Category Archives: weeknotes

weeknotes

Lacking innovation – Weeknote #296 – 1st November 2024

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I took some leave this week, so less intensive (from a work perspective) than more recent weeks.

We had the budget this week, and it wasn’t the budget for higher education. No sign of that fee increase everyone has been hoping for, nor was there any new funding. Of course the increase in employer’s National Insurance contributions had meant that wage costs across the sector have gone up. The Universities and Colleges Employers Association has calculated that this measure will add around £372m to the sector’s pay bill.

We have been planning the launch of the collaboration report that we finalised the draft of last week. There have been a few issues this week, so we have been delayed by a few days. Nothing serious, but it is important that we cover all the details and make sure everything is signed off. I also did some internal briefing documents for internal stakeholders.

Had a meeting about the education in NREN. Across the world there are various NRENs. These are the national research and education network (NREN) and each is a specialised internet service provider dedicated to supporting the needs of the research and education in each country. The Netherlands have SURF, and in the UK, we have Jisc. There have been discussions across various networks about raising the importance of the E in NREN. How can NRENs better support education. I do think in the UK, Jisc provides a lot of support for education across further and higher education. Could we do more, and what is happening in Europe? Lots to think about and find out.

I had a conversation with Lawrie about the lack of innovation in learning technology in higher education, now before you say artificial intelligence, let’s just put that to one side and focus on other aspects of innovation. The mailing lists are quiet, I am not seeing the blog posts or yore, and as for new technologies, is there anything out there which is truly innovative? Back in the day, well twenty years ago now… we were on the cusp of an innovation revolution. In 2004, there was no Twitter, no Facebook, no YouTube. The iPhone wasn’t going to be seen for another three years, while it would be six before we saw the iPad. Yes in 2004 we had smartphones and tablets, but it would be the way in which Apple designed their versions which revolutionised how consumers (and then students) would use them. Over a ten year period we saw massive changes in consumer technologies, connectivity, web services, which all impacted on learning and teaching.

Since then, not so much.

Another thing we discussed was how the financial constraints on higher education could be impacting on the role of learning technologists within higher education. There is an invalid assumption that because of covid, we all know how to do it now. Combine that with the lack of flashy innovation, then the visibility of the hard work of learning technologists might be lacking. When your work moves away from discovery into embedding, then the profile of what you do becomes less visible. Big flash events about how a single cohort are using a new technology is exciting, whereas embedding use of the VLE across the entire university has a greater impact but isn’t as high profile. Sometimes talking about what you are doing and the impact it is having on the student experience is just as important as actually doing it.

weeknotes

Choosing another way – Weeknote #295 – 25th October 2024

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Took some leave this week to do some domestic stuff, as one does.

Spent the rest of the week finalising the collaboration report I have been working on over the last couple of months.

Group working
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

A report from the Edge Foundation makes for interesting reading, it said that degree apprenticeships are attracting students with high levels of attainment.

I have mentioned in a number of conversations about the attraction of degree apprenticeships and the impact that this could have on general HE recruitment.

The research found that outreach and recruitment for DAs was generally not integrated, although both institutions in the study highlighted increasing interest in DAs from schools with a greater proportion of higher-attaining students and non-state schools, rather than the schools where their outreach typically takes place. Both providers had recruited a range of apprentices, with older apprentices already working for the organisation from comparatively lower socio-economic backgrounds being the norm on health-related programmes, while digital and STEM-related programmes attract younger apprentices as new recruits, from comparatively higher socio-economic backgrounds.

Read more about the report on Wonkhe:

Are degree apprenticeships opening up access, or entrenching privilege? Charlynne Pullen, one of the report’s authors, sets out what the research found.

A coming decline in the number of 18-year-olds makes the future ‘very bleak’ for some universities. A new report from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) shows reductions in student demand in England, which are already affecting the higher education sector, will cause serious problems as the number of 18-year-olds in the population declines after 2030.

In an already financially constrained sector, the demographic changes will be making life more difficult.

weeknotes

“In Dublin’s fair city…” – Weeknote #293 – 11th October 2024

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When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart, said James Joyce and I understand where he is coming from, when I visited Dublin this week for the HEAnet Group Advisory Forum. It was quite a flying visit, arriving late Tuesday evening, and leaving Wednesday afternoon, but I did manage a quick walk around the heart of the city before heading back to the airport.

I was in Dublin for the HEAnet Group Advisory Forum where I provide an international perspective for the group based on the work, I do at Jisc. HEAnet is the Irish NREN, whereas Jisc is the UK NREN. In many ways we are similar, and in many ways, we are very different. A lot of the things that Jisc do, are done in Ireland by EduCampus, who work very closely with HEAnet.

Of course the size of the countries is very different, the Republic of Ireland has a population of just over five million, whereas the UK is just under seventy million.  Despite the differences in size of student population, and number of universities, there are plenty of similarities in the challenges and issues that both organisations face. It would not surprise you that cybersecurity is up there at the top, as is analytics, and increasing demand for bandwidth.

As I was in Dublin, this did mean, that for the second year running I missed our all-staff Jisc conference in Birmingham.

I continued to work on the shared services report. I also did some researching and planning for an internal blog post for next week on the report.

Next week I am presenting on the smart campus at the Education Summit in London. I only have a fifteen minute slot, so spent time condensing a presentation I would normally use and thinking about what and how I would talk about the topic.

weeknotes

Blueprint – Weeknote #292 – 4th October 2024

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blueprint
Image by GrumpyBeere from Pixabay

This week saw UUK publishing their blueprint for higher education.

Opportunity, growth and partnership – A blueprint for change from the UK’s universities

We stand at a fork in the road in the history of the UK’s universities. There is now a clear choice. We can allow our distinguished, globally competitive higher education system to slide into decline. Or we can act together, as institutions and with government, to ensure that higher education is able to deliver for the nation into the 2030s.

It is 143 pages long, so for the recommendations, head to page 128.

I did participate in the process of contributing to the report, in the main chapter six.

In relation to my work, there are two recommendations worth noting.

  • removing VAT on higher education shared services
  • introducing a transformation fund to enable and accelerate changes to universities’ operating and business models in order to achieve greater efficiency

It is a frustration for many higher education institutions that if they decide to outsource or collaborate on a shared service, then the institution has to pay VAT on the costs of that. Whereas if they decide to undertake the service in-house they obviously do not need to pay VAT. So even if there are savings to be had from shared services or collaboration, the reality is that any such savings are wiped out by the additional VAT costs.

I recently wrote about the need for universities to change.

So universities may know and realise that they need to change, but they can’t afford to make those changes now. As a result they may never change.

So, it was welcome to read in the UUK report about introducing a transformation fund to enable and accelerate changes to universities’ operating and business models in order to achieve greater efficiency.

blueprints
Image by Reto Scheiwiller from Pixabay

I have been reviewing and commenting on the draft of a report I have been working on.

Undertook some organising and planning for HEAnet Group Advisory Forum which is happening next week.

I also had a preparatory meeting for Education Summit presentation and conference, where I am presenting on the Intelligent Campus.

weeknotes

Happy Retirement Paul – Weeknote #291 – 27th September 2024

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Still can’t quite believe that it is October next week, did we have a summer, or was that somewhere else?

At the start of the week I had an online meeting with Oaklands College, about their smart campus aspirations. It was a good meeting, and we discussed various topics and aspects of what we mean by smart campus, use cases, and what foundations are needed.

Attended another active learning set session as part of an internal leadership training, I am undertaking. The problem we were discussing was about recruitment. I won’t go into details here, but I was reminded of the challenges involved in recruitment and getting it right. Over my career I have recruited some amazing people, and occasionally, not so much. One thing I will pass on from my experience is, no matter how desperate you are to fill a position, if the candidates you interview are not right, don’t feel forced to appoint. It may feel you have solved a short term issue, but the reality is that it may become a long term problem. Also, think about the type of attributes and skills you need for that position and then think about how you will find that in the people who apply. For example, does putting in having a degree as an essential attribute provide the skills you need, or will it exclude people who have those skills gained through experience, but never went to university, as it wasn’t something that was available to them?

Attending training for our new travel booking system. Not too different to the system we already have. Having this kind of self-service system makes life so much easier to the processes and systems I used in the past. I remember having to fill out paper forms, get them authorised, and then pass them to the travel team, who would then book the travel and accommodation.

I attended the Education Espresso session organised by Wonkhe and Adobe. It was an interesting discussion.

I had quite a few meetings this week.

Planned out the conferences I want to attend, I won’t be able to attend them all, but at least I have thought through the ones I would like to go to.

This week Paul Bailey retired; I have worked with Paul for twenty odd years. I joined Jisc in June 2015 and have regularly worked with Paul on various projects and programmes. I would also bring him for conversations about my work. Before I joined Jisc I collaborated and worked with Paul on various things, some I don’t remember, but certainly in the early days of learning analytics. I also am sure he was a critical friend of some case studies I did back in the 2000s. He was a real asset to Jisc and he will be missed.

weeknotes

It’ll be reyt – Weeknote #290 – 20th September 2024

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This week I was in Leeds. As we as a directorate away day (over two) days I also took the opportunity to visit various universities around the area.

I have written before about the declining student recruitment across UK higher education. This week we saw that the UCAS (28 day) acceptances were up slightly from last year. In total, there have been 498,340 acceptances, which has risen from 493,940 last year but is lower than the peak of 515,650 in 2020.

However it is not all good news, the overall number of acceptances has been driven by UK 18-year-olds but there has been a decline in mature and international students getting onto an undergraduate university or college course.

Wonkhe reported that the sector has lost another higher education provider. No it’s not a traditional provider, but it’s the second one within the last four weeks.

The Advanced Business Academy (ABA), an Office for Students approved provider of franchise and partnership provision with campuses in London and Luton, has ceased higher education operations with immediate effect. The provider’s website now provides guidance for current students, including contact details for academic partners (the University of Buckingham and Leeds Trinity University), noting that both ABA campuses are now closed.

We were up in Leeds for our Directorate Away Day, which takes place lunchtime to lunchtime due to the geographical distribution of the team. I did a presentation about the report I am working on.

Did some visits and field research (physicality) to the University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University and the University of York in regard to Optimising Operations and Intelligent Campus. I have been to Leeds University quite a few times for conferences and events, but it was good to see the physical campus from a different perspective.

As I was in the area, I also walked around the University of York, I wanted to see how the campus felt with more people there, as the last time I had been to visit it has been the summer break. It didn’t feel crowded, which was interesting. I actually studied at York as an undergraduate, and over the last four decades the campus has expanded hugely, however the main campus around the lake (duck pond) hasn’t changed very much at all. There are some new buildings in and around the brutalist concrete buildings of the 1960s. It was quite a large campus when I was there in the late 1980s, but with the expansion into East Heslington the campus is so much expansive. This has implications for travelling across campus for study or for internal meetings. From an intelligent campus viewpoint, trying to utilise space more efficiently will be restricted by the physical distances between buildings and spaces. Should just note that I did visit Leeds University in the 1980s when I was at York for concerts in the Student Union.

The visit to Leeds Beckett University was my first visit to the campus, and I am glad I went. I don’t know I had in my head that Leeds Beckett was comprised of modern buildings, but the campus is focussed around a number of Edwardian brick buildings. There are a number of newer buildings as well. Both the University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett both have additional city centre campuses in the heart of Leeds, which raises the question of collaboration and sharing.

Leeds is quite a distance away from Weston-super-Mare, so spent quite a bit of time travelling.

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Progressing – Weeknote #289 – 13th September 2024

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Much of this week was progressing the review and drafting of the report I have been working on over the last few weeks. This has included preparing and attending a meeting to discuss the report’s findings with UCISA members. Feedback was very positive, and the report was welcomed by those attending.

I reviewed my progress on the Lead at Jisc management and leadership course I am doing. Made a lot of progress and just a few things to finish and work on now.

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Change is needed, but can we change? – Weeknote #287 – 30th August 2024

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Shorter week this week with the August bank holiday in England.

I went to the office a few times this week. I have written a fair few times about how I quite like going to the office to work. The change in routine and location is refreshing, and helps, especially as my current workload is very much focused on reading, writing, and having online calls. August is a quiet time for meetings and events.

Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay
Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay

I have been looking at which events to attend over the next few months, the WonkHE Festival of Higher Education is on that list, as is their Secret Life of Students taking place in early 2025. I am speaking at the Education Summit in October in London. I am looking at an overseas conference as well, torn between OEB in Berlin, or ASCILITE in Melbourne. They are close together, but don’t clash.

Wrote an update for the Jisc board on the work I have been doing. As part of this work I also reviewed content for a holding web page.

Had to use Excel, not my favourite activity, I was doing some research into higher education expenditure and was playing with some data. Excel is one of those applications I use infrequently, so I don’t always remember how to do stuff.

Read the OfS report on the closure of Schumacher College. In their overview the OfS said:

The higher education sector is facing significant financial challenges and institutions are facing difficult decisions. Universities and colleges are responsible for running their businesses and it’s vital that each provider has effective systems in place to identify and manage these risks to ensure students’ interests and rights are protected.

The WonkHE analysis was also an interesting read.

Closures of higher education providers due to financial pressures have been predicted for a long time – Schumacher may have existed outside of the traditional university sector, and was also experiencing wider and more sustained difficulties, but it is unlikely to be the only specialist provider that is struggling to make ends meet as we move towards the 2024-25 academic year.

So is this the first of many? There is a question of whether one of the (larger) more traditional providers will fail? There has been for many years rumours that there are three large universities on the brink of bankruptcy. No one actually names the three but reading across the education press there are numerous stories of financial problems, staff cuts, and closures. Would a large university be allowed to fail? I suspect more likely would be a forced merger with another institution to protect the students and allow them to finish their programmes of study. Regardless, the sector is facing huge financial pressures and this has implications for the way they are organised and operate.

Also in the ballpark was this HEPI Paper – Down with the World-Class University: How our business models damage universal higher education.

This paper discusses the proposition that the issue with higher education is not so much a lack of proper funding, but that the current operating model isn’t fit for purpose.

Higher education’s onrushing insolvency is not, as many would wish, merely a fixable fault in our funding model, caused by government backsliding on the tuition fee. Instead, we have a system-design problem, in which funding problems are simply a characteristic, not a cause. What other sector would allow itself to stall in an era of surging demand, as our addressable market expands from young people to all adults? The fault lies in our business models and our operating assumptions, as a sector and as providers. We must rethink the types of people we serve, and how we can meet their needs for education and skills in ways that meet the test of private and public goods. Our fascination with the ‘world-class university’ model has had negative systemic effects, draining resources from the wider sector. And we must question our default setting, our cherished high-quality, high-touch and high-cost model. These attributes are not inviolable aspects of our offer. Each places huge demands on students and providers. Can our system really be fit for purpose, if it is unworkable for large minorities of students and providers, and unaffordable for the state?

I am reminded of the recent post I wrote about hindsight in which I looked at the challenges and change that Intel and Kodak faced, and some would say failed to adapt to.

There are lots of examples of how organisations and companies did not respond to changes and trends. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as you can ask, why didn’t they change, they could see the challenge, they could have changed, they could have adapted. The problem often is that though internally the organisation may know it needs to change, the current situation means they are unable to change.

Higher Education knows that they are facing challenges, and that they need to change. They know this. However a deeper question is not the one that Higher Education needs to be told they need to change, they know that, but they are actually unable to change and so the question is how do we change a sector, that knows it needs to change, but actually can’t make that change.