordability.
I read WonkHE’s report on AI and students. It reflected much of my (admittedly limited) knowledge on how students are using AI.
This week I am in Oxford for the HESCA conference.
I have been a regular presenter at the Higher Education Smart Campus Association (HESCA) conference, and for the third year running I am delivering a keynote presentation.
At HESCA 26 I am talking once more about collaboration, but taking a reflective look on where we are. I am presenting a state of the nation look at collaboration and why the higher education sector is not doing more collaboration. In many ways the focus of my presentation will be akin to the writing of my blog post on building bridges.
Over the last couple of years I have been saying across various conversations about the impact of paying back student loans could have on future student recruitment. I would talk about how the next generation of students will be the first whose parents were required to take out student loans to pay their fees and for the maintenance. Their parents would have the seen the real life impact of their student debt on their lifestyle. It would reduce their real income and would have had an impact on other financial choices such as mortgage affordability.
You could quite easily see these parents advising their children to really think about university and also think about other possible options.
We have seen some evidence of this with the huge demand for degree apprenticeships, getting paid, part time study, and no loans. The supply of such apprenticeships has certainly not increased to meet the demand.
When the government raised student fees, there was a almost audible sigh of relief from the university sector, however I do remember the press coverage of the time rarely if ever mentioned the impact of this on students. They would need get larger student loans.
Over the last few weeks there has been substantial press coverage about student loans, it certainly has become a political issue and is getting talked about on the news, in the press, and online. There have been whole programmes and features on the issues of student loans. What we are now seeing is human impact stories about loans.
The BBC News has published an article which makes for interesting reading.The article, Paying back my student loan is more painful now I have a young family, covers the story of a graduate who went to university in 2014 who took out a Plan 2 student loan. The one line from the article that stood out to me was this one.
Richmond is “really pleased” with where he’s got to in his career in recruitment. But he says he has colleagues doing just as well who didn’t go to university, so he questions whether he needed his degree.
When this comparison starts, then some people will start to think seriously about whether going to university, getting loans, is going to be the best option. Is there going to be that graduate premium in earnings that will offset the extra student loan charge.
On the WonkHE site, David Kernohan looks at the graduate premium in much more detail than I could ever do.
I think another factor out there is that university is no longer the life changing event was, even in the 2000s. I remember when I went away to university, it was a paradigm shift, the only way to communicate was by letter and using the payphone with huge queues. Today technology means even if you do go away to university, you don’t need to break everyday contact with friends and family. Likewise, in order to survive at university you will probably need to have a part-time job as well. Then, your life is not university, university is just something you do alongside everything else. That experience may mean that looking at alternative pathways for the same kind of benefit.
Something else which gets lost in the discussion is that for many students, they don’t go away to university they stay at home and go to their local university (to save money, but for other social reasons as well).For many students alternative routes to higher education may become the preferable option.
There are lots of benefits to higher education, the question though going forward can you achieve those benefits in ways which don’t mean getting huge student loans and the negative impact that debt has for life after university.
This week was a slightly shorter week, as I took a day off and did another crazy extreme day out, this time to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. I have been there before back in July 2004 staying with family. I am anticipating that future extreme day trips will be curtailed, as they become more expensive due to the spike in jet fuel prices. Though I recently did see one to Palma for £40. Hmmm…
Well at one point I was planning to attend a meeting in Helsinki in Finland, but this was cancelled last week. I also didn’t attend the UCISA Leadership Summit that was taking place in Liverpool this week. Mainly, as it clashed with the potential visit to Helsinki, but also as I found two years ago in Edinburgh that the sessions in the conference had less applicability and reference to the work I am doing.
I did a presentation to my team on my work and how it was coming together. It was useful to actually build a slide deck that told the story of the different forks of my work and how they have now come together. I always thought they would at some point, but wasn’t planning for it to be this year.
I also did some preparation for next week where I am presenting at the HESCA (Higher Education Smart Campus Association) conference in Oxford, looking at collaboration and what this means for the future.
I had an excellent discussion with a colleague who works in the part of Jisc that does HEDD and Prospects and how the work I am doing on the EHEIF (European Higher Education Interoperability Framework) is aligned. The process of qualification verification is something that HEDD has been doing for years, whilst Prospects provides a discovery services for post graduate courses, core aspects of the student journey in the EHEIF. This discussion is one of many I am having as start to understand where the UK is currently standing in the EHEFI landscape, where Jisc is in that same landscape, what this could mean for LLE (Lifelong Learning Entitlement), the data requirements, and where are the gaps and what are the potential opportunities.
One of the nice things about attending any in person conference is connecting and reconnecting with people and friends.
I discuss how sometimes you lose that connection in an online space that you find in a physical in-person conference.
It had been a draft for a while, but I did get around to finishing it. I have been attempting to write more blog posts for this blog, as I was finding that though I was good at getting my weekly work notes out, I was writing less and less other kinds of posts.
One of the nice things about attending any in person conference is connecting and reconnecting with people and friends.
Sometimes I go to conferences and it is a hive of social activity where I know virtually everyone. Then there are conferences where I am pretty much an isolated individual and everyone is a stranger.
I use to attend the ALT Conference regularly every year, and it always felt like wearing a comfortable sweater.
Making those kinds of connections online though is much more challenging. I have attended many different kinds of online conferences over the last twenty odd years and it can be difficult, nigh on impossible to make the sort of connections and conversations that can be had at a physical in person conference. Not to say people don’t try, with virtual coffee sessions between the formal sessions. I would say though having been staring at the computer screen during a formal session, when its time for a break, often the last thing I want to do is stay on my computer, I want an actual coffee, time to stand up and walk around. You know, the kind of thing you do in an actual coffee break at a conference.
Having said all that some of the best online interactions I have had at online conference was before streaming became the norm. Twenty years ago, not everyone had access to decent connectivity, or even cameras. Online conferences were very much about textual discussion as in online forums and threaded discussions. You do still see that kind of thing online on LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads and Bluesky. Though many online conference platforms have discussion forums, my experience often shows that they are under-utilised. People check in to watch the stream, may participate in the chat, and then leave. Of course, that also happens at in-person conferences. However, the coffee breaks at those same conferences are busy and noisy, whereas the online versions are often full of tumbleweed.
I do enjoy in-person conferences, but I also get value from online events too. The fact I don’t need to travel, I can combine it with other stuff makes them convenient. What they’re not though are good opportunities for making connections and networking.
It was another shorter week again, as I took another day’s leave. This time no crazy extreme day out.
On Tuesday I headed off to London for an early morning event the following day. Wednesday I was up early and headed to the Houses of Parliament for a HEPI and Advance HE breakfast briefing
This was an interesting briefing on the current challenges facing the sector in collaborating and specialising. I was reminded of the post I recently wrote on bridge building. Collaboration and specialisation should be seen as solutions to the wider issues facing the sector. The discussion very much saw collaboration as the problem to be solved and that the solution (to the solution) was spending more money.
This week was also the week of Digifest, Jisc’s annual conference. I was not there this year, as I wasn’t needed for presenting or chairing. It is an useful event for making connections and conversations, but we had a number of Jisc people attending, so I wasn’t going to be missed. In addition most of the conversations I am interested in are more likely to be covered at different kinds of events.
This week was a slightly shorter week, as I took a day off and had lunch in Madrid, as one does.
I also went to our Bristol office and had lunch. This week was all about planning and gap analysis. When it comes to planning this was plain old planing, it wasn’t forward planning, nor was it backward planning. I think I might plan a blog post on planning.
Read an interesting article (paywall) about the falling demand for purpose-built city centre student accommodation.
There was a perception that building this kind of accommodation (or converting existing buildings) would breath life back into city centres.
Another consideration of this fall in demand, is that maybe this is a symptom of how many students view higher education, many will now either look for alternative paths, or will live at home and study locally.
The impact of this will be on those destination universities, such as Nottingham, Bristol, Leeds, etc…
Are we starting to see the beginning of the end of “going away” to university?
I had quite a variety of online calls this week, on a range of subjects. so was involved in lots of different kinds of discussions and conversations.
Next week is Jisc’s Digifest, which takes place in Birmingham. I am not attending this year, in the main as I am not presenting on stuff. There is something to be said about networking and meeting people from the sector, but there will be plenty of people from Jisc there to do that..
In theory this is the last week of winter, we shall see.
No big trips this week, though I did pop to the Bristol office twice. I did some logistics for various things I am doing next month and the month after.
Spent time working on and researching the work I need to do in relation to student mobility.
I have been asked to quality assure some of the consultancy work that Jisc is undertaking, looks like it will be interesting.
I finished a blog post I have been writing, about competition.
Part of me though does wonder, if the apprehension about collaboration was using the CMA and competition law as an excuse for not looking at collaboration rather than an actual reason not to collaborate. Will the new guidance mitigate that excuse now.
news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…
