Category: Learning, teaching and web services

OfS Review of Blended Learning (2)

In the next couple of months I have a few speaking engagements which have come to me as a result of my being part of the panel who did this review. Our Lead, Prof Susan Orr has also spoken about our findings and I trust you have read the report. I don’t think I would stray far from Susan in describing our findings, or our recommendations. I will be interested to see how it plays out in reality for institutional practice.

The fact that there is no agreed definition of blended learning was a challenge for the panel, but we settled quickly on one which centred the deliberate and thoughtful blending of modes of teaching. A ‘blend’ is different from a ‘mix’. Metaphors can be helpful, particularly domestic ones. Do we aim for a blend which is like tea, or whisky, or a smoothie? is it alchemy, where the carefully selected ingredients are brought together to create a new, high quality desirable experience or is it where all the fresh and over-ripe bits are mushed together and we press extra hard for a few pulses on the liquidizer to ensure we break down the chunks of hard-to-swallow legacy content?

Or is blended learning more like a tossed salad, with each of the elements clearly distinguishable, and the option to have more of the cherry tomatoes if you particulalry like them and avoid entirely the sweetcorn.

How complex is the process of making  a good blend? Is it something anyone can do with some basic kitchen equipment or do you need years of training? Is it a binary task, are we blending just 2 modes or infact many different elements? who are our master blenders and are they our best technicians?

Susan mentions embroidery, I suggest tartan, where the threads and colours are still visible and weave through the piece in familar patterns but each adding an element to the whole.  When I was at school in art class we drew in chalks and used our fingers to blend the colours, to smooth the edges and blur the transitions. Now I expect we would use filters in photoshop or insta.

The context of the report was key. It is a snapshot at a certain time and in a certain regulatory environment. The ‘weaponising’ and demonising of online delivery – particularly ( recorded or not) lectures was palpable. Particularly in the media.  But we what we found was what we have always known, that lecture recordings are of great value to students. They are transformative in terms of accessibility and much in demand.  I suspect that lecture recording will continue to be a contested area in many universities for some time, but for those who have the infrastructure and services in place it is becoming one of the easiest elements of your blend.

‘Infrastructure and services in place’ is key.  I think my most significant contribution to the OfS review was the engagement with the heads of e-learning from each of the providers. We cannot assume all universities have the same or equivalent educational technology and digital services in place. There is diversity on the sector, and that is a good thing.

But if you have good IT staff and good learning technologists your lecture recording system is integrated with your VLE, timetable and in-room AV, it requires no extra time from colleagues to do.

When the panel for the review was announced, a couple of snarks suggested that it would be better done by eminent professors of digital education. I think that missed the point that one should not have to be a professor of pedagogy to understand what  your university’s blended learning offer is.  If you can’t explain it on your website to parents and students ( or regulators)  you can’t be surprised when they have different expectations.

The fact that university websites are full of out of date jargon is not a surprise finding. Neither is the fact that students and staff need good digital skills for the tasks they must do. Nor is the fact that quality of teaching is not dependent on modality. There is poor teaching online, or in blended modes, just as there is on campus. Digital does not fix bad work*.

There were a raft of recommendations in the report.  My big take-aways for strategic operational teams supporting blended learning now are:

-Check  your website. Are there still random pages from days in Covid where all and sundry tried to describe blended and online delivery in strangled, stretched and obscure terms?

-Check your digital estate. Technology proliferated and overlapped in the emergency investments and purchases of the last 3 years. You will need to rationalise that and revisit your vendor partnerships.

-Check your campus. Are you developing the physical estate for blended delivery? not all online activity happens from home.

 

What happens next? the next big shift will be when everyone realises that hybrid and blended are not the same thing.

The OfS were concerned with student choice. the students took that to mean that they should have a choice: Choosing whether and when or not to come on to campus, at short notice, on the day or to fit in with your own life. That, the panel felt, was quite a different propostion to knowing which bits of your course are on campus and which are not and being expected to plan accordingly.

 

*purgamentum innit, exit purgamentum.

 

making media accessible for teaching and learning

This is the cover of my book about designing learning.

At University of Edinburgh we centrally support and manage two large media services, Media Hopper Create and Media Hopper Replay.  Both Media Hoppers are named for Grace Hopper.

Media Hopper Create is our media asset management service (for long term storage and streaming of media) and Media Hopper Replay is our lecture recording service.  Both services are integrated into the VLE and core to the University’s teaching and learning.  Media Hopper Create’s usage sky rocketed during COVID and although there has been some reduction since the pandemic ended, usage is still very high compared to pre-pandemic.  Media Hopper Replay was used less during the pandemic but was used more for live streaming and for automatically pushing Zoom recordings. Now teaching is back  on campus, usage has gradually increased to pre-pandemic levels. 

Media Hopper Create is provided by  Kaltura and Media Hopper Replay is provided  Echo360.  These 2 edtech partners have been with us since 2015 and 2017 respectively.  

The scale of use of media in learning and teaching at Edinburgh is significant. In January this year 2,301 new media items were created in Media Hopper Create by 605 staff and students. 3,792 lectures captured in Media Hopper Replay in January, of which 235 were live streamed. This is an increase of approx. 1,000 from January 2022. Even allowing for some duplication as colleagues move content from one platform to another , that still amounts to around 5,000 new items added to our ‘born digital’  media collections. 

As a university, it’s clearly important that we have the tools we need to support teaching and learning.  During the last few years we’ve seen a change in the way teaching and assessment is being done at the University and with the development of the Curriculum Transformation project, the landscape will further change.  Given the advances in technology over the past few years and the developments with the Curriculum Transformation project, we should complete a detailed analysis in order to inform strategy for the future. 

A recent HEPI report highlights that lecture recordings are the most in-demand digital resources for students and that ‘Recordings should be uploaded for the duration of the course and the resource could improve accessibility for part-time students, students with caring responsibilities, and students who are otherwise unable to attend lectures in-person. Videos should be uploaded onto a single, user-friendly platform’.

Our media platforms integrate with our VLE and we have been looking at the accessibility of those materials for students.

During the summer of 2022, 597 pre-selected courses from 19 Schools and Deaneries across the University of Edinburgh were reviewed against a defined selection of accessibility criteria.  From the materials available, the review surveyed a selection of course materials published directly into Learn VLE , along with materials uploaded, URLs, images, and audio files. This review provides an overview of course accessibility by analysing a random selection of materials located within the courses. Over 7600 documents/URLs/audio/image files were reviewed overall.

  • From the audio and video files reviewed, an average of 95% provided a title that gave a reasonable expectation of the content within. 9 Schools and Deaneries had 100% accessibility rates on audio/video naming conventions.
  • An average of 73% showed the duration of the file as part of the description. In 8 Schools and Deaneries, more than 80% of checked files showed the relevant duration.
  • An average of 60% provided subtitles (or if no audio was present, this was made clear). In 13 Schools and Deaneries, at least 50% of checked files provided subtitles or a note that there was no audio.
  • From the files featuring subtitles/captioning, 91% were of reasonable quality.
  • Only about an average of 7% of checked files had made transcripts available to users. Only in 6 Schools and Deaneries did 5% or more of checked files provide transcripts.
  • 1.3x is the most popular playback speed.

Tempered radicals: how to bring change in open education without rocking the boat.

To be delivered at OER 23 4 – 6 April 2023, Inverness, Scotland https://www.alt.ac.uk/events/open-education-conference

Tempered radicals: how to bring change in open education without rocking the boat.

‘Tempered radicals’ are individuals who are committed to and identify with the organisations in which they work and yet are also committed to a cause or ideology which is fundamentally at odds with the dominant culture in that workplace. Debra Meyerson  has written about how these change agents make tactical decisions to effect change without making trouble (Meyerson, 2008) . If you think you too may be a tempered radical this is the session for you.

We have been working for 10 years to build institution-wide approaches to releasing learning materials as open education resources which fundamentally challenges ingrained practices of  copyright, fees, IP protection  and academic ‘side-hustles’(Rhoads, Berdan, & Toven‐Lindsey, 2013; Weller, 2014). Opening up some of the most ancient and elite institutions like never before. (Walsh, 2011). We work not through revolution or protest but by balancing a delicate set of incremental initiatives and partnerships which provoke thought, nuance and behaviour change.

In our presentation we will share our experience of being ‘tempered radicals’ working toward transformational change in organisations with historical structural traditions while still being digital disruptors.  Bringing a researchers critical eye to ones’ own organisation can be challenging for ‘insider researchers’ who walk a delicate line between being part of a community or outwith. But there are insights and understanding that only an insider can bring to a task and the advantages which flow from being situated within the organisation may ensure that the resulting changes are more sustainable.

Early initiatives led to more substantial innovations in how education is delivered and consumed–even at the best institutions. You will be encouraged to think about how your own radical agendas have been tempered by your experiences of your workplace and how this tempering can be used to make you stronger and more successful as agents of change in the organization you care about. (Eggers, 2013)

In this reflective practice presentation we will offer a contribution towards the practice of open education with a reflective and critical component. We will share stories, evidence and data to describe the serendipitous impact this work can have.

Refs

Eggers, Dave. (2013). The circle : a novel.: Alfred A. Knopf.
Meyerson, Debra. (2008). Rocking the boat: How tempered radicals effect change without making trouble: Harvard Business Review Press.
Rhoads, Robert A, Berdan, Jennifer, & Toven‐Lindsey, Brit. (2013). The open courseware movement in higher education: Unmasking power and raising questions about the movement’s democratic potential. Educational Theory, 63(1), 87-110.
Walsh, Taylor. (2011). Unlocking the Gates. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Weller, Martin. (2014). The battle for open: Ubiquity Press.

Researching Blended Learning

Keynote to be delivered at  RIDE 2023 Sustaining Innovation: Research and Practice 28 March 2023 – 29 March 2023 https://www.london.ac.uk/centre-online-distance-education/events/ride-2023-sustaining-innovation-research-and-practice

Abstract:

In this session Melissa will reflect on the strategies and successes of sustained innovation in online learning at University of Edinburgh, her experience of being part of an expert panel researching current practice in blended learning across multiple institutions, and the role of insiders in researching culture within organisations.

Provocations:

  • Innovation undermines sustainability
  • Findings about blended learning cannot/should not be generalised
  • Insider researchers struggle to effect change
  • Students can choose when to come to campus.

badger naming

Having recently seen a badger wandering the streets near my house in Edinburgh, I am musing on the names for my new digital badging service.

badger, badgED, bagerED, Broc, Brock,  Broch, Burn, Ibrox

earning your stripes

setts of badges

May Badger

Honey badger

Meles Meles

my auntie, who died last year lived in a house called ‘the badgers’.

International Womens Day 2023 -Charlotte Murchison

Murchison-Charlotte-1860 We have named the lecture theatre in Murchison House, ‘ The Charlotte Murchison Lecture Theatre’.  We will have its celebratory opening on International Women’s Day 2023. This will follow nicely from other rooms at Kings Buildings which we have named for Mary Somerville and Xia Peisu.

It is from Mary Somerville’s writing that we know something of Charlotte

“an amiable accomplished woman, [who] drew prettily and – what was rare at the time – she had studied science, especially geology, and it was chiefly owing to her example that her husband turned his mind to those pursuits in which he afterwards obtained such distinction.”[1]

if you will indulge me:

IWD

Did you know that IWD began with a strike by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU)? It was originally called “International Working Women’s Day“, its purpose was to give laboring women a focusing point in their struggle for fair working conditions and pay.  ‘International’ in this context may have meant ‘immigrant’ international ladies, rather than being an international union.

My great grandma Sadie was a member of ILGWU.  A Jewish woman working in dangerous factory conditions as a garment worker in New York.

15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote.

It was first celebrated internationally in 1911. The centenary was celebrated in 2011, so this year we’re celebrating the 111th International Women’s Day.

International Women’s Day has become a date to celebrate how far women have come in society, in politics and in economics, while we are in the  middle of a sustained period of industrial action in this university  strikes and protests  and events are organised on campus to raise awareness of continued inequality. Striking ( collective bargaining by Beatrice Webb)

The first theme adopted by the UN (in 1996) was “Celebrating the Past, Planning for the Future”.

The UN’s theme for 2023 is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. This theme aims to recognise and celebrate the contribution women and girls are making to technology and online education.

Some of you may have heard me before going on about the pay gap and the pensions gap. There is also a digital gender gap  and the UN estimates that women’s lack of access to the online world will cause a $1.5 trillion dollar loss to gross domestic product of low and middle-income countries by 2025 if action isn’t taken.

Naming lecture theatres

This year’s IWD theme is #embraceequity, emphasizing the need to challenge gender bias and inequality to create a more inclusive world for all. Charlotte chose to challenge the fact that Charles Lyell did not allow women to attend his Geology lectures. She and her friend Mary Somerville would repeatedly turn up to his lectures and ask to be let in. Eventually he relented and his lectures became a little bit more inclusive after all.

Charlotte Rocks

Charlotte Murchison, Lady Murchison (née Hugonin; 18 April 1788 – 9 February 1869) was a British geologist who traveled widely with her husband Roderick. She was the daughter of a botanist and she was the one who had the passion for science, he was primarily interested in horseriding and fox hunting, but she managed to get him to see this as fun way to spend time and travel with friends.

Charlotte developed a significant collection of fossils during  their travels, and created geological sketches of important features.

She  knew the importance of social networks, she hosted gatherings and parties ( scientific salons), inviting many of the  scientists of the time. She was friends with Mary Somerville, Benjamin Disraeli, William and Mary Buckland, Charles and Mary Lyell, Humphrey Davy and Mary Anning.

What I know of the Bucklands, parties at their house in Oxford would have been quite the thing, as they were Zoophagists – they ate their way through an entire zoological and natural history collection.

The reason we are naming a lecture theatre: In addition to the obvious reasons for celebrating the history of women in scince and having visible role models for our students. She was keen to access higher education and when Lyell initially refused to let women attend his geology lectures ( at Kings College London) Charlotte and Mary Somerville were part of the crowd who turned up to gain entrance. Her lobbying resulted in his change of mind and women were allowed in. This was in 1831. Although Lyell allowed them in, Kings banned them again the following year, and Lyell resigned.

This was not a bad-natured interaction, they were close friends, infact Lyell and the Murchisons travelled together. In 1828 they travelled around Europe. We can find in the Murchison and Lyell papers  information about how they conducted their research as a team.   They divided up the tasks in order to be more productive. Lyell and Roderick Murchison decided about routes and research topics and travelled long distances walking and climbing, taking stratigraphical sections and correlations of structures. Charlotte did most of the time-consuming fossil-hunting, sketching of landscapes and geological structures and, since she spoke French, engaged with local experts. Her fluency in languages and skills in drawing undoubtedly contibuted to the success of her husbands research. (Similar stories for Mary Buckland and Mary Lyell) Like Somerville, she lived to old age, died at 80.

Her work on fossils attracted acclaim and a find in Portree, Isle of Skye in Scotland  inspired Ammonites murchinsoniae to be named in her honor. James Sowerby  named the ammonite after her, which seems only fair as she was the one who found it.

She is widely recognised now as a woman who made significant contribution to the study of geology and fossil hunting but was overlooked in her own time .

Charlotte’s important fossil collection appeared in  William Fitton’s  ‘Strata Below the Chalk’ showing how areas of the earth had been sea, then lake or river, then sea again.

Tenuous link to talking about chalk.

The learning technology teams at University of Edinburgh look after learning spaces and teaching rooms across all our campuses. Information about all centrally managed teaching spaces supported by Learning Spaces Technology. Choose “Room details” to get more detail https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/computing/audio-visual-multi-media/teaching-spaces/teaching-spaces

The room we are naming is in the Murchison Building on the Kings Buildings campus. Kings Buildings is a campus which is rapidly changing. Our most recent big fit out is the new Nucleus building. It is a huge new space. All the lecture theatres are named after trees.

Although we fit a lot of digital technology in teaching spaces now, one of the most poular tools is still the good old chalk board.

The Nucleus Building has five state of the art lecture theatres which offer a variety of teaching styles from traditional 400 seat “eyes front” to collaborative 300 seat “turn & learn” spaces, all equipped with enhanced audio-visual equipment. And nearly 90 sq meters of chalk board writing surface.  Once fitted, easy to maintain, no need for a user guide, lasts for years. probably our most sustainable, lowest impact learning technology tools.

Writing surfaces like chalk boards slow the pace of teaching with speaking and explaining at the speed of writing.  It also keep the lights on, using a chalkboard means the lights in the classroom have to be up.  It’s when the lights go down and the lecture theatre becomes more like a cinema that students start to fall asleep.

Thank you for coming, thank you to the teams in Learning Spaces Teachnology and graphic design ( Lesley Greer and Julie Freeman)  and all the team who help me in getting this done.

Just to return to the fact that The UN’s theme for 2023 is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”.

this requires gender-responsive approach to innovation, technology and digital education which raises  awareness of women and girls regarding their rights and civic engagement and access to education

even as we talk about the university’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals the opportunities of the digital revolution  risk perpetuating existing patterns of gender inequality.  inclusive and transformative technology and digital education is  crucial for a sustainable future.

Charlotte Murchison

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/iwd-2021-geologist-charlotte-murchison

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2258592-ammonite-review-heres-the-true-story-of-palaeontologist-mary-anning/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249552095_The_geological_travels_of_Charles_Lyell_Charlotte_Murchison_and_Roderick_Impey_Murchison_in_France_and_northern_Italy_1828

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24136821

https://www.teesdalemercury.co.uk/features/explorer-and-geologist-owed-it-all-to-his-less-famous-wife

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-64723201

OfS review of Blended Learning

In March 2002 the Office for Students announced their plan to review blended learning provision in English universities.  I was delighted to be invited to be part of the expert panel doing the review.

The OfS currently hold no sway in Scotland, but they shape the ways in which some of the universities in England and Wales describe their provision, and students have a choice. I am very aware that we in Scotland need to pay attention to the regulatory environment in the rest of the UK as students, parents and teachers will compare and contrast.

Blended learning is not a phrase I use much anymore, but it is what seemed to have caught the headlines. Reviewing the provision was an interesting research task. As a panel we met with staff and students in a number of universities of varying size, shape, age and mission. We developed a set of questions specific to each group which would ensure we collected the data necessary to get a clear understanding of blended learning approaches being taken. It was important to speak to a range of people within each provider to allow us to triangulate the information we collected and gain as full a picture of the situation at each provider as possible. The technology context was different in each provider, and this technology context was essential for understanding how blended learning provision was enabled, quality assured and available equally to course leaders and students across their institution.  I asked that each provider identify someone as the most senior learning technologist or head of e-learning so that their viewpoints could be heard. l met with a senior member of staff in each institution to ensure that the panel had good information about the technology available for high quality, up to date and inclusive blended delivery.

The panel members brought different backgrounds and positionality to the review, but we all agreed that an effective relationship between in-person and online or digital elements is important for courses delivered through blended learning, and we all agreed that considerations of equality, diversity and inclusion were key to quality provision.

We worked closely with the OfS’s student panel throughout our review.  Four student panel members joined us on the review panel in the fieldwork interviews. A student panel member attended and asked questions at every meeting with staff. Student panel members led all interviews with student groups. The views and perspectives of students informed the approach taken and the questions asked of providers throughout the fieldwork phase. I was able to provide learning technology expertise to help unpick/interpret some of the things the students were saying about how they find and use their learning materials, VLE, library catalogue etc. I was very pleased to hear the ways in which the learning technology teams had responded and scaled their services to keep the universities in the business of teaching and learning.

The themes in the report arose partly from the literature, but mostly from the data.  We worked quickly to get a lot of data which meant we had time to engage in a process of checking, reflecting and reviewing the data before drawing our recommendations.

The report has been published. I hope you find it useful.  Blended learning and OfS regulation – Office for Students

There is the panel’s report: Blended learning review panel report (officeforstudents.org.uk)

the OfS response: Blended learning and OfS regulation (officeforstudents.org.uk)

and various commentary responses so far:

WonkHe, The blend gets another tweak | Wonkhe

Jisc Jisc response to the blended learning review | Jisc

ALT ALT welcomes OfS Blended Learning Review | Association for Learning Technology

Menopause in the workplace: A hot topic for discussion

My fans. Picture taken by me. No rights reserved by me.

On World Menopause Day (October 18th)  I’ll be leading a workshop in University of Edinburgh to discuss why menopause is a workplace issue.

One in ten women in the UK who worked during the menopause say they have left a job due to their symptoms. Are we at risk of losing some of our best staff at a time when they have the most wisdom and organisational knowledge? How can we adapt to ensure that all our colleagues have the support they need? Is this another leak in the pipeline for women in STEM?

At this workshop we will look at best practice guidance from professional bodies and trade unions and think about how University of Edinburgh can respond.  Your input and ideas are invaluable. We must work with leadership teams to ensure that workplaces are inclusive, and together we can tackle this ‘last taboo’.  We must discuss well-being, plans, policies and implications of hybrid working and come up with some actionable suggestions to take forward.

When I first began thinking about menopause as a workplace issue, I was struck by the data gap.  We do not know how much of an impact it has because we do not gather data properly. Days off work when you have menopause are often sporadic, here and there when you are having a bad time of it. Managers can take a good guess at the number of staff who may be experiencing menopause by looking at sex and age data, but without a specific category in absence reporting  women may be choosing a variety of categories in their absence reporting such as ‘anxiety’, ‘depression’, ‘mental health’ ‘hip leg, foot, shoulders, neck pain’  etc  so we are not getting a full picture of where to target support.

When I first raised this I was told to ‘wait for P&M, it’ll be better then’. I waited, but when P&M launched despite there being categories for ‘pregnancy’ and ‘menstrual related illness’, there was still no sign of ‘menopause’. Not enough middle-aged women in the data team perhaps.

Anyway, after a bit of gentle reminding, I can report that P&M now includes a category for menopause!   It’s listed under ‘S’ of course.

But we will need to help women feel confident that letting their employer know is a good thing to do, and that is a bigger question.

 

New ways of working

 – LTW reflections and learnings: 

  • In July 2021, as our focus shifted to hybrid working, we placed a strong emphasis on regular, clear and consistent comms within LTW to support planning for our return to campus. 
  • These comms aligned with high-level messaging around working for a hybrid university which has its ‘centre of gravity’ on campus, recognising that things will be different from the way they were in the Before Times and different again from the times we have been all working from home.  
  • We recognised that for some teams the fully online working has brought real benefits and we needed to ensure that hybrid working did too.  
  • Critical to this was our recognition that decisions about hybrid working in LTW should be inclusive, involving a wide range of voices, but also attention to difference. We recognised that what works for one person may not work for someone else, and we are all involved in multiple groups/communities with colleagues’ outwith LTW.  
  • As an SMT (Stuart, Stratos, Karen, Nikki, Euan, Kevin and Jenni) we concluded at an early stage that the only way to ensure inclusive input and decision making was by agreeing and communicating clear starting points for our hybrid working experiments. These were: 
  • The majority of colleagues should be on campus 2 days per week minimum.  
  • Friday will be a day for writing, with no meetings in LTW. We can use this day for focus and writing without having to stop and start for meetings.  
  • Meetings which include academic staff and students and cover content/subjects relating to learning, teaching and the student experience should be prioritised on-campus.  
  • We placed a strong emphasis on gathering and analysing data so that planning for hybrid working was informed by data from and about LTW staff, and that our commitment to fairness and understanding of the intersectional factors which shape an individuals’ workplace experience are reflected in our longer-term objective commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion in workforce planning and hybrid working. 
  • Listening to our staff sharing their experiences and comments around productivity, our comms referenced this and noted that the productivity benchmark for LTW is how we were before the pandemic and if we found that hybrid working dropped us below that level we would need to take care and figure out why, which is why it was so important that all our staff participated in hybrid working patterns.  
  • LTW heads, co-ordinated by Kevin, worked together to collate a shared set of working answers to various hybrid working issues so that all teams were getting consistent responses to queries raised. 
  • Communications from the LTW Director, Melissa, are shared every Friday to thank, acknowledge work done, and to highlight reasons to come on to campus. 
  • This resulted in around 80% of LTW staff adopting on-campus working patterns in the period to December 2021 – this figure has now increased to 98% of LTW working at least 2 days on-campus every week. 
  • We adapted and planned activities to encourage on-campus attendance, starting with our in-person December 2021 LTW Staff Meeting and social activities for a festive lunch. We followed this with a large all-day workshop session for all teams involved in Learn Ultra (50 people) attendance at the L&T conference and a summer all-staff meeting in July 2022.  
  • Our Data and Equality Officer, Lilinaz, has assisted and informed our SMT in using the data to inform our decision making around new ways of working. Her data insights have helped us to follow up with further data gathering from specific groups e.g managers and interns. 
  • We have reviewed and analysed centrally collated data at UoE, ISG and LTW levels, and, most importantly, have established local data gathering, via surveys and collaborative activities at team, section and directorate level, sharing resources, learnings and actions. The fact that decision-making is data informed has reassured staff that their views and experiences are being heard and considered. 
  • Our data gather highlighted a larger than expected number of staff with a declared disability and we have taken care to ensure that the office environment includes adjustments for their needs. 
  • Our Director presented our data and findings at 2 national events in the sector to gain and gather insights from other places. ‘UCISA New Ways of Working – The Good, The Bad and The Downright Experimental’ and ‘AbilityNet TechShare Pro 2021’.   
  • We continue with this work and have also recruited an Edtech Operations Intern to bring additional resource and focus to our planning for new ways of working from the end of the ‘official’ period of experimentation in October 2022. 
  • We have found it challenging to move beyond the current, rigid space constraints within AH to experiment with hybrid and collaborative spaces. We provided input to proposals via Small Capital Bids to prioritise the reconfiguration of spaces and the purchase and installation of pods, however, conscious that we/ISG have not yet been able to make any progress. 
  • Collated AH Space Data workbooks all directorates were asked to update by Corp/Facilities in Feb 22, LTW are actively maintaining this data and using this in our resource planning to assign desks to our intern cohorts and new starts. 
  • We urge the Hybrid Working Project to release/allow access to the data gathered in the most recent University –wide survey, noting that respondents were told when they did the survey that data and findings would be shared.  
  • To continue with our experimentation, we propose that we co-locate LTW staff on one dedicated wing – merging our teams on H/East and H/West. This will require input and agreement from other directorates on these wings and will allow us to experiment with increased cross-section collaboration and be able to use this space for a variety of activities without impacting on other directorates staff. We also hope this will support efforts in the area of staff morale, as many LTW staff are demoralised by looking across their wing to see totally empty desks, they would prefer to see their LTW colleagues. 

-LTW SMT, August 2022 

digital leadership in education: a feminist perspective

I am delighted that a chapter I wrote, based on my research has now been published in the  Handbook of Digital Higher Education

Chapter 28: The importance of diversity and digital leadership in education: a feminist perspective from higher education https://www.elgaronline.com/view/book/9781800888494/book-part-9781800888494-39.xml