Jisc has become a full member of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) consortium as part of its commitment to promoting the open use of digital content for education and research.
The IIIF provides a standard for the delivery of images and audio/visual files used in education, research and beyond to provide access to digital content in a way that enables sharing and openness.
Jisc’s Archives Hub is at the centre of its work with the IIIF. The Archives Hub brings together descriptions of thousands of the UK’s archive collections from over 350 institutions across the country and allows users to discover unique and often little-known sources to support their research.
The Archives Hub is currently working on an innovations project to look at how the IIIF can help to make digital archival content more available. The project involves ten UK institutions, including seven Jisc members, looking at issues surrounding the use of IIIF for archives, in particular challenges around the hierarchical arrangement of archives and how IIIF can best represent this.
Jisc is among a number of international members of the IIIF.
via Jisc news
This week we chatted with Aftab Hussain, information learning technology manager at Bolton College, about Firstpass.
Firstpass is an automated system that helps automate the marking and feedback of open-ended questions using artificial intelligence.
Aftab talks through the benefits of Firstpass, sharing how the system can help reduce the burden on teachers when marking formative assessments, whilst providing students with instant feedback to their answers.
Lastly, Aftab shares the latest updates and progress of Ada, Bolton college's digital assistant which went live in 2017.
This episode is sponsored by Uniwise.
Their solution, Wiseflow, is a secure and scalable digital assessment platform, helping institutions transform the creation, management and delivery of exams and assessments. Find out more about Wiseflow.
Aftab Hussain
ILT manager at Bolton college
Follow Aftab on twitter
Georgie Myers
Senior media and communications officer, Jisc
Mark Lennon
Digital campaign manager, Jisc
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Jisc and Kortext, the student learning content and engagement platform, have partnered to provide 10,000 free e-books and academic publications to all FE and sixth form colleges across the UK.
In a 12-month pilot scheme, the Kortext Open Resources Collection – a curated collection of open access (OA) books and open educational resources (OERs) – will be available to all Jisc FE member institutions. This means that the UK’s 2 million plus FE learners will have free and fair access to these resources, which support a range of subjects from arts, business, and environment information technology and English literature.
James Gray, CEO Kortext said:
“With Jisc and Kortext joining forces, students will have free and easy access to important resources at the point of study, helping them develop their critical minds in preparation for higher education or employment. The more these resources are adopted by academics, the less students have to worry about paying for course content, which we hope will make a big difference to some of these young people’s lives.
“The materials are available now for colleges to integrate into their resource lists, enabling students to access them anytime, anywhere on any mobile, tablet or laptop.”
Liam Earney, Jisc's executive director, digital resources, said:
“Jisc has pledged to help students and teachers across UK higher and further education to gain access to affordable e-books, e-textbooks and related teaching content. This pilot represents a first step to moving towards a more equitable and affordable market for learning content and provides us with an opportunity to monitor how this broad range of content is received and used by both staff and students and help us identify areas for growth.
“Maximising on freely available content can be challenging. Bringing it together into subject collections and with the capabilities of the Kortext platform, students and educators will easily be able to find content of relevance to their courses and understand its use.
“We will continue work with Kortext to ensure the offer evolves – responding to sector need and member feedback as we look at next steps.”
via Jisc news
OpenAthens, a Jisc enterprise, has won a platinum award in LibraryWorks’ eighth annual Modern Library Awards (MLAs), bringing the total number of its accolades to four.
The MLAs represent a review program designed to recognise elite products and services in the market. The awards aim to help library management staff enhance users’ experience and boost the performance of library systems.
Each participating judge had experience with OpenAthens' user authentication solution within their own organisation. They scored the product from 1-10 on a series of questions regarding quality, functionality, value, customer service and overall satisfaction. The final total score was 9.36 out of 10.
One judge commented:
“The product is easy to use, does just what we need it to do to provide remote authentication with a single sign-on to our college campus portal, and when we do have questions, we receive prompt and helpful answers/assistance.”
OpenAthens’ commercial, director Jon Bentley, said:
“We are delighted to have won another platinum award. This is the fourth year in a row that we have been honoured by the MLAs, including earning product of the year in 2020, and it just goes to show how our efforts to provide easy access to knowledge globally are being recognised by libraries.”
Read more about the awards and the judges comments.
via Jisc news
As we enter the third year of the pandemic, education organisations have made great strides forward in the effective use of digital technology to support remote work and study.
Now, even though campuses are open, that new-found knowledge will be proving invaluable as many colleges and universities will be struggling to cope with high levels of COVID-19-related staff absence.
As cases continue to rise, increasing numbers of people are isolating, which has implications for how teaching and learning is conducted, for the continuity of support functions, and for the wellbeing of staff who are stretched while covering for colleagues.
Recognising the extra pressure this creates at institutions, Jisc's subject specialists have penned a series of blogs pulling together advice to help members exploit the potential of digital tech to mitigate disruption.
Scott Hibberson and Esther Barrett pull together resources to help teachers, including advice on best practice when it comes to delivering online.
Mark Clark shares ideas for actions that can mitigate the absence of a key IT person. He advises that more than one member of staff should be familiar with critical processes, and suggests using the IT team capacity assessment tool.
Lis Parcell and Chris Thomson collate strategies and resources that can help keep support services going, such as ensuring that tasks normally covered by one or two members of staff could be easily picked up by others.
For example, the use of cloud tools to share knowledge of key processes, and enable people to join meetings online and in person and record or create text transcriptions of discussions for those who are absent.
This blog also promotes empathy for returnees and new starters and highlights the importance of maintaining wellbeing.
The impact on emotional and physical health of working remotely is also tackled in Laura Hutton’s blog. Also covering how to maintain accessibility standards, she talks about the need to supply clear communications in a variety of formats.
Finally, Jisc’s strategy and law expert, John Kelly, writes a short piece addressing the question of whether the general data protection regulation (GDPR) prevents staff from sharing with others the fact that someone has tested positive for COVID-19.
via Jisc news
Jisc is inviting staff from all member organisations to attend its annual edtech conference, Digifest, for free.
On Monday, Jisc’s leadership team decided to waive charges for colleges, universities and research centres because of the uncertainty that prevails around the pandemic.
Explaining the decision applied to the 2022 hybrid event, which is running 8-9 March at the ICC in Birmingham and online, Heidi Fraser Krauss, Jisc CEO, says:
“We recognise that the ongoing risk around COVID-19 means it is very difficult for members to make a financial commitment to an event when they cannot be totally confident that staff will be able to attend.
“By waiving the charge, we hope to remove barriers for attendance, whether in person or virtually, and maximise the number of member representatives who can be involved.
“Digifest is a valuable opportunity for Jisc and members to come together at a time when we are leveraging our experience of the pandemic to power forward with digital transformation.”
This announcement coincides with the publication of the Digifest 2022 programme, which covers topics including the digital divide, blended learning, digital leadership and innovation using technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality.
Keynote speakers this year include:
via Jisc news
A year ago, Bridgwater and Taunton College was severely impacted by a ransomware cyber attack.
Key systems, including email, were offline and the decision was taken to quickly remove access to other systems to lessen the likelihood of the attack spreading.
Matt Tudor, interim director of IT, explains what happened:
“During the lockdowns, we had increased remote desktop access for staff and students and the threat actor used that protocol to get past one of the IT staff.
“We were alerted in the early hours of Thursday, January 14, when the email function and other servers stopping working.
“There was also a minor breach of unstructured data, which we also discovered early on, but this did not affect key business data sets, which was a relief. We were lucky because our backups were only 12 hours old. This meant we hadn’t lost a significant amount of data.
“Two days after the attack, we were able to teach and assess students online and students could also submit work remotely.
“The skeletons of our core systems were up and running within 30 days, but there was a lot of ongoing work to do to get them back to their original form. It took another two months to unravel all the workarounds we had put in place to compensate for the systems we had lost.
“Even now, a year on, we are still having ongoing conversations with clients, and we still have to report and update our systems.
“Staff and students have had to get used to significant changes to the systems they use, and we also had to drop some systems altogether because they proved to be insecure.
“One of the most significant impacts was losing school leaver applications, which happened when the website was down.”
One of the first actions was to appoint an incident response lead - a role that Tudor, who at the time was director of strategy and partnerships, stepped into. He says:
“I think it’s important that this was neither the CEO, nor the head of IT.
“In this situation, the CEO will be busy communicating with the various stakeholders, the media and the board, and the head of IT will have his or her sleeves rolled up getting stuck into the technical problems.”
From day one, the response team began a series of sunrise and sunsets meetings, which covered questions such as ‘what do we know?’ and ‘what do we need to do?’. These went on for 30 days, until all systems were rebuilt.
Initially, because email was unavailable, the team used WhatsApp to communicate and held meetings in person.
Tudor describes the college’s comprehensive cyber insurance cover as “critical”. It meant the college was able to draw on the expertise of lawyers, a PR company and a special IT forensic team to help it recover.
“Our insurance cost was £10k at the time of incident and the cost of recovery and putting our systems back together again after the attack wasn’t far short of £1m. The top three costs were cyber forensics, legal expertise and infrastructure rebuild.
“This year we will spend £30,000 on insurance and it’s worth every penny; we realised we didn’t have the depth of expertise or resource to cope without help.
“The senior team including our CEO and the head of IT, were greatly reassured to have these experts in place, which enabled us not only to build back better, but to also keep faith with clients, students and staff.
“It was a very busy time and having the support of these critical experts appointed by the insurer was so important.”
However, no matter how busy, it’s crucial to make time to capture the costs of a cyber attack, warns Tudor, including loss of earnings, which is important for a subsequent insurance claim.
“In terms of containment, the forensic team appointed by the insurance company was vital in ensuring the threat actor had left the systems, and that no back doors had been created which would have allowed them access later. We have since installed state-of-the-art threat detection software.”
A PR firm took over communications, preparing letters, statements for the website and updating stakeholders. These included staff, students, the governing body, and funders, plus apprenticeship providers, government agencies and large companies with which the college had contractual obligations.
Tudor’s advice on the appropriate communications tone?
“We responded quickly and honestly. One of our values is to be transparent and honest and we were commended by our stakeholders for this.”
Tudor admits that, while the college had started to improve its cyber security posture, it was not well defended when the attack hit.
For example, it was using a remote desktop protocol without a web gateway, which would have prevented unauthorised traffic from entering the college network.
This has now been remedied and further measures put in place to reduce the risk of a threat actor using the same entry point again. These include multi-factor authentication (MFA) for staff and students, and virtual private networks for staff working from home.
Before the attack, Jisc had conducted a penetration test and the college was working through its recommendations when the attack occurred. During the past few months, another penetration test and a cyber audit, again carried out by Jisc, have been completed and further improvements made as a result.
Pre-attack, Cyber Essentials was in place, but its requirements, says Tudor, should be viewed as only part of a strategic security plan. The college is now working towards Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO 270001.
Aside from the disruption and the financial and reputational impact, organisations often report a high emotional cost. Tudor is no exception. He says:
“There will be tears, there is no doubt about that. It took a toll on myself and my team. There were moments when I wasn’t sure how we were going to get through it.
“It has been a career-defining moment for me, and I hope I’ll never go through anything like it again. It was utterly exhausting.”
Now the college has emerged from the technical and emotional trauma, there are some positives to come out of the attack.
Tudor explains:
“Having worked alongside the cyber experts brought in by the insurers, my team have significantly increased their knowledge. Some of them have also changed roles so they are pointed at the right things, and we are now advertising for a dedicated cyber security role.
“The pandemic increased the college’s use of digital technology and, as a result of the attack, I have been able to leverage increased funding to beef-up security and take us further along that digital transformation journey.
“We are in a far better place now, with a better plan and more expertise. We also have more resilient and effective IT systems than we would have had we not had a cyber incident.”
via Jisc news
A new report by Jisc examines how existing software systems can improve the student journey and lead to better outcomes for both students and universities, such as boosting National Student Survey (NSS) scores and tackling low attrition rates.
Part one of the report looks at what student engagement is, why it matters, and describes the challenges, while part two covers the role of technology and key trends.
The report, Enhancing student engagement using technological solutions, was sponsored by Unitu - an online platform that helps universities and students’ unions collect and analyse student feedback in real time.
The report considers how the rise of personalisation, artificial intelligence (AI), learning analytics and increasing student preferences for mobile and cloud service, all offer opportunities for universities to improve their approaches to student engagement.
The study was compiled in response to growing evidence that students didn’t feel a sense of ‘belonging’ to an institution. The Student Academic Experience Survey 2021 and the National Student Survey (NSS) found fewer than half of students feel that their voice is heard and represented by their institution.
Sue Attewell, head of edtech at Jisc, says:
“Student engagement is an important, yet sometimes challenging topic for universities in the UK. The increased sense of ‘belonging’ that engagement typically brings is approached differently in each institution depending on individual elements such as the university mission, characteristics of the student body and commitment of staff.
“We hope this report will help universities to assess how they can harness technology solutions to improve engagement.”
Based on interviews with university leaders and technology pioneers, alongside case studies, the report highlights some current best practice as well as next steps universities need to take if they are to fully exploit technology-based solutions.
The chair of the report, professor David Maguire, interim vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex and former chair of Jisc, says:
“There is no lack of appetite across the sector for improving student engagement and using technology to do so. University leaders face a challenge in staying appraised of what technology really works, what’s good practice and what skills and capabilities are needed to make the most effective use of these solutions."
Successful examples in the report of how startups are helping include:
Finally, the report recommends five steps university leaders can exploit the benefits of technology for student engagement more fully. By introducing a digital strategy, investing in technically capable staff and skills at all levels, sharing experiences and good practice, coordinating approaches to finding solutions where there are currently none, and empowering student experts.
The report was created in partnership with Emerge Education. Mary Curnock Cook, network chair at Emerge Education, says:
“We can’t outsource the student engagement challenge to technology, but we can augment and complement student engagement initiatives with tech. Using case studies and a market map, this report sets out how universities can dial up their effectiveness in this space.”
Further information can be found at the newly launched Jisc edtech programme, which looks to match universities with startups.
To find out more or to become a member of the edtech programme, contact the product manager, Nadia Bentoua (nadia.bentoua@jisc.ac.uk).
via Jisc news
COVID-19 lockdowns forced further education (FE) providers to devise and implement new, online means of assessing learners’ progress and giving feedback, using a variety of technology.
This acceleration in the use of digital technology has prompted a fresh drive to revise the out-of-date methods of formative and summative assessment.
Now is the moment to reach a consensus on what worked during that period and what didn’t. What new measures can be implemented across the board to make assessment more inclusive, more accessible and more relevant to the post-pandemic workplace?
Technology has a role to play in enabling those aims. To kick-start that discussion and help plan a route forward, Jisc and City and Guilds are teaming up to hold a series of webinars between January and April 2022.
Aimed at FE leaders, teachers and interested parties from across the sector, the four webinars will look at innovation and the use of AI, accessibility and inclusion, VR and simulated assessment, and mobile assessments and digital portfolios.
City and Guilds’ director of policy, strategic partnerships and stakeholder engagement, Patrick Craven, set the scene for the webinars. He explains:
“Assessment needs a review, particularly its relationship with learning, education and training for the workplace. At the moment, it’s not fit for purpose.
“Indeed, the pandemic has shown us that reliance on end-point, pen-and-paper exams is a weakness. We should think more broadly around a combination of both formative and summative assessment.”
As we emerge and learn from the pandemic, workplaces are increasingly requiring employees with confidence and competence in the use of technologies.
Jisc’s director of FE and skills, Paul McKean, says:
“Young people and adults will need to adapt and learn how to operate in this ‘new’ workplace landscape. The education sphere also needs to adapt in the way it exposes learners to the post-pandemic expectation that digital is a core component of the workplace.”
Craven agrees, adding:
“We are doing a disservice to learners by not including technology in their experience of learning and assessment.
“Many young people currently at college will be going into careers where they’re not expected to be in the working environment every day and this will be a constant for the rest of their working lives.
“So, it’s a good thing that they should become aware of how to engage with teachers and peers remotely, including for assessment purposes.
“Because of the skills for jobs bill and the way the UK is moving into upskilling and reskilling the existing workforce, there's going to be a real need to make assessment flexible and adaptable - as employers require. This will apply to apprenticeships, T-levels and other kinds of work placements.”
Craven feels that technology could also be a means to assess soft skills around ways of working, such as communication and collaboration and other employability skills. He says:
“These skills are valuable to employers, but at present peripheral to the mainstream curriculum and not formally assessed.
“There are some very neat ways that technology can allow these qualities to be looked at, for example with high-end VR simulations.”
The workload burden on teachers is a theme of the government’s edtech strategy and it emerged as a key problem in Jisc’s research with the AoC in 2020.
“Assessment is clearly a major part of that workload,” says McKean.
“The pressures of providing ongoing, constructive and targeted feedback to large groups of learners puts teachers under strain. Technology can help relieve that burden, but there’s a balance to be struck between human and automated marking.
“Formative assessment technologies, including for essay marking, can be linked to the interactive virtual learning environment (VLE), which could use the pre-programmed assessment grades alongside AI-derived outcomes to signpost students to appropriate revision or ‘stretch-and-challenge' activities as required.”
While the pandemic may have increased access to devices and connectivity, digital poverty still exists. Assessment, therefore, must be inclusive. Technology can also help ensure it is flexible and adaptable to the needs and preferences of all. McKean says:
“We don't want technology to create a barrier to assessment; we want technology to enhance assessment.
“With an ‘accessibility-first’ principle, assessment can be delivered in multiple ways, depending on the needs of the learner.”
Craven adds:
“Justs like a paper-based exam isn’t suitable for everyone, particularly learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), we don’t want anyone to be forced to use technology. That would become a disadvantage for those in digital poverty.
“We should be providing individuals with the opportunity to present evidence of their knowledge and skills through variety of means - written, spoken performance and digitally, in an e-portfolio for example.
“In a digital environment, the ability to capture those is quite simple and in ways familiar to most young people, who are very adept at using devices to record a variety of inputs and to transfer them, too.”
Craven believes that wholesale change in assessment is necessary and timely, but he recognises the road ahead may not be smooth without across-the-board collaboration.
“The challenge we face is in generating enough concerted momentum from all interested parties to move forward - and I mean the awarding bodies, the regulators, education providers, organisations like Jisc and other sector bodies, and the government.”
McKean explains that engaging all parties is one of the rationales for the webinars.
“We want to encourage participation from all; we want to be provocative - to challenge and to be challenged in order to see where the pain points are. Only then can we work out the solutions.
“We need to be able to demonstrate that technology-enhanced assessment has advantages in levelling access, in reducing staff workload and increasing wellbeing, in enhancing the student experience and providing a more personalised experience, in better preparing learners for the workplace, in providing and assessing skills that employers value, and in providing instant feedback at any time of day or night.
“That's really the end game.”
via Jisc news
Jisc and our partner organisations have written to publishers Pearson, asking them to take urgent and immediate action to reconsider and reverse their recently - announced price increases to e-textbook titles.
These significant and unbudgeted increases, announced suddenly and without consultation, are unacceptable to UK education institutions and their students. We have therefore requested an urgent meeting with Pearson to discuss what can be done to rectify the current situation, to better serve and support the sector going forward.
The letter has been signed by:
via Jisc news
Jisc is urging colleges and universities to quickly fix an “easily-exploited” flaw in widely used computer code that presents a “severe” risk of cyber attack.
The vulnerability in Log4J, a very widely used logging program for Java software, affects a large number of applications and software commonly used in the education and research sector.
Jisc has issued technical advice to members detailing how they must patch systems and warns that the situation will need monitoring for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, one of the most effective means by which colleges and universities can protect their cyber space against the Log4J threat is to join the Janet Network resolver service.
Included as part of members’ subscriptions to Jisc, the Janet Network resolver service mitigates the risk of user’s web requests being directed to compromised or dangerous websites. The service has just been updated to block websites specifically relating to the Log4J vulnerability.
Jisc’s director of security, Henry Hughes, says:
“Criminals are always quick to take advantage of vulnerabilities and this one appears to be particularly easy to exploit.
“Suspicious activity connected to Log4J has already been reported in the education sector, so there's no time to lose.
“Organisations that don’t implement a programme of patching immediately will be at severe risk of cyber attacks.
“While software providers are issuing fixes, it’s difficult to get a clear and full picture of where the weakness are, so it’s likely that multiple patches will need applying over the coming months.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and will update and advise IT and security teams when necessary.
“We also continue to review our own systems, to ensure that they are not vulnerable, patching and updating the small number of systems that have found to have been affected.”
A small number of Jisc services were found to use Log4J and taken offline as a precautionary measure.
The Heidi Plus service remains temporarily suspended, however the dashboards for the building digital capabilities service, the Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP) and IRUS and are now back online.
Article updated to include information about the Janet Network resolver service and provide an update on a small number of Jisc services affected.
Article updated to detail Jisc services that are back online.
Heidi Plus is back online.
via Jisc news
Jisc and Bolton College have teamed up to develop a chatbot that could help students throughout the UK.
Designed to cut staff workload by answering questions about the campus, timetabling and support services, for example, the chatbot is a quick, always-on route to information for learners.
A trial that will run until Easter 2022 is now underway with Ayrshire, Blackpool and The Fylde, Sandwell, and Yeovil colleges.
The first pilot to emerge from Jisc’s national centre for artificial intelligence in tertiary education, the technology is based on Ada – a chatbot created by Bolton College where it has been supporting students since April 2017.
Ada’s existing question set will be shared with the four pilot participants and, in collaboration with staff and students, they will add to and adapt the queries and answers to suit their own needs.
While the chatbot has been developed by and for the further education (FE) sector, it could be adapted for universities, too.
A decision on how or whether to continue developing the chatbot for potential use by all UK colleges and higher education providers will be made at the end of the pilot, after a period of evaluation.
Jisc’s MD of FE and skills, Robin Ghurbhurun, said:
“This is an exciting project for the tertiary education sector, where the use of AI and machine learning is still in its infancy. Our hope is that this project will demonstrate the potential of emerging Industry 4.0 technologies to help solve key sector challenges.
“Staff workload is an ongoing challenge and chatbots could really make a difference – freeing up teachers and other staff to concentrate on face-to face support.”
Bill Webster, principal of Bolton College, said:
“Bolton College is delighted to partner with Jisc on the chatbot pilot. Working collaboratively has allowed us to innovate, utilising cutting-edge technology to enrich the college experience of our students.
“Since the launch of the Ada service, we’ve been passionate in our belief that every student in the further education sector should have access to a campus digital assistant that supports their studies and training. The joint chatbot pilot is an important milestone in that longer term journey.”
Ada is Bolton College’s campus digital assistant. Since launching in April 2017, Ada has responded to a broad range of questions from students. For instance, Ada can respond to day-to-day questions about the college and campus services. Students can ask Ada about their studies with questions such as ‘what is my timetable?’, or ‘when is my next exam?’. She can also respond to subject topic questions.
The service supports other business-critical workflows and business processes at the college. For instance, on GCSE results day, students simply ask Ada for their grades. The Ada service was referenced by the Department for Education’s edtech strategy in 2019. Bolton College also earned a Beacon award from the Association of Colleges in the same year.
Set up in April 2021, the centre is led by Jisc and supported by innovation-focused universities and colleges throughout the UK. The centre will identify and develop the best and most appropriate AI solutions for tertiary education, support the ethical design and deployment of solutions, and test how they improve learner experiences. Its main aim is to ensure AI is used in ways that augment teachers’ skills and support human-led education by developing the sector’s skills and confidence in using AI tools. The aim is to deliver AI solutions at 60 colleges and 30 universities within five years.
via Jisc news
Universities were forced to break the mould when it came to assessment in 2020. But UCL made the bold decision to deliver all its 2021 exams and assessments online too – on a new, purpose-built platform.
This story is sponsored by UNIwise.
In 2020 with in-person exams off the table, most universities pivoted to digital, open-book alternatives to fill the gap. But once the main exam period of 2020 had passed, UCL decided to accelerate the move to digital assessment for the long term.
“We decided, let’s go for it; let’s not inch our way into the coming year.?We knew we could do it because we’d done it once with something that wasn’t designed for assessment at scale. Why wouldn’t we have the confidence to go the whole journey with really broad engagement across the institution using a platform that was designed for assessment?”??
In consultation with academics, UCL gathered a broad set of requirements for digital assessment at UCL that would support the full lifecycle of assessment from design and delivery through to marking, moderation and external examination, including the transfer of marks into Portico, UCL’s student management platform. It selected UNIwise, provider of WISEflow, as its preferred partner?and launched the platform as ‘AssessmentUCL’, to all students in Spring 2021.??
Like most higher education institutions, UCL had been having discussions about transforming assessment and digitising assessment, teaching and learning for a long time. Professor Simon Walker, director of programme development in the office of the vice provost (education and student experience), says:
“We’d been having conversations?about students learning on their devices for years –?why were we still putting them into assessment halls and getting them to write for hours on paper, making their arms ache? And educationally, why do we still do so much testing using closed-book exams when we live in an open-book world? There are so many new forms of appropriate assessment that we can use, especially in a digital environment.”??
To help colleagues across UCL shift their assessment practice, the team produced guidance on alternative assessments – ‘if you’re not going to run exams, what can you offer?’ To encourage academics to think about programme-level assessment design, it produced tools for visualising assessment and guidance about managing the assessment load for students, such as the relationship between formative and summative assessment, assessment types, bunching and volume of assessment.
UCL doesn’t struggle with student retention, but Joanne Moles, head of assessment delivery and platforms in academic services, recognises that digital assessment may influence its?national student survey scores in the long run:
“In an exam hall, it’s very unlikely that a student’s going to get granular feedback on their manuscript easily, if at all, but they may do on a digital platform, so it may tie in with those NSS scores related to timely feedback.”??
Derfel says:
"There was an appetite to explore digital assessment.
"The key thing about the pandemic is that we needed big solutions to big problems, it made us put our foot on the accelerator."
After a successful proof-of-concept testing, UCL delivered all centrally managed exams on AssessmentUCL in 2021:?48,700 candidates sat over 1000 exam instances via the platform during the main exams period.?
Derfel continues:
“Where we would be had there not been a pandemic is probably lots of pilots with enthusiastic cheerleaders spread across the university. But the approach we’ve taken is that we’ve touched every corner of the university: there is no part of UCL that has not engaged with digital assessment and the solution we have in place.’?
This approach has not been without its difficulties, however, as Derfel recognises:
“What it has meant – and we’re very far from complacent on this – is that that engagement isn’t necessarily very deep or rich in many places;? that’s where we now need to be shifting our attention.”
For Simon, one of the biggest hurdles in this sort of transformation is the culture:
"How do you shift?the?culture where you’ve got very successful academics who have often succeeded through more traditional exams but who haven’t, on the whole, experienced more innovative examples of digital assessment themselves? You’ve got this amazing intervention that can lead to deep change but unless you can convince your colleagues to experiment and take risks, moving forward as a whole institution will be challenge."
Derfel agrees that simply digitising assessment in itself isn’t the solution, that it’s the wider practice such as?feedback turnaround time and how we assess and mark that needs to change.
But for UCL, a key part of that work is recognising the burden of assessment on academics?and supporting them:
“We’re always talking about innovative assessment practice. But we never have conversations about marking and the burden of marking?on staff; it’s probably the worst bit for academic colleagues. It’s a part of the journey we’re pushing really hard to make as good and straightforward as possible. It’s a space where we need to work with our partners to find new and different solutions to help our academic colleagues and give them reassurance that we’re making it better for them.”
To support its commitment to AssessmentUCL, the university recently appointed a team of digital assessment advisors to work with colleagues across UCL. In addition, as part of the changemakers initiative, a team of assessment design student partners has also been recruited. Their role will be to work with programmes to pilot and develop new forms of assessment.??
For Joanne, oversight has been a real benefit of the transition to digital. The team also foresees administrative benefits driven by automation by virtue of integrations to and from Portico. Importantly, 'the ground has shifted', Derfel says, 'in that the project has encouraged our colleagues to do things differently and?see that it’s possible,?that they can and will be well supported by the university.'???
The team agrees that deeper engagement is the next step. ‘Technology has altered our view of what university is,’ Simon says,?‘but we’re somewhere near the beginning?of a journey that will answer the question:?how do we transform institutions so that they?continue to?serve the public good and society at large?’?
This story is sponsored by UNIwise.
via Jisc news
This week Derfel Owen, registrar and director of student and registry services at University College London (UCL), joins us to talk about how the university moved their exams online as part of a university wide digital assessment strategy.
Derfel explains how and why the university chose to transition exams to online at such scale, providing more than 20,000 students with 1200 digital exams in spring 2021. He also shares the lessons learnt from the project, and provides advice about how other institutions could approach bringing assessments online.
We also discuss the future of assessment, looking into how things such as artificial intelligence help to improve the assessment marking process.
This episode is sponsored by Uniwise.
Their solution, Wiseflow, is a secure and scalable digital assessment platform, helping institutions transform the creation, management and delivery of exams and assessments. Find out more.
Derfel Owen
Registrar and director of student and registry services, University College London
Follow Derfel on twitter
Georgie Myers
Senior media and communications officer, Jisc
Mark Lennon
Digital campaign manager, Jisc
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In this episode we are joined by Clare Killen, senior consultant for the business intelligence team at Jisc, to talk about the findings from the recently released HE and FE staff digital experience insight surveys.
The annual survey polls over 6,500 teaching staff in further and higher education, looking into their experiences of using technology to support their teaching.
Clare provides an interesting deep dive analysis into the results, as well as suggesting what can be done to support staff digital skills going forward.
The episode also investigates how the role of teaching staff has changed since the pandemic.
Clare Killen
Senior consultant for the business intelligence team, Jisc
Georgie Myers
Media and content officer, Jisc
Mark Lennon
Digital campaign manager, Jisc
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Technology disruptor, digital poverty campaigner and former schools minister, Lord Jim Knight, will give the opening keynote at Jisc’s showcase edtech conference, Digifest, in March 2022.
As a Labour government minister and MP, his portfolios also included rural affairs, digital and employment, and his interests and knowledge align closely with issues impacting Jisc members.
Now director of Suklaa Ltd, providing advice services to technology companies and schools, Lord Knight also co-chairs the Digital Poverty Alliance, which is a key player in the all-party parliamentary group on digital poverty, in which Jisc is a lead partner. Jisc has also worked with him on Policy Connect’s Skills Commission.
The overarching theme of Digifest 2022 is ‘evolving learning’, aiming to support colleges and universities through digital transformation, helping them to capitalise on the new skills, techniques and technology developed during the pandemic.
The programme will also cover sustainability, with sessions on developing smarter campuses and best practice in relation to net zero pledges.
Other speakers and sessions already confirmed for Digifest include:
For the first time, Digifest will be a hybrid event in 2022, with delegates at the ICC in Brimingham joining others online for the two-day event, 8-9 March. Booking is now open.
via Jisc news
Thousands of college and university staff say the pandemic has fundamentally changed their role as teachers following the move to online learning, according to two new surveys published today by Jisc.
The UK-wide poll of over 6,500 teaching staff in further and higher education and carried out during a time of national lockdown also reveals stark concerns from staff over their wellbeing, access to technology and digital skills.
Jisc's annual surveys of digital experience insights from teaching staff find that while more than two-thirds of teachers (67% FE and 66% HE) were offered support with online teaching during the pandemic, a significant majority (65% FE and 73% HE) said this added significant new stress to their workload, leading to anxiety and exhaustion.
The reports also show that teaching online created technical challenges for most staff (83% FE and 82% HE), with many experiencing problems on multiple occasions. Not all respondents were able to access the online systems and services they needed, with over half of them having wifi issues (52% FE and 51% HE). Both FE and HE teaching staff also expressed concerns about having access to appropriate equipment.?
The surveys further reveal only half (50% FE 44% HE) of teaching staff received guidance about the digital skills needed in their role, with just 30% and 15% (FE and HE respectively) saying they had an assessment of their digital skills and training needs. Many also said they were not given enough time to explore new digital tools (36% FE and 55% HE), with more than two-thirds (67% HE only) feeling they were not rewarded and recognised for the digital skills they had to develop.
Heidi?Fraser-Krauss, Jisc CEO, said:
“These insights allow?both Jisc and the tertiary education sector the opportunity to reflect and learn lessons from the past 18 months about?what worked, and what needs rethinking?to?deliver a world-class, technology-enhanced?educational experience.
“With the enforced move to online learning, staff had to rapidly rethink how they delivered teaching. Though staff rose to the challenge, many found it difficult, especially in an environment demanding more and new digital skills.
“Staff found themselves trying to manage an increased workload, support learners with technical issues at the same time as delivering high-class teaching. Unsurprisingly, for many this led to exhaustion, stress and anxiety.
“As we move towards established models of hybrid learning, we have an opportunity to transform education through technology. For this to work, a digitally?confident, digitally skilled, well-supported and involved teaching community is?critical.”
Despite the challenges reported in the survey, more than three-quarters of teaching staff (78% FE and 84% HE) rated the quality of online and digital learning to students as above average, with many (from both FE and HE) reporting positive experiences of teaching online from increased productivity to improved work-life balance to engagement with less confident learners.
The reports recommend collaboration between the FE and HE sector with both Jisc and the government, to develop the digital infrastructure that enables teachers to access the right technology and equipment to deliver learning. The HE report also calls for a greater engagement from universities with teaching staff, with a focus on more training, guidance and personal support for wellbeing as well as for the digital capabilities to teach, assess and counsel students online.
Read the teaching staff digital experience insights surveys 2020/21:
Jisc’s 2021/22 digital experience insights surveys are now open and will close on 1 April 2022.
via Jisc news
Jisc has produced new guidance to help college and university staff work together to assess and improve their cyber security maturity.
Designed to be used as part of a strategic approach to security, a set of questions has been created (pdf) which will highlight key threats affecting the sector and help determine what mitigations are in place, or should be considered.
Jisc CEO, Heidi Fraser-Krauss, explains:
“Ultimately, we hope that cyber security is seen as a strategic priority for education providers and their boards, but collaboration across organsiations is vital to create a culture where everyone understands the importance of good security practice.
“This guidance will help provide the bridge between operational managers and senior leaders to identify vulnerabilities and put a comprehensive range of measures in place to strengthen defenses.”
The guidance covers topics including:
Working together with members, Jisc will explore each topic in detail to create more comprehensive advice, which will be published on the website and distributed to colleges, universities and research centres.
There’s further insight and advice at on Jisc’s dedicated cyber security pages or join Jisc's new cyber security community group.
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A new report by Jisc has been compiled to help universities, colleges and research institutes think about the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), and to combat “unfairness” or “unexpected effects” for students and staff in education and research.
Working with the British and Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA), Jisc's National Centre for AI has mapped a route, taking smaller steps through more familiar ground, towards that goal.
Andrew Cormack, chief regulatory adviser at Jisc, said:
“The report has been published because there's a widespread desire to do AI "right", but that is often presented in the form of lengthy "ethics" requirements, detached from anything that institutions or individuals have previously experienced.
"Our pathway report aims to show that, in fact, we can get a long way towards that goal - in particular identifying ideas or proposals that would be likely to fail an ethics test - by using and discussing what we already know about educational and research processes and experiences.”
This involves two key insights. First, that the intuitions and practice of the broad education community will usually guide us towards responsible and ethical actions and away from unethical ones. And, second, that discussing more familiar questions can help us discover those intuitions and practices.
One of the key aims of the pathway is to help individual institutions identify settings where it might be appropriate for them to use AI. And, throughout, using the term "AI" in a very broad sense: the pathway should help discussions about any idea or application that depends on data or algorithms.
Andrew Cormack added:
“The outcome which we hope for is institutions and their stakeholders being confident - and having a sound basis for that confidence - about their choices of where and how to use AI.”
The pathway discusses the need to consider a wide range of educational habits and experiences, including students who learn from books or have limited access to technology, and those who are keen adopters of technology.
To develop the report, Jisc and BILETA researched ethics codes, including those from the EU High-Level Experts Group and the UK government, and identified common features. Many of these, sometimes with a change in terminology, were already familiar, from Jisc’s work helping educational institutions make safe use of technology.
Jisc is currently setting up an early-adopters group to identify members using AI responsibly that can act as inspiration for positive change, and help others learn from their experiences.
In the collaboration with BILETA, members of the BILETA committee provided encouragement and feedback since the initial idea for the pathway and reviewing the final paper.
Professor Abbe Brown, chair at BILETA said:
“BILETA is delighted to collaborate with Jisc in this valuable contribution on this important issue, and is committed to continued leadership in law, education and technology.”
Following the pathway should help institutions identify and deliver applications where AI and humans can work effectively together to reduce unfairness and ethical concerns.
Read the full report- a pathway towards responsible, ethical AI report (pdf)
via Jisc news
Jisc will today join MPs, internet providers and sector leaders in a collective effort to end data poverty affecting hundreds of thousands of students and teachers across the UK.
Jisc will feed into the newly formed all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on data poverty, which holds its first roundtable discussion today. Chaired by Darren Jones MP, the group will host several meetings throughout the next year, culminating in research and policy recommendations for the government to adopt.
As a founding member of the group, Jisc will help provide innovative solutions to enhance digital inclusivity and improve opportunities for students and teachers to access quality, affordable and reliable internet connections.
The meeting takes place as part of the wider digital inequalities summit that is being organised this week by several APPGs and is supported by the Digital Poverty Alliance. It comes amid growing concerns from many students unable to access reliable connectivity or a suitable study environment following the move to remote and hybrid learning as a result of covid.
A recent Jisc survey of students showed that nearly 63% of students in higher education (HE) and about 49% in further education (FE) experience poor wi-fi connection, and 24% (HE) and 16% (FE) struggle with mobile data costs when learning online.
Speaking at the APPG meeting, Heidi Fraser-Krauss, new chief executive officer of Jisc, will say:
“As the UK’s digital body for tertiary education and research sectors, Jisc has spent the last 18 months campaigning to raise awareness of the impact of data poverty. We have led collaborative efforts across our sectors and with government partners to find solutions.
“When universities and colleges had to close their sites during coronavirus lockdowns, many students couldn’t access reliable connectivity at home, and so couldn’t access education.
“Learners struggled to cover the costs of the mobile phone data they needed to complete their coursework remotely, faced unreliable wi-fi, or had to compromise over bandwidth with family members or housemates.
“Jisc is delighted to be a founding member of the all-party parliamentary group on data poverty, and we look forward to working with all involved to collectively tackle the critical issue of data poverty affecting students, teachers, and society at large.”
Jisc has long been encouraging local authorities to provide free internet access to students and staff in thousands of public spaces across the country, including libraries, community centres and public halls, through its eduroam connectivity service available to all councils on the govroam network.
Kirklees Council is one example of a local authority that has rolled out the eduroam service, helping it to tackle digital inequality and create a long-term, positive impact for the whole region.
Jisc’s edubox - a portable box allowing for the eduroam network to be reached in ‘hard to reach’ areas - is another innovative solution helping to address the lack of access to education.
Jisc and service partner Cradlepoint set up edubox for the University of Gloucestershire that immediately delivered an internet service for staff during construction work as part of a major project to build a city campus that will rejuvenate a struggling area.
via Jisc news
Our guest this week is Debs Gray, principal of Grimsby Institute, and Jisc trustee. She joined us to talk all about the college’s trailblazing industry 4.0 programme
This episode is packed with advice about how to support staff and students to prepare for the workplace of the future, in terms of digital skills and making the most out of the tools you already have.
Debs maintains a strong focus on not just levelling the field, but tilting it, giving every student a fair chance. You’d be hard pushed to find someone more passionate about further education.
A big thank you to Debs for coming on the show!
Debs Gray
Principal at the Grimsby Institute
Follow Debs on Twitter
Georgie Myers
Senior media and communications officer, Jisc
Mark Lennon
Digital campaign manager, Jisc
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Networkshop50: celebrates its 50th event for education, research and IT professionals – and will be delivered as a physical hybrid event from 8 to 10 June 2022.
The conference, which this year focuses on ‘powering intelligent secure agile digital infrastructure, together’, is aimed at leaders and influencers within education, research and IT, as well as the public sector (local authorities, healthcare and housing associations), public and private research, charities, and multi academy trusts.
Networkshop50 will run over three days and consists of three programme themes:
Jeremy Sharp chief technology officer for the Janet Network at Jisc says:
“If a delegate attending the first Networkshop in 1977 at the University of Glasgow were able to get a glimpse into Networkshop50 next year they would write it off as science fiction! As a community we have evolved our infrastructures and services together over the years.
"Networkshop has played a key role in enabling ideas to be shared and friendships to be renewed across the digital infrastructure sector. The fact that this is the 50th Networkshop is a testament to how the event itself it has evolved to keep relevant and valuable, demonstrating that the power of community is still thriving as well as Jisc’s strong belief in the use of technology for good.”
The conference will present keynotes from Dr Arthur Clune, assistant director for research and innovation IT at the University of Sheffield, Professor Andy Miah, chair of science communication & future media, University of Salford, Manchester, and Professor Dimitra Simeonidou, director, Smart Internet Lab & co-director Bristol Digital Futures Institute.
Dr Arthur Clune says:
"I'm excited to be speaking at Networkshop50. The themes of the conference speak to the most urgent challenges faced by the education sector. I always look forward to Networkshop but even more than usual, as we emerge from the pandemic, I'm looking forward to getting together with colleagues to talk about the future."
Professor Andy Miah says:
"We are at a remarkable point in the history of digital technology, where the prospect of a metaverse is just around the corner. At the same time, the planet needs us to take better care of it and digital technology is providing many of the insights and solutions that will help minimise our environmental impact.
"From green energy to the dramatic transformation of our culture through creative technologies, what we thought had been the information revolution is rapidly about to become the intelligence revolution and we need to be agile enough to evolve towards a better future. In fact, we need an evolutionary mindset to say goodbye to the age of artifice and embrace a new era of enlightenment where our sense of the collective good dominates how we design new technologies."
Find out more about Networkshop50 and book your place.
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Thousands of students and teachers across Wales will benefit from cutting-edge data analytics technology to improve student engagement, retention and performance as a result of a funding boost to be announced today by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and Jisc.
The additional part-funding from HEFCW totalling about £133,000 will enable universities in Wales to accelerate learning analytical solutions developed by Jisc to better engage and support students.
The cash injection for a further year will be announced during an online event for university sector leaders to be opened by Jeremy Miles MS, minister for education and Welsh language.
The new funding builds on the success of HEFCW’s previous investment for Jisc’s learning analytics service to all Welsh universities in 2018, which saw large amounts of data being used intelligently to improve learning outcomes.
Jisc’s learning analytics technology transforms the student experience using descriptive analytics, powered by live data fed from multiple education systems.
It allows staff to analyse live and extensive datasets visually to determine whether students are participating, engaging and progressing with their courses – both online and on-site – and if they need additional support.
It also acts as an early warning system so that staff can intervene faster to help students where there are risks of non-continuation or concerns requiring specialist student support, such as wellbeing or financial issues.
The renewed focus on and greater need for learning analytics comes amid changes to teaching, learning and assessment in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the continued impact of hybrid learning and reduced on-site attendance on students.
Opening the event, Jeremy Miles MS, minister for education and Welsh language, says:
“I’m very pleased to mark the launch LA Cymru 2, which will build on the good work of LA Cymru and bring together the growing amount of data available on student engagement and performance in Wales.
“Students continue to be at the heart of learning analytics, and the support institutions and partners can provide based upon it has only become more important since Covid.
“The work of partners – including seven of Wales’ universities, Jisc and HEFCW – will ensure the benefits of this work are quickly implemented on the ground, and I’m very grateful to everyone involved for their work.”
Dr David Blaney, chief executive of HEFCW, says:
“We are pleased to be able to support Jisc to continue to build on the important work done under the first phase. This will benefit providers but most of all students, who continue to face additional challenges in how they live and study as a result of the pandemic.
“Student expectations will continue to change, and we know that providers want to be both innovative and responsive to the needs of students and to external pressures.
“Learning Analytics Cymru 2 will continue to identify helpful interventions for students so that they can continue with their studies successfully and be supported in their wellbeing, and we fully support this significant partnership between Jisc and Welsh universities.”
Heidi Fraser-Krauss, new chief executive officer of Jisc, says:
“I am delighted that HEFCW has further invested in our data analytics in Welsh higher education provision to enhance student support and outcomes.
"Jisc’s learning analytics service was developed with the sector to enable staff to proactively spot patterns and anomalies in data. This information enables effective conversations with students to improve their attendance and wellbeing. Such conversations, held at the right time, could make all the difference between a student failing and succeeding.
“As we enter a post-Covid world and move towards established models of hybrid learning, the opportunities to transform education through innovative solutions are there for all to grasp.
"The need for universities to take advantage of learning analytics technology is now more important than ever to provide students with the correct level of support and the best chances of success.”
Previous and extra funding from HEFCW:
In 2018, HEFCW invested £266,000 of matched funding for learning analytics. This project was called Learning Analytics Cymru. HEFCW paid half the subscription cost for participating institutions to join in the Jisc Learning Analytics service for two years, with institutions committing to pay the subscriptions for at least one further year.
HEFCW also funded additional Jisc support over a two-year period, together with some consultancy, to enable Jisc to work closely with Welsh institutions in a manner tailored to the needs of each institution. Universities committed staff time to the work in order to adopt good practice in the use of learning analytics. All eight regulated higher education institutions agreed to participate in Learning Analytics Cymru.
During the final year of Learning Analytics Cymru (2020/21), HEFCW received a proposal from Jisc and the sector to carry out further work in this area. This will provide a clear way forward for each institution, steering them to achieve a successful (and collective) place of common good by implementing and embedding learning analytics within business as usual, and levelling up nationally.
Universities will aim to clearly demonstrate the benefits and return on investment, using the software and the extensive consultancy expertise made available as part of Learning Analytics Cymru 2 to realise the power of learning analytics.
It will also provide an evaluation of the Learning Analytics work to date, to ensure a solid path and foundation for its success. HEFCW is now funding phase 2 for a further year to the amount of £132,856 with seven out of the eight regulated higher education institutions, though all eight will be involved in the community of practice.
via Jisc news
US and UK college leaders agree that disadvantaged college learners on both sides of the Atlantic experienced very similar challenges during the pandemic.
At a roundtable discussion in July 2021, leaders talked about the ‘digital divide’ and its implications for academic progress and mental health and wellbeing.
The group, representing colleges that embrace technology, was brought together through a new partnership between Jisc and its US counterpart, EDUCAUSE.
Jisc's director of further education (FE) and skills, Paul McKean, set the scene, and outlined key challenges. He said:
“In the UK, there were issues in lockdowns with learners not having access to devices and/or connectivity due to social deprivation, or rural geography.
“Others may have had connectivity and a device, but no safe and quiet place to learn to be able to take advantage of those.”
All leaders agreed that enforced online working and studying had caused a huge increase in mental health issues for staff and students.
McKean continued:
“We found that learners became anxious when they didn't receive instant online responses to queries, or to submitted work.
"The ‘Snapchat generation’ are used to the instant gratification effect of receiving quick answers to online requests and commentary. They normally get that from their peers via social media, but they weren't necessarily getting it from teaching staff.
“The other issue is the question of turning web cameras on or off. Lots of learners are uncomfortable with being on camera or showing their home environment, and others struggle due to bandwidth.
“Mostly, this issue has been addressed by colleges setting out predefined ground rules on online lessons, establishing learner expectations.”
But there were plus points to online learning, pointed out McKean:
“Technology enabled isolated learners to keep in contact with the outside world, despite the pandemic. And it provided opportunities for learners who may not have participated fully in a face-to-face environment - the shyer learners.”
Daniel J. Phelan, president and CEO at Jackson College, Michigan, said the pandemic pointed out the difficulties faced by under-resourced students and the lack of internet accessibility. Phelan said:
“In an effort to help address both issues, Jackson College has introduced the laptop academic incentive program for students enrolled for a minimum number of hours.
"Students are issued a laptop for their use while they remain enrolled and, if they complete their associate’s degree, the device is theirs to keep.
“At the onset of the pandemic, Jackson College and colleagues nationwide emptied their computer labs in order to put laptops in the hands of students. Wifi access point devices likewise flew out the door, and parking lot wifi access points were hurriedly put together.
"This approach is far from a sustainable, nor is it desirable. The Biden administration is working to provide expanded internet infrastructure throughout the country, though this will likely be a protracted solution.
"Internet capability should be as ubiquitous as is digital TV. it’s a matter of national priority and leadership.”
Foothill-De Anza Community College District, California, also handed out devices to disadvantaged learners, but this didn’t address all their issues, as chancellor Judy Miner explained.
"I think we have often felt that we've solved the problem by giving out devices, but there's also the issue of broadband, or the lack of it.”
There was an iconic picture circulating in the US during lockdown, she said, showing two ten-year-olds sitting in a burger chain parking area joining an online lesson on their phones because that was only place they could find with free wifi.
That picture was a driver, Miner continued, for making sure that “every inch of our campus space, including the parking lots, will be wifi enabled”.
She added:
“So many of our students are accessing instructional materials on their phones and long-term that's not going to work.
“There's also the issue of the physical space. A densely populated household with siblings and parents who are also trying to study and work online can create a real issue.”
At Grimsby Institute in the north-east of England, the coastal and semi-rural location meant that reliable broadband was a “really challenging” issue, said principal Debra Gray.
Michael Malone, director of curriculum and information services at South East Regional College in Northern Ireland, had further insight on the limited impact of handing out laptops. He said:
“We loaned 350 laptops last academic year to students and this year it's 1,100, but we still found that some students weren't engaging - some haven't even activated the devices.”
To get to the bottom of that issue, the college carried out a survey, which showed that learners wanted different types of teaching, in particular some recorded classes, which helped.
A campaign to keep learners engaged also included virtual coffee breaks, quizzes and other non-curricular activity designed to encourage learners to interact with each other and with their tutors.
From Basingstoke College of Technology, principal Anthony Bravo talked about how he is addressing the online safety of learners.
“We're making sure that they start to understand how vulnerable they can become online. They should know what bullying looks like and how they can respond to it. This is part of the induction process now, far more so than ever before.”
Social deprivation in Gray’s college catchment area had knock-on effects for at-risk learners during lockdowns, and there was a “massive increase” in reports of domestic violence.
Providing emotional and social help online was vital, said Gray, and safeguarding meetings and counseling sessions continued virtually. She added:
“I think some of those support services actually work better online for some students - it's about personalisation.
“Some students want to access counseling online because they feel safer in their own space, and we will carry that on. Those students for whom it isn't safe to receive those services in their own home can come and to be safe on site.”
Sally Dicketts, CEO at Activate Learning, also cited ‘safe’ accommodation as an issue. She said:
“We bought wifi for students, we provided them with computers, but we couldn't buy them housing, so even in the lockdown, we had students coming in because it was an oasis away from their unsafe families.”
Leaders were concerned about student behaviour. Bravo said:
“We've noticed a massive increase in mental health issues, some students not wanting to come back, even some students forgetting how to communicate effectively with each other. It's because they are out of the habit of face-to-face contact.”
Dicketts had noticed some severe behavourial issues never seen before, and she worried about how students would manage socialising again.
There was also talk about the ‘fear factor’. Bravo felt that many teachers and learners had become comfortable with, and felt safe, working and studying remotely, and some don’t want to come back to campus for the autumn term.
Malone also reflected that some staff were “petrified” of coming back into the college after the extended lockdown in Northern Ireland, which was only lifted in May 2021. To combat that, the college ran ‘ask me anything’ sessions with senior managers, which were open and honest.
Dicketts tackled anxiety around the return to campus in multiple ways:
“I wrote regular blogs, where I talked about what we were doing to keep people safe, we showed films of all the cleaning, we arranged virtual coffee mornings and wellbeing sessions, and we held reintroduction days to encourage teaching staff to come in - and only then did we start getting people back to college.”
Read the report produced by Jisc/EDUCAUSE based on the roundtable discussion.
via Jisc news
Against a background of a huge increase in ransomware attacks against the tertiary education sector, a new survey reports that record numbers of college and university leaders are taking cyber security seriously.
In Jisc’s fifth annual cyber security posture survey, 92% of further education (FE) and 86% of higher education (HE) respondents feel that cyber security is a strategic priority for senior managers. The figures are up by five percent and four percent respectively compared to 2020.
Dr John Chapman, head of Janet policy and strategy at Jisc, said:
“This is really encouraging and exactly the trend we want to see, but it’s still the case that not all colleges and universities are as well protected as they could be, which is concerning.
“The incidence of ransomware attacks against the sector has rocketed, with the same number of attacks in the first half of 2021 as in the whole of 2020, so we are pleased but not surprised that security is high on the agenda for the vast majority of Jisc members.
“Those organisations which do not take cyber security seriously probably won’t have the right processes and technical solutions in place to stop or mitigate an attack when it happens, and the impact could be devasting.”
Ransomware, listed as the second biggest threat in 2020, hits the top spot this year, with phishing ranked second and accidental data breaches – those down to human error – in third.
The survey suggests that steps are being taken to combat ransomware, however, including a sharp rise in the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) - which can reduce the likelihood of a successful attack. Jisc advocates having it in place for all users and across all systems.
A total of 87% of HE and FE organisations have implemented it for some or all staff, up by 15 and 23 percent respectively on 2020. HE organisations deploying MFA for some or all students increased by 27 percent on 2020 to stand at 49%. Numbers in FE are up by three percent to 13% this year.
Other highlights from the 2021 survey, which was completed by 166 organisations and has been distributed to all Jisc members, include:
Find out more
via Jisc news