Planning Meeting

St Andrews University
6 April 2009

Sarah Currier, Project Consultant

SHEEN Sharing Project
10:30-10:45 Arrival; tea, coffee & biscuits;
intro to the day’s objectives
10:45-11:45 Project re-cap and findings
11:45-12:30 Participants’ feedback on their
progress and thoughts so far
12:30-13:15 Lunch
13:15-14:00 Groups:
topics/projects/tools/champions?
14:00-14:45 General project requirements:
evaluation / support / clinics
14:45-15:00 Break
15:00-15:30 Barriers and solutions
15:30-16:00 Agreeing next steps
What time do folk need to leave
today?
Agenda is flexible: we’ll go with what
seems best as we go.
Catch everyone up on SHEEN Sharing
• Project plan from here
• Barriers and requirements identified
Identify groups and champions for
trialling tools
Identify next steps
Agree plan: action points with names
against them!
Planned Project Outputs:
 Snapshot review of Web 2.0 technologies and their
potential application to resource sharing and
community building.
 Review of research literature and previous and current
outputs from similar Web 2.0 initiatives.
 Report on user and other stakeholder requirements,
including review of current practice and skills of ECN.
 User training sessions with accompanying HowTo
guidance.
 Report on user trials of Web 2.0 technologies and tools.
 Regular progress reports as detailed in Appendix A:
Workpackages.
 Dissemination event in September 2009.
 Final report detailing findings, exit strategy and
sustainability plan for project.
Project outcomes will include:
 Increased ease of sharing of resources and
practice amongst the ECN, leading to more
effective use of resources, better support for
their professional development, and
enhancement of their community of practice.
 Support for discovery and dissemination of
relevant employability resources to stakeholders
outwith the ECN, e.g. academics, staff
developers, student support departments, etc.
 Dissemination of the project findings for the
benefit of the wider education community, and
the FE and HE funding bodies across the UK.
 April 2009
- Get trials planned, prepared for and under way
- Start speaking to HEA and others re sustainable exit strategy
- Publish results of review and benchmarking
 May – June 2009
- First phase of trials
- Report back to SHEEN Steering Group
- Start planning Dissemination Event
- Start collating sustainability/exit strategy recommendations
 June – August 2009
- Final phase of trials
- Evaluation and exit workshop?
- Planning and advertising dissemination event
- Writing final reports
 September 2009
- Dissemination Event
- Other dissemination
- Final recommendations and report to SFC
 Experimental
 Developmental
 Iterative
 Flexible: able to change track quickly if something isn’t
working
 Must have ownership and involvement of ECN as first
priority for it to succeed
 Safe communication spaces vital as well as open
dissemination spaces
 Must not be driven by traditional project reporting outputs
 CoP* = sharing of knowledge, experience and peer teaching
within community
 CoP* = room for mistakes, learning from trial and error,
reporting what doesn’t work as well as what does,
supporting each other
Validated 100% by Project Review!

* Community of Practice
 Easily discuss issues and resources with
other ECN members in targeted way:
projects, subject interests
 Safe space for internal discussions, resource
development
 Share resources within and outwith project
groups, entire ECN, other stakeholders
 Facilitate resource access for new people in
post, handing over
 Learning from each other
 Not losing experience, knowledge
 Easing workload, helping with work and
information overload
 Time, time, time: time to learn new things, time
to participate
 Information overload already via ECN email list
 Differing levels of support for involvement by
local departments / HEIs
 Institutional technical barriers- some tools
blocked
 Concerns about privacy, safe spaces to discuss /
develop
 Confidence in resource finding, saving and
sharing - quite a spread evident, with noone
“extremely confident”
 IPR: levels of understanding
(institutional/personal)
 Concerns about identity - work vs private?
 Individual groups with safe group spaces, per individual
group
 One generic space for all
 Ease communications, ease of filtering resources
 Feeds out into university sites (Pam mentioned Careers
Service at St Andrews as example)
 Sharing best practice as usually happens informally at F2F
meetings, conference lunch queues etc.
• Case studies helpful
• People learn best when told stories by their peers
• Just one thing to change practice for some folk
• Recommendations of resources, sharing use ideas (Diigo?)
 Openness important- don't be too restrictive beyond group
spaces
 F2F training/support /resources from Sarah
• Ensure mentors start to feel comfortable giving support
• Regular Web-based clinics and formative evaluation meetings
(separate, or blur two into one) - how often? What technology given
restrictions in some institutions? Across all groups, not specific?
 Include academics / academic departments?
 What about institutional libraries?
 Safe group spaces needed:
• Google Groups, others?
 Easy sharing of links to resources
• Delicious – feeds into blogs/sites based on tags
• Diigo – like Delicious but can share highlighted text,
annotations, comments, with Friends, within Groups, via Twitter
etc.
 Easy quick communications:
• Twitter? – public/private; integrates with other tools; amplifies
quickly
 Student / class push: Facebook groups?
 Collaborative website /resource development: blogs,
wikis, Elgg, NetVibes? Use participants’ existing
tools/knowledge
 Look at sites where we want resources to be pushed to
/ disseminated via: how best to do that?
 Look at local tools, e.g. VLEs, ePortfolios, local social
apps, where participant works at that HEI, how can we
use/link to?
What have you tried to date?
What would you like to try?
Any thoughts on experiences so far?
Any serious barriers emerging?
• Anyone got technical barriers re
software/apps?
Ideas to date:
 Whole ECN Group – sharing resources in
general (social bookmarking; closed
discussion/sharing group); dissemination via
NetVibes page (Sarah Currier to co-ordinate)
 Workplace Voluntary Sector Project (Fiona
Boyle)
 PDP (International Taught Post-Grads) (Joy
Perkins)
 e-Portfolios (David McCall)
 Sharing Student Experiences (Pam Andrew)
 Action Learning Sets? (Cherie Woolmer)
 ... Anything else?
Go through one-by-one
- Who will be lead?
- What level of time commitment can you make?
- Possible membership
- Within ECN
- Outwith ECN
- What skills do you already have in your group?
- What tasks do you need to perform?
- Internal communications?
- External dissemination?
- Collaborative tasks, e.g. resource development?
- What tools are appropriate/would you like to trial?
- What support is needed from SHEEN Sharing?
NB: Not important to answer all these definitively
today: just to get started thinking
ECN Community
- Who will be lead? (Sarah Currier)
- What level of time commitment can you make? 1 day a week to
September
- Possible membership
- Within ECN
- Potentially all
- Outwith ECN
- Disseminate some stuff outwards only. ECN members of group only.
- What skills do you already have in your group? – see Survey results
- What tasks do you need to perform?
- Internal communications?
- Private discussion space, private resource sharing
- External dissemination? – yes, sustainable after end of project
- Collaborative tasks, e.g. resource development?
- What tools are appropriate/would you like to trial?
- NetVibes central page
- Private discussion group? or area in NetVibes?
- SHEEN Sharing blog to feed in plus other blogs
- Diigo / Delicious tag feeds
- What support is needed from SHEEN Sharing?
Sarah to co-ordinate
Action Learning Sets
- Who will be lead? (Cherie Woolmer)
- What level of time commitment can you make?
- Possible membership
- Within ECN
- People in Cherie’s “set” only at first – if willing.
- Outwith ECN
- What skills do you already have in your group?
- What tasks do you need to perform?
- Internal communications?
- Closed discussion group only
- External dissemination?
- None (possibly reflections on how technology is being used via blog?)
- Collaborative tasks, e.g. resource development?
- Mutual support
- What tools are appropriate/would you like to trial?
- Google Groups?
- What support is needed from SHEEN Sharing?
- Sarah to help set up.
Voluntary Sector Project
- Who will be lead? – Fiona Boyle
- What level of time commitment can you make? 0.5 day a fortnight
- Possible membership
- Within ECN
- Dave Surtees, Karen Sleith, Pam Andrew, Sabine McKinnon, OU rep, Joy Perkins
- Outwith ECN
- Voluntary organisations and others on project Steering Group
- What skills do you already have in your group?
- Started trying blog, Google Group set up.
- Pam has experience with wiki
- What tasks do you need to perform?
- Internal communications?
- Private discussion space
- External dissemination?
- Yes: project blog
- Collaborative tasks, e.g. resource development?
- Literature review needs collating and disseminating
- What tools are appropriate/would you like to trial?
- Wordpress blog, Google Group, possibly bookmarking for lit review, use ECN NetVibes
page to disseminate as well
- What support is needed from SHEEN Sharing? – Help thinking things
through and setting things up
PDP Taught International Post-Grads Project
- Who will be lead? – Joy Perkins
- What level of time commitment can you make?
- – Project still being set up; will be clearer after meeting at end
of April
- Possible membership
- Within ECN
- Fiona Boyle, David McCall, others?
- Outwith ECN
- TBC
- What skills do you already have in your group?
- What tasks do you need to perform?
- What tools are appropriate/would you like to trial?
- What support is needed from SHEEN Sharing?
- Fiona Boyle to report initially to project group; Sarah to meet
afterwards and discuss/advise.
E-Portfolios
- Who will be lead? – (David McCall)
- What level of time commitment can you make? 0.5 day a
fortnight
- Possible membership
- Within ECN
- Dave Surtees
- Outwith ECN
- What skills do you already have in your group?
- What tasks do you need to perform?
- Share findings about use of PebblePad (and other tools) with SHEEN
Sharing
- What tools are appropriate/would you like to trial?
- Post reflections and findings to blog
- Bookmarking relevant links via Diigo or Delicious
- What support is needed from SHEEN Sharing? – Setting up
on blog, training on using bookmarking, deciding on tags,
setting up feeds from your bookmarks into NetVibes
Sharing Student Experiences
- Who will be lead? – (Pam Andrew)
- What level of time commitment can you make? – initial
discussion
- Possible membership
- Within ECN
- Cherie Woolmer
- Outwith ECN
- Saltire Foundation? And similar groups?
- What skills do you already have in your group?
- Existing St Andrews wiki
- What tasks do you need to perform?
- Identify requirements, identify potential solutions
- Share findings with SHEEN Sharing
- What tools are appropriate/would you like to trial?
- TBD, possibly vidcasts (of students sharing experiences)
- What support is needed from SHEEN Sharing?
- Initially help thinking through requirements and solutions
 Training, resources, support for groups
• Initial F2F sessions (1 per group)
• HowTo resources (targeted to groups needs)
• Identifying and engaging group
mentors/champions
• Weekly drop-in clinics (Web-based
conferencing)
Wednesdays suggested as a good day for this.
 Formative evaluation
• Sharing experiences: commitment to sharing
comments on blog? (Varied according to
person’s time available / involvement level)
• Weekly drop-in discussion forum (Web-based
conferencing) – combine with above clinics
Image on 1st slide by ycc2106:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ycc2106/103383461/ available under Creative
Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB

Slides by Sarah Currier, Consultant, SHEEN Web 2.0 Resource Sharing Project
http://www.sarahcurrier.com/
sarah.currier@gmail.com

Slides © Higher Education Academy, 2009.