weeknotes

Storm Ciarán – Weeknote #244 – 3rd November 2023

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I was in the office this week, continuing to work on various pieces of work. The only day I didn’t go into the office was Thursday and that was mainly down to Storm Ciarán. I had originally planned to visit a university campus in Southern England, but after the storm warnings for Storm Ciarán, I decided to change my plans, however with possible disruption to roads and rail, I also made the decision not to go to the office to work.

I was invited to and attended a focus group to support an investigative study of higher education delivery models in Wales. I was reminded of the work I had done on translation and transformation.

Continued the planning, reflection, and researching concept of optimisation of operations and data. Researching and analysing the background, exemplars, benefits, issues, challenges, and barriers to shared services across higher education. Continued the planning report structure on the background, exemplars, benefits, issues, challenges, and barriers to shared services across higher education.

Had a discussion with Paul McKean on FE digital elevation tool and how it is being used by FE colleges. This inspired me to rethink about approaches to various pieces of work I am doing.

Did the first scoping of an Intelligent Campus Elevation Tool to support members in their development of the smart and intelligent campus concept. Based on the work done on Jisc’s FE digital elevation tool, this could be something that universities and colleges might find useful as they navigate the smart and intelligent campus landscape. Also started to reflect on the use of the concept of the digital elevation tool for the optimisation of operations and data.

Wednesday I was in the office for an in-person workshop. I was attending Module 1: Community manager training understanding behaviours workshop in Bristol. The workshop was led by Dave White. I have done this workshop before and have even delivered a version of it as part of the Digital Leaders Programme. So it was very familiar territory for me.

It was interesting to map my internet activity, as my online behaviours have changed quite a bit over the last few years. Back in 2015 for example, Twitter was huge for me, today, well I left X in September. Might write about this a bit more.

Had a meeting with our Public Affairs team about providing the supporting information for a panel session at HEAnet on Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of the Modern Campus. Much of the work I have done on the Intelligent Campus is appropriate in this area, as are the original use cases that we wrote back in 2017 and 2019.

campus
Image by 小亭 江 from Pixabay

We had our Directorate Monthly call covering change management and information governance.

The official photographs from EDUtech Europe 2023 were posted to Flickr. As per usual I did not manage to avoid the photographer.

Started thinking about my Q1 review documentation.

Continued with my planning and preparation for presentation for Learning Places Scotland 2023 happening in two weeks time.

Next week I am in London for the WonkHE Festival of Higher Education.

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Photographs from EDUtech Europe 2023

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They have published the photographs from the EDUtech Europe 2023 conference at the Amsterdam RAI that I attended earlier this month.

As is usual I did not manage to avoid the photographer…

These photographs were from the Smart Campus session where I was discussing building the smart campus and what we understand by an intelligent campus.

I had been invited to participate in the Smart Campus panel session at EDUTech Europe 2023. I had proposed that in the discussion I would chat about the following.

    • How do we move from a smart campus to a smarter or intelligent campus? Bringing in more data sources to get deeper insights and understanding.
    • What are the ethical and privacy considerations we need to be aware of before building a smart campus? Do we need to consider algorithmic bias in our planning?
    • A campus does not exist in isolation, how could we integrate the smart campus into the smart city (or smart community).

Here I am doing a sketch note during a session on the pillars for a successful digital strategy.

Here is the sketch note.

On Thursday I was invited to participate in the Assessment panel session at EDUTech Europe 2023, after someone had dropped out.

This was an interesting session looking at the role of assessment.

There was also a drinks reception.

See all the photographs from the conference.

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Busy, not packed – Weeknote #243 – 27th October 2023

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I went to the office quite a bit this week, travelling to Bristol. Our offices are busy, not packed, but busy.

Most of the week was continuing the planning, reflection, and researching concept of optimisation of operations and data. I was also researching and analysing the background, exemplars, benefits, issues, challenges, and barriers to shared services across higher education. I then started planning a potential report structure.

We had our monthly HEIRLT Leadership Meeting, and I also had my monthly one to one.

I did some planning and preparation for presentation for Learning Places Scotland 2023. I am doing a presentation on building the intelligent campus.

Universities and colleges spend billions on their campuses, yet they are frequently underutilised and are often a frustrating experience for students. In this session, James Clay will describe the campus of the future. How does a traditional campus become a smart campus? What are the steps to make a smart campus, an intelligent campus? The intelligent campus builds on the smart campus concept and aims to find effective ways to use data gathered from the physical estate and combine it with learning and student data from student records, library systems, the virtual learning environment (VLE) and other digital systems. This session will describe what data can be gathered, how it can be measured and explore the potential for enhancing the student experience, achieving net zero, improve efficiency, and space utilisation. It will demonstrate and explain to the delegates what the exciting future of the intelligent campus. James will also ask delegates to consider the ethical issues when implementing an intelligent campus as well as the legal requirements.

I was asked to conduct an initial ‘triage’ review of Jisc online advice and guidance that I am responsible for. There isn’t a huge amount on the Jisc website, so didn’t take long.

Did some preparation for Investigative study of higher education delivery in Wales session I am attending next week.

Starting to realise how over the last few years (but not really over the last few months) how much stuff I would get and learn from what was the Twitter. I made the decision to disengage from the Twitter and though not gone so far to delete my account, I haven’t posted there since September, I haven’t really got the same engagement and traction with Bluesky and Threads. I also realised that by tweeting out links and news, I would have a mechanism for remembering these stories and websites. Currently I don’t think the answer is Threads or Bluesky, but it might be in the future. I think I will need to rethink my workflows for news and content. I have done this before when Google Reader stopped working.

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Star – Weeknote #242 – 20th October 2023

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Took some leave this week and headed off to Chessington World of Adventure for the day.

It was nice to see Lawrie win our Star of the Month award for his work at ALT-C. I took the time to write a detailed nomination about what he did and the impact it had. It was a well deserved win.

Spent most of the week planning, reflection, and researching concept of optimisation of operations and data. Researching the background, exemplars, benefits, issues, challenges, and barriers to shared services across higher education. I have been finding relevant reports and documents, uploading them to Dovetail and then going through them undertaking analysis of the content, tagging different sections. Still early for deep insights, but often these reports flag the potential benefits of shared services, there is a lot of discussion about the importance of process analysis and optimisation, before moving to a shared service model.

This reminds me of some work I did back in 2014 about process analysis and optimisation before adding software or a digital service to the workflow. For example no point in adding a CRM for student recruitment, unless you go through the current process of student recruitment, and then reflecting on what you are trying to achieve. Without undertaking the process analysis, you can often find that all you are doing is spending a lot of time, effort, and money on creating a digital version of the existing process, which often results in just translation, and not taking advantage of the affordances of what digital and online can bring, and usually losing the nuance of the analogue or in-person process.

It has been a little but more challenging to see some of the blockers and barriers that stop the implementation of shared services, but this is where I can bring in some of my own experiences to the table.

Read this interesting article this week: Sunderland City Council is planning to extend the local eduroam Wi-Fi network into the city centre.

It is working with the University of Sunderland and its smart city partner Boldyn Networks to enable accredited users of EduROAM, developed as a Wi-Fi service for the higher education sector, to obtain connections beyond the university’s campus through the public Wi-Fi network.

From a social mobility perspective, inclusion, widening participation, reducing carbon, wellbeing, and a range of other factors it’s important that eduroam extends beyond the campus. It enables students to access Wi-Fi at a time and place of their choosing, rather than being forced to travel to campus.

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Tulips from Amsterdam – Weeknote #241 – 13th October 2023

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This week was all about Amsterdam, where I was attending the EDUTech conference at the Amsterdam RAI.

However, on Monday I was in our Bristol office. I had a planning catch up meeting about prospective communications and publications.

Tuesday I was off to Amsterdam. Having arrived and parked at Bristol Airport I had time for a coffee before boarding.

It was quite a quick flight, by the time we reached the Suffolk coast, we started our descent into Amsterdam. Having disembarked, I headed to passport control. There was a huge queue. Schiphol Airport had free WiFi, so I could use that in the airport whilst I had a long wait to get through passport control. Took over 90 minutes to get from the plane, through passport control, pick up my suitcase and then I could head to the railway station. It wasn’t long before I was at my hotel next to the RAI conference centre.

Following some issues with roaming in Spain in 2022 I have been a little concerned about travelling abroad and if I would have connectivity issues. However this time I had no issues.

The EDUTech Europe 2023 conference was over two days and covered a range of topics and subjects, but as you might have guessed AI was certainly up there being discussed across a range of sessions. As well as covering higher education, the conference also covers the schools sector, but the interactive programme made it very easy to filter out those sessions, so I could focus on the higher education topics.

I had been invited to participate in the Smart Campus panel session at EDUTech Europe 2023.

I had proposed that in the discussion I would chat about the following.

How do we move from a smart campus to a smarter or intelligent campus? Bringing in more data sources to get deeper insights and understanding.

What are the ethical and privacy considerations we need to be aware of before building a smart campus? Do we need to consider algorithmic bias in our planning?

A campus does not exist in isolation, how could we integrate the smart campus into the smart city (or smart community).

Across the rest of the day there were a range of sessions, I focused a lot on digital leadership. It was interesting to see the reliance on champions to deliver change. My own experience has shown that though champions can have an impact, generally the process of using enthusiasm to deliver effective change is inconsistent, and if you want to deliver holistic change across a whole organisation, then the use of enthusiastic champions generally won’t result in that change happening. Of course using champions as part of a portfolio of change levers, is certainly something that can work.

Thursday morning I attended HEAnet Group Advisory Forum via Teams. We discussed the HEAnet strategy as well as other topics related to technology and higher education in Ireland.

On Thursday I was invited to participate in the Assessment panel session at EDUTech Europe 2023, after someone had dropped out. This was an interesting session looking at the role of assessment.

Had a good discussion with a delegate from the University of Birmingham at the EDUTech Europe 2023, on various topics and issues. Have agreed to visit University of Birmingham.

Had an informative chat with a Principal Lecturer from Sheffield Hallam University on various topics and issues including smart campus and learning analytics.

Got some nice feedback from EDUTech Europe 2023:

I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for your invaluable contribution as a speaker to EDUtech Europe 2023. Your expertise and insights added immense value to our event. The feedback we received from our attendees was overwhelmingly positive, and your knowledge and passion resonated with the audience. We look forward to the possibility of working with you again in the future.

On Friday I attended Jisc’s Research Evidence Advisory Group meeting. As we discussed research at Jisc I realised there were some key ways in which I interact with research. It started initially as three Cs, but by the end of the meeting this had grown to six.

Consumption – in my role I consume research by others, both internally and external research. Having access to that research is critical to the work I do.

Creation – I also create research, sometimes this is for projects, other times it has been for consultancy, and now and then for publication or for events.

Communication – It is important that research undertaken by Jisc is communicated internally and externally.

Community – I want to be part of the internal (to Jisc) research community, but also to be part of the external research community

Credibility – When we do research, it adds credibility to what we say and recommend. Having the evidence (gained from research) gives us the credibility we need when talking to the sector.

Co-ordination – It’s important to avoid duplication, or repetition; that we co-ordinate our activities.

Got some nice feedback from The Blended Learning in HE Conference I presented at last week.

I would like to thank you very much for speaking at The Blended Learning in HE Conference. We really appreciate the time and effort that you took in preparing to present at the event. Your address was well received by the delegates and the conference has already received some great feedback.

Did some initial organisation of Senior Education and Student Experience Group meetings, format and timings.

I spent much of the day travelling back from Amsterdam on Friday. Spent less time at passport control this time.

weeknotes

Preparation – Weeknote #240 – 6th October 2023

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A lot of this week was about preparation for stuff I was doing this week and next week.

I prepared my presentation for The Blended Learning in Higher Education Conference. I didn’t use slides, but still wrote some prompts and notes to support my presentation. When presenting online, I now try and avoid using slides, and focus on just speaking to the camera. I do that partly, as my usual practice with slides of using images, doesn’t always translate well to an online presentation, and mainly, as other speakers use slides, and I want to be different to that, okay so I can stand out a little.

Later in the week I delivered my keynote for The Blended Learning in Higher Education Conference: Integrating Blended Learning into Course Design to Make Maximum Use of Hybrid Learning Techniques.

I also took the time to listen to the other sessions at the conference. It was good to hear that the issues facing universities in the design of blended learning echoed much of what I have been saying and hearing from across the sector.

Next week I am off to Amsterdam for EDUTech Europe 2023 and spent time planning and organising my travel. I had considered going by train (to avoid flying) but couldn’t make the times work.

As I am part of a Smart Campus panel session at EDUTech Europe 2023 I spent time going through the discussion notes, and reminding myself of some of the core issues.

campus
Image by 小亭 江 from Pixabay

In order to get ahead of myself I also booked travel and accommodation for November where I am travelling and attending events.

I did the pre-reading for HEAnet Group Advisory Forum which is happening next week.

I attended the JNC for Jisc and UCU in my capacity as deputy chair of the UCU branch at Jisc.

I have been involved in the design and delivery of shared services over the last twenty years, as well as being a key collaborator of shared services as well. I have been researching and reflecting on those personal experiences. Thinking about how the identification of blockers and challenges in relation to shared services. LAlso looking at the advantages and opportunities in relation to shared services.

Friday I made it into the office in Bristol.

Joined Bluesky, thanks to an invite code I got. Reminds me of the early days of the Twitter. I have noticed that with the slow demise of Twitter, how much Threads (which I am also using) is starting to morph into a Twitter clone. Not so much in terms of functionality, but more in terms of the types of posts and content I am now seeing on Threads.

weeknotes

Traffic – Weeknote #239 – 29th September 2023

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I was supposed to be presenting a Leadership Masterclass, entitled Operationalising your Strategic Vision this week, however due to traffic problems I was late in getting to the office and as a result it was cancelled and rescheduled.

Wrote a blog post about making tea. It wasn’t literally about making tea, but about understanding the foundations, knowledge, and infrastructure that needs to be in place to make a cup of tea.

Those with the foundations, the resources, the skills and capabilities, will be easily able to deliver a solution to what they see as a simple problem. However they may have not realised their journey in getting to that point when they are able to easily make tea. Just telling people to make tea, or showing them how to make tea, often isn’t sufficient, if they lack the foundations and infrastructure to actually make a cup of tea.

Should just add, in case you were curious, I also write posts about coffee.

stove espresso maker
Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Was playing around with HeyGen Labs AI video translation tool. I was quite impressed, so were others that I showed the end result to.

Spent time planning and reviewing objectives for the year ahead.

I have decided to call it a day with what was the Twitter. So no more top tweets of the week. There’s still a blog post there.

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What no trains! Yes there were trains! – Weeknote #238 – 22nd September 2023

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This week, due to engineering work, there were no trains between Weston-super-Mare and Bristol. I also took a day’s leave bizarrely enough to travel on a steam train.

Quite a few meetings were cancelled this week, which I find frustrating.

I spent time this week on preparing a session and designing a presentation for a Leadership Masterclass, entitled Operationalising your Strategic Vision. This is an internal ninety minute online session about strategy and operationalisation of that strategy. Some of that masterclass will be based on this blog post on breakfast.

I also made the decision, rather than record the masterclass, it will be a rather interactive session, which a recording won’t capture.

Instead I will create a new and “proper” recorded video of the session that can then be used.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Attended a pipeline call with a team about their current future work.

I went back through and reviewed sessions I attended at ALT-C. This year they recorded all the sessions, so there is an opportunity to go and watch sessions I missed.

Had a call about a proposed session idea at Digifest 24.

I had to undertake various software and security updates. Took the opportunity to update the iPhone to iOS 17.

Had a short meeting on software licensing.

I have been working on some objectives for the next twelve months.

I have been reflecting on what good is, what it looks like, how would we know, what do we mean by good, how would we define good. How do we know something is good. What are the criteria we are using to base that judgement on?

Twitter

I have decided to call it a day with what was the Twitter. So no more top tweets of the week. There’s a blog post there. Maybe.

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Back to York – Weeknote #237 – 15th September 2023

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York is a place I have visited and lived in over the last forty five years. I first went to York on a school trip in 1979 and we did lots of different things. We went to the Railway Museum, the Castle Museum, went up Clifford’s Tower. We visited Mother Shipton’s Cave and Fountain’s Abbey. I made a return visit to York in the summer of 1987 when we had some Yugoslavian Scouts over.

In October 1987 I studied Economics at York University for three years. I stayed in halls in Langwith College in my first year, rented a house in Osbaldwick for my second year, and stayed at St Lawrence Court in my final year.

I made a return visit to York in July 1993, I stayed on campus and did various things including a return visit to Fountains Abbey.

It was quite a few years later before I visited again, and this time it was a fleeting visit to the university in March 2006 for a meeting. I had flown up to Leeds and hired a car to drive to York and then drove back, all in the one day.

I also was there for a mobile learning workshop in April 2009, and stayed at the hotel by the Railway Station. We did a family holiday to York in March 2013.

This was my first visit back to York since then. We had a team away day at a hotel near the racecourse. Our last two away days had been in Leamington Spa.

This was an excellent away day with lots of engagement and interaction. Sometimes, you can find yourself in passive mode when attending team days, but this time we were discussing, and interacting. Making the most of the time we had in-person together.

As I was up in York, I spent some time exploring the campus and reflecting on how the campus has changed over the last forty years and what the implications of this are for the student experience, infrastructure, and overall campus experience.

I did some planning for a Leadership Masterclass – Operationalising your Strategic Vision that I am running in a couple of weeks.

Had a meeting about a panel session for EDUtech Europe 2023 in October.

Didn’t really tweet this week, travelling, away days, and the such. I think my use of the Twitter which has been declining over the last year or so is approaching the point of asking myself, why am I using Twitter.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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Twenty years and a week – Weeknote #236 – 8th September 2023

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This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the Association of Learning Technology (ALT) and it also marks twenty years of my involvement in ALT. It started off with attending ALT-C 2003 in Sheffield. I think I might write a reflective blog post on those two decades of engagement and working with ALT.

Most of this week I was at the University of Warwick for the ALT conference. I’ve not been to every conference over the last twenty years, but I have been to most.

I was delivering a presentation about my digital strategy journey.

I went to lots of different sessions and enjoyed them all. Some stand out more than others, I think a more detailed reflective post is needed on them.

Did some preparation and planning for the EDUtech Europe 2023 panel session which is happening in October.

Next week I am in York for a team away day.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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