Institutional Innovation

[apologies for formatting irritation - grrrrr]

This post introduces an approach to understanding innovation in higher education institutions through the perspective of the JISC Institutional Innovation Programme (here referred to as InIn).

This is a work in progress, and draws on previous postings on synthesis.

The post is in three broad parts. The first part addresses the question, “why?” Why change? Underlying conditions place pressure on institutions from many directions and institutions respond in various ways. The second part addresses the question, “what?” What is changing in higher education? What are the broad themes that can help us see the underlying shifts not only in practice but also in the shape and purpose of higher education institutions. And finally the third part looks briefly at the question, “how?” How are we effecting – bringing about – change in higher education institutions?

This report is an attempt to explain the thinking behind the new database: http://ssbrdb.jisclab.net/ and the mindmap visualisation, from which the database and this report derive. Click the image for a big one.

The report is possible because of the great work that is being done by the 40+ projects in the programme and the efforts of the support team in trying to get behind the day-to-day to understand the real drivers for change, and the real consequences of changing. Thank you all.

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On 12 November the JISC Institutional Innovation Support & Synthesis project conducted an upbeat online programme meeting where over 70 participants addressed the pragmatics of institutional innovation. The aim of the day was for the 40 projects in the programme to consider the challenges and tensions of institutional innovation, to look at approaches and solutions to innovating in institutions, and to consider the sustainability of innovation.

The meeting, titled “Institutional Pragmatics” took, unsurprisingly, a pragmatic view.

We considered the strategic drivers for change. At the project level it is easy to lose sight of the big picture and stay focused on the details of implementation. This meeting was an opportunity to come up for air and consider how our projects might drive (or be driven by):

• Economic recovery and public funding
• Quality standards and reputation
• International responsiveness
• Social mobility, equality, democracy

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Today I gave a presentation entitled Multimedia for academic purposes at Oxford Brookes eL@B meeting. eL@B is Brookes’ elearning SIG. The purpose of my presentation was to contextualise the substantial element of the meeting, which was to showcase lecture capture work undertaken by the School of Health and Social Care.

In my presentation I drew on examples from the Institutional Innovation Programme and Users and Innovation Programme to illustrate the wide range of multimedia academic practice. I used FreeMind to construct the presentation. (Click the image for a large one)

The presentation is behind a log in on our wiki (sorry). But I put the slides on ~ PPT, Slideshare and the links from the mindmap are below:

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