Project: The Digital Department
Institution: University College London
Programme: Developing Digital Literacies
"UCL has been at the forefront in identifying and supporting this new cadre of well-qualified teaching administrators (TAs) as critical ‘change agents’ in our e-learning strategy."
This is an edited version of the project's institutional story (final report). Please refer to the original for details of all references and additional information.
Summary
As technology enhanced learning has becoming mainstream, a wider range of staff groups beyond academics and learning technologists have had to get involved in using and supporting digital environments and processes. At UCL the majority of academic departments employ teaching administrators (TAs), i.e. professional services staff supporting staff and students who effectively manage the departments’ digital presence and communication with students. Recent work in Australia and New Zealand on the importance of the contribution of professional staff to the student experience and in the UK on shifting professional identities and changes to working practices highlight the value of developing this staff group. Through The Digital Department project, UCL has been at the forefront in identifying and supporting this new cadre of well-qualified teaching administrators (TAs) as critical ‘change agents’ in our e-learning strategy.
Although TAs contribute directly to the student experience their specific digital literacy needs have so far been rarely recognised or addressed. Through a series of workshops and surveys, but above all by engagement with UCL’s TA community, the project has mapped out the surprisingly diverse skills and abilities needed in a modern ‘digital department’. As activities and digital literacies were benchmarked the project developed processes to develop, share and evaluate best teaching administration digital practice across UCL. The project has supported and contributed to the development of a growing active community of practice which we anticipate will be sustainable beyond the life of the project. The participants' practices themselves have been documented though case studies, learning journeys and participant portfolios.
The recognition and certification model we adopted, the Certified Membership of the Association of Learning Technology (CMALT) has been an especially valuable and successful approach. The cohort-based workshop programme has been effective in building the network, sharing practice and engaging the community. Over 50 colleagues have been involved over the two cohorts. This approach has raised both the institutional recognition and profile of this particular staff group. External accreditation has been a strong incentive to undertake development and has enabled colleagues to achieve recognition for their work. Originally we had anticipated working with the Association of University Administrators (AUA) to co-develop an accreditation scheme. This was partially explored through a useful mapping exercise but due to internal changes at the AUA it proved unfeasible to pursue this interesting initiative within the timescale of the project.
Through the accreditation process the project has explored how technology can enhance the business efficiency and educational effectiveness of academic processes. Achieving consistent quality of teaching and learning support is important to students but is undoubtedly challenging in a large, diverse research-led university such as UCL. By developing a common framework of digital literacies among a committed staff group and by engaging students, support staff and academic colleagues throughout the process, we believe we have established a practical, sustainable model of institutional change which is already being applied to other staff groups across our institution and in a partner institution.
Key drivers
As the complexity of delivering academic provision in the sector has grown, so we have seen the emergence at UCL of a cadre of professional academic managers and administrators. Although Morgan (2011) has estimated that perhaps 30,000 individuals fit into this category across the sector, they remain largely unrecognised, nearly invisible or even dismissed as 'pen pushers'.
Through the project UCL has found itself at the forefront of a growing recognition that teaching administrators and other support roles have a very positive contribution to make to the student experience in increasingly technologically 'blended' learning environments. UCL recognises the partnership between academic and non-academic staff required to achieve the highest standards in UCL's academic mission. At UCL, the focus of TAs has shifted in the last twenty years from a clerical support role to a role which contains significant advisory and developmental responsibilities in supporting best practice, innovation and change. Many TAs have been able to develop strong partnerships with academic staff to the benefit of students.
In parallel "the use of online technologies is an essential component of the way in which students access and engage with the curriculum at UCL" (Institutional Learning and Teaching Strategy 2010-2015). For this high-tech, high-touch vision of the modern university to be realised the digital literacies of support staff must be developed as a strategic asset. The ambition of UCL is to professionalise the digital literacy of education administrators in order to enhance the teaching and learning environment. This is not simply the development of a specific group of staff; we see the digital literacies of students, academic colleagues and TAs being interconnected via the digital learning environment.
These two strands of thought are brought together in the work of Graham (2012) who demonstrates how changing technologies have a significant impact on the identities of professional staff supporting teaching. The developments in the professionalisation of TAs seems to mirror the professionalisation of learning technologists a decade or so earlier (Beetham et al. 2001) and it would be interesting to investigate the parallels further, e.g. the Digital Department project has established that while technical skill development is straightforward to plan and well established, the development of soft skills such as the ability to work effectively with academic staff and students are at least as important but harder to achieve.
Organisational context
As the use of blended and online learning has increased at UCL and student expectations grow ever more sophisticated, we are beginning to see far-reaching changes in the way the university support online learning. Innovation over the last two years has focused on institutional tools such as Moodle and associated technologies including the Echo 360 lecture capture system. The uptake among academic departments has been surprisingly rapid, leading to a step-change in our online provision.
We believe this process has been enabled by the emergence of a new cadre of well-qualified teaching administrators (TAs) as critical change agents’. TAs provide a range of ‘just in time’ support to academic colleagues. They often manage VLE resources, communicate directly with students and facilitate key educational processes such as assessment, feedback and consistent quality standards. Although TAs contribute directly to the student online environment their specific digital literacy needs have so far been rarely recognised or addressed. The Digital Department project aimed to explore how we can benchmark, develop, share and evaluate best digital practice across UCL especially through a certification framework.
Our baselining exercise revealed the wide range of digital tools TAs were using, at least 40 were listed at an early workshop. Some of these were institutionally supported and a Training Needs Analysis showed this set of literacies, at least at an access level, were well supported among the group. More difficult for staff development was the use of non-institutional tools, especially social media and cloud-based services, and the effective integration and practice of using this wide toolset. Our parallel focus group work with students showed they demanded a richer, more consistent online environment.
Achieving consistent quality of teaching and learning support is very important to students but is undoubtedly challenging in a large, diverse research-led university such as UCL. The project therefore has also begun to explore how technology can enhance the business efficiency and educational effectiveness of academic processes (see also the final report of the Jisc Curriculum Design programme in Beetham (2012), which interestingly also highlighted the value of staff working across traditional professional boundaries). Our survey of students has resulted in insights as to what is important to them, and this will feed into an action plan within the E-learning Champion framework. In future, we would like to explore, possibly with colleagues at the Institute of Education (IoE), in which ways this form of 'hybrid' provision is changing the role of the individual academic.
Our aim was to develop a common framework of digital literacies among a committed staff group and by engaging students, support staff and academic colleagues throughout the process, we believe we have established a practical, sustainable model of institutional change which can be applied to academic and other staff groups across our institution and the wider HE sector.
Project approach
Although we did not realise it initially, key to the project's success was the fact that at UCL TAs were an already established community of over 200 individuals spanning what is organisationally a very diverse campus. Importantly, TAs had already started to cooperate across department, division and faculty boundaries facilitating the diffusion of good practice and innovation outside of academic “silos”.
A core of TAs set up a self-organised TA network across the university, which holds an annual conference and hosts an on-line Moodle forum, exchanging experience and problem-solving in a wide range of areas of practice. Participation levels and conference feedback indicate there is no doubt that TAs as a group and individuals are eager to engage with their own development. Many TAs are relatively new appointments, whereas others have developed expertise over years, and a significant number have academic qualifications, often in the departmental discipline. In 2010 UCL's Learning Technology Support Service (LTSS) began to recognise and support this group by providing consultancy and running specific TA training courses in the VLE and related technologies.
It became clear through discussions with participants that this group could be significant change agents at UCL as they often had surprisingly wide responsibilities in, for example, the management of baseline VLE courses. TAs also provide direct ad-hoc support and advice to academic staff in their departments and so can encourage and facilitate academic innovation. As an indicator of their importance in 2011 the UCL initiative of compulsory VLE provision for all taught courses – a very significant component of the student experience – would simply not have been achieved without the administrators' involvement.
As the connections had already been made the TAs immediately engaged with the project. A well-attended launch event in September 2011 introduced the project to a group of 40 UCL teaching administrators and some initial brainstorming with the group showed
- digital literacies i.e. what tools we use and what skills we need
- what kinds of areas the TDD should investigate (e.g. mini-project)
- what kind of skills training and development we should consider.
This was followed by our second TA workshop when over a dozen attendees explored the AUA professional behaviours and how they relate to both the day-to-day work of participants and the digital literacies identified in the first workshop. We introduced the idea of case studies (four were eventually completed) and several colleagues volunteered to participate and even lead these ‘mini-projects’. These workshops were followed by a baseline survey of around 100 respondees which confirmed the wide range of tools used by the community, and the importance of Moodle in their workplace, as well as revealing TA’s interest in using new tools.
We had envisaged that the engagement with the AUA would enable us to design a suitable certification route for TAs, which had emerged as an area of priority for the network and which the Digital Department project was specifically designed to address. We explored possible certification options but the established modules and programmes were too big a step up and too costly for many TAs. Due to organisational changes at the AUA, developing a smaller scale entry-level qualification proved to be unfeasible and we decided to instead make use of the Certified Membership, Association for Learning Technology (CMALT). The advantages of this approach were that this certification route was already established and widely recognised, the ALT were keen to engage with the project and support what for them was a new audience, the portfolio approach was suitable for TAs and lent itself to sharing good practice, the portfolio requirements were not too onerous but required elements of development and reflection and the fees were affordable for our audience. From January to July 2012 the project supported a group of TAs through this well-recognised portfolio-based professional accreditation. Although the focus was on ‘learning technologies’ the majority of UCL teaching administrators currently use applications like Moodle, Turnitin, Lecturecast, Opinio, My Portfolio, the UCL Wiki and so on, at least to some extent. All use email to contact students, and many are experimenting with text and Facebook, even blogs and Twitter. Some also use other Web 2.0 technologies to support the student learning experience.
We took a cohort approach to the portfolio and arranged monthly workshops. This supported the group initially of 20 through what was for many a challenging reflective process but also cemented the group identity and provided a regular platform for the exchange of practice, not only in learning technologies but the wider digital aspects of their work. 12 colleagues successfully completed CMALT. Non-completion was due to a range of factors: change of job, maternity leave and referral with re-submission planned. According to feedback from the ALT, the programme developed by the Digital Department was the largest and most successful programme of its kind.
The approach was so successful that we are currently running another cohort of 30. This cohort included four colleagues from (and funded by) the Institute of Education, with the following feedback from their manager:
"As a line manager for a team of programme/teaching administrators, a major issue has been identifying opportunities for professional development and accreditation for these staff members, many of whom have seen their roles grow and shift with the increase in online learning and teaching. Professional staff in this role have often been instrumental in designing and configuring virtual spaces for students as well as negotiating various other e-systems in the course of their work; in this sense, their impact on the student experience has moved beyond that of a purely administrative capacity. The CMALT programme gave my staff a chance to gain accreditation for the expertise they had been developing over the past few years. In addition, it provided a means of extending their professional networks and sharing practice; participants from the IOE have had the opportunity to explore the issues they face in their own practice and then to undertake specific new developments, extending their skills and knowledge beyond their current remit."
We have already had expressions of interest for a 2014 presentation.
Outputs
Project blog
Jisc Design Studio project page
Supporting evidence
Baseline Report 15 02 12
UCL Student Technology Survey report to Jisc
Teaching administrator recognition/certification model
UCL Teaching Administrator role mapping
UCL Digital Department PDP qualification
Design a PDP qualification
Poster for HEA conference 2013
UCL CMALT Timeline and Guidance
Example Teaching Administrator portfolios
Case Studies
TA Handbook (table of contents)
The TA Handbook is a UCL Wiki and currently only available internally but we will make some of the content available externally. Please contact Stefanie Anyadi s.anyadi@ucl.ac.uk if you are interested in this output.
Benefits and beneficiaries
Tangible benefits achieved
The project has carried out a thorough baseline review using questionnaires, workshops and focus groups. The result was a list of priorities for support and development and a recognition that a more detailed Training Needs Analysis needed to be carried out. This has also been completed. [evidence: baseline review, TNA]
The project has engaged with students by carrying out a series of in-depth interviews designed to explore student views on the meaning of NSS survey questions and the contribution which Teaching Administrators make to student satisfaction [evidence: summary of results]
The project has, together with the AUA, produced a mapping of Teaching Administrator skills and roles to the AUA professional behaviours and to digital literacies. As a result, we identified the CMALT accreditation scheme as a suitable professional development tool for teaching administrators. [evidence: mapping, professional development plan, CMALT certification]
The project has developed a professional development workshop programme to support teaching administrators working towards CMALT accreditation. The pilot cohort in 2012 had 20 participants, of which ten achieved accreditation successfully. This was the largest and most successful group working towards CMALT, according to ALT. A second cohort with 30 participants is being supported in 2013 and includes teaching administrators, learning technologists, academics, library staff and teaching assistants from UCL and the Institute of Education. [evidence: certification, registration]
CMALT portfolios and some case studies supported by the project provide examples of good practice and innovation. They have enabled the project to increase the self-confidence amongst teaching administrators, promote a reflective practice approach and to share ideas on how to implement change. [evidence: portfolios, case studies, feedback]
The project has initiated the development of the UCL Teaching Administrator Handbook wiki, a knowledge base for all staff. A Table of Contents and wiki editing process is in place, and some content has been added. Awareness of this resource has been raised amongst teaching administrators and the next few months will see the addition of more content. [evidence: TA Handbook wiki, TA Conference Workshops, appointment of editorial board]
The Digital Department project has supported and provided additional resources to an emerging community which had begun to develop at UCL. This has raised the profile of the group of Teaching Administrators as a whole [evidence: T&L Portal, list of participants at TA Conference, involvement in strategy development in some faculties, consultation exercises], increased the confidence of individual teaching administrators [evidence: case studies, results of TAC workshops] and increased awareness at senior management level of the value of this staff group for efforts to improve the student experience at UCL [evidence: financial support from Vice-Provost Education and from the Information Services Division , steering committee membership]. Changes in practice which benefit students and academic staff are beginning to emerge and will be documented.
The CMALT workshop programme and CMALT certification has led to increased confidence amongst participants and sharing of best practice [evidence: feedback, portfolios]. This has resulted in changes of practice, e.g. the increased use of moodle templates to make finding information easier for students, which is reflected in feedback from students [evidence: evidence in student engagement summaries] and increased commitment to personal and institutional development (e.g. three successful participants in the first cohort became mentors for participants in the second cohort).
The work of the Digital Department project has led to a much better shared understanding of the work carried out by teaching administrators in academic departments and by colleagues in E-Learning Environments, who support technology-enhanced learning at UCL[evidence: E-Learning Development Grants, collaborations]. More recently, the project has explored links with colleagues in CALT and UCL Library, and established contact with teaching administrators at the IoE.
The knowledge base currently being developed as the Teaching Administrator Handbook will be of benefit to all staff involved in teaching at UCL. We will explore how this can be shared with other HEIs.
Tangible benefits planned for near future
We have commissioned a series of video clips to explain the work of TAs and their impact on academic staff and students. (See Lessons learned and reflections)
Other impacts
Developing the professional identity of the participants The project’s development of the CMALT programme has seen a new, structured approach to sharing and developing best practice across UCL and beyond. This will continue to result in changes of practice. The value of the CMALT programme has been recognised by senior management and we have received financial support from the Office of the Vice-Provost (Education) beyond the end of the Jisc project.
The reflective practitioner approach and the insights participants gain into teaching and learning processes feeds into a continuous improvement cycle, and we are planning to include the special topic section of the portfolio into the TA Handbook we are developing. We are hoping to be able to offer further professional development opportunities in conjunction with the Institute of Education: we ran a joint Summer School on Technology and Change in Higher Education in July 2013 (see below), and are hoping to run this again in 2014 and possibly develop it into a postgraduate module.
The inclusion of all staff groups, including academics and postgraduate teaching assistants, is likely to lead to a better appreciation of challenges faced by other staff groups and increase the sense of a shared purpose.
Integration into UCL E-Learning Strategy An appreciation of the crucial position of the Teaching Administrator staff group in supporting both academic staff and students, highlighted by the Digital Department project, has fed into UCL’s E-Learning Strategy, which now also refers to digital literacies and a 2013/14 development programme is being designed. UCL’s E-Learning Strategy requires two e-learning champions to be appointed in each department, one a member of academic staff, the other a member of professional staff, who will work in partnership to encourage, plan and support the implementation of technology-enhanced learning. This represents a cultural shift as Teaching Administrators have generally not had much visibility beyond departmental level. The E-learning champion network will be an avenue to continue to develop the community of practice emerging from the cross-cutting CMALT programme and we have also begun to explore the use of yammer.
Departmental-level projects The Project has also led to a proactive programme of engagement by E-Learning Environments with the TAs in academic departments, partly though the E-Learning Champions initiative. This has enabled a range of spin-off mini-projects in departments which are currently underway. These are mostly concerned with the administered support for e-learning. Projects at the departmental level include
- Moodle workshop (organised and attended by TAs - Academics attended too)
- TA Champion gave a Moodle What’s possible presentation and Lecturecast workshop
- Implementing common Moodle questionnaires across modules
- TAs have had input into one Faculty E-Learning report
- Migrating assessment processes online (several departments)
- Moving towards Moodle baseline, migrating assessment processes online including Quickmarks for feedback (the implication is that all modules have a Moodle area, all tutors become editors, so they will be making considerable developments).
- Reorganisation of Moodle areas, migrating assessment processes online including rubrics for feedback
- Moodle enhanced Baseline for one department, TA champion (also CMALT candidate) has been tasked with being e-learning lead in the department following recent staff reorganisation
- Workshop to develop further the Moodle as a Communications Hub TA Conference session
Thus there is a substantial engagement with improving administered support for e-learning, often focusing on core institutional activities around communication, assessment and feedback.
Impact beyond UCL
Summer School A recent spin off was the very successful summer school entitled ‘Technology and Change in Higher Education’ run on 11/12 July 2013 with Martin Oliver and Cat Edera from the Institute of Education (IoE). We linked the Jisc Digital Literacies programme run by IoE and UCL and used the opportunity to explore some of the issues around emerging practices, roles and identities of staff and students related to the changing technological environment. It was a great opportunity to exchange experiences and ideas with colleagues from the University of the West of Scotland, London South Bank University and Anglia Ruskin University and the intention is to build on these contacts for future exchanges. See the project blog.
Conferences We have spread the word at a number of conferences and have found more resonance in the last six months, possibly because we could refer to the resources available and demonstrate the tangible benefits of the CMALT programme and because we have packaged our presentations not in terms of teaching administrators but in terms of professional staff supporting learning technology. For example at the recent HEA conference, colleagues from the University of Birmingham and the University of Winchester expressed an interest in our work and we will follow this up.
Sustaining and embedding
The focus on student experience and the increasing importance of student feedback (particularly via the NSS and Student Barometer) is likely to present many challenges and opportunities for all UK universities in the future. The strong community of practice of Teaching Administrators which has developed in recent years, with the additional resources and development strategies provided by the Digital Department project, means that UCL has effective, efficient and responsive administrative support arrangements at departmental level which will enable UCL to respond.
Further improvements could result from better embedding in HR processes, particularly the induction and training of new staff.
There has been some interest from other institutions in the CMALT accreditation approach and the workshop programme and resources are shared via the Jisc Design Studio. We will work with ALT to promote this approach at other HEIs. Maren Deepwell, Chief Executive of ALT, comments:
“The collaboration between ALT and the Digital Department was very productive and led to the establishment of a CMALT stream as part of the internal staff development offering. ALT has had direct involvement in the design, delivery and accreditation of this initiative and we particularly welcomed interest from the senior leadership in the institution. Given that there is strong interest from within the staff community we look forward to continuing our collaboration beyond the timeframe of the Developing Digital Literacies programme and are also in touch with a small number of other institutions who are considering translating this example into their own context. The collaboration has also provided a value learning opportunity for us and will contribute to enhancing the CMALT scheme overall.”
The Summer School offered jointly with the Institute of Education as a result of this project will enable teaching administrators and other colleagues to further develop their skills and to look beyond their own institution. We are hoping that in future we will be able to develop this into a postgraduate module based at the Institute of Education.
Funding from the Vice-Provost (Education) and from ISD will enable the project to continue until at least the end of 2013. The project will work towards embedding some of the outputs, particularly the Teaching Administrator Handbook and the CMALT programme, into on-going processes to ensure sustainability.
We are planning to carry out research into the effects of the work of the Digital Department project, and will publish the outcomes.
We are organising a workshop in September to share the ideas and experiences within UCL and with other HEIs.
Lessons learned and reflection
On the whole the project worked as expected but has had a higher impact at UCL than anticipated. We believe this was due to the well-developed TA network that had already been established. One of the alarming worrying reflections from our numerous disseminations outside UCL is that this group of staff is largely unrecognised and therefore underdeveloped.
In response, we have commissioned a series of video clips to highlight the TA role and its contribution to student outcomes and support for academics, and will make these available as OER material. We anticipate that this material will be of use not only at UCL, where it will help us to further raise the profile of TAs, but also for other HEIs, where it will help professional staff to self-identify with this staff group, explore development opportunities and network.
We believe many UK and overseas HEIs are missing a real opportunity for strategic engagement with e-learning and digital literacies by ignoring and even dismissing this professional group. Although later work with the IoE and the summer school indicated this attitude is gradually changing, as institutions begin to understand the consequence of mainstream e-learning and the rapid changes in technology, this observation has caused us to think carefully about the complexity of institutional change and the need to take a forensic approach to changing practices and roles. Our work with the IoE sister project has undoubtedly influenced this interest in detailed change. We have begun to engage with the political and cultural aspects of change, which are currently poorly documented and studied at this level of detail.
As an example of our thinking as a result of the project we have developed a blueprint for developing a network of professional staff in a UK HEI. This is particularly valuable in HEIs with professional staff distributed in academic units, with high levels of trust and widely differing practices between departments. Once the community of practice has been established, the other outcomes of the project can be explored such as accreditation and information networks, but we now realise this preliminary work has to be completed or at least initiated before a challenging changeproject such as The Digital Department can have an impact.
Areas of difficulty experienced by the project
Engagement with HR The project would have liked to achieve an embedding of TA professional development activities and an agreed TA role descriptor in collaboration with HR. We were unable to achieve this due to lack of engagement on the part of HR. Although a number of HR colleagues were interested in the work of the project, we were unable to align it with current HR processes and strategies, which moreover are in a state of flux. We have funding to continue the professional development activities in 2013/14 and hope to embed this within the UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching in this period.
Engagement with students Engagement with students proved to be very time-consuming although very productive. We changed the engagement with students from one of longer-term student change agents to student consultants who were recruited at shorter notice and for smaller pieces of work. Engagement with student union sabbatical officers was also difficult, mainly because at UCL they only serve for a year so there is not much time for them to settle into work and become productive. In the future, we will try to include some permanent student union staff to ensure continuity.
Knowledge base While we have set up a wiki and editorial board for this resource and developed a Table of Contents, the material included so far is patchy. Despite a number of dissemination events and interest expressed by many colleagues, the level of consultation and contribution seems too low. We are planning to adopt a different approach in order to develop this resource further in the future, by running small facilitated workshops with outcomes then written up and included in the knowledge base.
Engagement with the AUA We had originally planned to design an accreditation model with the AUA but were unable to achieve this, as has been documented previously. Fortunately, we were able to work with ALT to adapt their accredited membership, CMALT, and this partnership has proved very fruitful and will continue beyond the end of the project. We have run a pilot summer school with the Institute of Education, which builds upon knowledge and skills gained via CMALT and might be developed into a postgraduate module. We would be interested in exploring a joint accreditation model with the AUA in future.
Administrative and organisational support We had been awarded dedicated Jisc funding for administrative and organisational support in the first year of the project. Arranging this support was quite a challenging part of the project as it took us several months to appoint to the post, and we only had very limited administrative support in the second year. In addition, one of the three original project directors obtained another post half way through the project and was unable to commit much time to the project in the second year. As a result, the workload on the other two project directors in the second year was at times very high and did not leave much time for reflection.
Recommendations
Recommendations to HEI SMTs
- Ensure that there are sufficient professional staff available in academic departments who can support academic staff and students and that they have the time for professional development and networking
- Identify professional staff supporting teaching and learning locally and publicly acknowledge their value to the overall mission, e.g. by including a relevant category in teaching and learning awards
- Support the development of a network which will allow you to draw on their expertise when developing policies and procedures. This will ensure well-informed decisions and make the implementation easier and quicker
- Actively encourage and support the collaboration between professional staff based in departments and those based in central divisions (e.g. registry, library, information systems)
- Actively encourage and support the collaboration between academic/teaching staff, professional staff and students
Recommendations to HEIs (HR) about the specific role and development of TAs (or equivalent)
- Identify staff based in academic departments supporting teaching and learning and support the development of a network (see suggested steps above)
- Produce a role description, which might consist of several strands
- Identify development priorities
Recommendations to HEIs (programme and departmental leaders) about involving professional staff in curriculum planning/management/delivery and their role in developing a digitally literate institution
- Identify staff supporting teaching and learning based in academic and central departments (e.g. information systems, library)
- Establish how they contribute to teaching and learning
- Identify opportunities for collaboration to make improvements (e.g. see list of departmental projects in Other Impacts section above)
- Encourage HR and staff developers to work with this staff group (see relevant recommendations)
Recommendations to staff developers in HEIs on successful approaches to working with professional staff
- Carry out a TNA or skills survey with particular professional group and consider developing productivity support tools (check lists, workflows)
- Small scale portfolio based projects are a good way of developing staff and recording achievements
- A cohort based approach enables the development of a community of practice which is likely to be valued by participants and allows for sharing of ideas across professional group and departmental boundaries
- A reflective component encourages staff to adopt a continuous improvement approach
- In consultation with the group develop specific training and development opportunities, e.g. Moodle for administrators
Recommendations to (CM)ALT on further developing their offer to professional staff
- Increase visibility of such staff groups by including relevant sample portfolios
- Encourage current CMALT holders (often learning technologists) to spread the word to other staff groups they work with
- Link to or adapt the workshop programme developed as part of the Digital Department project
- Develop specific support materials in collaboration with UCL, including advice for portfolio markers
- Use other professional organisations to publicise this opportunity
- Develop a SIG for TAs with e-learning responsibilities
