Capabilities and Recommendations



A report for the University of the Arts, LondonPete CranstonSeptember 2010Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1Summary PAGEREF _Toc271745059 \h 32Introduction PAGEREF _Toc271745060 \h 42.1Poised for (digital) action PAGEREF _Toc271745061 \h 42.2The problem PAGEREF _Toc271745062 \h 43The Digital Dimension PAGEREF _Toc271745063 \h 64Capabilities and Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745064 \h 84.1UAL online PAGEREF _Toc271745065 \h 84.1.1What it would look like PAGEREF _Toc271745066 \h 84.1.2How UAL scores PAGEREF _Toc271745067 \h 144.1.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745068 \h 164.2Internal Communications PAGEREF _Toc271745069 \h 184.2.1What it would look like PAGEREF _Toc271745070 \h 184.2.2How UAL scores PAGEREF _Toc271745071 \h 194.2.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745072 \h 194.3Back-office systems PAGEREF _Toc271745073 \h 194.3.1What it would look like PAGEREF _Toc271745074 \h 194.3.2How UAL scores PAGEREF _Toc271745075 \h 214.3.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745076 \h 224.4ICT infrastructure PAGEREF _Toc271745077 \h 234.4.1What it would look like PAGEREF _Toc271745078 \h 234.4.2How UAL scores PAGEREF _Toc271745079 \h 244.4.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745080 \h 254.5Learning and teaching PAGEREF _Toc271745081 \h 264.5.1What it would look like PAGEREF _Toc271745082 \h 264.5.2How UAL scores PAGEREF _Toc271745083 \h 264.5.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745084 \h 274.6Digital capacity in the staff body PAGEREF _Toc271745085 \h 284.6.1What it would look like PAGEREF _Toc271745086 \h 294.6.2How UAL scores PAGEREF _Toc271745087 \h 294.6.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745088 \h 304.6.4Leading by example PAGEREF _Toc271745089 \h 324.7Management Structure PAGEREF _Toc271745090 \h 324.7.1What it would look like PAGEREF _Toc271745091 \h 324.7.2How UAL scores PAGEREF _Toc271745092 \h 324.7.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc271745093 \h 335Appendices PAGEREF _Toc271745094 \h 355.1LCC on Twitter (lcclondon) PAGEREF _Toc271745095 \h 355.2CCW Media Lab– a hybrid project space PAGEREF _Toc271745096 \h 365.3Informants PAGEREF _Toc271745097 \h 385.4Terms of Reference PAGEREF _Toc271745098 \h 406End notes PAGEREF _Toc271745099 \h 42Summary403860033020This aim of this report is to outline a vision of a UAL that is digital by default. It draws on 17 days of research and engagement in UAL, reviewing the wide range of interconnected activities and processes that are in some way affected by digital technologies. EB confirmed the crucial strategic importance of this area to the University but was unable to rate how UAL scores on a digital scale, on the basis that different areas within UAL are at different levels. I suggest that, in terms of its current position and taken as a whole, UAL is around the mid-point on a scale of 1-10. While there are many areas of good practice as well as much high quality innovation and development, change is constrained by business and management processes and structures which are out of step with current realities; by limited staff awareness of and engagement with the digital environment; by a technology base that is not geared to support innovation and change and above all by tensions between Colleges and Central Services over direction and ownership.right0However, I rate UAL much higher in terms of potential for rapid improvement. Significant resources have been committed to addressing ICT constraints while projects such as SICOM are addressing organisational processes and standards Above all, there is experience, talent, originality and energy within the staff – and student – body that would, if harnessed and coordinated, enable UAL to take a great leap forward, both in its own terms and relative to its competitors. Importantly at this time, I also believe that this effort would not require significant new investment. It would however require commitment from all levels of management to leading change, learning from and embedding good practice across UAL, coordinating more efficiently between project streams and investing in staff capability. The report below:Identifies four areas where the boundaries between colleges and centre should be reviewed and accountabilities clearly agreedUAL’s public and internally facing web presencesCore, back office management systemsAccess and InfrastructureTeaching and learning Outlines a vision of what a digital UAL could look like in 2013, poised to respond flexibly and effectively to future waves of change in the digital realm Proposes a coordinated activity programme, with recommendations in seven areas The UAL public digital footprint, including its social media presenceInternal communicationsBack-office systemsICT infrastructureTeaching and Learning systemsStaff capacity, building on proposals for Digital Literacy standards and training developed within UALManagementIntroductionPoised for (digital) action023495In terms of its digital posture, if UAL were a Greek statue, it would be closer to one from the archaic period, standing firmly planted with equal weight on either foot, the feet close together, than a figure from a later period, standing poised at the point of moving to a new state, ready for action. The core issue for UAL is not how it is to catch up with the status quo, it’s already too late for that, but how it is to become an organisation that responds flexibly, creatively, efficiently, coherently and responsibly to future developments in the converging worlds that are affected by continuing rapid changes in digital technology. In this report I am using the concept of organisational capability as a way to frame the analysis since this captures the crucial issue that systemic weaknesses across UAL have constrained its advance. Through the research for this report I have formed the view that there is sufficient experience, talent, originality and energy within the staff – and student – body to enable UAL, as a whole and in its constituent parts, to take a great leap forward in both its own terms and relative to its competitors. To harness this potential effectively, I believe, requires a coordinated programme of activities to address the weaknesses and build on the strengths. However, importantly at this time, I also believe that this effort would not require significant new investment. It would however require acceptance that UAL needs to advance across the whole range of what David Garcia (CCW) calls its digital dimension. This would require commitment from all levels of management to addressing holistically a range of interdependent issues, including business process, authority and ownership, management, governance, technology and innovation, global marketing; to putting in place systems and processes that ensure UAL can learn from and embed good practice from both academic and service functions; to managing more effectively the dependencies and resourcing of UAL’s multiple project streams and, above all, investing in staff capability. Without such a focused and coordinated programme of activities UAL would doubtless continue to advance into the digital realm but in a somewhat flat-footed and random way. The issue is whether UAL wants to accelerate out of its current trajectory. Acceleration would mean drawing on reserves of energy and resources and applying them to specific leverage points. In this report I identify what I believe are key leverage points and suggest what resources and energy could be applied. I suggest what being digital might feel like in UAL and, using the organisational capability framework, what needs to happen for UAL to advance to that state rapidly enough to be in a leading role by 2013.4088765355600The problemI have researched and written parts of this study in a café with wifi opposite 272 High Holborn. I am a typical digital citizen in that I dip in and out of multiple streams of activity while I am working, online and using my iPhone. For the price of a cup of coffee, I research online or write on my ?350 laptop; I chat, interact with friends and colleagues across the globe on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (my comments appear simultaneously on all three); I store my work and collaborate on projects using online platforms, mostly for free; I consume video, pictures and audio, integrating elements from them, on the fly, into my work; I receive automated alerts relating to changes in websites, news, people and places; I am continually experimenting with new sites and services, usually recommended by contacts, which regularly entails downloading software clients and updates; I support clients in long-term learning and knowledge management projects using different conferencing and chat programmes, interacting with them real-time on shared, online platforms, building wikis and editing blogs together; without necessarily registering it, I have become resistant to poorly designed, ineffective, non-interactive, relatively static web platforms, although as an independent my own threadbare blog site doesn’t actually constrain me because this interlinking, social activity, and engagement with the Internet of flows has generated for me new contacts and contracts. “There's no doubt that our emerging information environment is more complex – in terms of numbers of participants, the density of interactions between them, and the pace of change – than anything that has gone before. This complexity is not an aberration or something to be wished away: it's the new reality, and one that we have to address. …..our collective mindsets in industry and government are not well adapted for dealing with complexity. Traditionally, organisations have tried to deal with the problem by reducing complexity – acquiring competitors, locking in customers, producing standardised products and services, etc. These strategies are unlikely to work in our emerging environment, where intelligence, agility, responsiveness and a willingness to experiment (and fail) provide better strategies for dealing with what the networked environment will throw at you.”John Naughten, Observer, 20/6/2010While there are exceptions, it is generally true to say that I would find it hard to operate as freely and easily as a staff member or student in UAL. And I am certainly not in the first flush of youth: many, many current and prospective students have similar patterns – if narrower networks - and a small but increasing number of UAL staff try to operate in the same way. If Digital means anything it means registering and responding to this environment and set of behaviours, profoundly different to the one for which many of UAL’s current structures, processes and plans were conceived. There is a general consensus that UAL is underperforming in its digital profile. Yet there are examples from across UAL of excellent practice in exploiting modern digital technologies that typify the approach and energy which would place UAL in the vanguard. However, the examples of good practice are scattered through parts of UAL, have often been surprisingly hard to achieve and are not being built upon systematically. At the same time there are a large number of guerrilla projects, instances where frustrated – or sometimes simply independent-minded – staff have developed their own online sites for teaching and project work. There is also a history of colleges and departments funding software and online developments in such a way that, at worst, they fail standard quality criteria, and at best they provide specific functionality that is not shared across the institution. However, before exploring these examples in more detail and reviewing options for bringing the activity and innovation together more coherently, it is important to sketch out the territory and features of the digital dimension. The Digital DimensionWord cloud from the text below, generated using In recent years we’ve seen fundamental shifts in the tools and technology people are using to communicate, work and play. We live in a world where traditional print media is in decline, Google is omnipresent, Facebook has unprecedented take-up, Twitter sets the news agenda, the iPhone has reshaped mobile usage and the iPad looks set to change the way we think about computers. These developments all have digital technology at their centre, but the term Digital is used about a much wider realm than technology. At one and the same time it can be used in connection with: the unifying impact of using a numerical code to represent real-world information, illustrated by the range of material stored on my own iPhone (see below)the emergence of digital technologies, based on advances in electronics and miniaturisation, resulting in the extraordinary growth of modern computers, by which these codes are manipulated, copied and communicated at high speedthe convergence in technology and media that resulted from these trends, along with others such as compression software, illustrated by the fact that my iPhone is actually a very powerful portable computer that can also communicate using radio waves. For example, it can be a multi-functional reporting tool at conferences, used for broadcasting live or recording video, to be uploaded for online viewing or embedded into a blog or other open, collaborative platform, possibly with added soundtracks and effects.the intersection of human social drivers with technology, entrepreneurship and commerce from which has emerged the astonishingly rapid advance of online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter a set of behaviours and associated underlying attitudes that have evolved as we have interacted with - and influenced – changing technologies and applications that dominate the web, such as YouTube, Google, Amazon and Facebook. Among others, notions of privacy, connectedness, Intellectual Property rights and personal space are changing or being challenged, especially between and across generations.some of the more powerful currents in globalisation, including the reducing significance of geography and time-zones, international terrorism, global media giants and stars, convergent and emergent generational cultures upheavals and corporate re-grouping in national and international media, technology and service industriesleft46990I consume a lot of media on my iPhone when I travel. Using wifi or the normal phone channel I check email, and catch up on snippets like test match scores or weather forecasts. I listen to podcasts, read downloaded news stories, and watch video clips. I have a large collection of music, converted from vinyl, copied from a CD or bought online, as well as a collection of photos. I interact with other people on the move using the phone as a phone, texting, emailing and tweeting - using SMS or a separate downloaded application that tracks different groups and issues. I often use Google maps or other tools for directions to my final destination, using the convenience of its location finder functionality and still marvelling that it tracks me in real time as I move. I wonder even more at being able to identify the nearest Thai restaurant by pointing the camera on the phone and using augmented reality applications, or playing with the Museum of London application shown opposite which displays historical overlays of locations.Expressed more formally, UAL digital includes The development and delivery of digital content and media (delivered online or in other platforms)The creation and management of large-scale datasetsThe creation and management of digital surrogates of physical thingsThe delivery of teaching and learning services onlineThe use of technology to enable back-office functionsThe management of access to and from the Internet for staff and studentsThe supply of secure technology systems to protect University resources and users The provision of tools for interaction, collaboration and user-generated contentThe usage of technical tools for monitoring and evaluationThe arrangements for licensing and ownership of digital assetsThe challenges of long-term digital preservation and web archivingThe emergence of new business models which depend on different technologies and platforms (such as image licensing)The use of digital tools and platforms for marketing and brand managementCapabilities and RecommendationsKeeping pace with the scale and pace of the digital wave is especially difficult for large, established organisations. Their planning and budget cycles are designed for slower moving times while their internal organisational divisions relate to previously understood frontiers between disciplines and function. Pedagogically “digital collapses interdisciplinary boundaries” (D. Garcia). Conversely, for IT, IS and web teams, digital presents new platforms and tools that use technology but no longer fit within previously agreed definitions of their remit. In this main section of the report I focus on seven areas of capability that I believe UAL should address as part of becoming digital:A digital footprint that conveys vividly and interactively the vibrancy and quality of college programmes in a recognisable, coherent University brand.Accessible and personalised internal communications for students and staff based on communities of interest and practice, plus need-to-know informationEfficient, secure, universally used software systems that support core student and staff management processesICT infrastructure and support systems that enable staff and students to travel seamlessly between their home and work environments, using the most common personal digital communicators or computersAn easy to use, flexible, open toolset to support learning and teaching that is universally used because it saves staff time, provides accountability, enables knowledge sharing as well as distance learning and teachingA critical mass of staff use modern digital technologies confidently and capably in their professional and personal livesA coherent, future-focused, adequately resourced management structure that ensures continued focus on becoming digital, coordinates programmes, prioritises resources and schedules and enables shared learning between the different elements of digital UALTight or LooseThere is a common theme throughout the report which is the need to adjust the balance between tight or loose management controls in the first five of these areas and in particular, where there is no absolute need for tight controls, to genuinely let staff loose to explore and enjoy the extraordinary vitality and richness of the Internet ecosystem. That way innovation and advance comes, as testified by the examples of good practice dotted through the University. UAL onlineA digital footprint that conveys vividly and interactively the vibrancy and quality of college programmes in a recognisable, coherent University brand.What it would look likeBy 2012 arts.ac.uk will present users with a bright, contemporary-looking, dynamic site. It will signpost clearly areas targeting standard information queries, which will be linked to content structured hierarchically, starting with quick answers and leading to more detailed information. Made up of a tapestry of blogs, videos, audio, shows, and interviews, much of the content will differ from day to day, since it will be fed from and authored by different sections within UAL. There will also be clear links to college and/or project sites. Some of the college sites will look similar to the main site while others will present a very different look and feel, expressing the personalities and distinctive identities of those colleges. Throughout, however, it will conform to navigation and interface standards designed to ensure it is accessible to all potential users. International students from UAL’s principal recruitment sources will find at least standard UAL information content in their own language, and like the rest of the site, the site will link to and reflect content from social media. Feeds to main content areas and media types will be standard, and there will also be a series of widgets, some customisable for different languages, that provide regular multimedia content reflecting life at UAL and providing news updates. Some pointers to UAL online 2.0The homepage changes daily: as in the current MIT site, whose “spotlight exposes to the world the research, technology and education advances taking place at the Institute every day”. The content is provided from across MITDifferent identities expressed via a common navigation framework and user interface, as illustrated by OxJam – an Oxfam GB Community Fundraising project using the MySpace social network, where the page structure is defined by the open platform Pigeons & Peacocks from LCF is an example of an arresting design that projects a college specific identity and provides a compelling narrative, within a minimal UAL frameworkDecentralised content generation and ownership with options to do more than simply provide copy into a standard format, as in this example from the Yale School of Art. Yale uses a wiki for it’s site. Almost all pages are editable by everyone, within common navigation standards. An active part of the Internet of flows, linking, citing, embedding and annotating images from other people, tagging or ‘favouriting’ media clips or stories or photos; Dialogue is the expectation: passive one-way communication has been replaced with interactivity and conversation, as shown here in Paul Lowe’s Ning community, OPENi: a global network of visual storytellers and documentary photographers. Another example from a leader in its field, investing in a platform built with a global audience in mind: balancing localised and multilingual content with a corporate identity and a dynamic presenceThe UAL students union has a style that is becoming a standard for such community-focused sites, encouraging people to share their experiences: whether it’s sharing photos or video, writing blog posts, updating their Facebook status, or tweeting about what they’ve doneSocial Media & UAL0635In Nairobi, the cost of a basic smartphone – enabling access to the Internet – starts at US$25. 1 Mb of data costs between US$$ 0.02 to 0.10. ‘I use my phone for email and Facebook status updates and I never use up all of the Mb’, said Tezira Lore, a twenty-something African communications executive working for an agricultural research organisation. Like her peers across the globe, Tezira is constantly in touch with friends and colleagues using social media (largely Facebook). They connect over mobile phones or wi-fi, from their laptops. And it isn’t only the young or those from larger urban areas: at a recent workshop a Mozambican community worker was chatting on Facebook during workshop sessions with an older, more experienced colleague in Maputo to share what he was saying and bring in her contributions. Kenya isn't one of the largest sources of UAL students, yet, and Africa as a whole is behind the rest of the world in its adoption of online media. Apart from being a startling illustration of how rapidly the global 'digital divide' is narrowing in many places, the relevance of this to UAL of this picture is that culturally this generation - and therefore younger generations across Africa, as well as in the rest of the world - now operate with Social Media as their primary form of online communication. For many of those who haven't had access to the web, platforms such as FaceBook, Orkut (Brazil), RenRen (China) or Ibibo (India) are an alternative route into the web.This is particularly important in terms of UAL’s international recruitment, brand profile and longer-term engagement with its international community. Social networks are now expanding as fast in many parts of the world as they originally did in the US and UK. Interestingly, the four countries where Facebook isn’t the leading social network are amongst UAL’s top recruitment territories (China, Japan, Korea and Russia). UAL is increasingly visible through the social media component of its digital footprint, although not in a coordinated way. For example, the primary UAL Facebook group is growing - 14,633 in July 2010 - and active. At the same time, like many organisations, UAL has opened and is promoting a FaceBook page, which has 875 members. But even a cursory search finds 100s of UAL related groups and pages. Some are college sites, some are formally managed by parts of UAL – featuring courses or shows - but many are informal, started and managed by current or ex-students. This diversity is stimulating but experience from other organisations suggests there is a need to review and define the UAL strategy for engagement with Facebook and other social media sites. Questions to be considered include: Whether there should there be college pages and/or groups, as well as primary UAL sitesHow UAL can – or should - track and stay in touch with the myriad sites that carry its brand and other information as well as, probably more importantly, conversations about UAL, which in turn show up on searchesWhat resources UAL can put to managing these sites: it takes at least half to one person day per week to manage an active Social Media space, given that the currency in such spaces is comment and connection, which requires people to read and respond to postings and requests. How that resource can be supported, and through which budgetsSince the most powerful corporate communication in social media comes when supporters, friends - or enemies - take on the cause of an institution, or an issue with which it is associated, how UAL can engage with the myriad conversations that relate to its work, and the multiple sites on which those conversations take placeWhat the relationship should be between UAL web site(s) and Social Media and how they should connect, noting that there aren’t links from the UAL home page nor consistently through the college sub-sites, which is unusual for a contemporary websiteThe issue is as important for staff and their own connections as it is for students and UAL's communication with them. Specialist, niche sites are a large and growing part of web ecology. LinkedIn is finally reaching the critical mass necessary to make it more generally useful for connecting, finding jobs etc. The UAL LinkedIn page has 415 followers, more staff than students. Curiously, there is a disclaimer: "This page is not endorsed by or affiliated with University of the Arts London", and it isn't easy to identify the administrator. The same questions about resourcing, ownership and branding are relevant to this and other social media sites such as the increasingly important - for staff - of the specialist academic social spaces such as academia.edu, where a search for UAL throws up lots of connections, as shown above. academia.edu, alongside other related sites such as the huge network., are growing in importance as sources of connection, reputation and promotion.Like most institutions, UAL is only partially in control of its digital footprint. Comprising 1000s of individual, searchable, archived web-references, such a composite image can be manipulated to a certain extent, but at significant cost. UAL has to determine an effective social media strategy in a time of growing austerity. How UAL scoresUnusually, there is a lot of consensus across UAL about its main website. Arts.ac.uk undersells UAL, is old-fashioned, non-interactive, minimally dynamic and, above all, doesn’t “tell the story of the colleges”. It has no non-English content. It displays little of the dynamism and traffic on UAL’s growing social media presence in Facebook, Twitter and other niche sites, such as those developed in Ning. However, the imminent deployment of the new Content Management System (CMS) and the re-orientation being led by Dee Searle, the new Director of Communication, presents a once-in-three-years opportunity to make the necessary radical changes. This is not to say that there is no innovation at all: there is good and growing collaboration across the college web teams and innovation is shared. “A recent good example was LCF’s live video feed of the graduate catwalk show, complete with live twitter feed. This generated good online buzz for LCF, demonstrated their awareness of modern communication tools, and, critically, drove a lot of traffic back to the website when individual designer profiles were highlighted as models went down the catwalk”. Social media is a major area for experimentation, partly because this is an area of online activity which was too new to fall under the current tight management structures. Looked at broadly, and given that this is new media in which most organisations are finding their feet, I judge that UAL is in the mainstream in terms of spread and activity. 3492500330200International online presenceThe decentralised nature of UAL’s international recruitment, involving local agents, complicates the picture in relation to UAL web presences. Some agents have their own web presence, and those do not comply with UAL standards. They are, appropriately enough, often in local language, which makes it difficult to review and monitor what is being said about UAL, and how. In terms of brand, promotion and user experience the quality of these sites varies enormously. Finally, they do not appear to drive a lot of web traffic to UAL. Over the past year, the top ten referrers to the international site, comprising 84%, are a mix of search engines and college sub- sites (40%), with only 10% of those coming direct to the international pages. International marketing are keen to increase direct, personal engagement with potential students and, to some extent, their parents. The conferencing tool Webex is used to communicate directly with schools and institutions. Alumni are a key part of UAL’s international network, and although there is a strong and growing UAL alumni Facebook presence there is otherwise not at present a strong push to use social media, international or local. The international page on the UAL site gets some small traffic from Facebook.in, and other Facebook territory sites, while referrals from Orkut, in common with other networks, may come from the generic ‘Studying in England’ profiles. I believe that these networks could play an important role, particularly if alumni become active and engage with potential students in the environment where they spend their time, so that students have familiar faces to connect to, “to pin their hopes and dreams on”. This is now conventional wisdom for similar activities in the UK, US and parts of Europe where social media are widely used.Showtime and 202565060960Both these products promote student work – Showtime, developed internally, and , developed externally. “Showtime provides portfolio display functions for UAL undergraduates as they progress through the University and, especially, as they approach final exhibition time. Jotta’s audience is the wider community of creatives graduating from any and all universities once they have completed their studies, and therefore looking for a wider range of services than Showtime.” Both products are professionally produced and well used. While there has been tension in the past, both teams of developers are keen to interlink and cross-promote, as indeed was agreed in June 2009. However, there are useful lessons to be learnt from looking at how Jotta is different, in its development and ambitions. left0Jotta’s aim is to inspire and foster collaboration in art and design both within and between disciplines. Jotta does this online at and offline in the real world through events, exhibitions and commissioned projects. Like Showtime, is a bright, well-structured, active, innovative platform. It is already in its second major redesign, with impressive growth figures: in May 2010 I counted 6,604 profiles which, even allowing for duplicates and dummies is fast growth from a standing start in 2009. There has been a lot of collaborative activity amongst that community – creation of products, site-specific installations, group exhibitions, books, symposia, and animations. Jotta goes further than Showtime in its community ambitions and it that it typifies an important trend in the linking of social media, websites and human interaction. It’s a collaborative platform targeting the sweetspot exemplified by the Obama election campaign: a virtuous circle of online activity generating offline – physical, face to face – activity that in turn generates more virtual activity which leads to more ‘embodied’ collaborations and so on. Jotta’s other distinctive characteristic is that it is now a private company owned in part by UAL, private equity and the founders. It has a revenue model, and although not at all self sufficient – it’s early days – it does generate revenue which it is able to control and direct, which is in contrast to the reality for many internal organisational developments where income goes into a general pot. Jotta as a model is interesting for a digital strategy. It has been developed by an independent agency, but one closely connected to the University. Like all autonomous organisations jotta can be more flexible than sections or divisions inside a corporate body; it is able to focus on its own self-defined goals as opposed to always aligning itself with central strategies; jotta also carries its own risk of failure, which can lead to a more single minded focus on operational goals: it stands or falls on the service it provides, like fully commercial sites, whereas applications developed inside organisations are sometimes not measured with an equivalent degree of rigour. Finally, the space and the development of the application is beyond the University’s own accountability for security and privacy while the links into CSM and later the whole University means they can benefit from the innovation which can flourish in that kind of open but bounded, loosely controlled spaceRecommendationsFrom my research it is clear that the web team and the new Director are well-equipped to make the necessary changes. They have experience and knowledge of good practice and trends on the web. They are also starting from a position closer to those of the colleges than was previously the case. From my conversations with the web teams and a review of the current sites, I suggest recommendations to help guide the changes:Achieving a ‘bright contemporary feel’ is best achieved by enabling the bright, contemporary staff and students in UAL to have a major say in how the site should look and feel. This should begin at design, continue through launch (it is becoming standard practice to have a comments page for new web launches) and continue through regular surveys and focus groups.There should be a minimum set of standards to deliver the best possible user experience to which all UAL sites must conform. This could include, navigation, User Interface design and Information Architecture, some elements of design (for the common areas), media embedding, preferred coding techniques, website url structure, copyright / IP, search, course information (feeding from the SICOM project).Within that framework, Colleges with the resources and will to do so should be free to develop a unique look and feel, to tell their story in their own terms. When the planned brand refresh is complete, the central UAL site should be more loosely connected to brand design principles than currently. To stay dynamic, the site needs to be able to vary design and content.Innovation: I believe that innovation from the web team should be focused on user experience and access. UAL should explore:Developing ‘widgets’, portable content objects and feed containers that can be placed on other sites, whether mainstream web or social media, and showcase UAL material. These could be constructed so that their frame advertises or describes the content in languages other than English while the content is fed from the standard UAL sites. This will be particularly important for international recruitment since they can provide standardised content on non English-language and other local websites.Ensuring that the UAL sites are accessible from convergent devices such as Smartphones and Tablet computersDeveloping applications for Smartphones which provide information or services (fashion show dates, location aware UAL mapping and navigation) and/or showcase UAL material dynamically“Do what you do best, link to the rest”: a key aim for all the sites should be to showcase the richness and diversity of UAL creative output while at the same time embedding UAL into the Internet of flows. Arts.ac.uk should be springy, not sticky. The web teams should avoid the trap of seeking to build an enormous database of content but achieve the goal through aggregating and linking to content from the ever-growing number of web presences where UAL work appears, and driving traffic to those sites, in order to reward their authors for the effort of publishing content. The use of feeds, therefore, should be increased – feeds open new sources of traffic for sites – but also because they impact on search and other rankings. Given that, in the year to August 2010, around 42% of traffic to arts.ac.uk comes from search engines this is an important consideration. Social Media: as well as their promotional potential, the main opportunity presented by social media sites is for building community and increasing engagement. Current practice in social media should be reviewed and a strategy developed for coordinating, monitoring and evaluating activity. An important output from this review should be case study material, such as the case study in Appendix One from Michelle Lukins of LCC on setting up the LCC Twitter account. The relationship between the main websites and social media presence should be reviewed, aiming to:reflect the diversity and energy of social media on the websites in a more comprehensive and dynamic way than at present, where there are simply links to specific sites. This could include using widgets or feeds or considering more radical options such as having parts of the sites constructed specifically for students given over largely to social media presentationsidentify ways in which referrals from social media to UAL sites can be increased. There should be a review of the relationship between Showtime and Jotta. Involving CLTAD, college web teams and the Jotta team this review should be located within the context of CLTAD’s review of e-portfolios and the development of the student portal by IS. The review should Find ways to marry the strengths of the existing platforms and engage the whole University community in their development and use as part of the development of an e-portfolio environment (see below). Review what level of personalisation will be provided, and through which combination of platforms. Work with IS, CLTAD and other relevant UAL units to review the organisational and technical implications of open data trends and directives. Staffing issues: the structure of the central web team may need to be reviewed, acknowledging in particular the need for a senior post within Communications whose remit covers the complete range of the UAL digital footprint, including social media, sites relating to international promotion and recruitment, as well as access to UAL through convergent technologies such as Smartphones and tablet. The aim of this post would not be to attempt to control this diverse output but to communicate with the different teams, ensure that knowledge is shared about good and bad experiences and flag up to senior management overlaps, resource competition and potential risks. To support this role, the central web team will need to include social media, content and technical integration skills. All web specialists, including the central web team should play a more pro-active role in trainingInternational presence: I believe there should be increased investment in: A review of UAL’s international and multi-lingual web presence and digital activities to clarify medium-term needs and opportunities.Coordinating and, as much as possible, aligning and harmonising international sites promoting UAL. Clearly, UAL cannot dictate to its independent agents except where there is an authorised web presence or sites are run from the UK. However UAL could provide good practice guidelines and recommend strongly that agents follow them. Widgets can play a role hereIn discussion with the International team, translating core static informational and promotional content, starting with the most important recruitment languages (Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Russian and possibly Hindi) and progressively increasing the amount of non-English content. to include other available for prospective students, their families and other partners. Internal CommunicationsAccessible and personalised internal communications for students and staff based on communities of interest and practice, plus need-to-know information0384175What it would look likeKlaus is a lecturer and researcher in typography. Originally from Bremen, Klaus started work twenty three years ago in printing and graphic design. He is not particularly comfortable with technology. He uses email or his mobile phone for communication – he uses SMS a lot – and word processes his documents. Apart from that Klaus doesn’t use digital tools for his creative work except where he has to, and hasn’t learnt more than he has to about the Teaching and Learning toolset: he can’t change his password, for example, and has only minimal profile information. In 2013, when Klaus logs on he is met with a screen that gives him a three views of the UAL systems. His personal profile, derived from his membership of a college and a school, gives him his timetable on his screen along with any urgent messages from students. He knows his students have a similar log-in screen with their own timetables along with messages from him and other staff members. The community section of his homepage displays alerts and messages that he has signed up to receive. That includes notes from the online communities of practice he belongs to, events he is interested in, discussions around topic areas he engaged, updates from ongoing projects as well as calls for new ones and information about jobs and staff changes. His students have a similar range of options. Finally, Klaus gets a limited amount of communication from the University, information that it is essential for him to know including official messages and practical information.In general, although sceptical initially, Klaus is impressed with the improvements, recognising that it saves time and makes administration easier. He was recently given a Google phone by his children. He is unaware that he is using the Google Open Source operating system, Android, nor is he interested in the bewildering range of applications and communities that it opens up for him. One of his children has gone back to Germany and the other is teaching in New Delhi. They installed Google’s video conferencing application to stay in touch. It also means that Klaus is able to review his timetable and messages while he is moving between UAL sites, though he remains unconvinced that this feature makes a lot of difference. It does mean, however that he is able to benefit from the programme put in place to implement UAL’s vision of its staff and students moving seamlessly from the online world to the physical world of teaching and learning, with information and communication animating teaching and learning.How UAL scoresThere is general consensus that UAL needs to overhaul its internal communications. This was highlighted recently by one of the working groups in the leadership development project (LDP) which identified internal communications as a priority. They surveyed staff and found that communications organisation and processes are fragmented; people feel isolated yet, at the same time, they both fail to get the information they need and are bombarded by too much information that they don’t want or need. The LDP project indicated a range of reasons for this, of which the lack of appropriate digital tools and communications is an important one. The proposed introduction of the staff and student portal has the potential to address many of these issues but, as with all portals, it is the quality of the supporting systems, design and content that will determine whether staff and students are able and willing to engage with it. RecommendationsTo function effectively, the internal communication function has to be resourced properly, with responsibilities and accountabilities clearly defined. This is likely to require resources equivalent to a full-time staff member (FTE), for content generation and curation as well as activities and materials. UAL has a particularly complex array of internal and quasi internal audiences (including staff at colleges and centrally, students, alumni and supporters), so any systems and processes must be constantly reviewed and updated to ensure that they continue to address the needs of these diverse audiences and stakeholders.Back-office systemsEfficient, secure, universally used software systems that support core student and staff management processesWhat it would look like365760017780It’s April, 2012. Jay from Morristown New Jersey, just leaving High School, finds out about UAL online. Jay is more motivated by wanting to have an experience in London than any awareness of UAL or any of its colleges and finds UAL through a web search about studying abroad. She fills in a form online (choosing not to have it filled in by UAL staff in person or over the phone), presuming unquestioningly that the information she enters will be the basis for her subsequent journey through the University. By the time she arrives, her parents have chosen from the range of payment options to pay her first year fees in full, online, and set up a direct debit for her first term accommodation. Once enrolled, her ID gives her access to the student portal where she can review her programme, see profiles of her tutors, contact staff from her course, connect with the students Union and of course see and link to social networks in which UAL staff, students and alumni are active. She herself is an avid user of Facebook and is pleased to see that Facebook has the same status as other sites in terms of access to UAL staff and advisors. However, whenever she chooses to connect to an external resource she is warned that she is leaving a secure space and may have to log in again if she wishes to access her personal data or university records.As she progresses in UAL jay.arts.ac.uk gives her access to her student assessment record, the online components of her course and the standard University set of online collaboration tools. It also gives her access to the college resources available for her programme, some of which have a very different look and feel, and reassure her that she is joining a culture which she likes, as the University site seems anonymous to someone used to a small college. In fact, as she passes into her programme, she spends most of her time online in sites connected to her course, working with tutors and students across a range of Internet and local platforms. She takes for granted that the system will do what she needs to flourish at UAL. She was able to amend the financial arrangements when her personal circumstances changed and takes for granted that her assessment record – including records of her tutorials - is up to date.The connections between the college sites and the UAL personal online promotion spaces (POPS) – she had an account as soon as she had an ID - means that by half-way through her course Jay is already having conversations with people outside the University about her work, and is pleased that her parents were able to brag about the work she had chosen to make publically accessible. Over the final part of her course the well structured, personalised community facilities in the UAL POPS means that she connects and hears about the work of alumni and other students as well as potential projects and exhibitions. On leaving, her ID gives her permanent access to a space where all her work and records are available, as well as news generated by feeds from alumni, UAL and related online spaces, and carries summaries of other alumni achievements. 06844030Also, in March 2012, Michel, who is a practising artist and curator from Belo Horizontale in Brazil, is thinking about coming to teach Fine Art at CSM, although she has also heard about Chelsea College as an alternative. She’s highly engaged with technology, and like most of her friends, has been active on Orkut since her late teens. Her current work, as well as a large archive, is already online. She engaged online with some people at CSM and Chelsea while she was curating an event on migration and identity. After checking out their online profiles and portfolios Michel invited some of the UAL group to join in with a couple of her encontros via their web cams, and share their own work on the theme. Michel talked about it on Orkut and UAL’s CRM system picked up the reference. When a vacancy came up at CSM it automatically sent her an invitation to connect. The reference to an entity called UAL confused her but she was sufficiently interested in the post to explore further. The job information links to a bright, modern looking, multi-lingual UAL sub-site that gives her information about the college and UAL, links to video interviews with staff and students about life in London and the University as well as recruitment and other relevant policies. She has been able to connect online with some of the staff in the programme and is looking forward to the first formal video interview.3270885-31752007: this story contrasts with the real experience of a current UAL course tutor from the US who had heard of CSM and applied for a job from . She had never heard of UAL, and indeed didn’t hear of UAL until a month after she started. She is proudly a geek but, in preparing for the interview, she couldn’t find any information on what the process was all about – which of course differs in significant ways from the process in the US; she wasn’t even told whether the plane ticket from the US would be reimbursed. She couldn’t prepare for the interview properly, in the way that she would have expected: she didn’t know who her colleagues were going to be, find a list of staff nor the kind of open, friendly profile she expects, like the one above from MIT. She couldn’t find examples of student work or get a sense of the culture of the institution. She knew the work and reputation of some her future colleagues but couldn’t see if she would be working with them (she was) or indeed that she would be interviewed by someone she knew of and whose work she respected. She could see the course handbook but, as an outsider, she found the language opaque (what is a learning outcome?) and couldn’t get a sense of what teaching is like in the UK and UAL. Although she only received the invitation to the interview three days in advance CSM weren’t willing to do even a preliminary interview on video. She persevered because she really needed a job in London but would have been put off otherwise. How UAL scores2724150241302010: in reality, and typically of UAL across the whole digital domain, there is progress towards the 2012 scenario but unevenly. For example, there are examples of CSM student work on YouTube and research profiles available from the main site - though not as immediately accessible as the MIT example. Had our tutor applied for a post-graduate programme in LCF, she could have seen the excellently produced videos from the course tutors. There are two narratives about how close UAL is to enabling such scenarios fully. On the one hand, as Kevin Garner of IS put it, “the University hasn’t had a good experience of robust Business Case and project management”. The historically poor delivery of IS systems has generated intense frustration which, at best, results in a deep scepticism about the likely success of the current, large, portfolio of system developments. At worst it leads to continued unofficial or semi-official software developments as colleges attempt to give themselves systems which are fit-for-purpose as well as strong pressure from colleges to own and manage systems, such as student recruitment, that are business critical. On the other hand, I have found convincing the presentations from IS, well documented and supported by other colleagues in central services, notably CLTAD, which suggest that the major process bottlenecks have been identified - in particular multiple student identities and non-integrated core business systems. These are being addressed through a tightly managed, interconnected series of projects, key parts of which will be in place by mid 2011. EB’s significant resource commitment to a raft of IS projects, reversing historically inadequate, low levels of IT investment, suggests a similar level of confidence in the improved management systems since reorganisation. (It is for that reason that the student personas have come forward from 2013 to 2012) Of course this is one of the most crucial areas for progress in the digital dimension: Generally speaking, while digital is far wider than the traditional remits of IS or IT, which has implications discussed below, effective, efficient, robust, secure software systems are a necessary pre-condition for UAL to become digital in any real sense.More specifically relevant to UAL is the damage caused by the frustration referred to above. There is always a strong case that software systems can deliver core business processes more efficiently and cheaply if developed and managed from one point in an organisation. There is also a lot of experience and history which suggests that entities such as individual colleges, whose core business is teaching, research and learning, have insufficient resources and experience to be able to develop professional IS and IT resources of sufficient depth to deliver or manage scalable, robust, secure, management systems. However, until there is clear evidence that IS systems projects will be delivered on time and in budget, pressures for independent systems will continue, diverting resources and attention from college’s own core business and competencies, as has been the case in the recent past. RecommendationsI hesitate to comment on an area that has been analysed and planned in enormous detail by professional specialists and about an IS programme about which I have only a general outline. However, success in this area is crucially important to UAL’s digital aspirations. Therefore I suggest the following short set of recommendations I strongly believe that UAL needs a central IS infrastructure and would argue against decentralised system development – or procurement – of management systems supporting students and staff as they progress through UAL. In consultation with IS it became clear that to help clarify boundaries and accountabilities UAL needs to define and agree an information architecture that identifies:Core systems that will be provided centrally for efficiency and security reasonsSystems from which colleges can choose to opt in or out There is a substantial amount of current software system and ICT infrastructure activity, with complex dependencies, that also competes for attention and resources in the critical non-IS areas. Yet in this area, as in others, I was surprised that I was the person bringing news to UAL staff about developments, plans and progress. IS programme management practice suggests that Progress towards milestones in a programme of this size should be reported quarterly to senior and middle management.There should be a well-resourced communications strategy that raises the profile of the programme, explains its implications and prepares staff for plex internal programmes depend on effective coordination at middle manager level, managing dependencies and prioritisation within the context of current organisational structure and processes. Many organisations achieve this by establishing a dedicated, cross functional, central project team, reporting to Director or high level Project Board. An alternative might be to identify and mandate a small group of operational managers to meet regularly and report directly to an EB member, or a high level Project Board.Programmes such as this, which aim to increase integration between systems, clearing bottlenecks and breaking down barriers, raise issues of ownership and management processes. When Finance and Payroll, for example, are separate systems, with a manual link, then management lines are clear. When data starts to travel automatically through multiple systems it is imperative that ownership is clarified. Is there consensus, for example where responsibility lies for quality control of the ‘student ID’ entity, which is to be the key to integrating student support systems? The governance and ownership of organisational information affected by current and planned IS developments needs urgently to be reviewed and clarified, as suggested in discussions with IS.ICT infrastructureICT infrastructure and support systems that enable staff and students to travel seamlessly between their home and work environments, using the most common personal digital communicators or computers.What it would look likeIn 2013, Michel and Jay, as they traverse the college, are constantly able to connect to internal UAL resources and the external Internet, using wifi or cable connections. All college resources, including printers and library search and materials, are available once they have logged in. They and their peers use a miscellany of devices: traditional laptops, tablet computers (the Indian manufactured, cheap, iPad clone seems the most popular); and smart phones – though the boundary between what is a phone and a tablet continues to blur. When Jay had her tablet stolen she was able to borrow one of the college loan machines, although the long term loan machines had been taken up by ‘widening participation’ students. There is one restriction, though, that Michel in particular finds a little annoying. When she wants to experiment with new software, which often entails downloading software clients, she has to sign out of the University resource systems. She is still able to access the web from within UAL, and download clients to her own machine, but has to log in again to continue working with UAL resources. Michel is also active in downloading material and programmes from the open web and has found the other main restriction, which is that on a couple of occasions her UAL account was locked when the system detected a potential security risk. Michel had to have her machine checked, and on one occasion cleaned of a virus, but as there are IT staff in all the main college sites, this wasn’t a problem. How UAL scoresWhile the Matisse system and UAL LAN provide access throughout UAL, one of the two most common complaints I have heard is to do with limited access to the Internet. This doesn’t affect staff who only want to surf, access public material or connect to social media: it constrains staff who want to experiment and innovate. As such it is a major barrier to UAL becoming digital. There are other concerns, such as non availability of printers and some resources; speed of machines and access in certain situations and circumstances; difficulties in streaming video, as at LCC; and access to some internal resources from outside the University. These I would classify as business-as-usual for an IT department and I believe are likely to be resolved in due course, as resources become available. As with 4.2 above, there is a strategy and ongoing programme in place to address the issue of controlled access, as illustrated below. From a limited exposure I judge the strategy and accompanying project management framework has the potential to resolve most of the issues identified in relation to access, and there has long been agreement that UAL needs a ‘sandpit’ for experiment and innovation, although this has yet to be delivered. This latter will ease the problem in the short term but it may not create an open enough environment to fully energise digital innovation and creation. That is why I constructed a hypothetical solution in the scenario above, for Michel, which would constrain her only to a limited extent. The issue of access to new tools, with the ability to experiment and offer pilot environments, is one of the most important to resolve. The record is discouraging: that it has taken three years to get an approved internal blog platform in place is appalling. In 2007, we achieved that in a morning at Oxfam GB, contracting an external hosting supplier and setting up a test environment, on which we then prototyped a production environment, on which we went live after three months. Evidently it involved time – not much –from a technical specialist, but in UAL there is sufficient expertise outside IS, in the college web teams and teaching staff. This issue is the second major cause of guerrilla platforms, which in themselves are not necessarily a bad thing – a slightly underground, below the radar feel is often associated with creativity and innovation n organisations. It is the wasted time and energy, the frustration and resultant unproductive tension as well as the stifling of the creative impulse that are damaging.It must be stressed immediately that senior IS staff are aware of this issue and working to change it (and I haven’t talked to other IS staff so it may also be true across the teams). But this is one of the most sensitive areas to be addressed because it is to do with the culture of a specialist profession, relating to identity as well as perceptions of responsibility and accountability. Although most of the tools I have discussed rest on digital technology they are not any more IT tools, and thus the responsibility of an IT Department, than a car is the responsibility of a tarmac specialist or road engineer. It is imperative that the culture changes to one where IT staff pride themselves in being able to deliver the most recondite research or test environment, secure in the knowledge that they will not be held accountable for what it is used. This accountability is also a management issue, since responsibility has to be located somewhere in the University, and processes such as disclaimer forms put in place. An interesting case study is provided by the UK Foreign & Commonwealth office, which has been experimenting and developing an active social media presence. This, by definition, requires more or less unfettered access. The FCO addressed this in two ways:Having two network segments: to engage in eDiplomacy FCO staff must log into a separate network to the secure FCO one Basing procedures on the principle of ‘assumed competence’, meaning that staff at all levels are encouraged to experiment, join networks and publish without restrictions. There are guidelines, and sites are monitored regularly so that material can be removed if necessary, but by trusting in their staff FCO has become an acknowledged leader in Public eDiplomacyRecommendationsThe ICT access projects must deliver. My judgement is that if there are significant delays pressure will increase and resources will be found so I make a working assumption that they will resolve most of the issues over the next two years. Therefore I have only three linked recommendations:Implement as soon as possible the ‘sandpit’ for uncontrolled experimentation by staff – and students – licensed by their colleges. Other organisations have found it useful to put in place light and simple procedures to provide those licences, ensuring there is management visibility and accountability should there be any serious problems. Invest in a more detailed examination of how to manage the security risks posed by the Michel scenario above. The circled area in the infrastructure outline diagram above depicts the core of the current proposed solution. The unassumingly named ‘load balancer’ is potentially both a bottleneck and a security weak point and so it needs to be examined and tested. However, in the longer term, UAL needs to be able to segment in some way infrastructure zones into areas which must be kept secure and others that enable unfettered access and experimentation.Reflect as a Department on how digital is changing boundaries and consider whether there is a need to review and change processes and styles of response and, if so, how to achieve it.Learning and teachingAn easy to use, flexible, open toolset to support learning and teaching that is universally used because it saves staff time, provides accountability, enables knowledge sharing as well as distance learning and teaching.What it would look likeIn 2013 UAL staff have a wide choice of tools and environments for collaborative work with students. There is a default toolset, with supporting documentation, online tutorials and videos as well as support from staff in CLTAD. The set includes wikis, Blogs, social bookmarking, mapping tools, video and audio recording and editing platforms, semi-automated feed management systems – the whole web 2.0 suite. This default environment interconnects with the assessment system and POPS (for promotion of student work), which streamlines administration. The UAL open courseware repository is building a global reputation. Staff are keen to engage, especially with the growing partnership and job opportunities internationally, notably across East and South Asia, for which global profile is important. This, along with the growth of online and blended learning programmes, explains the enthusiastic uptake of the automated systems that, with permission, record staff lectures and makes them available digitally for later editing. Michel uses a mix of the UAL set and her own preferred assembly of Internet based tools, many of which are Open Source. Michel and her students in fact are not really aware of which systems they are using, collaborating freely within and outside the University on their projects. The recently installed alerts system, which links to external email systems as well as SMS, has greatly eased communication between staff and students since UAL's liability is no longer met simply by the internal email of the new “Whiteboard” system. This Chinese platform is fast becoming the market leader, partly because of its inbuilt multilingual support, but also because it embraced the modular, open architectures of Open Source pioneers such as Moodle.How UAL scoresThis is one of the areas in which, with a forward looking vision, UAL has advanced the furthest. As with the website, there is a marked degree of consensus across UAL that the current environment needs to be improved, with projects underway that are exploring options. Blackboard, is being updated to a newer version, which may increase the number of staff who use it actively – estimated at around or under 50% - beyond its administrative functions. As already mentioned, Blogs and wikis are commonly used. The online learning environment, WIMBA, is fully featured and innovators such as Paul Lowe (LCC) are active users. However, implementing UAL-wide systems is constrained by the lack of consistency across courses and programmes, although this is being addressed by SICOM. There is also support, certainly within CLTAD, for a mixed environment, combining some centrally provided, default solutions with open systems. For example, in courses managed by Paul Lowe (LCC) the approved university collaborative learning environment, Wimba, is used in conjunction with the Ning communities illustrated above (4.2.2.1). Further, there is a view that entirely separate developments, such as David Sims’ Doing Graphics site depicted opposite, are valuable additions to the mix, as long as staff are aware and capable of managing the consequent risks (CLTAD are preparing guidelines on risks of using open tools). It has to be noted that such systems are not integrated with UAL systems, which has implications for staff and students in terms of standard processes such as student registration and assessment. 2584450-1010285There are a range of ongoing major developments, including: The study into common assessment system needs, involving Registry, IS, CLTAD & academic affairs (QA), although the lack of uniformity in assessment points, course structure and organisation is a major complicationStudent E-portfolioOpen Educational Repository, linking to the research repositorySurvey into VLEAll of these projects relate to and depend on the development of a student portal by IS.RecommendationsOnce more, the staff most closely involved are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the current systems and are working at a detailed level to address the issues. There is recognition that systems need to bridge the span between the digitally unaware and, via plug-in options, cater to a wider group that want to do more challenging things. Given my positive findings I only have two comments to make:Process and System: Technical problems are resolvable, given adequate resources and effective project management. However, it is generally true that aligning underlying business processes is more complex than developing new IS systems intended to support and make them more efficient. This appears, for example, to be the case with course structures and organisation. There is demand for systems but it is difficult to see how standard IS solutions will work unless there is absolute commitment to standardising underlying processes.Managing innovation and change: I believe that there are valuable lessons to be learnt from the relationship between CLTAD and other sections of the University. If there is anything standard about Web 2.0, it is the principle that innovation and good practice is emergent, built from small scale, often personal, sometimes oppositional experiments, generally collaborative and frequently re-using tools available on the internet. This happens in the open Internet but it is also an excellent model for organisations where, as in this case, a central body is monitoring, testing, learning from and collaborating with individuals and teams who are heading in new directions. The new/proposed CCW Media Lab also embeds this approach at its core, along with a determination to seek the kind of external support and partnership that has been so important in the development of Jotta. The same pattern appears to be strongly supported in CMS, centring on the Innovation and Digital Teams. A visualisation of digitalUALRebecca Ross of CSM drew this summary of our discussions over several meetings:Digital capacity in the staff bodyWhat it would look likeIn 2013 a critical mass of staff use modern digital technologies confidently and capably in their professional and personal lives. They are active in online communities; used to communicating with each other and students across a range of channels, including phone, SMS, Skype or similar and video-conferencing; they are comfortable working and mixing together different digital media, including text, photo, audio and video; able to engage critically with a range of online and other digital information resources. They have a good understanding of what being digital means to their students and their consequent expectations of digital resources and approaches from UAL. They are aware of major trends in the digital realm, able to engage students and their peers in discussions about its risks and opportunities. Many of these staff belong to the active UAL Knowledge Sharing communities, which often also include students. These communities meet face to face and online, using a range of collaborative tools, sharing new ideas and experiments, asking questions and developing proposals for new projects. How UAL scoresright3810The 2005 survey of IT skills suggested that the majority of staff were ‘behind the curve in terms of comfort in technology’. In terms of the digital, there was a general consensus among staff interviewed that, while the profile of UAL staff probably conforms to a standard technology adoption curve illustrated opposite, the overall level of understanding of the digital tools and platforms is low and, importantly, there is little in-depth understanding of the genuine opportunities and risks presented by new environments nor an awareness of standard practice in responding to them. Nonetheless there are many examples of outstanding work, from across UAL, which reflects the depth of skills and experience that could be used as a basis for increasing awareness and skills within the overall staff body, and not only in the specialist web teams already cited. There has also been a lot of innovation within colleges as part of teaching and learning activities. As shown above, this includes experimenting with complete Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), the integration of social media into learning programmes and experimentation with continually evolving open source software tools in project work, as in the ground-breaking ‘speedo pavilion’ from this years Chelsea programme, illustrated below. However, while many of these innovators meet and exchange information, there is limited, systematic transfer of knowledge and skills between these islands of excellence, especially between academic and service teams. Nor are there mechanisms in place to recognise and promote digital excellence more formally so innovators are recognised by their peers and a small group of connections but the University as a whole doesn’t review or learn from their work nor are lessons systematically imported into the mainstream. 3143250445770RecommendationsI believe that the overall base level of awareness and skill needs to be raised across UAL, as depicted opposite, while recognising that there will, of course, always be enormous variation in how people use and engage with digital tools. Even those who are not interested or confident to be active digitally will need, minimally, to be aware of how their students use digital and online tools; that that using these tools will become increasingly central to teaching, learning and administration; of the opportunities and risks presented by digital tools and environments.I suggest four strands of activityDigital Literacy Competency FrameworkDevelop a UAL specific framework of Digital Literacy competencies, to be used as a standard for new staff recruitment and as a point of reference for staff and their managers in relation to personal development. Core CompetenciesFrom a number of sources, Paul Lowe (LCC), supported by Lindsay Jordan (CLTAD) has synthesised a set of core competencies which, he suggests, would equip people to deal in the digital world. They are a very useful basis for discussion.Curate Find – Internet search, Wikipedia, Google scholar, e resources, image textbook, etc Filter – RSS feeds and Readers, iGoogle homepagesCollate/collect – social and personal bookmarking, mind-mapping, online storageCritiqueAssess the validity/authenticity of sites/informationReflect on ones own practice and that of one’s peers – blogs, forums etcCreateCreate – make digital content, including audio, image, text, website, blog, video, wikisProtect – copyright, privacy, digital footprintCollaborateCollaborate – e.g. wikis, Blogs, Project Management (e.g. Basecamp)CommunicateShare /disseminate/ distribute – wiki, blog, discussion forum, email, Twitter, Facebook/social networksPromote – Twitter, blog, Facebook/social networks, and emailDigital Competency SurveySurvey the staff to assess levels of interest, engagement and capacity in digital tools and platforms. Staff DevelopmentIn conjunction with CLTAD and other staff development programmes, and building on existing initiatives such as the IT up-skilling programme, design and develop a two year programme of activities, addressing two specific target groups A large general audience who could benefit from an increased awareness of the opportunities and risks presented by new digital tools and platforms. The aim would primarily be to bridge the gap between the digital profile of students and staff, looking, for example at:social networking and other online social and collaborative toolshow students navigate and collect information, personalise their online spaces and use mediatools and techniques used more specifically in art and designtechniques and platforms typical of particular demographics, including tagging, feeds and mash-ups the potential benefits and risks from this range of activity, as well as good practice in responding to issues and uncertainties presented by studentsthe pedagogic implications It would be interesting to explore how students could be involved in such training.A smaller, less homogenous audience who are interested in learning how to exploit these tools, platforms or approaches. There are already activities going on in UAL which can be extended to include digital literacy trainingInformal courses and peer mentoringDuring existing community building, learning and teaching daysWork with the developing online community of e-learning users, to collaborate and share practice Contribute material to the open materials repository Embed the use of new tools (blogs, wikis, collaborative research tools such as Delicious, online communities such as academia.edu) into professional development activitiesLearning, Sharing and Knowledge Management300355017780SICOM and other change projects acknowledge and promote the importance of social learning in sharing and developing good practice. This should be extended to include a stream of activity on developing digital across UAL, developing and activating communities of practice and communicating internally about digital. At the same time, organisational learning of this kind is best supported by some kind of online repository of information, case studies, contacts, proposals, presentations (on and offline) of innovations etc. Shown above is Diplopedia, a very successful, wiki-based internal resource developed by the US State Department. It has set a new standard but there are 1000s of examples of simpler systems using wikis or blogs, or some other set of collaboration tools.Leading by exampleThis mix of staff awareness and engagement is a necessary pre-condition for the kind of whole-institution flexibility and responsiveness to digital innovation that I believe can transform UAL’s position into a leading player in digital arts and design. However, it needs senior management leadership: starting perhaps, for example, with awareness sessions for the Executive Board, and reporting them – using video interviews and quotes on an internal blog – to promote the activity. It also requires the usual mixture of carrot (good software, recognition) and stick (mandatory for new staff, providing all information and administrative processes online).Many of these recommendations fall into the ‘Business as Usual’ category and while they will require a commitment of resources these need not be new resources. Software resources such as wikis are either free – either hosted by the supplier or downloadable to managed servers – or available for low licence fees. However, there is undoubtedly a need to commit and ring-fence resources – for coordination, communication and promotion, training, activating communities, and documenting good practice in shared online spaces. Management StructureA coherent, future-focused, adequately resourced management structure that ensures continued focus on becoming digital, coordinates programmes, prioritises resources and schedules and enables shared learning between the different elements of digital UALWhat it would look like February 2013: EB AgendaQuarterly report, EB DigitalUAL Project BoardIS Programme MilestonesAccess and Security, Phase Four, completion and evaluationTeaching and LearningIntegrated Student Portal and e-Portfolio , Phase Two, integration and mobile access demonstrationUAL online – biannual statistics and trends reportCapacity: project closure reportCelebrating success:CCW Media Lab awarded 3m Yen grant for new collaborative projectLCC/Belo Horizontale Open Source, Open Space moving media collaboration: video and conference call LCF website Digital Fashion award for the third year running.How UAL scoresThe scenario above implies four things which I believe are not yet in place: An EB and senior management team that, comfortable in its grasp and engagement with key digital terms, themes and trends, articulates and updates a clear vision of the way forward for digitalUALA commitment to a concerted, medium - term programme of activities in the digital realm, led from the topComfort within the EB and senior management team about the division of digital responsibilities between colleges and central services along with consensus on ICT and online standards and controlsEffective organisational learning and knowledge sharing about digital developmentsRecommendationsThere are three main issues to be resolvedDoes EB agree that there needs to be a concerted, medium - term programme of activities in the digital realm? If so,Where should such a programme be located on the spectrum of tight and loose management?A Digital Dean leads a programme which is resourced directly from the centre, supported from contributions top-sliced from college and departmental budgets. It has a team, with a Programme Manager, monitoring and coordinating a timetable of cross-University activities. ORA Digital Board, representative of all University stakeholders, and reporting quarterly to the EB, seeks to energise, align, share learning within and communicate about separate strands of digital activity which are taking place within colleges and central teams as part of their normal business. It has a secretariat, some staff seconded to work on the team along with short term specialists drafted in or contracted from outside to advise on or facilitate particular elements of the programme. If it has a Programme Lead her job is more a resource person, communicator and animator than a manager. It has a small budget to support its own activities and a small innovation fund but digital project budgets stay in the line.Whether one of these configurations, or something in between, is chosen, an early priority for a digital project team, or leader, would be to develop collaboratively a Digital Strategy which articulates how the digital realm affects every aspect of UAL how UAL is to advance to a higher level of organisational capabilitya timescale resource implications. Given the complexity of UAL and the density of overlapping, clashing or synergising interests, developing such a strategy collaboratively is likely to take four to six months from start to finish. What organisational culture supports and encourages digital success?While management can no more determine an organisational culture than it can the degree of happiness among staff it can influence its development and evolution. An enabling but responsible, collaborative and trusting work culture is a necessary condition for a UAL which excels digitally. There would be value in engaging people across the university, perhaps as part of a strategy building exercise, in defining attributes of an enabling culture, which might include: Fail better: to engage with a dynamic and fluid digital space, organisational and management culture has to encourage risk-taking and manage failure in the same way as UAL teaching and learning culture does. Enabling: there are good examples from colleges and central services of managers supporting and encouraging innovation, which needs to become the default position across the University. It is invidious to make comparisons without detailed evidence, but the Oxford University IS Department are a good model in this context: IS staff there boast about the latest request for obscure or freshly developed applications or development environments and take pride in being able to deliver support them. The new CCW media lab is an excellent UAL equivalent, an environment which can encourage and liberate invention.Collaborative: one of the success stories in digital UAL is the development of digital projects in LCF, in close collaboration with the central web team and IT. We know what makes collaboration work – developing trust between the teams and individuals concerned, clear communication of the business needs being addressed and a mutual respect for competence allied to a willingness to learn. Economical: Free and Open Software, allied with the re-use and mash-up culture at the centre of Web2.0, opens up enormous opportunities for an institution such as UAL, chock-full of brain and energy Rigorous about ROI: there is no sky as blue as those in virtual worlds and clearly pure experimentation is at the heart of the University. However, traditional IS procurement and management principles need to be applied when moving from prototype or pilot to scale.Bottom-up: most of the best known modern web success stories started as small-scale, personal or small group experiments. A new student is as likely to be skilled in the use of modern tools and development environments as highly qualified staff; to already belong to the always-connected and comfortable with open collaboration and crowd sourcing. The next YouTube is as likely to emerge from a group of students or staff, or both, as an expensively resourced software municative: it was striking how many people across UAL knew little or nothing about the examples of innovative practice and experiments in the digital dimension that I was identifying and recording. While functional cluster such as the web managers talk to each other and groups of academics swop ideas and collaborate on projects, this sharing is limited to such already connected small communities. There is a lot going on that can be celebrated and promoted. “We need to be less precious, fearful: be bold, this is Arts and Design Education”AppendicesLCC on Twitter (lcclondon)Why you did it?There was a lot of talk about Twitter and its benefits as a marketing tool so we decided to pilot it.We use Twitter to raise awareness of the LCC brand among our target audiences – potential students, students, staff, graduates, alumni, creative industries and the press. Day-to-day we use it to promote news, events, competitions, etc. We’re also beginning to use it for student recruitment enquiries. What problems did you face?One problem we encountered was what we should call our profile. Should it be LCC? Should we incorporate the name of the University? Eventually we were advised by the University to name our Twitter account ‘lcclondon’. Knowing how to respond to negative comments is another problem we have encountered. How much time did it take?Setting it up was fairly simple, it’s maintaining it that takes time!How much time does it take per day or week?We normally spend around 30 minutes each day on Twitter. This involves monitoring tweets, responding to ‘Mentions’, ‘Direct Messages’ (DMs), ‘Retweeting’, looking for new followers and of course tweeting. We also monitor our Twitter stats weekly using Twitalyzer. We record levels of engagement, followers, mentions, references and hits to our website as a result of Twitter. What is the result?Since being set-up in March 2009, LCC now has nearly 1500 followers. It has helped us to up the number of visits to the LCC website, enabled us to respond to enquiries quickly and has been brilliant for spreading the word about our events and exhibitions. Also a great tool for getting quick feedback! Tips to others on running a twitter account, how to build followers and, more importantly, engagementFollow to be followedTweet daily – add value and give followers somewhere to go Have a conversation – be honest and openDevelop your own voice/personalityUse TweetDeck, TwitPic and link shortening software such as bit.ly Build your brand by customising your Twitter pageWhere appropriate use #hashtags and jump on trending subjects such as #followfriday or #ff or #fm (follow Monday!)Get listed on various Twitter directories, such as Twellow, WeFollow, etcMake sure your twitter profile is on your website, blog, etcWhat would you do differently next time?Review our audiences and objectives – who we want to communicate with via Twitter? What messages do we want to send them? CCW Media Lab– a hybrid project spaceThe CCW media Lab deploys digital media tools and methods as a catalyst forinterdisciplinary practice across all subject areas on a project-by-project basis. The Media Lab draws together projects, resources and people both from across CCW along with external partnerships. The CCW Media lab aims to create a more dynamic relationship between research and enterprise. The primaryaim of the CCW Media Lab is to develop the College as a leading centre in the use of information technology and digital media for learning, research, and practice in art and design.BasicsLocation-The CCW Media Lab is based at Millbank from where it willsupport the development projects from all CCWcolleges and subject areas.Simple Technical Base- The Media Lab is scalable with a modest framework constructed around simplebut powerful infrastructure and base-line media tools. Flexible-Rather than create fixedhigh-end technical resource the lab will seek to utilise existing tools, space and expertise from across CCW in line with different project requirements on a negotiated basis. Being project lead will prevent the Media Lab from becoming quickly outdated as technologies evolve.Scalable- Projects can (with the endorsement of the Grad School forum) be scaled up and resourced from across CCW colleges, as the need arises, and finance is found.Inputs will be- Collaborative research activity from all subject areas- Industry, 3rd sector and clients.- Students, graduates and courses.Output will be- New course development and curriculum innovation, Innovative research attracting industry and 3rd sector partners and clients. High profile interdisciplinary projects that generate kudos for CCW and favourable publicity.Potential Outputs will be- Contract Research, employment, spin-outs and start ups, Training, Licensing of IPR, Consultancy.CriteriaCriteria-The criteria for media lab projects would be one or a combination of the following:a)a strong technological biasb) actual cross disciplinary or cross disciplinary potential c) REF potential d) Revenue earning potential e) High profile industry, academic or 3rd sector partnerships F) International partnership potential.Examples-Cyril Shing’sPavillion’sproject with the company Speedo. Pete Maloney’s e-learning research. GdCom design research projects with Dutch company Standby + Kyoto University Design Research Labareall benchmarks for fulfilling criteria for CCW Media Lab support.Reporting, governance and ResourcingVetting-All Media Lab projects wouldbe vetted by Grad School Forum.Resource Allocation-A successful Media Lab bid would entail the Grad School allocating appropriate and realistic resources.Proactive-Using our criteria all members of Grad School Forum would actively seek out Media Lab projects. Sustainable-A high premium will be placed on seeking external funding particularly through the Technology Strategy Board.Medium Term GoalsQuality not Quanity-From 2010/11 we will establish the basic facility at Millbank and identify three projects for development in year one.Academic Consultancy-Link Media Labto the growing area of academic consultancy through greater proximity of research and enterprise.Tech Review-Use Media Lab projects to take the lead in innovation through Sally Tiffin’s work done in reviewing the role of technicians and the technical domainInformantsThis list includes people I interviewed formally, those who attended the workshops I organised along with those who I conversed with in person, by email or through the blog (). There was a lot of enthusiasm from staff and, while I have tried to reflect the range of ideas and suggestions, I haven’t been able to include all the contributions. Robert GreenInternational Liaison Manger, International Centrer.green@arts.ac.ukDee SearleInterim Director of Communications and Developmentd.searle@arts.ac.ukPeter DoonicanHead of Information Systems, Communication and Developmentp.doonican@arts.ac.ukBen ben@Pat ChristieDirector, Information Servicesp.christie@arts.ac.ukRebecca RossInteractive Design Tutor | Senior Lecturer, CSMr.ross@csm.arts.ac.ukChris TopponHead of Web Team, Communication and pon@arts.ac.ukDavid GarciaDean of College, Chelsea College of Art and Designd.garcia@chelsea.arts.ac.ukLee WiddowsHead of Communications, CSMl.widdows@csm.arts.ac.ukBex SingletonHead of Alumni Relationsb.singleton@arts.ac.ukLindsay JordanEducational Developer, CLTADLindsay.jordan@arts.ac.ukHannah ClaytonHead of Internal and External Relations, LCFh.clayton@fashion.arts.ac.ukAlastair MucklowWeb Manager, LCFa.mucklow@fashion.arts.ac.ukDavid RevaglietteCommunication Team, LCFd.revagliatte@fashion.arts.ac.ukGeoff MakstutisCourse DirectorBA (Honours) Architecture, CSMg.makstutis@csm.arts.ac.ukMatt TilletWeb Manager, Camberwellm.tillett@camberwell.arts.ac.ukHannah FitzgeraldStudent Recruitment Manager, Camberwell CollegeColin Buttimer Web co-ordinator, CSMc.buttimer@csm.arts.ac.ukDavid SimsSenior LecturerFdA & BA(Hons) Design for Graphic Communication, LCCd.sims@lcc.arts.ac.ukTony Pritchard Quality Manager, LCCt.pritchard@lcc.arts.ac.ukMichelle LukinsNew Media and Marketing Officer, LCCm.lukins@lcc.arts.ac.ukHayley WardWeb Co-ordinatorh.ward@lcc.arts.ac.ukLaura LancelyStudent Recruitment Manager, Chelsea Collegel.lanceley@chelsea.arts.ac.ukSandra KempHead of College, LCCs.kemp@lcc.arts.ac.ukAndrew Scheiner Associate Director (Business Systems), Information Servicesa.scheiner@arts.ac.ukKevin GarnerAssociate Director (Infrastructure), Information Servicesk.garner@arts.ac.ukCyril ShingCourse Tutor, Chelsea Collegec.shing@chelsea.arts.ac.ukRobert GreenInstitutional Liaison Manager, International Centrer.green@arts.ac.ukClare GossageHead of International Marketingc.gossage@arts.ac.ukEmma LuckieWeb Team, Communication and Developmente.luckie@arts.ac.ukClare KennedyWeb Team, Communication and Developmentc.l.kennedy@arts.ac.ukHoward PantonWeb Team, Communication and Developmenth.panton@fashion.arts.ac.ukNancy TurnerDeputy Director, CLTADnancy.turner@arts.ac.ukLes ClaridgeTeaching and Learning Resources Manager, LCCl.claridge@lcc.arts.ac.ukSarah MahurerManager, University Archives and Special Collection Centres.mahurer@arts.ac.ukLauren SkogstadWed Designer, Communication and Developmentl.skogstad@arts.ac.ukSimon GoodePublications Assistant, Communication and Developments.goode@arts.ac.ukTerms of ReferenceBackgroundThe University of the Arts, London (UAL ) like many other HE institutions, is facing challenges from the changing situation in UK HE. The environment is becoming even more competitive, with increasing numbers of global players, while budget cuts and funding pressures are increasing the importance of attracting and retaining foreign students, especially from the North American and Asian markets. As a selecting not a recruiting university UAL is well placed in the UK market. However, while it has been successful in Asian markets internationally it is a recruiting university. At the same time it faces significant internal challenges, including:IT systems which need updating and new investment, particularly back-end systemsLack of organisation-wide driving vision for online/digital; UAL leadership want to do more but may not be sure how because it’s not their core competencyWeb systems that are based on but lagging behind HE norms while the team is now busy adapting its work processes to a new CMS system - Terminal Four The existing website does not work well visually or functionally (eg lack of transparency)Limited experience of international communications trends amongst many senior and middle managersThe amalgamation of strong, long established institutions has resulted in a management and governance structure that has strong collegiate overtones. This causes problems for central decision making and support and has led to several colleges striking out, relatively independently, as well as a low level of knowledge sharing or learning across the UAL.There has been a history, or at least a perception of a history, of heavy handed management from the centre which has generated a level of resentment. This tension is exacerbated by the fact that staff at the centre and in the colleges face different pressures and priorities.UAL communications are not well positioned to connect with newer generations of potential students – the constantly connected – who have high expectations in terms of digital communicationsDee Searle is working as interim Director of Communications and Development, reporting to the Rector. The goal is to develop a Digital Strategy that is more wide-ranging and more holistic than simple e-marketing. It is crucially important that there is senior level buy-in and active engagement because previous agreed strategies ran in to the sand. Dee has gained acceptance from the Executive Board for a position that communication of all kinds and affecting all areas, including publications along with entry and recruitment processes, will be “Digital by default”.AssignmentThe assignment is to support the development of a Digital Vision, by July 31st, 2010.TasksDaysResearch, digital strategy (incorporates sense of collaborative tools, as well as online – including social media – and web)Who are the people to engage?5WorkshopsClarify vision, timeframe, what would online activities presence look like, what would Better look likeAlso inform people about constantly changing nature of digitalPossibly select participants for survey 6And get people buy in – as much to do with follow up as during the workshopStart/continue survey and/or other online engagement (NB, could be done by a somebody/people internal identified in the process above2Strategy on how to get thereToolsImpact on different elements of the university4Plan on how to achieve the strategy3Total =SUM(b1:b11) 202.1 TimescalesBelow is an outline of how these days could be allocated over the period. This outline suggests:Start up meetings 21st – 23rd AprilWorkshop(s) will happen during the weeks beginning 3rd, 24th or 31st MayNext StepsShare and gain agreement on this summaryArrange Visits and briefings with key peopleEnd notes ................
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