Staff development for Blended Learning? An international perspective from Hong Kong Universities.
Many institutions have ambitious strategies to engage learners, broaden access and increase success using blended approaches. Yet in an evolving innovation landscape, making intelligent use of Learning Technology at scale requires strong support for staff across all parts of an institution. Providing effective professional development for Blended Learning is a growing challenge, and in this blog Dr Maren Deepwell and Dr Thomas Palmer highlight some new developments from ALT Members at Hong Kong Universities.
Putting Students at the Heart of Our Processes – University of Leicester
This report is a guide to the University of Leicester's exploration into whether connecting senior leaders more closely to the student experience created an impetus for organisational improvement. It contains information on “what works” in engaging senior leaders and seeks to provide insights for institutions looking to develop similar approaches.
Evidencing the benefits of a business improvement project from the start
Following the launch of the University of Strathclyde's Guide to Evidencing the Benefits of Business Process Improvement in July 2015, Nicola Cairns shares an example of how this approach can be seamlessly integrated into existing business improvement projects.
Share your views on process improvement capability in higher education
Two authors collaborating on a Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) guide to Establishing Process Improvement Capability in Higher Education have launched a survey to gather data for the project. Rachel McAssey and Steve Yorkstone, who are producing the guide as part of the UCISA Project and Change Management Group's work, are inviting colleagues to take part and will be seeking more contributions later in the project.
Engagement driven approach to process improvement – University of Hertfordshire
This report describes a project to develop an approach to process improvement within Higher Education that focuses on people, acknowledges their different perspectives and uses these perspectives to enhance capability.
A guide to evidencing the benefits of business process improvement – University of Strathclyde
This guide describes how higher education institutions can evidence benefits of business process improvement. It outlines how to quantify benefits throughout a typical project life-cycle for process redesign / process modelling activities and demonstrates how to gather, record and communicate the information to allow for more accurate reporting of a project's impact.
The cross-cutting themes of the ITF projects
Managers should witness first-hand how processes earmarked for improvement work before agreeing to those changes, Heather Lawrence of the University of Strathclyde's business improvement team writes. Her blogpost, focusing on lessons from the Innovation and Transformation Fund, also advises capturing feedback and communicating findings throughout the projects.
Process improvement events – why they are worth the effort
Process improvements are "the most effective way of achieving a strong project team with collective responsibility for improvement activities," says Rachel McAssey. In this blogpost, the University of Sheffield's head of process improvement explains how project teams can benefit from these events and shares advice on running them.
Don’t wait for Godot, start fixing things now
Inspired by the absurdist Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot, the University of Sheffield's Rachel McAssey issues a call to arms in her blog; instead of waiting for big change to happen, get some problem solving skills and start making small improvements.
Big change vs small change
Examinations at Edinburgh Napier used to be a complicated process. This cartoon case study on redesigning the university's examination process shows how a series of small changes saved time for students and staff while improving security.
