Supporting further and higher education Swani Programme Meeting 3 Cardiff

2 Programme Progress Common themes –Difficulty in producing use cases Too little too late? –Difficulty with vendors Communication Keeping to timescales Willingness to participate –Despite initial promises –Complexity Much greater than most had imagined –Staff Organisational pressures –All have full time jobs

3 An overview The JISC perspective –The need for conformance testing arena to achieve plug and play –Addressing working with vendors as a matter of priority Being addressed at strategic level –Recognise need for support for FE projects in particular Lack of research culture Lack of available staff

4 Whats happened to Northern Ireland Unable to fund any programmes within SWaNI timescales –Procurement of single MIS/SIS –Supplier unable to commit to projects whilst rolling out to 16 institutions What are we doing for the sector? –Plans to provide targetted workshops in preparation for interoperability and the development of appropriate use of the VLE within the sector –Workshop materials will become a national resource for RSCs

5 Feedback from project visits Projects in the main well-managed –Time is an issue for all –Funding not sufficient? –Budgets well managed Cross project communication –Very limited awareness of what others are doing, even those close by Dissemination –Very few plans in place –Needs driving and guidance from JISC –Web sites sketchy

6 Feedback from project visits Evaluation –What formative evaluation from within the project is ongoing? This is a funded stream –External consultants Awaiting interim report following all project visits Reporting –Not evaluative –Not in enough depth –Not technical enough –Constrained by form? –Consideration of final report

7 Feedback from project visits General (but consistent) observations –Technology driving change Very little consideration of the underlying need for change of business processes –Difficulty of running this type of project within an FE institution(s) Lack of senior management understanding Operational issues are paramount –Lack of understanding of the MLE concept (not unique ) when will JISC give us our MLE?

8 Dissemination Strategy The JISC –National conferences JISC Alt-C NILTA AOC –Posters and flyers –JISC Services CETIS etc –Website –Briefing papers –Reports –Articles –RSCs The projects –Local website –Cross project –RSCs –Posters and flyers –Articles –CETIS SIGs –Reports –JISC National conference –Word of mouth –Internal dissemination Staff newsletters Website Word of mouth