Fostering ICT Innovation in an Innovative Way Simone Knapp Stephanie Frost Rachel Heidecker

Overview  Introduction  Goals  Developing the Fund & Process  Public Class Pages (Open CourseWare) Project  Library Mobile Services Project  Observations on the Successes  Lessons Learned  Conclusion

Introduction  U of S Campus Environment  17 colleges & schools; several affiliated colleges  ~20,000 students  Distributed/Federated ICT Model  Multiple ICT shops

Foster  1. to promote the growth or development of; further; encourage: to foster new ideas. Innovation  1. something new or different introduced.  2. the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods. Introduction

Goals  Establish ICT innovation as a strategic priority  Provide the capacity to respond to ICT innovation opportunities in a coordinated manner  Leverage existing resources in colleges and administrative units  Reduce the frequency of funding requests for ICT projects. BUT…

We needed new money to support innovation!

Developing the Fund & Process  Developed a request for innovation funding  Identified the benefits the fund would provide  Identified recent innovations that could have benefited from this fund (e.g. iUsask app)  Identified risks of not supporting innovation  Conditional approval received very quickly  Required further information about processes and Terms of Reference needed to be developed

Submitted a proposal requesting creation of fund Terms of Reference approved Call for proposals: - e-learning - mobile Selection committee reviewed proposals May 2010 October 2010 February – March 2011 March 2011 Developing the Fund & Process

 To help with reporting, created three forms:  Outline  Mid-term Status Report  Final Report  Released funds in phases  First half after receiving project outline  Second half after receiving mid-term/final report

Public Class Pages (Open CourseWare) Stephanie Frost

 Catalogue info: Instructor name, course description, prerequisites required, etc.  Textbook (direct link to Bookstore)  Library (course-specific and subject- specific resources)  a pretty link (ex. /AR/BIOL/120)  files the instructor has chosen to share Every course automatically has a web page that includes course-specific data: Public Class Pages (Open CourseWare)

Many departments working together! 1. University Learning Centre project initiators 2. ICT Educational and Research Technology Services group folks in charge of Blackboard 3. Student Enrolment Services Division data feed for course names & codes 4. Library publically accessible course-specific material 5. Bookstore links to textbooks 6. ICT Help Desk get professors to call them, not me calls about OCW often related to other Blackboard questions anyway 7. Training Services documentation consistent with other Course Tools support (e.g. How to use the Gradebook) professional videos

ICT Innovation Funding helped to “smooth” the collaboration…  Felt the project had the university’s “blessing” when approaching other units about collaborating  Conversation starter  Some departments need to bill you, others don’t  ICT Innovation Fund helped cover costs

Convenient for Instructors  Blackboard files and OCW files are in the same location (i.e. in Blackboard)

You can do this too  This approach will work for any Course Management System that allows guest browsing  No custom modifications to Blackboard were necessary  Leverage Guest Access functionality  Basically, OCW is a fancy link-generator Looks like: w_loc=%2Fwebapps%2Fuofs-courseredirect- bb_bb60%3Fcourseid= https://bblearn.usask.ca/?action=guest_login&ne w_loc=%2Fwebapps%2Fuofs-courseredirect- bb_bb60%3Fcourseid=

Results  Even instructors without local ICT support are automatically set up with OCW  don't have to learn a new system  Two core institutional systems (Blackboard and Course Catalogue)  brought together in a new way to benefit a wider audience

Library Mobile Services (Mobile Strategy Evolution) Rachel Heidecker

Previous Mobile Services  iUsask (Released for iPhone/iPod in 2009)

Previous Mobile Services  Vendor Services  Mobile Catalogue Feature Phones ( Smart Phones (  Catalogue Search Results (Call No, Location, Etc) SMS & Message Delivery

Previous Mobile Services  Responsive Web Design  Prototype (2009)  Quick  New presentation layer  Same content as the existing website  Challenges  Too much content  Navigation (dead-ends)  Top Tasks

BUT!... we have other priorities and limited resources. What we did right  Took advantage of opportunities as they came  Skill development  Observed and measured usage of vendor apps (Google Analytics)  Knowledge and evidence for decision-making  Prototyping  Industry & usability insights GREAT! Now we know exactly what to do...

ICT Innovation Fund Proposal May 2011  Mobile Strategy Evolution Start with a selection of mobile-relevant features Not necessarily the same top tasks as the full website. Be ready to expand as we are able to integrate other services that will provide the best user experience COLLABORATION Identified opportunities to for collaboration with other units on campus: Room Bookings within colleges and integration with iUsask

Implementation Timeline

Demonstration  Library Mobile Website Group Study Room Booking

Successes & Challenges  Funding & Priorities Extended term programmer to ensure resources were available Flexibility required to balance existing workload  Campus Partners Central ICT (Mobile Templates, iUsask) Connections with colleges “Seamless” System Integration Positive user experience Ready to expand

Observations on the Successes  Participants all indicated the fund was valuable  Saw as an opportunity  Provided institutional endorsement  Provided additional funds  Increased priority  Leveraging institutional services  Minimized programming required by the unit  Easier to ramp up where lacking familiarity

Lessons Learned (AKA Things we could have done better)  Need to be partners and co-sponsors, not just a source of funding  Need to know what the next steps would be if project successful and becomes institution-wide  Making connections in a federated environment isn’t as easy as it seems (e.g. different programming languages, different priorities)

Lessons Learned (AKA Things we could have done better)  Project success may depend on type (prototype, pilot project, advanced project)  Groups used internal funds to pay for the work and then “invoiced” ICT after the work was done by completing the forms  Maximum impact may come at the expense of maximum breadth

Conclusion  Ideas and processes that look good on paper often stumble in the implementations  Success was had, but we could have been more successful  Now see our challenges being addressed by changes to our ICT governance model  Will hopefully achieve the goals intended by this initiative more broadly

Questions? About the Fund: Public Class Pages (Open CourseWare): OCW Training Info: in Instructors: Help Library Mobile Site: Mobile at the U of S: