Another shorter week with Easter Monday. I was working this week, but many of my colleagues had taken the week off, so it was somewhat quiet in the “office”. Actually quite quiet across the sector as many people were having a break at Easter. I suspect next week might be quite quiet as well.
Having said that, I did present at an online event this week, a Public Policy Exchange webinar on supporting university students. The focus of my presentation was about innovation in (essentially) curriculum design, and the importance of interoperability in all that.
Finished adding my comments to a review of the GÉANT TF-EDU survey which goes out soon. The survey looks at how NRENS across the GÉANT community support, provide or deliver services for education.
I have also been writing up some of the internal conversations I have been having around the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework (EHEIF) and what this means (or could mean) for the UK and Jisc.
Did some logistical planning for my trip to Leeds in a couple of weeks where I am on a panel session at the AUDE conference.
I was reminded again this week about how often “solutions” are seen as the problem that needs to be solved, so much so, that the actual problem is lost in the background.
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.
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 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.
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.
After many weeks travelling around the country and to Europe, this week was another week with nothing booked into the diary in terms of events or conferences. This gave me the opportunity to focus on research into the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework (EHEIF) use cases as well as more work on a possible Jisc version of the SURFEduHub.
I finalised the first draft of some position papers on the EHEIF which puts them in the UK context and what it means for Jisc and some of the work we are involved in.
These are very much first draft, or even pre-draft documents. The aim really was to research what I didn’t know, I didn’t know. Now I have resolved the unknown unknowns, the next step will be research these, but also to validate the position papers with the relevant teams within Jisc.
This week I have been working with the consultancy team, supporting them with various pieces of work, helping them (or will be helping them) to quality assure future consultancy projects. This was the same team I worked with last year on the strategic outline cases we worked on at Jisc for the UUK Transformation & Efficiency Taskforce.
Had quite a few discussions this week on the student data model project I have been working on. I do find it useful to discuss the challenges and issues and to see what insights others have in this space.
Also had my quarterly review, which went well, so pleased with that.
I managed to get to the office twice this week, and was able to have some unplanned conversations with others, who were also in the office.
The wet weather still seems to be haunting us. Even so I did make it to the office one day this week, which though was quite quiet in comparison to other days I have spent in the office, I was a productive and constructive workspace. I also had a day’s leave this week as well, visiting Stourhead (in the rain).
The central argument of the article is that trust is the real existential crisis facing higher education. While public debates fixate on generative AI, academic integrity, declining attendance, or marketisation, these are symptoms of a deeper erosion of trust between students, academics, institutions, government, and society.
As with much of what Peter writes it’s a piece that makes you stop and think. Peter does come from this, from an Australian perspective, but there is much in there that resonates with the current climate in the UK towards higher education. Well worth taking the time to read.
I had my regular check in with my colleagues within NRENs 4 Education, or as I call it E in NREN. The team is presenting at TNC in Helsinki in June, I hope to be attending.
As part of my work on E in NREN I have been developing some position papers on the eight use cases from the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework and where they sit within the UK context, where they sit within Jisc, and what are the links with a potential student data model and the proposed future of LLE (Lifelong Learning Entitlement). The key word is developing, rather than writing, as because as they are developed I am not only writing what I know, but also what I know I don’t know. In addition the act of development is helping me understand what I don’t know I don’t know. One of the challenges with all eight use cases are the multiple stakeholders involved. Jisc on its own, is not the solution, but is part of the solution.
I was on leave on Monday and did a crazy thing, I did a day trip to Venice.
Back at work I was looking at continuing to research and write a series of position papers on the eight use cases of the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework.
This was very much about putting a UK and Jisc lens on each of the use cases. Working out who was working in this space. I have to say though some of the work is about working out, not only what I don’t know, but also ensuring I am aware of what I don’t know, I don’t know. The good old unknown unknowns.
Managed to make it once more to the Bristol office. I had a number of happenstance conversations, as a result I am going to try and plan to get to the office more. I go at least once a week, I am thinking I might try and make that twice a week.
Jisc Offices in Portwall Lane, Bristol
This was also the start of our third quarter, the Jisc year starts on the 1st August, so we’re half way through our year now. I did my quarterly review paperwork, as well as these week notes, I also keep a regular note of what I am doing each week as well. This makes it very easy to write up the review.
Had an interesting conversation with a colleague (in licensing) discussing standards in relation to learning, teaching, and assessment. I was reminded about the 1EdTech conference I attended in Delft, last September, where the impression I came away was that institutional interoperability was quite mature, but that it wasn’t necessarily going to enable or work for inter-institutional interoperability. Moving data around an institution is challenging enough, moving that data with other institutions (and over a longer time frame) does need a new way of thinking about data and interoperability.
A simple example, you have a learning analytics service within your institution, it gathers student data from the VLE, attendance, library data and it can be used to better understand that individual student and possible needs for interventions. Now imagine that student is not just studying at your university, but is concurrently studying at two other universities. Do you just use your own data for analytics? Or, would you want to bring in data from the other institutions? A more holistic approach to learning analytics perhaps!
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