Busy week with lots of meetings.

I have done very little travel over the last few months, my last trip was back in April when I was up in Leeds for the AUDE conference. My original plan was to head to TNC in Helsinki in June last month, but didn’t make the cut, as too many people from Jisc wanted to go. Though I enjoyed TNC last year, my main reason for attending, wasn’t in fact attending TNC, I was part of two side meetings on the Monday before TNC. Next year TNC 27 is in Belgium, this should be easier to get to for the side meetings, as I could literally drive there, well and hop on a ferry to get across the channel.

I had considered going to the EUNIS conference in Romania, I was there last year when it was held in Belfast. Last year I was speaking, if I had gone this year it would have been as a delegate. It would have been useful to go, buy I have been asked to cut back on my travel and conference attendance. I have missed a lot of conferences this year, compared to last year, but at most of these there were others from Jisc in attendance.

I did though publish a few things on the blog.

I didn’t write about snow, but I did write about heatwaves and response from schools and colleges.

Following the Met Office weather warning and forecasted high temperatures, we are making some temporary changes to teaching arrangements for the remainder of this week to help ensure the comfort, wellbeing, and safety of learners and staff. Campuses will be closed to curriculum teaching from Wednesday to Friday inclusive. 

In another blog post I discussed the importance of discovery in enabling student mobility and some of the issues that would be faced in the UK.

Margo wants to study towards a degree but wants to combine different modules from different courses across Europe. She knows the subjects she is interested in; she also knows which countries where she would like to study. However, she doesn’t know which universities across Europe offer which modules. Discovery would allow Freya to access the course and module catalogues from across a range of universities, compare different offerings and would be able to refine her search based on specific criteria. She would also be sure that the information she finds is up to date.

This was the first in a series of articles where I will be looking at student mobility in the UK. What I mean by student mobility is how a student can choose when and where to study, at a time and place that is suitable for them. It’s about enabling students to take parts of courses from different institutions. This (in theory) is possible now, but was challenging for students from both a financial perspective and administratively.

I wrote about two stories on collaboration.

The first of these was the launch of Universities West. It is a new collaboration between Bath Spa University, the University of Bath, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England.

Up in Scotland, the staff at Napier and Queen Margaret universities have been told of plans to create a “multi-university” with Scotland’s Rural College.

I was involved in various consultancy meetings this week. My main role in these are about quality assurance.

Next week I am presenting at the Westminster Higher Education Forum policy conference on the next steps for university estates in the UK.