weeknotes

Through the medium of dance – Weeknote #319 – 11th April 2025

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Image by Bernard-Verougstraete from Pixabay

On Monday I was prepping stuff for the rest of the week. In the main developing and writing activity for UUK Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce meeting. This involved diamonds and scissors.

I spent the day in London on Tuesday, the afternoon was taken up with the UUK Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce meeting, however as I had a two hour online meeting with the HEAnet Group Advisory Forum I spent the morning in the office.

I had some necessary Dovetail admin and Miro admin to do this week. I hadn’t used Miro for weeks and then all of a sudden, I was asked to input to an influx of Miro boards. I do use Miro, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I don’t much like the alternatives either.

We had a discussion about capturing the senior voice and then what do we do with that once we have that. A bit of we can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Spent some time planning a session for AHUA Conference next week, which is taking place at Swansea University.

Recognised the need to plan out E in NREN work I am undertaking in some more detail. It has been agreed that this will continue into 2026.

I am attending and presenting at a couple of online conferences later this month, so spent time planning, developing and writing those presentations. Yes you would be right in thinking there will be lots of photographs.

Image by Tom from Pixabay

Noted that the situation in higher education is still not good, and in some sense is getting worse.

As higher education institutions shed thousands of jobs, Times Higher are tracking developments and bringing together latest analysis with resources for affected staff and students.

As a mounting financial crisis grips UK universities, thousands of jobs are being axed across the sector. This page tracks latest updates, exploring the reasons behind the redundancies, how they will affect staff and students, and the long-term impact on higher education and research.

In similar news the sustainability of higher education was discussed at Parliament. Where the Augar report was reviewed as Education Committee learn about university finances

Notably, Augar argued that no university should fail – the impact on local areas and the international reputation of the sector would be too big – and called for “behind the scenes” support for struggling providers. Universities UK’s Malcolm Press argued once again for a transformation fund to support universities in adapting to the current circumstances.

Our work with UUK was mentioned in passing.

Malcolm Press (vice chancellor at Manchester Metropolitan University, at the committee representing Universities UK) emphasised just how hard universities were working to drive efficiencies – highlighting examples of collaboration, and the ongoing Universities UK project in response to the government’s reform agenda.

Made me smile for the end of the week. This from WonkHE on Sussex on taking the position that universities can’t prohibit any speech unless it’s already explicitly banned by civil or criminal law.

 “The University would have to tolerate an academic conducting every lecture through the medium of song or mime (noting that freedom of speech protects the manner of speech as well as the content).”

weeknotes

Bon Voyage – Weeknote #317 – 28th March 2025

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This was a busy week with a lot of travelling across the UK (and then a little beyond as I took Friday as leave and travelled to France for the day).

I was in London at the start of the week, I spent Monday in our London office. It’s always nice to work in another of our offices.

On Tuesday morning I was at a breakfast briefing at the Houses of Parliament. I reminisced that I had been inside in the Houses of Parliament only twice before. Once back in the 1970s when my primary school was threatened by closure and a group of us, pupils, parents, and teachers went to discuss this in parliament. My second visit was in the early 2000s when I worked at at-Bristol (now called We The Curious) and we were meeting some parliamentarians. I actually drove to the Houses of Parliament through the building, and parked underneath.

This was a joint HEPI and Advance HE event entitled Survive or thrive: What should the new operating model be for UK higher education? The panel presented their views about the future, which were diverse and interesting. There followed a short discussion about the presented views.

The UUK Blueprint confirmed the higher education sector is committed to constantly improving its core purposes of teaching, research and civic engagement while also taking a lead on grappling with key global challenges, such as climate change, the spread of artificial intelligence and heightened geopolitical uncertainty. Is the core model of how we do higher education suitable for the unstable world in which we live? Or, if we want to retain the world-class standing of UK higher education, do we need alternative types of leadership, different structures and new approaches that learn from other sectors? And, at the same time, are we thinking enough about organisational design and workforce planning – how are we preparing structures and people for future models? How can institutional autonomy be balanced against the ever-growing list of expectations on leaders, academics and professional services staff?

Personally I came away reflecting that there was a lot of talk about the need for change, there was an appetite for change, but very little on who was going to change and what that change would look like.

Wednesday morning I was in Cambridge delivering a keynote at the HESCA 25 conference.

I was talking about collaboration and shared services.

Thursday I was in Milton Park in Oxfordshire for a team meeting.

Friday I was on leave, and I did something I hadn’t done since the 1980s a day trip to France. DFDS had done a special offer to celebrate 25 years of their Dover Dunkerque route, so a day trip was just £25. Bargain. Exhausting, but a bargain.

stuff

So does your institution still have a silo mentality?

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grain silos
Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

I have been thinking about the challenges of higher education institutions having a silo mentality and the potential impact of this on collaboration and sharing.

Just over a year ago I wrote a blog post about institutional silos inspired by this post on WonkHE about higher education silos, Institutional silos are making it harder to build learning environments for student success.

Ask any higher education institution leader about the organisational challenges they’re grappling with, and they’ll start talking about silos.

As one respondent said in our research in the Collaboration for a sustainable future report said “my institution doesn’t even collaborate with itself.” Part of that has to be having a silo mentality.

What this means is that across an organisation, different departments work to their own specific strategy and needs. Sometimes silos are referred to as “cylinders of excellence”. You can have outstanding and excellent departments, but though often we think of the phrase first coined by the philosopher Aristotle, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. With cylinders of excellence, the whole can be a lot less than the sum of the parts.

From personal experience, having high performing teams, means that they are achieving their objectives, but unless those objectives are aligned or contribute to the organisational whole then, the overall impact on the organisation might be negligible or even negative.

Collaboration internally means alignment, it means common goals, thinking of the whole rather than the one. Internal strategies and objectives need to be connected to other internal strategies and objectives to ensure alignment and maximum impact. 

Part of this is breaking down silos. Though as anyone knows breaking down silos is hard. We often think of grain silos, metal cylinders that are close together, they should be easy to break, shouldn’t they? I always now think of higher education silos as missile silos, embedded into reinforced concrete and dispersed across a wide area.

A couple of years ago I wrote this;

I wonder if silo working is another word for non-strategic working? People often complain about silo working and the resulting challenges that can arise. I think part of the reason why there are problems with duplication, conflict, and lack of communication, across silo working, is teams are working to their own objectives and aren’t necessarily working towards common objectives.

Breaking down silo working, isn’t just about saying, we need to break down the silos but is so much more about thinking strategically about what your organisation is trying to achieve. Recognising that even if your department is successful in achieving your strategic goals, doesn’t mean that the university is being successful.

In the current economic climate the sector is facing real challenges. Strategically you may want to have an outstanding student experience, world class research, and a global impact, but the reality is you might need to keep the lights on first. If you take the “usual” strategic objectives that most universities have, as stated, an outstanding student experience, world class research, and a global impact, as a given. Then the strategic objectives of the organisation can be focused on survival, resilience, and change. Part of that change has to be breaking down the internal silo mentality. Of course, easier said than done.

digifest25, weeknotes

You’ve got mail – Weeknote #313 – 28th February 2025

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envelopes
Image by G.C. from Pixabay

Quite a busy week as a couple of people threw a lot of stuff into my in-tray. Writing this reminded of how when I first started working as a lecturer in Further Education, I had a pigeonhole for communicating. People would put stuff in there. A lot of the time the stuff was memos with a series of names on. Once read, you would cross out your name, replaced in the reuseable envelope and put the next person’s name on it. Of course usually there was one person who would never read the memos and their pigeonhole would be stuffed with stuff they hadn’t read.

Sometimes I think email is very much like that…

Group working
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will transform the post-18 student finance system to create a single funding system. I read this new overview of LLE from the UK Government. The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will transform the post-18 student finance system to create a single funding system. It will replace higher education student finance loans and Advanced Learner Loans.

The LLE will deliver transformational change to the current student finance system by:

  • broadening access to high-quality, flexible education and training
  • supporting greater learner mobility between institutions

This has implications for student mobility across the UK as students will be able to move and transfer between institutions. Also students will be able to take a single module or part of a course. In addition the government are expecting new and smaller providers to deliver a range of level 4 and 5 programmes.

Of course the funding is only part of the picture if this is going to happen.

Had various meetings about Jisc’s presence at the Digital University UK (DUUK) Conference happening at the University of Lancaster. I might be going, but it does clash with another meeting I need to attend at the University of Warwick. Looked over Google Maps if travelling between them was even feasible.

Had an internal catch up meeting on digital leadership and sharing what I have been doing. I don’t do much with digital leadership these days, but with my work on collaboration there is potentially some work to do on leadership for collaboration.

Continued to work on the collaboration project we are doing with UUK. This work is looking at possible opportunities and narrowing them down to some realistic and potential opportunities.

I reviewed the work we have been doing for the Education in NREN work. We have been writing stories to explain the student journey. I also reviewed a potential submission for TNC in Brighton.

I am now attending Digifest on the 11th and 12th March. Come and say hi if you’re there. I have had to miss Digifest last year as I was attending another event which was on at the same time.

I also spent time this week responding to various requests to speak at events.

weeknotes

Competition time – Weeknote #312 – 21st February 2025

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Read this article: Competition law is a constraint to collaboration in HE but it need not be an impediment

While the notion of “radical collaboration” may present a potentially appealing way of responding to the challenges that the sector is facing, there is, however, a significant tension between the principles of such transformational integration and the principles of competition law. As things currently stand, many forms of greater integration between institutions, particularly in relation to curriculum mapping and sharing the provision of courses, would breach the competition rules.

I am no competition expert, nor am I a lawyer, but having read much of the advice and notes by the CMA on higher education, I have noted that the advice is very much focussed on consumer protection for students, and less about collaboration or collusion.

None of this is advice and is my opinions put here, mainly for me as a thinking exercise, but for informational purposes only.

If higher education is to collaborate more in the non-student realm, then in my view this would be unlikely to attract the attention of the CMA. If a university decides to outsource their IT support for example, this is not a competition or consumer law issue.

Where there is collaboration that would impact on the student, an institution could collaborate with other institutions for prospective students but could potentially come under consumer protection legislation if the changes would impact current students.

The CMA’s advice is very much aimed at the students already at university. There is also advice for institutions about treating prospective students fairly. Most of the published documents in relation to commitments from universities is in relation to universities policies on student non-tuition debt and academic sanctions. This kind of action is seen as an unfair contract between the student and the university.

Reflecting on this, I think the kind of issues that universities need to think about when it comes to student facing collaboration is what would be the impact on current students and what would be the impact on future prospective students.

The timeframe of any changes is critical. So, imagine a scenario where a number of institutions in a local area decide to collaborate on student provision. Instead of all the institutions delivering a course, only one will deliver it. If you implement that straight away, then you might find yourself in breach of the consumer protection law in relation to higher education as stated by the CMA. However if you undertook to do the implementation over three years so no impact on current students, though it would impact on prospective students. Obviously, there are also staff changes, but that is not a consumer protection issue.

There is very little on the CMA and Gov.uk website on educational collusion in relation to courses, but across the web there are many articles written by legal firms on the grounds where universities should be careful in relation to competition, for example this one. This article does provide a useful rule of thumb test.

The following four-step analytical framework should provide useful rule-of-thumb guidance on whether a particular arrangement might comply with the competition rules.

  • First, there is an objectively reasonable and justifiable aim that the participating universities are seeking to achieve.
  • Secondly, under the arrangement no unnecessary restrictions on competition are being imposed or accepted.
  • Thirdly, the proposed arrangement will lead to tangible benefits for students (or consumers of university services).
  • Finally, the proposed arrangement is the least restrictive means of achieving the objective and consumer benefits.

If the answers to these questions are all affirmative, then the arrangement may be compatible with the competition rules.

This is a complex issue, and these are just some thoughts from my reading around the subject.

group
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

We saw more announcements of job losses in UK higher education. Highlighting the financial challenges the sector is facing.

Bangor University to cut 200 jobs amid £15m savings

Bangor University aims to cut about 200 jobs to make savings of £15m, its vice-chancellor told staff in an email. Vice-Chancellor Edmund Burke said the drop in international students, a rise in costs and the UK government’s changes to national insurance had left them needing to make “unprecedented” changes.

The University of South Wales (USW) also announced on Wednesday it plans to cut 90 jobs.

Attended a meeting with the DfE looking at the Collaboration for a sustainable future report we published.

There was a lot of work kicking off the collaboration project we are doing with UUK.

Continuing with my writing draft for higher education State of Activity report.

Researching and reading up on data standards for teaching and learning, and corporate systems. Realising that I know a lot less than I thought I did in this space.

Had a call with HESCA to discuss collaboration presentation at HESCA 25.

weeknotes

Love a bit of snow me – Weeknote #311 – 14th February 2025

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This week I was in Finland for a workshop regarding NRENs for Education. NRENs are the National Research and Education Networks that most countries have for connecting their universities and research institutes. In the UK Jisc is the NREN.

This workshop was bringing together a group of like-minded NRENs to work together on essentially student mobility across Europe. The group has written a series of use cases on a prospective student journey. This takes the student through the recruitment process, transferring easily between institutions, and ensuring that they are accredited and recognised for what they have been studying.

Now of course we know that the UK is no longer part of the EU, however there are potentially good core reasons why the UK should be involved in this. First the situation in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland ensuring students can move freely between institutions. Secondly, there has been discussions about free movement for young people, streamlining and aligning education would enable young people in the UK to study at universities in the EU, and for EU students to come to the UK.

This can happen now, but it’s a complex and often manual process. It also favours the institution rather than the student.

I have been to Finland before, I was there for a conference in July 2006, nearly twenty years ago. Back then I was presenting at the EU e-Learning Conference in Espoo. It was a quick trip in 2006, flying out on Monday and then back home on the Wednesday. I flew from Bristol Airport and then there was a bit of a mad rush at Schiphol where I had to change to a flight to Helsinki. Schiphol is one huge airport… Having arrived at Helsinki, I needed to get to Espoo and travelled by shared taxi to the hotel. I spent part of the evening walking around the area, before ending up in the hotel restaurant. It was lovely and sunny, and as being so far north, the sun never really set. I had spent the Tuesday at the conference. I had some time the following day before my flight to have a really quick look around Helsinki. I caught a bus to the centre and back. I had always planned to return, so nineteen years later I was back.

This time I flew direct to Helsinki from Heathrow. I arrived late afternoon, this time I took a train from the airport to the centre. I then walked to my hotel, so after checking in I did explore the area around the hotel.

The following morning, I was up early so I went for a walk around the city centre. I then headed off to Espoo for my workshop, using the Metro to get there. The workshop was over two days. I had an evening flight the following day. I woke up to 4cm of snow, so after working at the hotel, after checking out I took a walk down to the harbour to catch a ferry to Suomenlinna. Suomenlinna is an island fort that has a long history and some amazing architecture and a few museums.

Helsinki is an amazing city, and there is some incredible architecture and buildings. I was impressed with the public transport, there were trains, buses, trams, a metro, and even a ferry. I used the HSL app extensively for tickets. It was nice to return to Helsinki and having a little more time to see something of the place, whereas back in 2006 it was very rushed.

I had a fair few meetings in my calendar for Friday, when planning my trip, and originally going by train, I had intended to head to the London office on Fetter Lane and have my meetings there. With potential issues with the trains the preceding Sunday, I had decided to drive to Heathrow. That didn’t preclude going to the London office, but I thought, as I had the car, I would travel to our relatively new offices in Milton Park near Didcot. These replaced our old offices in Harwell. However with my body clock still on Helsinki time, having woken up early I had the time to make the trip back to Bristol and still do my meetings, so I did that.

candle and laptop
Photo by PJ Gal-Szabo on Unsplash

Over the week I continued my work on the state of activity of higher education and on data standards.

My final action of the week was reviewing the proposals for the collaborative UUK project work which is my next big thing.

news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…