Dr Paddy Anstey

1
CIT Skills Developing staff CIT capability in
Higher Education

• Dr Paddy Anstey
• Centre for Staff and Educational Development,
• University of East Anglia,
• Norwich, UK

2
Our agenda

• Embedded CIT skills consequences?
• How might we do it?
• The SCAITS project at UEA
• Things to think about / do

3
What is meant by embedding CIT skills?

• CIT skills may be considered embedded where
  staff have appropriate skills to enable them to
  conveniently and confidently use CIT to
• correspond with others, and view corporate or
  departmental information
• support appropriate job specific tasks that are
  regularly performed and...
• where staff will be aware of how CIT might
  help them accomplish other tasks, that they may
  be called upon to carry out from time to time.

4
The SCAITS projectEmbedding of CIT skills

• Subprojects at UEA
• Cross-referencing
• Refinement of ideas
• Road map
• Case studies
• Good practice

http//www.uea.ac.uk/csed/scaits
5
UEA subprojects

• CIT skills and use survey
• Recruitment and promotion practice
• People networks
• Approaches to CIT training
• Efficacy of CIT training
• Reaching current non-users
• Informal CIT learning mechanisms

6
Issues

• Users and non-users
• Infrastructure and desktop provision
• Appropriate CIT skills
• Training and development
• Help and support
• Qualifications and professional development
• Recruitment and promotion
• Strategic management

7
Users and non-users

• Individual reflection
• Do you think there are any major groups of
  non-computer users at your institution?
• If so, who are they?
• Group discussion
• What effect could groups of non-users have on the
  working of your organisation?

8
Users and non-users
Given the now almost routine assumption by many
that one might in principle send a message to
all_staff_at_site.ac.uk and also the importance of
access to computer based information of all
kinds, those who are not computer users
(represented by the 14 of respondents in the UEA
survey) may be considered as disenfranchised.
9
Users and non-users

• I feel out of touch and a bit of a dinosaur
  (non-user, UEA survey)
• They haven't needed computers in the past for
  their jobs. What's different now? (line
  manager, not UEA)
• I feel disadvantaged because we are not given
  time off to attend courses there are unequal
  opportunities across the university
  (non-user, UEA survey)

10
Users and non-users
Given the limited resources at my disposal, I
would not feel inclined to give priority to
organising training for present non-users from
among our manual staff. Anyway their preferred
approach to getting information is via team
briefings rather than from computers
(Staff Development Officer, not UEA)
11
Infrastructure and desktop provision

• Group discussion
• What do you want from your institutions computer
  network service?
• What are the consequencies of network service
  breaks?

12
Infrastructure and desktop provision

• Convenient access to required CIT facilities?
• Quality of network service?
• Network speed
• Frequency of breaks in service
• Speed of restoration of service

13
Infrastructure and desktop provision

• Satisfaction with provision at UEA (among
  users)Hardware 43 yes 25 noSoftware 42
  yes 24 no
• New/updated computer second to more training as
  greatest help with progress in CIT use (UEA
  survey)
• Provision research or departmental funded?I
  provide my computer from research funds. It has
  nothing to do with the university what I have or
  what I do with it. Academic, UEA

14
Infrastructure and desktop provision

• Sharing - laptops particular issue at UEA
• Home computer use (UEA survey) Use computer
  at home for UEA related work? owning a
  Regularly Occasionally
  Never computer ---------------------
  -------------- ----------------Academi
  c related 56 28 16 71Non
  academic 3 27 70 57

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Infrastructure and desktop provision

• Almost half of those using their home computer
  for UEA related work have a home Internet
  connection. Almost 2/3 of those use it for
  dial-up to UEA. Issue
• I do not wish to bear all the cost of Internet
  access for UEA work out of my personal taxed
  income.
• _________________________________________________A
  ll UEA staff have routine dial-up available via
  the computing service. One department has own
  server that allows reverse charging for dial-up
  by its own staff.

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Appropriate CIT skills

• Individual reflection - your gut feelWhat CIT
  skills do you think all computer users at your
  institution should have? Broad topics, not
  detail

17
Appropriate CIT skills

• For everybody
• an e-mail package
• a web browser
• a word processor
• the computer operating system, and file
  handling in particular

18
Appropriate CIT skills

• Perceived Skill Levels and Demand for Training
  (UEA survey) Not with
  wantingActivity/application ans.
  noneltskillgtsome training E-mail 1 2
  97 16Word processing 1 3 96 17Web
  searching/browsing 2 5 93 19File and
  disk management 5 17 78 15Spreadsheets
  4 27 69 22_____________________________
  ____________________________File
  transfer 6 49 45 10Presentation
  packages 4 53 43 22 ... etc

19
Appropriate CIT skills

• For some (many?), more advanced skills required
• Maintain check lists of full CIT needs for
  various staff groups. Useful for...
• recruitment
• induction
• staff reviews

20
CIT training and development

• Group discussion
• What is on offer at your institution?
• Are there groups of staff that are difficult to
  reach?
• If so, what is being done about it?

21
CIT training and development

• Basic skills, Further skills
• word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail, web, etc
• operating system
• Confidence building
• UEA survey 44 at not as confident as might be
  hoped
• Specialist skills
• SPSS, LaTeX, inter-operating, etc

22
CIT training and development

• At UEA (from survey)
• 56 been to at least one UEA course in last 2
  years.
• Academic and related only half as likely as
  members of other staff groups to have
  attended of latter 22 been to 3 or more
  courses in that period.
• Would use self-instructional learning
  materials? 58
• Interested in using an Open Learning Room with
  person on hand to answer questions
  33

23
CIT training and development

• Academics at UEA N209
• 25 use no CIT for teaching and learning 30
  identified at least 3 uses
• 66 use 11 e-mail with students 48 use group
  e-mail
• 31 use Web for book lists, lecture notes, etc
• 11 deliver some self-paced or distance learning
• 8 use some computer based assessment
• Factors preventing UEA academics from using more
  CIT for teaching and learning
• Time to ...prepare new materials 51 learn
  new skills 46
• Provision of equipment 28 Availability of
  support 23
• Provision of software 23 Not sure
  where get advice 16
• No encouragement 12 Student reluctance
  9

24
CIT training and development

• Reaching academics
• The UEA 11 experience
• The SOLAR experience
• Reaching non-users
• Computing for Absolute BeginnersVery educational
  and a lot of fun (Cleaner, UEA)
• Mentoring

25
CIT training and development

• Organisational preferences for tutor-led courses
  (from UEA survey)
• Session duration half day or shorter, even if
  means more than one session for the course
• Group composition unimportant to majority but
  34 wished to train with those doing similar jobs

26
CIT training and development

• Courses are good - especially beginners courses.
  More advanced courses could helpfully be more
  specific for a group with similar needs
  (Academic, UEA)
• UEA evidence suggests for common courses
• Beginners level one or more half day sessions,
  possibly mixed participant composition
• Further level short (even 1h) sessions on
  specific topics, which also dictates participant
  composition

27
CIT training and development

• Other things to remember about tutor-led courses
• Split sites - courses accessible to all?
• Run at a time of day suitable for target group?
• Repeats of courses staggered - day, am/pm?
• Repeats run out of teaching periods to
  accommodate those with major teaching loads?
• Run often enough to keep waiting lists short?

28
Help and support

• Individual reflection
• How do people (you?) get help with CIT problems
  at your institution? (Both in theory and in
  practice!)
• What do you think is the preferred method, second
  choice, etc?

29
Help and support

• Self-help
• On-line FAQs, How do I pages, package help,
  tutorials
• Off-line paper equivalents
• Other people
• Formal Central Help Desks, Departmental
  Support
• Informal Direct Via directories and e-mail
  lists

30
Help and Support
31
Help and Support

• Immediacy
• Helpfulness
• Formal support issues
• Individuals interest and intuitive customer care
• Managing units priorities
• The status of technical staff

32
Help and support

• I identify my own training needs and look for
  relevant seminars and courses for my staff to
  attend. I then pass on the information, for them
  to decide if they want to attend. There is
  generally no problem with getting people skills
  updates, we just do it.
  Manager, Computing Service, UEA
• There is no co-ordinated policy for technicians
  training in CIT skills - no one is interested.
  Support person, UEA Academic Dept

33
Qualifications and professional development

• Group discussion
• What CIT related qualifications (if any) are
  available to staff at your institution?
• Why?
• Does offering qualifications accomplish its
  purpose?

34
Qualifications and professional development

• Qualifications can confirm CIT skills levels
• Basic level CLAIT too minimal? ECDL...
• Basic Concepts of Information Technology (IT)
• Using the Computer and Managing Files
• Word Processing
• Spreadsheets
• Database
• Presentation (e.g. use of presentation packages,
  such as PowerPoint)
• Information and Communication (i.e. web and
  e-mail)

35
Qualifications and professional development

• Automated testing to bulk CIT accredit
• Can you afford to bulk accredit? Use the
  syllabus?
• More advanced accreditation - eg MOUS - as part
  of professional development
• __________________________________________________
  __________________UEA survey 36 respondents
  expressed interest in gaining qualifications Of
  those 62 among non-academic related groups, 29
  among academic and related groups (just
  academics, 12 only)

36
Recruitment and promotion

• Group discussion
• What part might the promotion process play in
  embedding CIT skills in an HEI?

37
Recruitment and promotion

• Recruitment place of CIT skills?
• Recruitment literature
• Interview
• Care - currently, make CIT skills explicit
• Promotion processes place of CIT skills?
• Possible carrot?

38
Strategic management

• Individual reflection
• Does your institution have a policy/strategy that
  relates to staff CIT skills?
• Group discussion
• If you do have an institutional policy/strategy,
  what sorts of things are covered?

39
Strategic management

• The biggest single problem is lack of a clear
  institutional staff CIT skills strategy
  Staff Developer
• There appears to be no explicit staff development
  or corporate development strategy driving the
  CIT training provision. Academic,
  Business School
• We need a co-ordinated policy for all
  categories of staff, driven by the University,
  rather than department-based, setting basic skill
  levels for each category of staff, supported by
  mandatory training sessions UEA
  Departmental technician

40
Strategic management
Generally speaking, at UEA an individual
recognises a perceived need and seeks appropriate
CIT training. Although the alternative to this
piece-meal approach is encouraged, only rarely do
offices or other groupings of staff upgrade all
hardware and/or software at the same time, and
co-ordinate the upgrade with associated training
for all those involved. Furthermore, until
recently the idea of a basic standard of CIT
competence to be expected of some groups, or of
all staff, has not been considered.
Staff Developer, UEA
41
Strategic management

• Central v departmental tensions
• funding, freedom
• PCs and MacsUEA 59 favour standard hardware,
  16 disagree
• Standard software or interchange standards? UEA
  64 favour standard software, 14 disagree

42
Strategic management

• Need institutional staff CIT skills policy and
  strategy
• Sell by...
• Cost benefits of better skilled workforce
• Need for staff proficiency to support learning
  and teaching
• Increased research productivity giving better RAE
  ratings

43
Strategic management Example CIT skills policy

• Across all categories of staff, the university
  will normally seek to employ staff who already
  have basic CIT skills.
• Where necessary, the university will make
  available basic CIT skills training to all its
  staff and students such that they may be deemed
  IT literate as necessary for the pursuance of
  their work.
• The university will seek to provide additional
  training for those requiring special CIT skills.

44
Strategic management

• 2 year strategy to give current employees
  baseline skills
• Generally employ only those with (at least) the
  baseline skills
• Result after the 2 years can concentrate on
  further and specialist CIT skills

45
CIT Skills Developing staff CIT capability in
Higher Education

• Dr Paddy Anstey
• Centre for Staff and Educational Development,
• University of East Anglia,
• Norwich, UK