Open Educational Resources: An introduction for managers and policymakers

r.dhinsa@jisc.ac.uk (Ranjeet Dhinsa) — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:47:07 GMT

Supporting staff through technological change

r.bristow@jisc.ac.uk (Rob Bristow) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:42:12 GMT

This briefing is for HE managers embarking on change projects centred on technology; organisational and staff developers; vice chancellors, pro-vice chancellors and heads of academic and service departments.

The Context

Technological innovation is a key way to stay competitive, enhance the student experience and ensure services and systems are efficient and fit for purpose. Innovations must create meaningful and sustainable change, with new technologies successfully embedded in day-to-day work.

It is just as important that existing systems are as efficient as possible and up-skilling staff can achieve a large part of this; the digital literacy of your staff underpins organisational change.

The Rewards

Managing change and innovating is challenging: projects encounter resistance or stall for a range of reasons. Understanding the challenges, and how best to support and develop staff, can help create lasting organisational change and in-depth engagement, rather than superficial compliance.

The institution will also get well-trained staff comfortable with the latest technologies, who can apply new and effective ways of working to both academic and business/administrative functions.

What We Know Already

Change within an organisation is driven by the interaction between culture, processes and people. Add external environmental factors such as economic drivers, student numbers or statutory requirements, and change becomes hard to manage. Innovation in IT brings major change; it can fundamentally alter learning, research and business processes.

The impacts on staff are considerable. Staff roles are evolving, with hybrid roles emerging, for example digital librarian, repository manager, and learning technologist. Relationships are changing: staff are working in cross-functional collaborative teams, being members of wider Communities of Practice and having more direct responsibility. Most people think these changes are positive – technology is seen as 'enabling' – but there are also common concerns: scepticism about the benefits of the change, frustration, and increased stress and pressure while roles are changing and staff are having to take on new ways of working.

Our work shows that the impact of technological change is felt in five main ways:

Life without borders: the trend towards remote working and away from traditional office hours
The electronic office: the decline of traditional administrative roles as individual staff members, enabled by new technologies, are directly responsible for administration
Technology-enhanced delivery: technology increasingly underpins learning and teaching, research, knowledge exchange and professional services
Digital students: the impact that student expectations and technological skills are having on staff working practices
Changing relationships and levels of control: more collaborative working relationships and individual-led innovation. Interactive technologies allow more social and participatory engagement, so staff and students can adopt new technology-enhanced working practices without recourse to traditional institutional infrastructures or service provision.

How is JISC helping?

JISC has created a range of tools and case studies to help FE and HE manage change and embed new technologies into the daily lives of their institutions.

Download the Work with IT Toolkit and and Framework

Work-with-IT delivers a framework and a toolkit, plus a series of institutional case studies which show how technological changes have necessitated changes to working practices, and the impact this had on staff, students and institutions.

It gathered information on changing staff roles, relationships and associated skills brought about by adopting new technologies within UK FE and HE. The focus was on the impact of new ways of working on staff.

To enhance the resources and add confidence and authority, JISC worked with a number of professional associations to apply the tools to technological change initiatives at six institutions. They aimed to embed the effective practice, advice and required changes identified by Work-with-IT. It also showed the benefits of working with HE sector and professional bodies to enable institutions to develop and support staff.

Framework for Embedding Effective Technology-Enhanced Working Practices

This framework illustrates the non-linear nature of change management in large organisations.

How well people work with technology is influenced by the technology, the staff involved, the type of organisation and the external environment.

The framework shows five 'core components' – Change Management, Organisational Development, Staff Development, Human Resource Management and Horizon Scanning – which are often overlooked. They can help to successfully adopt new technology-enhanced working practices. The position of the components indicates which factors they address. For example, Staff Development is concerned with developing staff skills and confidence to work effectively with technology. The outer Change Management circle emphasises that a holistic approach is needed.

It provides, along with the toolkit, a scaffold to help institutions and professional organisations within the sector to successfully adopt effective technology-enhanced working practices.

Embedding Effective Technology-Enhanced Working Practices Toolkit

This toolkit can help you analyse your capacity to embed effective technology-enhanced working practices across your institution. It is divided into three stages:

Preparation: Identify a new or existing technology-enhanced working practice to explore your capacity to embed effective practice.
Self-Assessment: See how to embed effective technology-enhanced working practices and identify strengths and weaknesses. It includes a report-generation tool which summarises your assessment.
Prioritising and embedding: The toolkit includes a number of resources – tools, quotes, checklists, case studies, best practice guidelines, standards and procedures – to address areas of weakness.

Lessons learned: common barriers and enablers to change

Successful projects shared these enablers of change:

Structural/managerial: strong commitment from senior managers; clear planning and communication; sensitivity to stakeholders’ needs and local cultures, and the ability to adapt and manage a project flexibly.

Affective/cultural: accepting that development takes time and that this can be a challenge for staff; involving staff in the vision and planning of change; making the benefits of the change clear to staff.

Developmental: understanding digital literacies and embedding staff development in practice; making development activity convenient and flexible; providing support that is iterative, flexible and ‘approachable’.

Some of the pilot organisations also commented on barriers to change:

Structural/managerial: A lack of environmental scanning and delayed funding or implementation; senior staff who are only superficially committed, multiple stakeholders with different needs. Restructuring and staff moving on can make stakeholder and managerial problems worse.

Affective/cultural: Resistance to cultural change and uncertainty of the benefits; low morale and fear of role change; staff under pressure, time-poor and suffering from ‘technology fatigue’.

Developmental/training: staff digital literacies can be misjudged, so the level, style or speed of training is wrong; training is too technical or intimidating; a lack of follow-up for standalone workshops and an assumption that ‘one size fits all’ leaves staff feeling unsupported.

The Future

The Higher Education sector must have a digitally capable workforce. JISC has launched the Developing Digital Literacies programme, which runs from July 2011 to July 2013. It promotes the development of usable, inclusive and holistic strategies and organisational approaches for developing digital literacies for all staff and students in UK further and higher education. Ten sector bodies and professional associations are working with the colleges and universities leading the projects to help support development activities.

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