http://chrislorensson.com/design/hefce-kis/

I’ve always been keen to see data that engages more with ‘how did we develop this student from where they started from?’ rather than final grades, etc. so the new KIS are of concern – read more about them here:

I recently spent an enthralling Sunday morning renewing my car insurance via a price-comparison website. In the past, I’d always performed the insurance-renewal ritual via a series of telephone calls in which I’d asked patient and blameless call-centre workers whether the companies employing them were having a laugh. While this involved some cheery conversations and usually resulted in a decent outcome, it did take rather a long time.

The website I used allowed me to be precise in my search. But the process took as long as ever. I found myself having to compare seemingly similar products that were actually quite different. This was because, in the key information provided, critical data were missing. For instance, the website identified whether a product included legal cover and at what cost, but not the level of cover provided. In most cases the absent details could be obtained only by making a phone call …

Nonetheless, car insurance is fairly straightforward; and although we all wince at its cost, policies are far cheaper, simpler and easier to compare than the complexity of UK university courses. As we know, the idea that prospective undergraduates should be able to make informed comparisons between programmes and institutions is central to the government’s vision of market-orientated higher education. But its plans for the provision of vital data, via Key Information Sets, are inadequate and likely to be misleading and counterproductive.

Read full story, and read more on the HEFCE site. I also thought this story about ‘adding social value‘ was of related interest…  see, e.g.

Universities have long measured their financial value, for example the spending power of their staff or their total turnover, she explained. But the report recommends finding an economic price for all university “outputs”, including those not captured by financial analysis….

A “social weight” could then be applied to this economic value to reflect social priorities, for example by counting an activity as more valuable if it delivers to the poor rather than the rich.

An objective of the Association for Social Media and Higher Education is to create a community for sharing information, tools, learning, and ideas by bringing together social media practitioners, higher education officials, and scholars. The organization recommends utilizing social media to create communities of learning and multidisciplinary collaboration in colleges and universities.

A study entitled “Social Media and College Admissions: Higher-Ed Beats Business in Adoption of New Tools for Third Year,” performed by Dr. Nora Gamin Barnes, Ph.D., found that 95% of colleges and universities utilized at least one form of social media to recruit prospective students. The study also indicated that colleges and universities are ahead of major businesses regarding the use of social media. The study showed that 51% of colleges and universities admissions offices have a blog for their school while just 22% of Fortune 500 companies have a corporate blog and 42% of the Inc. 500 companies have a corporate blog. The report also showed that 46% of colleges and universities use online videos to provide virtual tours of their campuses, virtual visits to dorms, and sample lectures from faculty members.

Read full article.

This is the cost – the universities say – of having to remain competitive with other universities across the world. Whilst there is much merit in this reasoning, for the prospective student it should be cause to re-evaluate their motives for pursuing a degree.

What is the purpose of higher education? And is it really worth the extra cost?

Shiny-headed, business impresario Seth Godin describes the student’s place in life as this:

“Since you were five, schools and society have been teaching you to be a cog in the machine of our economy. To do what you’re told, to sit in straight lines and to get the work done.

In the early factory era, there was great demand for trained cogs, the cogs even had unions, and cog work was steady, consistent and respected. There were way worse things than coghood”

However, as many commentators have noted, we are moving away from a purely industrial economy of cogs to a knowledge economy. It doesn’t quite cut it anymore to be one of the millions of cogs -sorry, I mean graduates – who are churned out to the tertiary education system each year.”

Read full story by Jonny Rose. I’m planning on going to the Like Minds event on the Thursday (teaching Friday)… what are people’s responses to this story?

For all their assertions of independent self-determination, most universities are actually run as if they were public-sector bodies.

This culture is reflected in their budgets, management systems and even academic organisation, while their employment practices and cost structures owe more to the Civil Service than competitive enterprise. Until now, this has not mattered too much, since public funding has grown steadily to match the rising costs of “core” teaching and research, sustaining a mutual dependency between government and universities that has benefited both. But that era is ending. The distinctions between the public and private markets for higher education services and provision are rapidly diminishing. Success in the new economics of higher education depends on providing tangible benefits for students, businesses and society – and doing that better than anyone else.

This is not simply a matter of universities becoming more businesslike and enterprising: they must first demonstrate what makes them special among the growing number of competitors. Universities must break out of the dependent mindset that asks: “Who will pay for us to continue doing the excellent things we do?” Instead, they must offer compelling answers to the market-led question: “How can our special capabilities be used to create value for others and thereby sustain our mission?”

Read full story.

A university vice-chancellor is hoping for tweet success in his new role by reaching out to his staff and students and others in the sector via the social networking site Twitter.

Since taking the reins at De Montfort University last month, Dominic Shellard (@t) has been quick to embrace the Twittersphere.

In doing so, he joins university heads from around the world including E. Gordon Gee (@presidentgee) of Ohio State University, Richard Descoings (@rdescoings) of Sciences Po in France and Steven Schwartz (@macquarievc), vice-chancellor of Macquarie University in Australia.

But Professor Shellard’s UK peers have been slow to take to social media. He is only the second to personally twitter, following Martin Hall of the University of Salford (@VCSalford).

Read full story

Substantial parallel donations to the university libraries of Oxford and Cambridge have allowed them to ramp up their digitisation efforts in a rare spirit of collaboration.

Bodleian Libraries in Oxford was seeking to raise £3 million for its digitisation plans when it was given half the sum by Leonard S. Polonsky, an alumnus of Lincoln College, Oxford, and executive chairman of Hansard Global.

He had already donated the same amount to the Cambridge University Library to support its plans to create a “digital library for the 21st century”.

Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian in Oxford, said the libraries “realise the potency of digitisation in terms of reaching a wider audience and helping scholars do things they couldn’t do before”. She added that it also helped preserve collections.

Read full story

The podcast will be available once JISC have optimised it, but in the meantime, enjoy the Slideshare. Love to hear comments on which tools you would use. Had around 20 on the webinar, and I know several people who couldn’t make the time and are waiting for the podcast!

Dr Bex Lewis, Blended Learning Fellow and Lecturer in History and Media Studies, University of Winchester

Content

Time is short, money is short. There’s a lot of change going on in the world, methods of communication are changing… which do we invest time or money in?

• What is Twitter? How do you use it?
• What are the ‘conventions’ of Twitter?
• What are some of the Twitter tools, third party apps, and how can Twitter lists help?
• How can Twitter help with your academic profile?
• How might Twitter help in the classroom?

Speaker

Dr Bex Lewis is Blended Learning Fellow and Lecturer in History and Media Studies at the University of Winchester. Her academic specialism is Second World War propaganda posters, which she regards as the precursor of Twitter in some ways!

Date: 1 March 2010 (1:00pm)
Venue: Online

Full information: here.

I noted this story in particular as yesterday I gave a 15-20 minute session on the use of Twitter within HE this afternoon, as part of my PGCLTHE.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2009) — “An experiment into the use of social media at the University of Leicester has shown that Twitter, an online blogging service, can act as an exceptional communication tool within academia.The study, published by the Association for Learning Technology, discovered that ‘tweeting’ helped:

• Develop peer support among students — with activity rising just prior to assessment deadlines or during revision for exams
• Develop personal learning networks — students used the network when they were preparing assessed work or revising for tests, often in situations when they were physically isolated from their peers
• Students to arrange social meetings
• The researchers also found Twitter to be very attractive as a data collection tool for assessing and recording the student experience, with a wide range of free and increasingly sophisticated online analysis tools”

Read full story.

Extract from the report published 4th November 2009

e-learning

33 The continuing development of e-learning is a vital element in supporting improvement of teaching and the student experience and in enabling the personalisation and flexibility that students and employers expect. We will empower our universities to be world  leaders in the growing market in transnational education based on e-learning.

34 Whilst the performance of our institutions in transnational education and online distance learning is already impressive, we need to build on this to ensure that we remain a global leader. Our aspiration is to ensure that UK courses are the first choice for international students who want to study but who do not want or are unable to travel. We will therefore build on the international reputation of the overall “British Brand” of higher education, and on distance learning at institution level, to ensure our strategic investment in digital higher education supports this existing area of strength.

35 HEFCE have established an impressive taskforce to help take forward the aim of helping UK higher education remain a world leader in online learning and grow its market share by 2015. The Task Force is chaired by Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, with representatives at senior level from the private and public sector, including Microsoft, Apple, the British Council, HEFCE, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and Universities UK. The BBC has agreed to advise the task force as and when appropriate. The taskforce met for the first time in September 2009.96

It will identify opportunities for investment and innovation within and between universities and colleges, and with the private sector, in the development of online learning, including the building of critical mass. Through HEFCE the Government will be prepared to provide seedcorn funding on a competitive basis for university/private sector partnerships which will strengthen our market position.

36 We believe that, in a rapidly expanding global market, institutions based here have a unique opportunity to provide education in many different forms. The UK’s  advantages in research and teaching are supported by ou established strengths in both accreditation and educational publishing. The potential to develop international education through partnerships with broadcasters and internet service providers is considerable, and in our view will shape and strengthen the higher education sector over the coming decade.

Read the full report (115 pages), or Executive Summary (20 pages) published by the Department for Business, Information and Skills (PDF), and also an interesting blog in response.