Innovation in higher education

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Innovation in higher education
Sarah Porter Head of Development JISC
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What is innovation?

• Innovation is typically understood as the
  introduction of something new and useful, for
  example introducing new methods, techniques, or
  practices or new or altered products and services
  (Wikipedia)

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Why do we need innovation?

• Some reasons to innovate
• To improve practices
• To improve quality
• To respond to the changing needs of users
• To respond to new opportunities
• To respond to a changing external environment

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Changes to the external environment for UK
education

• Learning and teaching
• Changing student profile and expectations
• Ref. JISC student expectations study
• More competition for students lower student
  numbers with classic 18-21 profile
• Emphasis on the student as customer (particularly
  post 2009)

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Demography 18-20yr old entrants to HE
Richer backgrounds
2009
2005
All 18-20yr olds
Source Office for National Statistics HEPI
report summary 22 March 2006
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Changes to external environment

• New approaches to research assessment beyond 2008
• Government policy drivers
• Widening participation and inclusion agendas
  (targets for student numbers)
• Emphasis on skills and links with employment
  (Leitch review)
• Changes to funding models and accreditation
  (Burgess review)
• Etc.

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Innovation and transformation models

• Well-rehearsed literature concerned with adoption
  of innovation
• Many explorations of how this applies to
  technology
• Some explorations of how this applies to education

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Technology Adoption Lifecycle

• Classic model (developed at Iowa State College in
  1957 originally based on purchase patterns of
  hybrid seed corn by farmers)
• Further developed by Rogers in early 1960s
  informed Moores Crossing the Chasm (1991,
  1999)
• Identifies psychographic profiles for the take up
  of new products
• Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late
  Majority, Laggards

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MIT 90s model

• Produced by Ventraman from MIT / Sloan School
• Influential model of technological change in an
  organisational context

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UK context

• Numerous initiatives to encourage strategic
  planning of IT within the educational system, for
  example
• Department for Education and Skills
• Higher Education Funding Council
• Scottish Higher Education Funding Council
• JISC
• Higher Education Academy

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So why dont we see more change?

• Higher Education is a complex, distributed system
• A university is slow and difficult to innovate as
  a single system
• To be successful, innovation needs to occur from
  the top down (strategy and policy) and from the
  bottom up (practice and experimentation)

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• Q Why does the JISC exist?
• A to provide world-class leadership in the
  innovative use of ICT to support education and
  research

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• How does the JISC support innovation?

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• Services that provide advice and resources to
  individuals and institutions on how to develop
  strategy, change policy, innovate and improve
  practices, benefit from new technologies

Etc.
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Funding programmes and providing services

• Several hundred projects that fund activities in
  institutions to support and encourage innovation
• Organised into programme themes that are planned
  holistically
• E-learning programme, E-research programme,
  Information Environment programme,
  E-administration programme etc.
• Leading to guides to good practice, exemplars,
  shared knowledge and experience, developing and
  supporting networks

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JISC e-Learning Programme

• Working on 3 levels
• Technology Standards
• Learning Teaching practice
• Strategy Policy

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JISC e-Learning Programme

• Across 5 domains-
• Portfolio
• Assessment
• Learning Resources Activities
• Administration of Learning Teaching
• Physical Virtual Learning Environments.
• Responding to drivers of
• Institutional diversity, collegiate culture,
  mixed economies (home grown, commercial and open
  source)
• Student centred, pedagogically sound, inclusive.
• Lifelong learning, personalisation, widening
  participation and work based learning

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Bottom up evolutionary innovation

• Supporting learners In Their Own Words
• Investigations of learner experiences in using
  technology across the education sector
• Shared through reports, guides to good practice,
  videos

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In their own words
...And because they technologies save me time,
I can spend more time doing the research and
getting everything ready, because I know when I
put the whole thing together, it will come
together quite smoothly. Gary, 4th Year
Medical Student In their own words report,
JISC
They learners have an expectation of being
able to access up-to-date and relevant
information and resources and see this as vital.
They dont see technology as anything
specialjust another tool to support their
learning. LXP Student Experiences of
Technologies Final report (Conole et al., 2006)
www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedag
ogy/intheirownwords
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• Supporting teachers
• Design for Learning Programme
• Studies exploring the relationship between
  pedagogy and technology
• Good practice guides

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• Pedagogic planners

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Supporting holistic change

• Projects that require changes to practice,
  technology and processes
• Holistic model that encourages re-use of project
  outputs (software and practices) by others
• CETIS SIGs supported networking, exchange of
  ideas and increased the level of take-up

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Tangible Benefits of E-Learning
(Ferrell, Kelly, McMahon, Probert,
Quentin-Baxter, Riachi for JISC, July 2007)
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Top-down, revolutionary innovation

• Need for more flexible, responsive systems,
  policies and processes
• JISC has explored this agenda since 1994
• Information Strategies programmes (1994-2001)
• Managed Learning Environment programmes
  (1999-2003) led to Creating a Managed Learning
  Environment InfoKit
• Scottish Institutional Transformation programme
  (2004-2007 funded by SHEFC)
• Forthcoming book The e-Revolution and
  post-Compulsory Education (Routledge)
• Institutional Exemplars just started

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Institutional Exemplars programme

• Solution to a well-recognised institutional
  problem
• Projects that support existing institutional
  strategies
• Relevant and transferable outside the originating
  institution(s)
• Four areas
• Institution-wide systems integration
• Alignment with institutional strategy and policy
  to support educational processes
• E-administration
• Sustainable development (green computing)

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Key points

• Active support of senior leadership required
• Must be demonstrated in the bid
• Senior manager must be available to engage with
  the project and the JISC
• Implementation not just experimentation want to
  see evidence of impact on technology, processes
  etc.
• Technology focus standards and service-oriented
  approach

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• Extending the learning
• May be opportunities to build up networks of
  practice around (and to complement) the projects
• Always challenging to transfer lessons about
  implementation from one institution to another
  (were all unique )

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Top-down and bottom-up at the same time

• E-Framework for Education and Research
• Standards developed through observing and mapping
  practice, systems and processes
• framework of approaches to coordinate what has
  been learned
• Current investigation of high-level mapping of
  the education domain
• Tension between standardisation and innovation
• Though standards can support and enable
  innovation

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Innovation needs to work at numerous levels and
with multiple actors

• Change is driven by a model that includes
  technology, policy and people
• Enablers or change agents working at different
  levels within organisations
• And outside their organisations
• Successful sharing of practice requires a complex
  model involving the right innovations (right
  time, right place), supported by appropriate,
  active human networks

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(Secret) agents for change

• Everyone in this room is a change agent
• Enabling ...
• Exploring
• Supporting change at different levels
• How can we collaborate more effectively to learn
  from each other?
• How can we support education to meet its new
  challenges?
• How can we move from pockets of innovation
  (Freds in Sheds) to an innovative educational
  sector?

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Collaboration in a competitive environment

• Informal networks
• Communities of practice on themes e.g. CETIS
  groups
• COPs based on projects, software development,
  shared problems, domains of operation
• Membership organisations based on shared job
  roles
• ?

• Formal collaborative activities
• Consortia to develop products and share practices
• Consortia based on collaboration
• Helping re-use
• ?
• Changing funding models
• e.g. Open Call for projects that fit programme
  themes
• ?