One of our innovation projects over several years was to develop a Playful Engagement Strategy for ISG and to test some playful approaches. We know our Information Services Group (ISG) staff are innovative and creative, and they have developed a variety of fun, creative, and engaging ways to provide and deliver our technologies and services.
We want to ensure that this continues and that ISG fosters an environment, and culture, where innovation, playful learning, and creative engagement are embedded in our practices. This is in line with the University’s aim to offer an educational experience that is inspiring, challenging, and transformational.
To this end, we have established playful engagement themes, strategy and goals.
Our goals are to:
- Facilitate the development of playful innovators, researchers, and creators
- Promote creative, playful, and innovative use of technologies and tools in ISG services
- Utilise our world-class libraries and collections in innovative and engaging ways to enrich our services
- Support a healthy work life balance, and a positive, engaging and inclusive work environment
Our 6 themes are:
- Digital technologies
- Libraries museums, galleries and collections
- Communities of practice
- Reflection, development and innovation
- Exploration and innovation
- Work–life balance
I am very pleased that Charlie has been able to spend the time to really think about what playful engagement could mean for a large IT and libraries service. Her work draws upon a whole raft of team, game, maker, challenge and enjoyment activities which all combine to make working here much more fun than it might otherwise be.
She and I will be presenting about this at the UCISA leadership conference in Edinburgh.
Read more about it: https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/playful-engagement/
