As is now traditional I did some wikipedia editing, and also had some fun with AI animation.
stay safe at home
There has been another unpleasant event which has attracted news coverage https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56100079
Please make sure that all your friends, family, colleagues and student groups know how to keep themselves safe online.
The Digital Skills and Training team offers a range of resources designed to help students and staff stay safe while meeting with others and hosting events online. Our Staying Safe While Learning and Teaching Onlinepage in our Digital Safety and Citizenship web hub provides safety tips on avoiding zoom-bombing and video conference etiquette suggestions. We also run a variety of webinars on best practice when using online meeting tools, including Introduction to Zoom video conferencing, which covers important security steps and features that help minimise the potential for disruption. Our Digital Safety and Citizenship for Students webinar (also open to staff) also provides general information on how to stay safe while engaging with others online. Additionally, the Information Services Zoom guidance includes important information on security, data protection and privacy that staff and students should take into consideration when using Zoom.
what do you do all day?
I am sometimes surprised by how passionately academic colleagues will demand to be ‘allowed’ to teach using Teams when for many years they have insisted that only tools designed for educational use were suitable for their pedagogy.
Microsoft sell a lot of software to universities and I am sure they are keen for us to use it in all kinds of ways, a lot.
When the university is considering the future of work and colleagues lobby to stay at home, it is worth getting up to speed on the surveillance tools in business software and reading the fine print of your contract carefully.
Do you have the right to a private life?
Here’s a good podcast: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/jan/06/is-your-boss-spying-on-you-podcast
Virtual Burns Night 2021
I am a fan of Burns night and I’ve hosted a few spirited and toasted lassies.
This year I have invited my teams to a virtual Burns night on Monday.
‘Please bring your favourite poem/ song/dance by Burns or any of his contemporaries or similar Scottish music. Burns was prolific and one of the joys of his work is that you can find a poem or a view from him on just about anything. If you can find his view on Brexit ‘While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things’, COVID ‘Tae a virus’ , lockdown ‘Here’s friends locked doon on baith sides o’ the firth’, working from home, social distancing ‘Gin a body meet a body, catching Covid, Aye?’, face coverings ‘Fair fa’ your honest, covered face…’, well-being, hobbies, black lives, sourdough, furlough, home-schooling ‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley’, Teams ‘To see oursels as others see us!’ or elearning you’ll win a fab prize.’
Haggis is just haggis, a smile is just a smile.
Our virtual Burns Night featured beautiful music performances from Lauren (Wild Mountainside) and Lorraine ( The Silver Tassie), and the suggestion that we all upload pictures of our haggis dinners to Wikipedia.
During the evening a number of lost Burns manuscripts were given their first public performance. A selection is curated below:
Tam O’2020
When chapman billies leave the street
And drouthy neebors video meet
As Waitrose delivery is running late
An’ folk begin to accept their fate;
While we sat boozing at the telly
And getting fou and awfy smelly
We think na on the lang Scots miles.
The fit bit steps we tracked with smiles
That lie between us and our hame
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame
Gathering her brows like gathering storm
Nursing her Deliveroo to keep it warm.
So, Shall Distance
This tale o’ truth I shall read,
woman and mother’s son take heed;
Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d,
Or social joys run in your mind,
Think! ye may buy joys for now
But wi’ mair pox horrible and awfu’,
Three lawyers says it is unlawfu’.
Argyle Epistle
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles,
That lie between us and our hame in argyle house,
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how many counsels sweet,
How many lengthen’d, sage advices,
The workers wish the boss, consise is.
Hoppers Lament
That dreary hour she opens Teams in;
On such a night she was online in.
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Karen did na mind the storm a whistle.
Till first ae system, syne anither,
Gave up working a’ thegither,
And roars out, “Media Hopper doesnae work!”
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had she Liam rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When “Catch the thief!” resounds aloud;
So Karen runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skriech and hollo.
To LISC Ah, Karen thou’ll get thy fairin’!
In ITC they’ll roast thee like a herrin’!
And KSC awaits thy commin’!
The Cotter’s Night Locked In
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy staff of IT toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet open content!
And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From covid’s contagion, weak and vile!
Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle.
buffering justice
I spent some time in January doing jury duty online. I probably could have made a case to be excused but I didn’t want to.
You’ll have heard that there is a massive backlog. By establishing the UK’s first remote jury centres, from September 2020 Scotland resumed the most serious High Court trials in a covid-secure way.
We, the jury gathered in an out of town cinema to sit, socially distanced, to hear a case via live link to the court, which I think may have been in Glasgow.
The judge reminded us that this is one of the most important things you can do as part of civic society and I can add that it is also a huge credit to the Scottish Courts system that they have managed to digitally transform their operations in this way.
‘These facilities have been specifically designed to provide a safe environment for jurors during the pandemic – and support the administration of justice in relation to the most serious criminal cases.’
I was really impressed with how well organised it was, how safe I felt covid-wise and how immersive and intense the experience was despite the distance. I might even suggest that since the cinema business may never recover from this pandemic, this set up might be the way forward for jury trials of the future. The prospect of being crowded in with 14 other people cheek by jowl in a jury box for a week really does not appeal. The technology and the space afforded by the multiplex made it possible to concentrate fully on the content and conduct of the trial.
They wouldn’t let me take a picture of the AV kit in the rooms, but It wasn’t so different from what we are doing for hybrid teaching*. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elDTsKP2AU4&feature=youtu.be
We each had an individual camera so they could see us, but there is no 2-way audio link between the jury and the court. That is, they can speak to us and see us, and we can see them, but we cannot speak to the court ( except via our jury wrangler and clerk of court) .
If you get called you should definitely do it if you can.
* My excellent AV team have told me which company it is who are supplying this technology to the Scottish Courts. They are called Sparq. Virtual Court Hearings | Services | Sparq
2019 Centenary Commission on Adult Education
In 2019 and 2020 I gave a chunk of my time to being part of the 2019 Centenary Commission on Adult Education. Our report is here: https://www.centenarycommission.org/
And news of our ongoing campaigns and events are here: https://www.centenarycommission.org/news-events
That was mostly pre-covid, of course. It will be interesting to see how the adult and community education sector, which has traditionally relied on high-touch, small group, locally based delivery changes for the future. I expect there will be a renewed emphasis on economic recovery and reskilling.
A hundred years ago, as Britain recovered from a devastating World War, the Ministry of Reconstruction published an extraordinarily powerful report, visionary in its scope and practical in its detail, on the key role adult education had to play in fostering an active democracy, enriching communities, and nourishing curiosity and a love of learning. Adult education was it argued, ‘a permanent national necessity’. We took these words from the 1919 Report as the vision for our Centenary Report. ‘We believe that ‘universal and lifelong’ access to adult education and learning is as necessary now as it was in rebuilding our society in the aftermath of the War to End All Wars.’
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO defines lifelong learning :
The integration of learning and living, covering learning activities for people of all ages (at home, at school, in the workplace, in the community, etc.) through formal, non-formal and informal modalities, which together meet a wide range of learning needs and demands.
The UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 supports adult education ‘to complement and supplement formal schooling, broad and flexible lifelong learning opportunities should be provided through non-formal pathways with adequate resources and mechanisms and through stimulating informal learning, including through use of ICT.
So digital education will be key.
Recommendations
In developing an understanding of the perceptions of digital leaders in relation to diversity leadership in their workplace this study has found that there are personal and workplace factors which influence their motivations, choices and strategies to champion EDI. The data in this study includes a striking mismatch in understanding of the risks associated with championing EDI issues in the workplace. While all of the other managers were quickly able to identify a range of risks, personal and professional, the HR professional implied that they would be ‘surprised to hear’ that there were any risks for individuals in championing EDI. These risks were identified by male and female managers and while they were different in nature, they were nevertheless a serious consideration for each of these individuals. This highlights an area for more work in understanding the support that managers need when they take these risks, to shed light on why some digital leaders are reluctant to champion diversity. It is clear from the responses of these digital leaders that even though they could identify clear business drivers for diversity, that did not entirely mitigate the perceived risks inherent in tackling the structural issues in the workplace. This represents a risk for the sector in that we may put effort into diversity recruitment, and winning external awards for that activity, but do no work to create motivational rewards or the inclusive environments needed for happy workplaces and valuing diversity. Huy (2011) warns that:
‘ limited attentional resources and time pressures in organizational life often lead even well‐meaning, competent executives to neglect the social‐emotional aspects in their strategy implementation actions, and this explains, in part, the tall challenges of making new strategy happen in firms.’(Huy, 2011).
Digital leaders have limited time and attention to give to strategic change initiatives such as EDI and failure to spend time supporting them in the social and emotional aspects of these challenges risks making change a hard task. The data show that managers identify strongly with their role as digital leaders and understand the leadership role in supporting equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and that they consider a wide range of personal and contextual factors in deciding how prominently to champion these issues. Their decisions are mitigated by their perception of risk. There are risks and it is these risks which are weighed up by managers before they make the choice to explicitly champion or ‘sell’ issues. It is clear that while many agree that support from leaders is needed to ensure that diversity initiatives are successful, support for leaders is also essential if they themselves run the risk of backlash and defensive routines by colleagues.
Supporting diversity in digital leadership
In order to move forwards in supporting diversity and inclusion activities promoting diversity in digital leadership in higher education it is important that universities recognise that:
- Digital leaders represent a distinct identity group as distinct from other professional service areas and academic leaders.
- Digital leaders struggle to find clear direction from the top with regard to EDI values in their organisations to which they can relate.
- Recruitment and retention to the IT department is a highly competitive area with structural and contextual issues shaped by industry beyond higher education.
Practical steps can be taken to address the needs of digital leaders by:
- Ensuring that IT staff are highlighted as a distinct group in organisational data reporting so that diversity can be tracked, evaluated and researched.
- Including in diversity leadership programmes explicit understanding of the overlapping sectoral contexts of higher education and the tech sector.
- Gaining a nuanced understanding of the career trajectories and personal identity backgrounds of digital leaders as a group who play an increasingly important role in organisational success.
Organisational development and HR professionals can support digital leaders by:
- Engaging directly with the structural and power inequalities manifesting in the tech sector.
- Recognising that even where they may be a clear management business case accepted for EDI, the reality for digital leaders delivering it carries inherent personal and professional risk.
- Providing support for mangers who champion EDI where they themselves run the risk of backlash and defensive routines by colleagues.
menopause and homeworking
You’ll remember that in the hot, hot offices of ISG on campus we had a bit of discussion about menopause. It was quite ‘the talk of the Steamie’ after I presented about it at the ISG all-staff meeting in Gordon Aikman Lecture theatre.
I’ll be presenting about it again at the upcoming Advance HE EDI conference in the Spring. I’m also presenting about ‘tempered radicals’, but that’s a different story. Or perhaps not if it is all about heat.
In order to be up to date though we’d have to be thinking as employers about the different experience for menopausal women of working from home. During Covid, but perhaps for longer by choice.
Mary reminded me to update my thinking.
Working from home may infact be the best thing to happen to menopausal women as we now have choice, flexibiity and control over the temperature, number of cushions and our layers of clothing.
There was some evidence previously that working from an office while female and menopausal was so horrible that we lost women from our workforce at just the moment that they are at their most wise. Perhaps now we will be able to keep them.
Is anyone researching this? Of course they are!
Working from home: can it impact on menopause?
https://menopauseintheworkplace.co.uk/articles/working-from-home-can-it-impact-on-menopause/
The health and socioeconomic impact on menopausal women of working from home https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7292903/
Supporting employees through menopause when working remotely
https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/supporting-employees-going-through-the-menopause-when-working-remotely/
digital internships
In common with many other universities we worked with students over the summer to prepare for hybrid learning and teaching. LTW recruited and managed 44 student interns who migrated over 3000 courses from 20 schools into the institutional template in our VLE.
The Learn Foundations project team is experienced in employing student interns to support business requirements generated as a result of the implementation of the Learn Foundations approach. This year however, the number of interns working with the team and School colleagues was quadrupled and the students all had to work remotely as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
From the support provided by the student interns, the following was achieved:
- Over 3000 20/21 courses migrated onto the Learn Foundations template;
- Over 1000 of the above courses supported with content migration;
- Over 100 academics liaised with directly regarding content migration;
- Over 600 courses were mapped with over 80, 000 items reviewed to allow for an institutional baseline for Learn courses to begin to be created;
- Undertook over 16, 000 accessibility checks across circa 2000 19/20 Learn Courses to understand ‘how accessible’ content and courses are within Learn;
Careful thought went in to supporting the interns to bond as a team and structure their days with a mix of work, set breaks and social activities to keep them busy, motivated and refreshed. A daily briefing session was held to discuss tasks, review progress and allocate activities, this also provided the interns with an opportunity to come together as a team. These sessions have been positively evaluated by the students who valued the structure and sense of purpose they provided. They also enabled students to raise questions with team members about technical questions and other issues.
“Having a set time for a call each morning was great as it provided a structure and set out the tasks. It also allowed us to feel more a part of the team.”
In addition to the morning briefing, the team instigated a twice-weekly social hour for students to come together and have a bit of fun. These served to support team bonding and break up work flow. These were managed by the project manager and project administrator and were positively evaluated by the students.
“The social hours were great to allow us to bond as a team. It created a healthier atmosphere and made us more comfortable working with each other.”
Coordination
With such a large number of interns working remotely there was a risk that the coordination of task allocation and delivery could become fragmented and messy. Microsoft Teams was used as a work platform with one central channel for all students and latterly, additional work specific channels were created for those students involved in certain tasks.
“I think working on Microsoft teams, having dedicated channels and a daily meeting worked well.”
There were challenges in managing workflow throughout the internship as a result of the large number of students involved and rapidly changing business requirements as a result of the speed with which School colleagues were adapting and adjusting to new ways of working. When there was a break in workflow, students were encouraged to use LinkedIn Learning as a tool for professional development.
Hardware, software and the internet
Students were offered hardware to ensure they were able to deliver their work from home. In previous years, computers and laptops would have been available from an office base. Some of the students experienced a delay in receiving hardware which had an impact on their ability to get started straight away with their work.
The students commented on the challenges of remote working. Some experienced periods of isolation and felt separated from their colleagues; most appreciated the effort that went in to building a team and keeping them involved and busy.
“It was tough doing this remotely as you couldn’t really get to know your colleagues. The social hours helped but I think it was often tough to organise fun activities with each other and people often backed out.”
“It was really nice that we were given so much social time, as it felt especially isolating working from home and not meeting other people.”
“It was challenging for a start to bond online however after a few weeks our team became quite close.”
The team was aware that technical and internet issues may impact on workflow and took positive steps to support the interns with hardware and software advice. These issues were taken account of in the work flow to ensure the students were not placed under pressure or disadvantaged as a result of these factors which were out of their control. This was appreciated by the students.
“The team was very understanding of technical or internet issues which was great because that could have been stressful.”
Remote working
Despite the challenges of engaging with such a large number of student interns working from home, the experience of remote working seems to have been valued by them. They identified the challenges but most also commented on how beneficial the experience had been to them.
“It was a really developing experience because I think I learnt more about working in a team virtually than when working in the office! The number of emails and messages sent also made me much more comfortable with working online in a professional setting.”
“The opportunity to work remotely in a team has been a valuable experience. Because of this, I believe that my communication skills and confidence in working independently have improved.”
Investment and outcomes
Whilst the students have highly evaluated their internship experience, the investment required from the team to support such a large number of students and provide them with a high quality experience, was high, especially by the project manager and project administrator. It is estimated that between them, the project manager and project administrator, invested the equivalent of 4 months of work over the internship period to supporting the students with additional resource from Colleges for supporting students allocated to them. That said, the students delivered a collective equivalent of 21 months of work (based on the hours worked by each intern over the period). This represents a four-fold return on investment. The student interns effectively provided a focused resource boost, at scale, over the 5 months that they were employed.
Whilst this larger number of students has had to be carefully managed, the return has far outweighed the investment, although should this approach be adopted next year, consideration may need to be given to the appointment of an internship coordinator to ensure a continuing positive experience for the students and the ongoing quality of their work. Feedback gained from School colleagues has been unanimously positive about the work completed by the student interns.
Without the considerable impact of the student interns, the project would not have been able to ease the burden from Schools of taking on the Learn Foundations approach, especially at such a business critical time, nor would the project have been in a position to work at such a granular level to ensure courses were effectively migrated to Learn Foundations.
With the dedicated support of the Learn Foundations team, the student interns have become ambassadors for Learn Foundations, widening the positive impact of the approach and demonstrating the value of student as partners in the delivery of University-wide activities.
Thank you, All.
lockdown skills
In lockdown 6,100 people at University of Edinburgh have viewed 51,000 courses on LinkedIn Learning to update their digital skills.
The skills training teams at University of Edinburgh are a pretty impressive bunch. In the last 6 months they have:
- They trained almost 3000 staff how to use the learning technologies required for hybrid teaching, including 650 staff who went through the 7 week experiential staff develop programme “An Edinburgh Model for Online Teaching”
- Developed and delivered a Digital Manager module as part of the University-wide Edinburgh Manager programme exploring the digital landscape, digital transformation, links to key University strategies and highlighting to managers the importance of developing their and their team member’s digital capabilities. This has been a long struggle to get colleagues in HR to see why this would even be needed, so well done to the digital skills team!
- They magicked up from nowhere a whole programme of training for CoVid testers at 2 days notice and 260 people got trained so that 1,000 students could be tested on the first day.
- Delivered a Digital Skills Programme of live webinars for semester 1 including over 300 sessions to 2,500 attendees.
- Added many new courses and resources to the programme this semester, including the MS Teams webinar which has been attended by over 500 staff and students.
- Worked with a student interns to convert and co-create two Python training courses (Introduction to Python & Python for Data Science) to Media Hopper videos which were captioned, set-up in self-enrol Learn courses and made available as OERs.
- With the the Academic Support Librarians they delivered start of term presentations and videos to inform new students about ISG’s essential services.
- They updated and expanded our Digital Skills Framework which now includes 700 resources that you can use to develop your digital skills.
- They created the openly licensed OER Digital Citizenship Guide, developed a Digital Safety module for the Preparing for Study course for students and launched a new training session on Digital Safety and Citizenship.
- They supported 84 University of Edinburgh staff to completethe Developing Your Data Skills Programme that ran from Sept 2019 – July 2020. This year there are 207 active participants and we are on target for 300 across the academic year.
And even within LTW we have been updating our own skills. Under the watchful eye of our Head of Operations 122 LTW staff, students and contractors have successfully completed mandatory training in ‘Equality and Diversity Essentials’, ‘Information Security Essentials’, ‘Data Protection’, ‘Understanding Annual Review’ and ‘Anti-Bribery and Corruption‘, and mostly updated our annual leave quotas in People and Money.
On Friday we are going to learn how to make a 3D paper star, Gingerbread cocktails and florentines.