SharePoint in Higher
Education
James Lappin
Records management consultant and trainer
Thinking Records
15 October 2009
http://thinkingrecords.co.uk

Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

ECM has had limited impact on Higher
Education
• The likes of EMC, Open Text, Oracle and Objective have each got a
small number of HEIs as customers for their ECM suites, but none of
them have made significant headway
• ECM systems proved too pricey and too corporate
• Most HEIs have had Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) in place for
a long time: these are, in effect, a content management system for their
most significant function: teaching and learning

SharePoint 2007 has bucked the trend
• Northumbria University are investigating the usage of SharePoint in
HEIs. The majority of HEIs we have spoken to are using SharePoint
to a greater or lesser extent
• Compared to other ECM suites SharePoint devolves more power to
local individuals and teams: making a corporate roll out less
necessary
• The ability of HEIs to purchase SharePoint 2007 as a bundle with
other Microsoft software is a significant factor in its rapid spread

SharePoint has tried to break into the VLE
market....
......but they are finding it hard to break the dominance of the market
leaders

Sonja Eisenbeiss on the advantages of
SharePoint for teaching and learning
‘We are using both Sharepoint and Moodle in our Department and we
seem to fall into two groups of teachers/researchers:
• Moodle is used by those who teach standard modules and find it
convenient.
• SharePoint is used for those who want more flexibility, more
collaborativeness, and the possibility to have different levels of user
permissions and contributions.
Those of us who prefer Sharepoint are typically colleagues who are
organising research groups or teach one-off tutorials etc.I myself prefer
Sharepoint’
http://thinkingrecords.co.uk/2009/08/12/sharepoint-versus-blackboard-and-moodle/#comment-159 September 2009

George Siemens is a thought leader in the
field of learning technology
‘I’m a bit negative on Microsoft these days. I’m teaching a
course using Sharepoint (an Old English term meaning
“hell”). It’s horrendous. Please, if you like the people or
customers you work with, never, ever, make them use
SharePoint. Microsoft understands systems/process. But not
end users.’
http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2009/09/23/google-8/ 29 September 2009

Neil Witt on VLEs
‘I work for an institution that has that well known Enterprise level Document
Management Platform, Sharepoint, as it’s VLE. Does it work, well - not at the moment.
Will it address our Teaching and Learning needs? Doubtful.
At this institution, as with many others, there are small groups, sometimes a lone
voice, some sparks of inspiration who have been doing elearning for many years.
They use free hosting, flickr, youtube, open source, anything they can get their hands
on for delivering what they want to deliver to their students. It’s done from a sense of
frustration trying to escape from the corporate one size fits all solution. They recognise
that there isn’t ‘a solution’, there are many solutions out there so why not choose the
one, two or many that address the needs of the learner rather than the monolithic
structure that’s managed and controlled but empty, unused and probably unusable.’
http://www.pegasus18.com/neil/index.php/2008/11/27/the-vice-chancellors-new-vle/ 27 November 2008

Some learning technologists are advocating ‘Personal learning
environments’ rather than institutional VLE’s. This is unlikely to
play to SharePoint’s strengths.

Virtual Research Environment
• The VRE market is smaller, less mature and more fragmented than
VLE market
• JISC are funding a collection of projects: one of them (at the
University of Oxford) is based on SharePoint (https://www.confluence.hull.ac.uk/
display/context/VRE+3+and+Related+Projects)
• Microsoft are working with the British Library on a VRE called the
Research Information Centre (http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/tc/scholarly_communication.mpsx)

Using SharePoint to collaborate with
external partners
‘We depend on funding from industry so the
ability to collaborate in team sites is a bonus for
us and our partners.’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009

SharePoint publishing sites

One marketing manager said:
‘Moving our external website onto
SharePoint was a spectacularly
positive experience’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009

Heriot-Watt use SharePoint for their
intranet, but not for their external
website
Frank MacDonald gives three challenges involved
in using SharePoint for your external website:
• Needs .NET skills to make it look good
• Needs lots of configuration
• Accessibility issues
http://www.slideshare.net/garethjmsaunders/sharepoint-intranet-cms

Viewpoint of a Plone user
‘Google for ‘SharePoint accessibility’. Look at the horrendous hacks people
have to do to make SharePoint accessible. Now consider that all that
customisation has to be redone when a new version comes out........ Anyone
who uses SharePoint for their website either doesn’t give a **** for people
with disabilities or wants to spend way more money than they need to on
customisation’
Nick Davies (on a MarkMail discussion thread, Jun 2007)

SharePoint as a portal

The challenges of building a student
portal
‘’The VLE is not optional - students have to use it to
submit assignments. But a portal will be optional –
there will be nothing forcing students to use it.
The way SharePoint looks out of the box is not suitable
for students to use. Will need customisation. It needs
to look nice for the students, otherwise they won't use
the portal.’’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009

One University’s experience
‘We have a student portal on SharePoint. But
students tend to use the VLE, so notices on
SharePoint don't tend to get seen.
If there is a notice we really need students to
see I get asked to put it up on Blackboard,
even if it is already on the portal’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009

SharePoint Team sites

Universities have rolled out Team sites in
different ways
• Big bang: every organisational unit gets set up
with a team site
• On demand: IT department provides a form
and teams apply if they want one
• Tailored solutions: web developers/ business
analysts use team sites to build solutions for the
needs of particular work groups

Different work groups react differently to
Team sites
‘Faculties use their team sites for a tremendous range of different
things. Some teams use it a bit but don’t like it very much. Other
teams make so much use of it that they are completely dependent on
it. For example if the team site for Student Services went down then
they wouldn’t be able to function: they use it to share all their policies,
their procedures and their news.’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009

Viewpoint of a learning technologist
‘SharePoint is probably the least intuitive system I know. I have tried to
use SharePoint for managing projects, you would expect that once you
have been into it once or twice you would get into the swing of how it
works, but every time I set up a team site I have to think through it again.
When I have set it up I find that colleagues don't really engage with it. If
we don't use Blackboard for collaboration we would use Google docs
which is far simpler to use than SharePoint.’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009

Experiences of My Sites
‘I suspect the numbers of academic staff using
the My Site functionality is minimal.’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009
‘People like the idea of being able to search for
colleagues’ skills, but lots of people aren't
prepared to put in the time to update their own
skills.’
Respondent to ‘Investigation into usage of SharePoint in UK Higher Education’ research project carried out by Northumbria University 2009

MySites in SharePoint 2007
Strengths Weaknesses
• Gives a lot of functionality and • not intuitive
power to the user
• A MySite is a SharePoint site • no status updates (so it lacks the
collection in its own right, and liveliness of Twitter/Facebook)
the user is the administrator
• User can add new pages, • doesn’t help users network with
document libraries, and web people outside their institution
parts

Acknowledgements
My thanks to Eduserv and to Northumbria University for permission to use
unpublished quotes arising from their ‘Investigation into the Usage of
SharePoint in Higher Education’ Research project.
Read the literature review from the project here: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/
research/studies/SharePoint2009
The website for the project is here: http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/
academic/ceis/re/isrc/themes/rmarea/eduservsp/
Watch out for a public consultation on SharePoint in higher education, and
an event for colleagues in Higher Education.