Tag Archives: bristol

We choose to go to the Moon – Weeknote #298 – 15th November 2024

lunar landing
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

After being on leave for most of last week, though I worked for most of the week, I also took a few days leave.

I was in the office on Tuesday and during my lunchtime walk I went pass our old offices at Castle Park. The block has been surrounded by scaffolding for what seemed like a really long time. They have renamed the building BLOK. What I found quite interesting was the addition of a café on the ground floor. I can imagine if we had remained in that building that myself and others would have probably drank a lot of coffee there.

It is looking like that the university cash crisis to get worse despite tuition fee rise. This week the OfS published a report on the financial sustainability of the higher education sector. Despite earlier positive perspective of an improved outlook, the new report notes

Our analysis of recruitment trends suggested that providers’ financial forecasts were based on predictions of student recruitment that were too optimistic.

The OfS notes that bold and transformative action is needed to address financial sustainability of the sector.

Many providers will need to take increasingly bold action to address the impact of these challenges on their financial position in the short, medium and long terms. Where necessary, providers will need to prepare for, and deliver in practice, the transformation needed to address the challenges they face. In some cases, this is likely to include looking externally for solutions to secure their financial future, including working with other organisations to reduce costs or identifying potential merger partners or other structural changes. We recognise that cultural and other barriers in the sector may deter institutions from considering some of these options, and so it is important that options are identified and evaluated with sufficient time for action to be taken.

The action required by the sector is one of the core reasons why Jisc with KPMG published a report on collaboration.

Even with the rise in tuition fees, the increase in employer national insurance will negate much of that benefit. We also know that the impact on the sector varies, some institutions will be able to weather the storm better than others. As the OfS says bold action is needed. This is a time to think differently.

The news  story was also reported on the BBC

Almost three quarters of universities in England will face financial problems next year – despite tuition fees increasing, the BBC has been told.

David Kernohan on WonkHE has written an in-depth piece on the report which makes for interesting reading.

At the end of the week I was reminded of this speech by John F Kennedy.

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

I was involved in a webinar with senior managers from across higher education discussing the report we have just published with KPMG.

One participant remarked that collaboration and shared services in some entrenched areas of higher education was hard and that we may, as a sector, might want to focus on areas which are new or easier.

I do think that, just because it is hard, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look at some areas. There are very likely benefits that go beyond that area as well.

There may be mergers ahead – Weeknote #272 – 17th May 2024

bird screen

The news this week was dominated by the financial crisis that the university sector is facing in the UK.

Wonkhe said in their daily briefing

An increasing number of universities in England face a material risk of closure unless they significantly cut costs or merge. The Office for Students (OfS) 2024 financial sustainability report discusses a heavy reliance on international students due to declining domestic student fee income, and a “worst-case scenario” predicts that four out of five institutions will be in deficit by 2027 without changes.

With over optimistic views by universities about student numbers (domestic and international) the sector is facing a real financial challenge and with no real solutions in sight. There is no easy solution to this.

The OfS report was quite clear about the pressures facing the university sector.

Continuing decline in the real-terms value of income from UK undergraduates combined with inflationary and economic pressures on operating costs and the costs of developing buildings and facilities, as well as increasing employer contributions to some pension schemes.

They added the following key points in their report.

  • A recent apparent reduction in UK and international applications after years of strong growth, especially from international students.
  • A higher education financial model that has become reliant on fee income from international students, with a particular vulnerability where recruitment is predominantly from a single country.
  • The affordability of necessary estate maintenance and development and the significant cost of investment needed to reduce carbon emissions as part of providers’ commitments to achieve net zero.
  • Cost of living difficulties for students and staff, which challenge both student recruitment and the support needed by students during their time in higher education.

The report set out that universities may need to think differently to respond to the challenges they face.

Changes to a provider’s operating model can be a healthy response to financial challenge.  The sector as a whole has been in a relatively strong financial position for much of the past decade and has expanded its delivery to more UK and non-UK students. The financial challenges it is facing now could be a catalyst to drive positive change and innovation. Actions being taken by providers can result in more efficient operation, and could have benefits for students, including improved value for money.

This very much echoes the work I have been doing at Jisc on optimising operations and looking at collaboration and shared services.

The report also acknowledges that there may be mergers ahead.

We also expect that we might see some changes to the size and shape of the sector, for example, through mergers and acquisitions or increase specialisation.

As part of my work I wrote a vision about mergers and the formation of large university groups, but with the individual partners within that group retaining their local identity.

The first large university groups appeared following mergers forced by the regulator after financial pressures could have caused at least one higher education institution to fail. The new group recognised that though in theory they should have a new name, they also realised that the existing names were brands in their own right. As a result they formed The University Group™ but the individual university names were kept. Staff were employed by The University Group™ but students attended a named university. It was so successful that some smaller institutions asked to join the group but retain their identity. What was important to the group was that management and staff recognised that they were employed by The University Group™ and not the named university in which they worked (though some teaching staff worked across the group), from a student experience perspective the student was a student of the named university. They would be awarded their degree from that named university and would to all intents and purposes be a graduate of that named university.

This is a model we have seen in the Further Education sector, with large college groups and individual campuses having a separate brand and identity.

As well as facing financial challenges, the sector is also facing an unhappy cohort of students who are making more complaints.

Students complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) in England and Wales rose to 3,137 in 2023, the ombuds’ annual report reveals. This was a ten per cent increase from 2022, and OIA recommendations led to more than £580,000 paid out in financial compensation, in addition to almost £640,000 in settlements. Some 21 per cent of complaints were adjudged to be justified (two per cent) or partly justified (seven per cent) or were settled in favour of the student. 

Wonkhe reflects on a year of complaints received by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.

I was in the office for a couple of days this week, but reflected I’ve not been out and about for a while. I was expecting to go out and do some visits and workshops in May, but these never materialised. I‘ve also not attended any recent events, I think I might have to do some travelling over the next few weeks.

I attended our regular catch up meeting with the OfS this week in our Bristol office, and we updated each other which what is happening and what this may mean.

Wrote a short thought piece on academic staff using ChatGPT for student feedback.

We know that students are using tools such as ChatGPT to support their assessment work. It looks like some staff are also using the tool to provide feedback.

conference
Image by Florian Pircher from Pixabay

I have started a leadership development programme at Jisc. I am very much in the position in my career, where it is much less about what do I need to do to advance my career, but more about having achieved my career aspiration, what can I do for Jisc. I have extensive management and leadership experience, running teams of various sizes, complexity and geographically distributed. I have planned, designed, and delivered shared services for consortia and complex organisations. I have managed multi-million pound budgets and projects.

So, I am not attending the programme to learn how to be a leader, but there is something about refreshing and updating your knowledge in this space. Also, it will be good to work with colleagues across the organisation as well.

What makes a smart building smart? – Weeknote #258 – 9th February 2024

After a week in the Bristol office, this week I was only there on Friday. Monday I was working from home, the train strikes disrupting rail travel for my Bristol commute. I spent a couple of days in Birmingham as well. I was off to Birmingham for a Smart Campus Roundtable being facilitated by PTS, an external consultancy company. I had attended a similar eventin London in June.

The focus of the event was about progress universities were making in the smart campus landscape, with presentations from Birmingham and Bristol. We had various discussions about university aspirations, challenges, business cases, cross-institutional teams. There was very little discussion on the actual smart campus technologies that are available. As was recognised across the room, the real challenges are vision, strategy, planning, policy, process, and culture.

I also found about the Smart Building Overlay to the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Plan of Work.

RIBA have developed a Smart Building Overlay to provide guidance on smart building technology through each RIBA Plan of Work stage; aligning decision-making with project outcomes and helping designers integrate the technology to support them.

This is an interesting document but does remind you of how much work has been done in this space by those involved in the architectural and construction industries, not just in education, but across all other sectors as well. Are educational spaces that different, something to think about.

Though much is being done in this space, the work has been focused on the relationship between the physical estate and the IT infrastructure coming together. The reality is that a university campus is awash with data from many different systems. A truly smart campus needs to bring that altogether, and an intelligent campus will enable deeper and more useful insights.

In a couple of weeks I have my Q2 review. As always, these notes come in useful for writing up that review. I also write my review in a Word document before then pasting into the HR system. I am glad that I did as I found out on Monday that there had been a glitch in the HR system which meant all my input was missing. Of course I could replace the text in my form from the Word document.

This was a habit I got into many years ago, as too often when writing into a web form, there would be a connectivity issue, or a glitch and I would lose everything I had written. So I now write in a word processor and then copy and paste. I do that for all my blog posts as well. So I am writing this blog post in Word, and then I will copy and paste into my WordPress instance later.

There is another advantage with using a word processor, is that I can write some of the blog post one day and finish it off another day. Using it for week notes means I can write up each day individually if I need to.

microphone
Image by Florian Pircher from Pixabay

Saw an online presentation from David Kellerman on the digital transformation in his work at UNSW in Australia. He was an enthusiastic presenter and very passionate about his work.

I have been invited to speak at Higher Education Smart Campus Association (HESCA) event Smart Technology for a Smarter Campus’.

HESCA’s aim is to provide Higher Education establishments with a platform for debate on smart card technology issues relevant to their business objectives.

As you might imagine, the focus is very much on smart card technology, but though smart cards can provide lots of data, they can also be used to enhance the student experience in a lot of areas, if other sources of data are joined up. Very much an aspect of the intelligent campus.

I spent time researching, planning, and writing my presentation for HESCA 24 How smart technology is vital for tomorrow’s campus.

Reviewing and analysing my learning spaces space on Dovetail, looking at what I have done, what I could do, and what I need to do.

Spent time doing the purchase orders, booking, and logistics for various conferences. I am planning to attend UUK’s Survive or thrive? Grasping the financial sustainability challenge Conference. Also WonkHE’s Secret Life of Students, and the UCISA Leadership Conference in Edinburgh.

After some setbacks I did the recording and editing for my Leadership Masterclass – Operationalising your Strategic Vision video.

Just doing stuff – Weeknote #253 – 5th January 2024

A shorter week with the bank holiday. Always nice when coming back from nearly two weeks leave to just 15 emails in the inbox. Knowing that you can probably delete all of them in one fell swoop as well. This time last year I had 109.

I went to our Bristol office a couple of times. It was very quiet on Friday, which wasn’t too surprising.

I spent much of the week planning an intelligent campus workshop I am doing next week in Norwich. As well as developing and designing the workshop, I also needed to sort out the travel and accommodation. With the planned tube strike, I decided that not only would I drive, but would take the opportunity to undertake some additional field work in the student experience landscape.

I finished off a blog post I started writing last year. It was on why I had quit the Twitter.

On September 24th 2023 I posted my last tweet to the Twitter (or X as it is called now). Since then I have not posted to the Twitter, or replied to any posts. I have retained my account though as I have an improbable hope that one day things might go back to the way they were. I think though that it unlikely.

I also published a post while I was on leave about how I might (re)subscribe to Flickr Pro.

Flickr is one of the first social networks I joined way back in 2007, which to me feels like just a few years ago and not 16 years ago!

I also started taking a photograph a day. Something I have done for a fair few years now.

A bit chilly – Weeknote #248 – 1st December 2023

So the year is nearly over. This time last year I was in Berlin for a conference which felt very festive. This year I was mainly in chilly Bristol.

I had a few internal meetings and briefings this week.

I spent most of the week scoping and researching a possible intelligent campus elevation tool based on the concept of the Jisc FE Digital Elevation Tool.

I had my Q1 review this week. These weeknotes helped me complete the paperwork and discussions during the meeting.

I wrote a blog post about how I am not using the Twitter anymore.

I stopped using the Twitter in September. Though I still yet to delete my account, partly as I think one day, it might go back to what it was. Well one can dream. If I do look at the service, I come away disappointed and saddened.

What Was Wonkfest – Weeknote #245 – 10th November 2023

I was mainly in London this week trying to avoid the rain.

I was attending the WonkHE Festival of Higher Education, this is the conference previously known as WonkFest. The name change was more about the challenge in delegates getting funding to come to the event… so you want to go to a conference, that should be fine, what’s it called. Seriously?

It was a rather good conference, some really good sessions, too much choice sometimes. Only downside was, one of the rooms for the parallel sessions, was too small, so as a result lots of people who wanted to attend the session were turned away (including me).

I enjoyed the session, “in conversation with David Aaronovitch“ I did have a question about the Remembrance of the Daleks… but a quick check of Wikipedia and I realise that Ben Aaronovitch wrote the Daleks and is David’s brother… So won’t be asking that question then!

I did a few sketch notes.

What do the UK’s places want from their universities?

How do you solve a problem like HE regulation?

What might the future of education technology hold?

Not as many as I might do at other conferences, as the format of some of the sessions, didn’t lend themselves to sketching.

There was a couple of good blog posts on the WonkHE website about the event.

I had to spend some time reviewing and collating materials, and writing briefing note and bullet points for a panel session at HEAnet on Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of the Modern Campus. As the considered expert on the intelligent campus, I often get asked to provide a perspective on the future of the university campus.

It is the intelligent campus that I will be speaking about, next week at Learning Places Scotland 2023 in Glasgow. 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 had to plan in a call to discuss the presentation.

video recording
Image by Pexels from Pixabay

On Monday before heading off to London, I had a great discussion with colleagues in the office about broadcast and recording capabilities within our Bristol office. The reality is that though I would love to have a proper TV studio in the office I really need to plan and deliver some initial content first, to provide some foundations to a proof of concept.

There was a discussion on the possible future of the office, as in redesigning the space to reflect the current (hybrid) working practices. So more collaborative spaces, more occasional spaces, more spaces for online conversations and meetings, and so on…

Continued doing more work on the planning, reflection, and researching concept of optimisation of operations and data.

I had a great meeting with Josie Fraser discussing digital skills and digitisation.

We had some great old person digital transformation reminiscing.

Had a pre-meeting for Jisc OfS meeting next week. As a result I have some preparation to do.

I did miss using the Twitter at the conference this week, though I did post to Bluesky and Threads, it wasn’t quite the same, and very little engagement. I did look at the Twitter and there were some posts, so I do think even if I had engaged, there wouldn’t have been a serious amount of traction and discussion.

SURFing a report – Weeknote #226 – 30th June 2023

I spent most of the week in our Bristol office. I had my regular monthly catch-up with my line manager.

Booked myself onto the WonkHE Festival of Higher Education which is taking place in November.

Started working on a presentation for a forthcoming event that is taking place later in July.

Reviewed a report on HE challenges, well actually just reviewed a section about some work I had done.

Had a meeting with Sarah Dunne on their work on AI and Libraries.

Said goodbye to Andy McGregor, who is leaving Jisc. I worked closely with Andy on the Intelligent Campus.

Spent time going through usage of our Dovetail licences, checking who still needed a licence and who didn’t.

Read through the Trend Report Future Campus from SURF.

What might the physical and virtual campus of vocational education and higher education look like in 2040? That is the central question of the SURF project ‘Future Campus’. The focus is on the Netherlands, specifically education (research is out of scope). This project brings together teachers, students, and experts at the national level who are involved in campus development from various perspectives. In collaboration with them, SURF is working towards different future scenarios, which are expected to be presented by the end of 2023.

Friday I went to Gloucester to shoot some video for a presentation I am doing at ALT-C in September.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Exploitation of the Intelligent Library – Weeknote #225 – 23rd June 2023

It was a really hot week this week again, weather wise again.

For the third week in a row, I was back in London. I also went to the Bristol office for a couple of days as well.

This time I was in London for the Intelligent Library session I was running. It was nice to focus in a specific use case for the Intelligent Campus looking at the use of data in the library.  This workshop demonstrated that there is a real demand for support and help in this space. There are opportunities for more advanced Proof of Concepts, advice and guidance, vision and inspiration, and potential consultancy and training opportunities.

What was shown of value was the range of use cases for stimulating discussion and debate. We have published use cases for the intelligent campus; however, we never published the intelligent library use cases. I did create a series of use cases for various conference sessions I delivered. Something for next year, the key question is where? Also demand for a toolkit to support the use of use cases for both areas.

Working through notes and output captures across the various workshops over the last few weeks. The one consistent across these workshops (internal and external) was that the technical hurdles to the smart or intelligent campus (or library) are relatively simple and easy to deliver on. The challenge is the “so what”. How do institutions exploit the narrative the data is telling them. How does data informed decision making actually work in practice. Something to reflect and think about.

Another area of future work is the intelligent learning space.

Really liked these Ai generated QR Codes (that actually work).

I visited our Harwell office as I returned from London. I often visit our other offices to work, partly for the change in routine, but also to meet other staff and be available for conversations about our HE strategy work.

Spent time developing and working on a new DPS document for student experience, to enable Jisc to utilise external expertise in our work.

Continued my research and analysis on personalisation.

Spent time working through my notes and image captures across the intelligent campus, intelligent library, and smart campus events and inputting them into our research analysis tool Dovetail.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Reviewing the use cases – Weeknote #208 – 24th February 2023

Balmoral ship moored next to the MShed in Bristol

I had a quiet week in terms of meetings and events, but did go to the Bristol office for three days this week.

Monday was spent catching up with email and Teams messages from last week when I was mainly on leave. Also on Monday was our monthly leadership meeting.

Jisc offices in Portwall Lane, Bristol.

I was failing miserably to use the campaigns function of Salesforce for one of my community groups as I don’t have the necessary profile to do specific actions in relation to the campaign function. Escalated the problem, but the person I need to chat with, is on leave this week.

I went through my research and notes for potential Intelligent Campus Member Stories for our communication team to accompany the publication of the Guide to the Intelligent Campus.

As well as updating the Guide to the Intelligent Campus, we have also updated the use cases, which were on the project blog. I spent some time mapping these to the guide, so that the use cases, which will be in PDF format can be linked to from the guide. Started thinking about the next generation of use cases, especially in the light of AI tools such as ChatGPT.

Jisc offices in Portwall Lane, Bristol.

Had a meeting with the Professional Development Manager at UCISA on various ideas, submissions, and activities.

Invited by  IGPP Institute of Government & Public Policy and University of East London to talk at their event on  Advancing Blended Learning in Higher Education.

cranes

Undertook some research and development time on personalisation and intelligent campus.

Published some blog posts on the Intelligent Campus

Time for a story

Time for a different story

Fireside chat: Building the future intelligent campus

Started planning the next of the Intelligent Campus community events.

If you are working in the area of the intelligent campus and have an interest in the work being undertaken in this space, we would like to invite you to attend the next in our series of community events. This community of practice gives people a chance to network, share practice and hear what various institutions are doing. You will have the opportunity to discover more about intelligent campus projects and Jisc’s work in this space.

I use to run these when I was project manager for the Intelligent Campus project, then they were taken over by a colleague, before being run by RUGIT for a while. However, since the lead person there left the sector, and the Intelligent Campus is a key part of our HE strategy, I have decided to start running the community events again.

It will take place in London at the Jisc offices on the 24th May 2023.

Planning the  Intelligent Library community event for the 21st June 2023.

library
Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

The DfE HE sector emergency planning liaison group meeting on Friday was cancelled. However, I did some preparation work for the meeting, and have been asked to provide current Jisc guidance for senior leaders on cyber-attacks.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Is this appropriate? – Weeknote #205 – 3rd February 2023

Spent a lot of time this week reading, digesting, reviewing, and reflecting. Also attended a few meetings and spent time having conversations on Teams.

On Tuesday I went to our Bristol office. The train was delayed, so I started attending a meeting on my phone, which I find weird, but it worked.

Attended an internal meeting about Microsoft – Mixed Reality (MR) and Metaverse. There is some excitement around the Metaverse. As I said last week  industry perspectives on the metaverse and immersive platforms are varied. Meta, Google are all laying off technical staff in this space, Apple have delayed their AR/VR product again. Lots of confusion between immersive games and the Metaverse. Apart from some niche areas (such as education) what is the unique selling point of the metaverse? As Paul Bailey in a recent blog post said, the “effective” metaverse is probably decades away…

Had an interesting discussion about the Office for Students and its future. There is criticism that they have been receiving from members and member organisations (such as GuildHE and the Russell Group). Labour (who are likely to win the 2024 election) have been quiet on HE and the OfS. Also found and read this  Can Labour de-Commodify Higher Education? It has a Minor Problem.

The education system in Britain is in the mud. That is scarcely news. But would Labour have the courage and values needed to revive it? The trouble they would have if they win the next General Election is due partly to their Party’s legacy and partly to a personal problem.

Attended Monthly sector strategy leads meeting and discussion. We had an interesting discussion on scenario planning. Thinking about a workshop on this. Continue reading Is this appropriate? – Weeknote #205 – 3rd February 2023