Tag Archives: widening participation

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Threads – Weeknote #186 – 23rd September 2022

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A shorter week this week down the bank holiday at the start of the week.

Attended a Sector Agency Widening Participation and Data Working Groups Workshop. This was an in-person workshop in Cheltenham. This was a really engaging workshop with UCAS, HESA, and Advance HE. QAA were unable to attend. We looked at the student journey and where the different organisations are working in the widening participation space. As you might expect UCAS are focussed on the pre-application and application stages of the student journey. Whereas Jisc, HESA and Advance HE are working in the “at university” stage. Agreed we would put proposals to the Heads of Sector Agency for collaboration going forward. In addition, we may want to reflect on the widening participation and inclusion agenda on the products and services we provide for the sector.

One of the interesting discussions was on the deficit model that many universities and organisations use when it comes to the widening participation agenda. So, services, systems, and processes are designed for the “standard” student and then things are added to widen participation. The result is often those students who are in need of support are required to find or register for that support. A more inclusive approach to widening participation, is by ensuring services, systems, and processes are designed to be inclusive from the design stage.

We had a tour of the UCAS Building, it was interesting to see how UCAS had already changed their offices to reflect their hybrid mode of working with new spaces.

Also, interesting to see that they have built a fully functioning TV studio for the creation of video content and more engaging and professional live streaming content.

Over the last few months, I have been working on an idea that Jisc should have a TV studio, now seeing this, I think we should accelerate this idea. Was interesting to see an organisation that had done this.

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I enjoyed this article on Wonkhe: Imagined universities and blank spaces for dreams.

Eileen Pollard and Stephanie Aldred ask if “sticky campus” directives are based on collective conceptions of campus communities that no longer exist? University tactics for keeping students stuck range from threats, surveillance, and persuasion, to outright bribery because (as we explain to both them and ourselves) students who come to class and interact with us and their peers get higher marks.

I like how the article says that the point of university is not to be in a physical space, but a place where we can realise our dreams, be that a physical space or an online space. I was reminded of how work is not somewhere we go, but something we do by Lawrie.

The web affords us new ways of working, new opportunities to connect.  It furthermore allows for a richer experience of work and life, rather than forcing us to segregate our time from ourselves via physical location, allowing us to choose when and where we are most productive, and how to conserve our face to face energy for those times that truly require it.

In another story on working, the BBC reported how firms in four-day week trial have decided to make it permanent.

Many UK firms taking part in a four-day working week trial have said they will keep it in place after the pilot ends. More than 70 firms are taking part in the scheme where employees get 100% pay for 80% of their normal hours worked. At the halfway point in a six-month trial, data shows that productivity has been maintained or improved at the majority of firms.

I think this practice could be tricky, politically, in the education world, but certainly something to keep an eye on.

Spent some time planning a presentation I am giving next week in London, looking at learning analytics and student support.

This week 38 years ago, The BBC broadcast Threads, a documentary drama about a nuclear attack on the UK, with a focus on Sheffield.

I remember watching it at the time, and was scared, chilled and having a feeling of total helplessness in the face of, what the time, felt like something that could quite easily happen. Though that threat is still here, it did feel in the 1990s and 2000s that it wasn’t so imminent or probable.

This week, not so much.

The EU must take Vladimir Putin’s threats he could use nuclear weapons in the conflict in Ukraine seriously, the bloc’s foreign policy chief has said.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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Doing the Digifest – Weeknote #158 – 11th March 2022

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Well a busy week with travel, an in-person conference and some forward planning and road mapping.

Spent much of the week reflecting on digital transformation. What do we mean by it? What does it look like? Is it a something that happens, you transform, or is it something that continues over time?

Monday I was in Birmingham in preparation for Jisc’s Digifest. I had a fair few online meetings on Monday so had travelled up the night before. Didn’t really want to have long online calls from the services on the M5, or in a hotel foyer. Maybe in a coffee shop, but in the end decided a hotel room was better than all of those.

Tuesday was day one of Digifest 2022.

Two years ago I attended Digifest 2020 on what was the eve of lockdown. There was back then a murmuring that with the imminent restrictions that digital and online would play a huge part in supporting education. I don’t think we really recognised how hard it was going to be.

As I walked around Digifest 2022 it didn’t really feel that it had been only two years since the last time we had done it in in-person. We know that the pandemic isn’t over by any means, but not only has so much happened, but we also learnt many things as well.

This wasn’t my first in-person event since the lockdown, I had attended a Wonkhe event a few weeks ago. However it did feel quite surreal. I have written up my reflections on day one on another post.

Wednesday was the second day of Digifest, again I have written this up as well.

For me I did notice that there was a lot less usage of Twitter over the event, I don’t know if this is because it was less used during online events that we’ve forgotten how useful a back channel can be, or just a general decline in the use of Twitter because of the noise.

After the conference I travelled down to London.

There was a bit of a Twitter discussion about digital transformation following this tweet.

It got me thinking that we don’t really have a consensus on what digital transformation actually is and what it looks like.

I have spoken about this in meetings and events but I am now planning some blog posts on my thoughts.

Jisc does have the following guide on digital transformation. This is derived from the DX work of Educause.

I have some concerns about the linear nature of the definition, as though if you undertake digitisation, then digitalisation, you will then be able to deliver digital transformation. There is much more to the Educase work on transformation, but sometimes people focus on the simplistic interpretations that you see in a diagram.

I also asked on the Twitter:

Do you think transformation is something that has a result (we’ve been transformed) or do you see it as an evolving continuing process (we are transforming and continue to transform)?

There were mixed responses, some thought it was incremental, some thought it was a continual process, few thought thought of it as some kind of “big bang” transformation.

I think it can be incremental. But you still need some kind of vision or end game. Otherwise you may find you have changed but not transformed.

Another perspective is that you make incremental steps, but the full effect or possibilities isn’t immediately apparent. But at some point in the future it suddenly all makes sense.

I need to do some more thinking, research and reflection on this topic. One thing that does come immediately to mind, there is quite a bit out there on digital transformation, does this help, or what kind of help do universities need to undertake digital transformation.

I went to the Jisc office on Thursday and though there were people there it was quite quiet. When I went out for lunch it was a different matter. I’ve not seen London this busy since March 2020. There were so many people, and queues in all my favourite places for lunch.

I had a multi agency meeting on widening participation which was informative, interesting and useful.

Friday I was also in the Jisc office and spent time road mapping

My top tweet this week was this one.

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Things are going to be different – Weeknote #60 – 24th April 2020

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Having moved down into assessment over the last few weeks, I am now looking at teaching online and student wellbeing (and engagement).

We know that the move to teaching online was very much done quickly and rapidly, with little time for planning. Platforms needed to be scaled up to widespread use and most academics moved to translate their existing practice into remote delivery. This wasn’t online teaching, this was teaching delivered remotely during a time of crisis.

The Easter break gave a bit of breathing room, but even then there wasn’t much time for planning and preparation, so even now much of the teaching will be a response to the lockdown rather than  a well thought out planned online course.

Thinking further ahead though, with the potential restrictions continuing, institutions will need to plan a responsive curriculum model that takes into account possible lockdown, restrictions, as well as some kind of normality.

I was involved in a meeting discussing the content needs of Further Education, though my role is Higher Education, I am working on some responses to Covid-19 and content for teachers is one of those areas. What content do teachers need? Do they in fact need good online content? Who will provide that content? How will do the quality assurance? Do we even need quality assurance? And where does this content live? Continue reading Things are going to be different – Weeknote #60 – 24th April 2020 →