Benefits Realisation

I recently attended this seminar which is a good example of wider benefits realisation, and clearly demonstrates the success of wider engagement.

TAG HEA Evidence-based Practice Seminar – March 4, 2010

The seminar was funded under the HEA Seminar series[1] and considered issues of student retention and motivating student learning in relation to the TAG[2] Project at the University of Central Lancashire. 

The seminar was attended by around 15 people including interested participants from University of Cumbria, Manchester Metropolitan University, The Open University, Salford University and University of Central Lancashire.

Richard Brawn, senior advisor at the HEA, provided a welcome, highlighted the other forthcoming seminars running from Feb to June 2010 around Assessment and Feedback, Employability and Employee Learning,  and Professional Learning and Teaching Practice. 

Personalisation of the Learner Experience

John O’Donoghue set the scene with a presentation on Personalisation of the Learner Experience (web ref to podcast). He focused on how personalising the environment for learners can improve retention through motivating learners. The presentation explored the tools and techniques required to change institutional culture and strategies to encourage a change towards personalisation of the learning experience.  He explored different motivations for the personalisation of learning from government policy to pedagogical benefits. A reference provided from Chris Yapp (2006) stating that learning is a personal experience; and the technology is used to achieve this at scale provided a useful reminder of  how Higher Education has been adjusting the increase in student numbers over the past 20+ years and technology has been used in an attempt to maintain the personal learning experience.

John’s presentation considered the different factors that needed to be considered, balancing faculty, teacher and student centred requirements. He highlighted the need for changes to technology, the organisation and culture (people), and recognised that technology can be the easiest of these to implement.

Technology supported personalised learning can provide a shift in the learning paradigm from institutional focussed to learner focussed, removing the boundaries of traditional learning or maybe returning us to a more personal learning experience that can be delivered to a larger cohort.

The seminar discussed the need to change culture to adopt new processes and systems, for example introducing technologies.

 The Alternative Guide to UCLAN

John O’Donoghue was followed by a presentation and demonstration of The Alternative Guide to UCLAN by Lucy Warman, exploring retention issues in the institution. TAG focussed on the student application process, through induction and the first 6 months at University.

TAG identified several issues that relate to supporting learners –

• Manage life
• Learn to learn
• Find the way
• Making friends

 SLOs (student liaison officers) at UCLAN  undertook an initial review and concluded that University web sites were marketing related and provided poor information for supporting students coming to UCLAN.

 So TAG was developed to support student life at University. The site involves students producing content for TAG and sharing their experiences,  for example  videos of interviews with students on why they should pick a course. Student participation has been critical to content development and has been integrated with student assignments, employed placement students and provided incentives for students to contribute materials.

 These learner generated resources and materials have made TAG an integrated and sustainable resource at UCLAN.  The project has also developed institutional policy around the positioning of TAG at UCLAN as a University owned and managed resource that links to other services including the Students’ Union.  However, more of a challenge has been to engage staff and to promote TAG externally, for example, raising awareness via UCAS, schools, colleges and other recruitment routes.

UCLAN TAG are looking to use mentors to support social networks, building on the success of the Hello Project (Leicester College) and DevelopMe Project (University of Bradford) who have been using student mentors to support learners through transition..

 TAG provides an opportunity to improve retention through support and engaging learners pre entry, but also through their courses of study in the  generation of new resources. The implementation of TAG within an institution can provide a focus for student retention policies that may already be in place but are currently not being implemented.

 TAG is not so much about the content as about the approach the TAG team have used at UCLAN to develop the materials and how this has been integrated into institutional practice. The TAG team are producing a guide for institutions which will provide more information.

 Representatives at the seminar expressed a keen interest in working with TAG to develop similar resources at their institutions.

 It was suggested that a reserved domain name could exist i.e. http:// tag.< institution>.ac.uk  being reserved for “The Alternative Guide” for a university  and college in the UK.

 Seminar Discussion

 The  group highlighted issues around student retention and considered how these could be supported by TAG. The issues included:

•  Course Choice
• Finance
• Managing expectations
• Experiences of assessment from school/FE
• Coping with levels of independence
• Students used to being able to re-sit exams if fail
• Personal issues/home sickness/child care, etc.
• International students – language skills, time to undertake tasks, etc.
• Lack of peer support network (making friends through social networks)

 The following barriers to introducing TAG into an institution were discussed

•  ‘Not invented here’ syndrome for content. The TAG content is being made freely available, but some institutions felt that they would want to develop their own. This highlights the importance of process over product for TAG
• Student voice is important  and TAG will allow student voice to be heard. However, UCLAN has decided to maintain ownership rather than hand over to students
• Engaging students in developing TAG is crucial to its success and the approaches used at UCLAN may not be as easy to implement at other institutions
• TAG won’t fix the problem but will help the institution engage with the issues
• The need for a champion at a high strategic level within the institution, who can engage with senior management.
• Funding; developing TAG needs allocation of staffing to support this, although it was felt that existing staffing could be used and once in place  the student-generated materials would make it cost effective. Institutions need to also consider the potential benefits in improving retention
• Ownership of TAG within the institution –an institutional policy and agreement is needed
• Timing – numbers and evidence would be helpful to convince senior managers

 Seminar representatives then worked to develop actions plans to make TAG work in their institution and to feedback to the TAG team their requirements and how TAG could support them.

 Conclusion

 The seminar provided a useful opportunity for interested institutions to learn about the TAG project and consider the benefits of adopting a similar approach within their own institutions. From discussions with the seminar participants there are several institutions that are prepared to develop an alternative guide for their own institution and are interested in working with the team from UCLAN and learning from their approach and experience.

 The future TAG project activities under Benefits Realisation should provide an opportunity to support these interested institutions and also to provide the necessary information and evidence for institutions to  be able to take this forward on their own.

 The benefits of external evidence were discussed in the seminar and it would be useful to have some tangible evidence of costs and retention from TAG. It was also noted that as well as the team, JISC and the HEA could provide an advocate role in working senior managers on other institutions.

 The TAG team are also undertaking a study on supporting international students and students from ethnic backgrounds and considering the potential for support at other transition points i.e. research students.

 Further information on the seminar outcomes can be found at http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/services/lis/tag/tag_hea_seminar.php

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[1] HEA Evidence-based Practice Seminar Series http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/teachingandlearning/alldisplay?type=resources&newid=events/seminar_series_2010_dates_and_host_institutions&site=york

[2] JISC funded project The Alternative Guide  to  UCLAN http://www.taguclan.org.uk/

We are pleased to have final agreement to fund five projects submitted in December before the funding freeze.

BR1c-01 The ASSET Project, University of Reading, will be working with several institutions and existing networks around using technology to provide better feedback to learners. They aim to engage senior learning and teaching staff within several institutions through a series of workshops and seminars to share the benefits of the ASSET project and the experience of several other institutions, leading to further take-up. The project will produce web based resources which will be made available to other institutions.

BR1c-02 The iBorrow Project, Canterbury Christ Church University, will consult with several institutions and agencies such as UCISA to develop a business-case evaluation on the value-for-money of the use of netbook computer loans against competing technologies. The project will work with Directors of Information Services to review the approach and produce resources to support other institutions.

BR1c-03/04 The EREWHON project, University of Oxford, will support take-up of the mobile portal as developed in the EREWHON project and implement it to the same service level at Oxford Brookes University. The project will also refine and package the code base for the mobile portal framework so that it can be used freely by other institutions.

BR1c-05 The TAG Project, University of Central Lancashire, will work with several institutions to explore how social networking, the internet, mobile technology, etc. (i.e. TAG) can support international students and students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and to develop and improve content and resources to be used on sites such as TAG to support these groups of students.

Further details will be able on the Phase1c Projects in the projects database or from the individual projects. Please contact me (paul@jisc-ssbr.net) if you want any further information.

Many of you will be aware that future funding under the JISC Capital Funding programmes has been frozen, for further details see

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2010/01/funding.aspx

This is likely to include any further benefits realisation funding under the Institutional Innovations programme. Funding for existing benefits realisation projects is not affected as far as we know.

Until we have more information we will not be accepting any more proposals for benefits realisation funding.

If you have any questions relating the JISC funding postponement please contact Lawrie Phipps (l.phipps@jisc.ac.uk) who is happy to discuss any project issues.

We will still be happy to discuss ideas for how you can realise the benefits of your projects through existing networks and supported services.

I have been asked to clarify who can be included as partner institutions within BR projects. I refer back to the original Circular for the programme which stated elibiliity for funding as: 

“Higher Education (HE) Institutions funded by HEFCE or HEFCW.  FE institutions in England that teach HE to more than 400 FTEs are also eligible to bid provided proposals demonstrate work that supports the HE in FE agenda.”

Other partners such as employers, professional bodies, JISC services, stakeholder bodies, vendors etc., institutions in Scotland or Northern Ireland, colleges who don’t meet the avove criteria are permitted but the beneficiaries should be preferably be within the eligibiliy category defined above.

Please do contact me if you need to check, as there may be a strong rationale for working with a particular partner who can assist us to bring benefits to thr wider sector.

 

The TAG benefits realisation project is about to get started and will be building a resource to support other institutions to develop student led Alternative Guides. The project will run until May 2010, and be led by Lucy Warman from UCLAN.

The resource called “GetTAGged” that will support institutions to embed the resources and processes of the development of TAG and methods of addressing retention into their institution.  It will include case studies of other institutions already producing similar guides.  A national workshop will be held to promote the resource and explore other opportunities for institutional participation.

A great strength of the TAG approach (See guide at http://www.taguclan.org.uk/) in supporting learner retention and motivation is that not only is an institutional guide aimed at students, but students produce most of the content as part of their existing courses.

Institutions will be invited to pilot the idea of producing an Alternative Guide of their own, supported by GetTAGged and the TAG project team members.  If you are interested please contact Lucy or me (Paul Bailey) and we can explore how we can facilitate your participation further.

We are interested in collating resources and ideas how technology is being used to support student retention and motivate learning, as well as student led approaches to creating resources and tools, that could become part of larger resource around this topic. See TAG Assembly on Retention 9 Dec 2009 http://www.uclan.ac.uk/health/research/tag/retention_show_tell.php

 

 

 

EdShare workshop:

Traditional Educational Repositories vs. Web 2.0 Resource Sharing

University of Southampton, 4 November 2009

 

Traditional repositories vs. Web 2.0 Resource Sharing
The University of Southampton’s JISC-funded EdSpace Project organised a workshop on Wednesday 4 November, 2009, entitled “Traditional repositories vs. Web 2.0 Resource Sharing”.  The event was both stimulating and informative and will help us to design a second Assembly which we will be organising for early 2010.  Professor Hugh Davis welcomed us all to the workshop, which started at 10:30.

 

Moving Traditional Learning and Teaching Repositories to Web 2.0
First on the agenda was Dave Millard’s presentation “Moving Traditional Learning and Teaching Repositories to Web 2.0″ Dave gave us some useful insights into the issues that we have explored in the EdSpace and Faroes Projects, while building EdShare and the LanguageBox here at Southampton.  His talk addressed the questions: What have we learned about the features of a share? (at Southampton, we have dispensed with the word “repository” and use “share” instead)  and what do we need to do to take things forward? Read the rest of this entry »

The final invitation for ideas for benefits realisation funding has been issued today. Full details are available from http://br.inin.jisc-ssbr.net/phase-1c/.

The inivitation has rolling monthly deadlines, up to June 2010. The funding must be allocated by the end of June and if possble much earlier so get you ideas in before the money runs out (which it will).

We are particularlly interested in ideas that will link into the Building Capacity programme,  what we previously called “project fed” or Phase 2 BR. (see http://br.inin.jisc-ssbr.net/2009/09/18/project-fed-activities/) that can support other institutions to address strategic issues and requirements supported by the outcomes of your projects. We would expect the benefits to be mutual, with our institution gaining new knowledge as a result of working with other institutions. This was always the aim of the institiutional innovation programme, so share the expertise gained from the projects with the wider sector. Now is the time to try and realise the benefits from what you are learning and acheiving.

I’d like to encourage benefits realisation projects that test out what you have achieved in your project in another institution. This is one step in making what you have usable by other institutions and you will also get valuable feedback and ideas on what you have done. It is a chance to develop better guidance documentation and also road test your outcomes, gather case studies and user feedback.

Several projects are already doing this as part of their project or with BR funding. Just find at least one other institution who is interested in trying out what you have been doing. Then submit a BR proposal for around £15k to let them try it out in their own institution. For example the ASSET project at the University of Reading is being implemented at the University of Plymouth as a benefits realisation project for £15k.

Alternatively there may be a project doing something that compliments your project and you’d like to try what they have been doing in your own institution. We’d encourage you to get together and submit an idea for funding.

I look forward to receiving your ideas.

As further benefits realisation projects get under way I thought it would be useful to share some approaches being used by existing projects, which you may wish to adopt.

Nearly all the projects involve some synthesis and packaging of materials into usable resources for other institutions. These are usually made available via a website or used to support capacity building activities.

As the main goal of benefits realisation activity is to promote take-up by other institutions, the focus is how to support several institutions.

Consultancy Model
The consultancy model has two pre-requisites, existing expertise and capacity in the project team to support other institutions and several institutions who are interested to take-up the project or theme ideas. Institutions are then offered 2-3 days of individual support visits to assist them in piloting the project outcomes in their own institution. An output for the BR project is usually a set of case study exemplars based on the individual institutional experiences. This approach has been used successfully by the Location Independent Working project.

Community Model
This model allows a much larger number of institutions to be engaged, as the approach involves engaging communities of institutions, providing workshops and support at a distance. Existing networks such as subject centres or JISC Services provide established processes for communication activities and routes to engage institutions. You can establish new community of institutions, but you need several interested institutions to get this going. The STEEPLE project has used this approach.

I will be writing some case studies in the next week on existing projects and sharing examples of different approaches to benefits realisation with you in the future.

We have mentioned a phase 2 of benefits realisation activity that would be “project fed” rather than “project led”, which would involve other institutions taking and using outcomes from the Institutional Innovation projects to address issues of their own.

There has been some discussion over the summer on how this might work. Lawrie Phipps has now written a blog message on http://lawrie.jiscinvolve.org/2009/09/17/introducing-the-building-capacity-programme/ which describes an approach to be used as a part of the next phase of realising benefits. It is called “Building Capabilities”, and aims to work with a network of senior managers to sponsor an institutional change programme based on all the good work coming out of your projects.

The basis of this will be the quality outcomes from your projects, available in appropriate formats as guidance material or even professional expertise that can inform innovation in other institutions. We will be using the next set of BR projects to help you to select what you can offer to other institutions through your projects and additionally funded activities, and will be speaking with most of you over the next few months.