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Mediating Boundaries May 21, 2010

Posted by Andrew Stewart in : BCE, Collaborative Tools, Event , 1 comment so far

London College of Communication played host to a lively and interactive one-day conference (12th May 2010) offering 100 delegates from both Further and Higher Education (FE/HE) a chance to examine the theoretical and practical composition of Communities of Practice (CoP).  With a focus on Business and Community Engagement (BCE) and the way in which FE/HE staff traverse the online landscape to engage community and business organisations alike, delegates were able to discuss the subject in depth with some of the great minds already working in this area, not to mention the fruitful conversations had by all during breakout sessions.

Etienne began the day with a keynote presentation, providing an overview of his work and current thinking around CoPs.  Some of the key statements and highlighted summaries from delegates via twitter, include:

A full overview of tweets from the day are available thanks to TweetDoc – Mediating Boundaries TweetDoc.

In the second session, Paul Lowe, Brian McCaul and Jeremy Davenport provided delegates with an overview of their practical experiences from building online networks and CoPs that focus on engagement with external organisations.  Paul Lowe spoke about Open-i, the CoP he’s developed for Photojournalists which has completely transformed learning and the tri-lateral relationship of students, academics and professionals in that field.  Brian McCaul gave a high-paced talk highlighting his thoughts on Knowledge Transfer 2.0 and what that means to the Business and Enterprise function at the University of Leeds.  Jeremy Davenport gave an update on the exciting developments of his Creative Industries Network and the way in which he is developing that community.

In the afternoon the World Café, ’popcorn’ session, debate and Q&A session provided the opportunity to further conversations on the day … but they certainly didn’t end there!  Numerous blog posts have been written by attendees, such as Forging identity and learning in Professional Practice by Rosemary McGuinness, and Apprenticeship and Transformative Learning by Lindsay Jordan.  Emails are also being received with reflections after the event. Even an audioboo has being produced!

Listen!

We thank everyone who attended for their contributions to the day!  For those who didn’t make it, we hope to summarise the event further via this blog. Our team is working frantically to pull all of the information together including video from the day and a write-up of the World Café and popcorn session. 

Overall, it was an innovative, high energy and successful conference. The venue was in some ways ‘alternative’ in comparison to many JISC events, a welcome change for some, but perhaps a shock to the system for others. One delegate noted:

“I hope you don’t get any negative feedback about the food and the rooms; I thought your catering and room choices were inspired, and I wouldn’t expect anyone there would have chosen to forfeit such an inspiring speaker in favour of fancy food and waitress service.   Everyone keeps whinging about how money is so tight in HE and we can’t do anything decent anymore; you’ve shown everyone that yes, you CAN run a truly good, catered conference on a minimal budget – and raise money for Haiti at the same time… great stuff :-) ”

BCE and organisational culture April 29, 2010

Posted by Jacquie Kelly in : BCE, Collaborative Tools, Project, Trials , add a comment

The second cluster meeting was held at the University of Huddersfield on 25 February 2010. The theme of the meeting was organisational culture and the aim was to discuss the cultures, processes and habits (within and across organisations) that the Trial Projects had come up against. There were questions raised with respect to engagement and collaboration with external partners:
• Does it require a joint approach or process review of systems and processes?
• Is there a need for new roles and responsibilities?
• What is the impact on existing services?

The Trial Projects represented at the meeting were University of Huddersfield, Knowledge House and Northumbria University. Each trail project gave a presentation on the work they had been carrying out with a discussion on their progress.

Joanne Charlesworth introduced the University of Huddersfield Trial Project and the work they have been carrying out with the West Yorkshire Lifelong Learning Network. Initially they aimed Elluminate usage at informal meetings and experienced problems with firewalls and the policies of various institutions which had the software on their restricted lists. Chris Parkin explained that a positive aspect of using Elluminate was the way that sessions can be recorded and this functionality had proved successful. Also the fact that the system can be left running informally and people can “drop in for a chat”.

Paul Cranner gave an update on the work of Knowledge House and explained that the organisation works as a brokerage service for the North East England Universities, managing the project lifecycle in its entirety. Paul explained that the Knowledge House Information System (KHIS) which is their main system and is embedded in the institutions had been recently upgraded to version two. There is now a monthly meeting of KHIS “Champions” with representation from each institution looking at issues and problems with the system. Paul explained that the KHIS Champions were predominantly Business Development staff and that at the meetings they were able to identify bugs in the system and so allow correction before any commercial involvement could be gained.

Erik Bohemia explained the aim of the Open ICT Tools project and gave some background on the work of the trial project. They are working with external partners including Motorola and Intel alongside their students and students in other countries to facilitate global collaborative learning with external business and community partners. The work being carried out enabled the Trial Project to work with the Director of IT Services and this opened doors within the department and helped facilitate the aim of smooth collaboration with external organisations but without compromising the universities systems. Prior to the Trial Project, Skype was on a separate university network but following discussions within the Trial Project Team which highlighted the problems with this approach, Skype is now available on the main University-wide wireless network.

The next and final cluster meeting will take place at Birmingham Metropolitan College on 31st March 2010 and the theme will be technical & IT barriers.

Wimba Connect 2010 Reflections April 16, 2010

Posted by Jacquie Kelly in : BCE, Collaborative Tools, Trial Project Blog, Uncategorized , add a comment

Paul Lowe, University of The Arts London, presented at 2 sessions at Wimba Connect 2010. One was about OPEN-I (his Trial Project that is part of the ‘Trialling of Collaborative Online Tools for BCE’ Project) in a joint presentation with Phil O’Hara entitled ‘reaching over walls’. In this presentation they both focused on using Wimba web conferencing to interact with dispersed communities outside of the traditional university. Phil’s project is a continuing professional development program for pharmacists across Canada, and has over 2,000 participants distributed all over the country regularly attending live sessions to maintain the necessary professional qualifications to continue to practice.

Paul commented:
‘this session went well, and there was a good synergy between the presentations, Phil focusing more on the detail of running the web conferences and mine more on the broader picture of how to build and develop a community of practice’.

There were some good questions which illustrated that whilst some people are really engaging with the concepts of communities of practice there are many who are not familiar with it at all.

For details of Paul’s 2nd session and his thoughts on the conference visit his blog at http://eflections.edublogs.org/

Phil O’Hara is Assistant Director (Teaching), Academic Computing Services at Dalhousie University. (more…)

Wimba’s strategic vision April 7, 2010

Posted by Jacquie Kelly in : Uncategorized , add a comment

Paul Lowe, University of The Arts London, has just returned from the Wimba Connect 2010 conference in Orlando. The Project supported Paul attending this conference as he presented on his Open-i Trial Project. At the Executive Track Session the discussion was about how to plan for the strategic use of technology, seeing it as an enabler of collaboration and communication rather than as an end in itself. Wimba’s CEO Carol Vallone outlined 4 main drivers that they see as key to the intelligent use of technology to support education:

1: Meeting the expectations of today’s students – students now expect universities to meet them where they are, rather than having to come into the faculty itself. They are increasingly digitally literate and want to be productive in the workforce immediately on graduation.

2: Increased demands for accountability – to the market, to students and to quality assurance.

3: Strategic use of technology – Successful collaboration means mapping out a strategy for the institution and then mapping collaborations against it, with a context based application of technology for collaboration – looking at costs, efficiency, productivity, and engagement. It’s key to map technology to specific initiatives e.g. retention rather than just randomly training staff in various software packages.

4: Repurposing and leveraging current investments – find ways to use systems already in place in new and innovative ways e.g. for administration and student support as well as for teaching and learning.

Rewiring Inclusion: Strategies, tools and techniques to promote barrier-free learning March 18, 2010

Posted by Jacquie Kelly in : Uncategorized , add a comment

Report from Stephanie Warren, e-Learning Manager, New College Swindon.

JISC TECHDIS – REWIRING INCLUSION:
STRATEGIES, TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES TO PROMOTE BARRIER-FREE LEARNING

Conference – Tuesday 8th February
and Wednesday 9th February 2010

I was expecting a speech to cover all our queries about Google Wave, Chrome OS, Docs etc. however it fell short of my expectations – he did highlight the following points: Google wave is a good interface for use with the deaf, Jaws will work on a mobile phone (certain models)

Two excellent presentations from Artur and Donal giving their experiences using technology as they are both blind. Their chosen mobile phone was the iPhone because of the excellent accessibility. No 3rd party software is required as it comes with speech recognition. Accessibility on line must take into account all aspects of accessibility. Some benefits have been shared by disabled users from silver surfers needing similar accessibility. Accessibility must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

The principles of mindmapping by Tony Buzan in his book called “Use your head” have been developed and expanded to this Mindmapping software. Examples given for use for both FE and HE coursework planning.

Both Lilian and Ron are well known in the /ulmobile technology environment and this session covered how to use a text wall (xlearn.co.uk) to gather opinion in the classroom. Ipadio is now on the iPhone – upload podcasts as they happen in real time to the web.

iPod Touch – using apps for literacy and numeracy
Acer mini pcs through the deaf team
Nintendo Wii used for data analysis
Software used:
Text help read and write gold
Numbershark
Inspiration
Wordshark
Clicker
Touch Type Read and Spell

Using cheaply priced mobile technology to engage students at this special school. The school bought small digital cameras and MP3 players to allow students to design and develop their own videos on Health and Safety etc. They used Jaws, Buzbies (screen with only 3 buttons), Flip cameras and Audacity.

Project Evaluation March 11, 2010

Posted by Andrew Stewart in : Project , add a comment

The project team are pleased to announce the appointment of Belanda Consulting to undertake two areas of work associated with evaluation.  Dr. Jacqueline (‘Jay’) Dempster will be working closely with the project team to:

Consultant Helen Beetham will be working with Jay on the overall evaluation, and providing links to other areas of JISC work where appropriate.  These are exciting times; as the trial projects are close to completion, the project team will be synthesising project outputs/outcomes and disseminating key findings across UK further and higher education.

The project team will meet with Jay and Helen in the near future to refine plans for the two evaluation activities; if any of the trial projects have any comments or questions please feel free to add them below or email the project team directly.

On a final note, we’d like to thank everyone that submitted an expression of interest to undertake the work.  The quality and diversity of bids was exceptional! The marking process was certainly difficult for us, but the outcome is sure to be beneficial for the project as a whole.

Online Communities of Practice: maintaining interest February 23, 2010

Posted by Jacquie Kelly in : BCE, Collaborative Tools, Project, Trials , add a comment

The first cluster meeting was held on 19th January 2010 and hosted by The University of The Arts London. The theme was ‘Online Communities of Practice: maintaining interest’ and 5 Trial projects were represented.

Paul Lowe introduced the topic drawing upon the work of Etienne Wenger. He made the point that Communities of Practice describe a social discipline of learning and the terminology is often misused as a buzzword. Communities of Practice focus on learning and knowledge exchange. The group discussed Wenger’s various models before relating these to their own practice.

Paul showed the group the OPEN-i site describing how they had started the community and maintain interest. It is a very active site with regular well-attended webinars which also attract high viewing numbers post-event. Practitioners (community members) include academics, industry professionals, aspiring entrants (students) & alumni – all brought together for a global network. He also runs ‘Wave Day’ each Tuesday with his students, using Google Wave for project management brainstorming. The team are currently involving the practitioners in the review of the site.

Brain McCaul, University of Leeds, gave an outline of the Leeds Innovation Network and how the Trial Project is working in a number of different areas with the premise of ‘Innovation Division of Labour’. Many different communities are being brought together allowing technology transfer officers to organise external skill sets enabling people to be employed on short term contacts for specific pieces of work/research. Leeds is working with institutions in Reading, Manchester and Liverpool, using social media to find experts and outreach work.

Chris Parkin, University of Huddersfield, provided some background to his Trial Project which is working with the West Yorkshire Lifelong Learning Network, a national network with huge hierarchy attending monthly face to face meetings resulting in a lot of time being invested. They are trialling Elluminate, working with vocational training providers and encouraging online practices to save time and money. This involves breaking down the preconceptions of Elluminate etc and identifying ways of removing barriers.

There followed a general discussion about the range of tools being used within the Project and it was suggested that this could be the topic for a blog post (this will follow shortly).

The group decided to continue the discussions online (using Google Wave) and share their ‘Top Ten Tips for generating and maintaining an online community of practice’. Some of the group had not used Google Wave before and so this was also seen as personal development.

This is the first in a series of three BCEct Cluster Meetings looking at the common themes which have emerged from reports submitted, discussions and the project blogs.

The next two cluster meetings are:
• University of Huddersfield 25th February 2010 – Theme: Culture (Institutional & External)
• Birmingham Metropolitan College 31st March 2010 – Theme: Technical & IT Barriers

Expression of Interest – Evaluation and Support January 8, 2010

Posted by Andrew Stewart in : Evaluation, Project , 1 comment so far

The Trialling of Collaborative Online Tools for Business and Community Engagement Project (BCEct Project)

The overall project aims to enhance the use and awareness of web technologies in collaborative practice undertaken by BCE practitioners across Further and Higher Education. The project is funded by the JISC BCE Programme, and runs from 1st July 2008 to 31st July 2010.

1. Evaluation (Max. Funding Available £8,000)

JISC infoNet  would like to commission an evaluation of the BCEct project following guidelines (evaluation handbook 2007) provided by JISC .  The project team expect the evaluation project to:

An overall evaluation framework exists for the BCE Programme and any successful bidder will be expected to work effectively with both the programme evaluator(s) and project team.  The project team estimate this work to take approximately 15 days (111hrs).

Where applicable the project team will be willing to support reasonable travel and accommodation costs (outwith maximum funding given above), however we envisage most of the work to take place remotely.

2. Supporting Trial Projects (Max. Funding Available £6,000)

The BCEct project includes eight trial projects  from across Further and Higher Education in the UK.  JISC infoNet would like to commission an organisation to support each trial project in the evaluation of their individual work.  The project team envisage this support in the form of one day workshops.  Workshops will:

The project team estimate this work to take approximately 10 days (74hrs).  The project team will support travel, accommodation and facilities where applicable (outwith maximum funding given above).

Deadline and Submission

The deadline for expressions of interest is 12th February 2010.  It is envisaged that bidders will be notified of the outcome of the marking process by 19th February 2010 and that work will commence on or around 1st March 2010.  JISC infoNet will accept one overall proposal for the above areas of work if an applicant wishes to combine them.  Proposals should be submitted to jiscinfonet@northumbria.ac.uk using the subject line ‘BCEct EOI‘.

JISC infoNet may require clarification on your bid and therefore require contact during the week commencing 15th February 2009.  A template for submitting your proposal is available for download here:  Expression of Interest Template.

Structure of Proposals

Proposals will be evaluated using the following criteria:

Spotlight On …….Knowledge House November 17, 2009

Posted by Jacquie Kelly in : BCE, Collaborative Tools, Trials , add a comment

Knowledge House

Knowledge house recently developed a questionnaire to identify the procedures required to effectively tailor KHIS2, their web-based collaborative project tool used by Knowledge House and the five North East Universities to manage Third Strand revenue generating projects. This was completed by potential users and a draft training manual completed.

One of the major issues the trial project faced was losing its original trial partner; this happened not long after the start of the project. As a result, Knowledge House identified two potential new trial partners and held meetings to discuss the benefits of the trial. One North East’s (ONE) Inward Investment team have now come on board and Rachel Armstrong and Paul Cranner will now be working with closely with them to get a technical specification together for the customisation needed to be make KHIS suitable for their work.

Over the next few months the trial project will commence the training of ONE Inward Investment personnel then commence and monitor the trial.

Spotlight … University of Huddersfield November 12, 2009

Posted by Jacquie Kelly in : BCE, Collaborative Tools, Trials , add a comment

University of Huddersfield

The University of Huddersfield have identified the support needs of the trial project through internal trials and the two pilot online meetings held with the JISC Advance and BCE project partners. They have also carried out the successful recruitment of Senior Computing Officer Chris Parkin to support the project. Chris joined the team on 3rd August 2009. The project undertook some Elluminate sessions to familiarise staff with the software.

An early challenge was that Jane Aldred, Project Director, retired from the university so Brian Hackett, Head of Computing Services stepped into the role. This has insured as little disruption to the project as possible. Joanne Charlesworth is on maternity leave and Chris Parkin is acting as project coordinator.

From September 2009 project will move into phase 2. This will entail enabling collaborative activity across the partnership and working with a partner to use the tools to facilitate interaction with students for meetings.