Tag Archives: intelligent campus

weeknotes

Soaking – Weeknote #249 – 8th December 2023

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The week started off with rain, and the some more rain. I worked mainly in Bristol this week, but also took some leave. On Monday I headed off to our Bristol office, in the rain. There were flooded roads and then some.

Had a meeting about a potential platform for the intelligent campus elevation tool I have been scoping. We also discussed the potential of the platform for a learning spaces toolkit as well. I have some meetings next week about this idea as well. One of the key areas is ensuring it is matched to the Higher Education Reference Model (HERM), so have been looking at the HERM with an intelligent campus lens.

Though I have been working on the audio and video for the Leadership Masterclass – Operationalising your Strategic Vision recording, however I have had a cough which has made this challenging.

I had a few UCU meetings this week, I am on our UCU committee.

weeknotes

Time for breakfast – Weeknote #247 – 24th November 2023

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No (real) travelling this week, as I spent much of the week working out of our Bristol office, which on some days was really quite busy.

On Tuesday I did a masterclass, Operationalising your Strategic Vision for colleagues at Jisc.

In this session we will go through one possible process of operationalising a strategic vision. We will review what the current thinking is on vision and strategy and how this applies to organisations, teams, and individuals. We will start to explore how you can bring in the relevant stakeholders and teams to drive success.  We will look at how to plan to build an effective operational responsive plan that will help to achieve your strategic vision. There will be an introduction to the strategic lens and how it can be used to ensure coherency across a business.

A lot of the talk was based on the following blog post Why does no one care about my digital strategy? As well as this briefing paper that Lawrie Phipps and myself wrote back in 2018, Delivering digital change: strategy, practice and process. I also used a lot of thinking from this book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. I also worked in this blog post on breakfast.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is a famous quote from management consultant and writer Peter Drucker. 

It seemed to go well, and I got a lot of positive feedback. So much so we think we might run it again early next year.

I watched the UCISA Enterprise Architecture: a culture, not a project recording from last week. Well I say I watched, what I actually did was go for a walk and listen to it. I found it really interesting and relevant to some work I am doing at Jisc.

Had a meeting with SURF about the smart campus landscape. Range of similar and interesting activities happening in Netherlands in the smart campus space.

Undertook some training in our revamped finance system.

Still not using the Twitter. I will admit to visiting the site now and again, but I am glad I left. Still not fully engaged with Threads and Bluesky.

conference

Attending Learning Places Scotland 2023

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Last  week I was up in Scotland in a rather damp (and cold) Glasgow for Learning Places Scotland 2023.

I had attended Learning Places Scotland 2022 and had delivered back then a talk entitled How will the growth in online learning shape the future design of learning spaces and our campuses?

This year I had submitted a talk, 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.

This is a variation of a talk I have given many times before on what we understand by the term intelligent campus. How you can evolve your estate from the non-smart or dumb campus, the smart campus, through to what turns your smart campus to an intelligent campus.

It also covered some of the challenges and issues that can arise when building an intelligent campus. This included data challenges, proprietary systems which are closed to data inputs and outputs, silo working, data challenges, ethics, privacy, legal, data literacy, and other issues.

We had some interesting questions after my presentation alongside my co-presenters.

I attended a range of other sessions as well. This event covers all of Scottish education from primary to university. There is a real focus on schools, but still there is something that other sectors can learn from the school sector, even if it is just benchmarking where your learning spaces are.

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.

twitter, weeknotes

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.

assessment, weeknotes

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

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

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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.

stuff

Time for another story

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The sun is setting over a sports arena. In the background is some stadium covered tiered seating. In the foreground are some trees and a wire fence.
Image by 小亭 江 from Pixabay

In the world of the intelligent campus I wrote a student story to illustrate and add a personal touch of what the intelligent campus could mean for the student experience.

The bus arrived at the campus and Leda got off, she checked her app and started to walk to her first lecture. As she passed one of the campus coffee shops she was sent a notification that three of her friends from the course were in there, so she checked the time, she had the time, popped in and found her friends. Her app let her know that she had enough loyalty points for a free coffee, well why not, Leda thought to herself. She could check if there were any additional resources for the lectures today.

Dom Pates did a similar thing using ChatGPT to write a story.

As the day wore on, Marcel attended a variety of classes and workshops, each designed to challenge and inspire him. The smart campus was constantly adapting to his preferences and needs, and he felt like he was learning more in a day than he had in a week at his old university.

I have recently been using Bard for various things, so I thought I would get it to write me a story, using the same prompt that Dom used.

Write a short story in the style of speculative fiction about a university student who spends a day on a smart or intelligent campus some time in the future. Ensure that the campus is designed to address issues around sustainability and data privacy, yet is responsive to the student in a personalised (but not creepy) way. Ensure that the student is studying a course for a future-focused job, and that the campus is actually a desirable and ethically-designed environment. Make the short story go through different stages of the day, and comes to approximately 1,500 words in total. Include an ethical quandary that the central character faces during the course of their day.

This was the result.

The year is 2042. University student Anya wakes up in her dorm room, which is located in a smart campus that is designed to address issues around sustainability and data privacy. The campus uses solar panels to generate electricity, and it has a rainwater collection system that provides water for irrigation and flushing toilets. The campus also has a sophisticated data privacy system that protects students’ personal information.

Anya gets out of bed and walks over to her desk. Her computer screen lights up as she approaches, and a personalized greeting appears. The computer knows Anya’s name, her major, and her class schedule. It also knows her preferences for learning style and study environment.

Anya opens her textbook and starts reading. The computer automatically highlights the important passages and provides links to additional resources. Anya can also ask the computer questions about the material, and the computer will provide answers or generate practice problems.

After a few hours of studying, Anya takes a break. She walks over to the window and looks out at the campus. The buildings are all connected by a network of walkways and bike paths. There are solar-powered charging stations for electric vehicles, and there are even a few self-driving cars that students can use to get around.

Anya decides to go for a walk. She walks through the quad, which is filled with students studying, chatting, and playing games. She walks past the library, the student union, and the gym. She even stops by the campus coffee shop for a cup of coffee.

As Anya walks, she thinks about her future. She is studying to be a data scientist, and she knows that she will be working with a lot of personal data. She is concerned about the ethical implications of her work, and she wants to make sure that she uses data in a responsible way.

Anya arrives at her next class, which is on artificial intelligence. The professor is talking about the potential for AI to be used for good or evil. Anya thinks about the ethical quandary she is facing, and she wonders how she will use her skills to make a positive impact on the world.

After class, Anya goes back to her dorm room. She logs onto her computer and starts working on a project for her data science class. She is using a dataset of social media posts to track the spread of misinformation. She wants to find out how to identify and counter misinformation before it can cause harm.

Anya works on her project for several hours. She is exhausted, but she is also excited about the potential of her work. She knows that she is making a difference, and she is confident that she is using her skills in a way that is ethical and responsible.

Anya goes to bed, knowing that she has made a good use of her day. She is confident that she is on the right track to a future-focused job that will allow her to use her skills to make a positive impact on the world.

I think this is an interesting interpretation of the prompt. I also think that much of what is mentioned or discussed is already here, or will be here in the next five years. What will the campus of 2042 look like, I think it will be very different to this story.

weeknotes

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

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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.

weeknotes

The Smarter Campus – Weeknote #224 – 16th June 2023

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

I had my Senior Education and Student Experience Group meeting. Originally, I planned to have the meeting in Scotland, but in the end we had an online meeting.

Was in London for park of the week, where I attended Cisco and PTS The Smarter Campus event in Chancery Lane.

This event 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.

Went through my risks in the risk register and assessed them in light of recent changes.

I went through and updated and finalised my ALT-C submission.

Attended a few finance meetings.

Spent time planning and organising the Intelligent Library community event, which is now full, for next week, it’s taking place in London.

My top tweet this week was this one.