SHEEN Sharing Launch: Employability Resources on the Web

Launch Event Employability Resources on the Web Glasgow 3 February 2010 Sarah Currier, Project Consultant

Brief introduction to SHEEN Sharing.
Launch: let’s look at our new site in detail.
Review: Web 2.0, Resource Sharing and Communities of Practice.
The ECN as a CoP: Characteristics, Benchmarking, Requirements.
What SHEEN Sharing Did.
Challenges and Overcoming Them.
How SHEEN Sharing Did.

Proposed by the SHEEN Employability Coordinators’ Network (ECN) in direct response to an urgent internal need.
Funded by the Scottish Funding Council.
Administered by the Higher Education Academy.
Overseen by the Scottish Higher Education Employability Network (SHEEN) Steering Group.
For the benefit of the ECN and their immediate stakeholders.

Proposed project outcomes:
Increased ease of sharing of resources and practice amongst the ECN, leading to more effective use of resources, better support for their professional development, and enhancement of their community of practice.
Support for discovery and dissemination of relevant employability resources to stakeholders outwith the ECN, e.g. academics, staff developers, student support departments, national services, funders, etc.
Dissemination of the project findings for the benefit of the wider education community, and the FE and HE funding bodies across the UK.

Project timescale: Jan – Sep 2009; extended to February 2010.
Project lead: Cherie Woolmer, Employability Coordinator, University of Strathclyde (voluntary)
Project consultant, 2.5 days / week for 9 months: Sarah Currier (extended for 4 months ).
Project Development Group: enthusiasts in the Employability Coordinators’ Network (voluntary).
Admin and advisory support from HEA.
Travel and events budget.
No technology budget.

The ECN’s original idea was that someone should build them with a Website, perhaps powered by a repository, and populate it.
Given the project’s resourcing, timescale and intended outcomes, they were advised by JISC CETIS to look at Web2.0 / social media resource sharing instead.
The HEA was developing the EvidenceNet repository as a more formal home for resources that required this further down the line. But there was no guarantee this would be ready in time.

Jan – Mar 2009: Exploratory phase
Initial planning meeting of Development Group.
4 introductory workshops held across Scotland.
Requirements / benchmarking survey.
Literature review.
Apr – Jul 2009: Tools trials phase
Planning meeting with Development Group.
Decided to trial Diigo & Netvibes: introduced them to Coordinators at ECN Meeting.
3 Diigo Training Days held across Scotland.

Aug – Sep 2009: Evaluation phase
Planning webinar with Development Group.
Follow-up / evaluation survey.
In-depth interview with 2 Coordinators.
Evaluation Event.
Oct 2009 – Feb 2010: Consolidation / Completion
Consolidation and embedding of project work as ECN enters new academic year.
Follow-up Diigo trainings (2) to further embed sharing.
Workshops (2 F2F and 1 online) to finalise Netvibes page.
Development of video resources for future use of ECN after funded period ends.
Dissemination: Feb 2010.

Employability Resources for Higher Education in Scotland
http://www.netvibes.com/employability

These are freely available for anyone to watch in the Welcome Tab of the site:
http://www.netvibes.com/employability#Welcome
We’ll now watch the 5 x 5 minute videos ...

The Employability Co-ordinators’ Network and their journey as a community of practice

Experimental -- Developmental -- Iterative
Flexible: change track quickly if something isn’t working.
Must have ownership and involvement of ECN to succeed.
Safe communication spaces + open dissemination spaces.
Must not be driven by traditional project reporting outputs.
CoP = sharing of knowledge, experience and peer teaching within community.
CoP = room for mistakes, learning from trial and error, reporting what doesn’t work as well as what does, supporting each other.
Piloting use of freely available Web tools.
Validated 100% by Project Review!

Gavin & Jessica reflect on how SHEEN Sharing has changed their thinking and working practices. Jessica shares how it has helped her work through her ‘technophobia’ and assisted with her work at Heriot-Watt.
Video clip is 6:16 minutes long: not publicly available but shown at event.

Web 2.0 and SHEEN Sharing

... it’s a catch-all, un-defined term that refers to stuff on the Web that allows users to create and share their own content globally, and within their own self-organised communities ...
... increasingly referred to also as “social media” ...

See handout, which was created for SHEEN Sharing’s initial introductory meetings ...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11999782/SHEEN-Web20-Intro-Presentation-Handout-290109

Gavin & Jessica reflect on new confidence, new understanding, & the joy of the read/write Web. How can we specifically use new Web tools in our work?

The Employability Agenda as a Driver

The recent report of an independent Committee of Inquiry into the impact on higher education of students’ widespread use of Web 2.0 technologies (entitled ‘Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World’ ) noted:
“ [...] the dispositions developed through engagement with Web 2.0 technologies – to communicate, participate, network, share etc – overlap with what are viewed both as significant 21 st century learning skills and 21 st century employability skills.”
Hughes, A. (2009)

Communities of Practice and Resource Sharing

“ Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor: a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope.”
Etienne Wenger
http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

CoPs and resource sharing in UK HE:
PROWE, CD-LOR, SPIRE (JISC DRP 2005-2007)
JISC Emerge, Pathfinder DMU Learning Exchanges
Interviewed key people.
“ [...] the pedagogical, social, and organisational aspects of these communities have not been at the forefront in the design and development [...]. Research has consistently demonstrated that the most substantial barriers in uptake of technology are rooted in these factors”
Margaryan, Milligan and Douglas, 2007. CD-LOR Project

The question was: What have you learned or gained from the project? Gavin reflects on the Communities of Practice aspect of SHEEN Sharing. Jessica reflects on learning about new, useful, timesaving tools.

Characteristics, Priorities, Experience, Confidence Levels

National, across all Scotland’s HE institutions.
Geographically distributed, with some members, particularly in the north of Scotland, less able to attend centrally based meetings.
Mostly female (76% female / 24% male).
A mix of part-time and full-time (59% full-time / 41% part-time) ...

A mix of professional backgrounds:
Lecturers;
Researchers;
Careers advisers;
Policy developers and implementers;
Staff developers;
Educational developers;
Librarians;
... ?

A mix of institutional situations, in terms of:
1. the department they are based in:
59% educational/staff development;
41% careers service;
some co-located in different departments;
2. the emphasis required by their institution:
working at a policy level;
working on curriculum and course development;
working directly with academics and students.
3. university type, from red brick to the ancients, including the Open University and the federated UHI Millennium Institute.

Temporary: funding for their work will not continue beyond the next couple of years (although some have permanent posts).
A small number of institutions did not employ designated “employability coordinators”, but most did.

There is significant time pressure on many ECN members;
There are a range of professional and institutional cultures, priorities and communication styles coming to bear on their ability to participate;
There are institutional cultures with different levels of support for use of technology;
There is a sense that the work accomplished must not be lost after the end of the ECN’s funded tenure in their roles.

Gavin & Jessica reflect on how SHEEN Sharing has strengthened the ECN as a Community of Practice, bringing everyone together, working for the same aim, moving towards an ongoing, fluid way of operating and strengthening bonds.

Communication:
Mutual support;
Sharing experience, practice and learning.
Resource sharing, comprising:
Discovery, sharing, recommending and rating;
Sharing experiences of use of resources;
Targeted resource dissemination to all stakeholders.
One-stop shop for employability for:
New employees coming in;
Employer stakeholders;
Academics;
Students ... And more?

Communicating less frequently than they’d like:
time constraints;
issues of information overload;
all forms of communication tend to occur monthly or less.
Using bookmarking, Google search and email.
Some experience with social media and educational tech: not all positive.
Medium/low confidence in efficiency/effectiveness at resource discovery, sharing, dissemination.
Strong support for:
sharing opinions, practice tips and ideas around resources with ECN colleagues and other stakeholders,
improving their own efficiency and effectiveness in sharing resources.

Web 2.0 tool types of particular interest to this project were not used by many participants at the start:
Newsfeeds = 29%
The lynchpin of Web 2.0; enable time saving in keeping up-to-date with activities and resources; interoperate with all tools.
Social bookmarking sites (e.g. Delicious, Diigo) = 18%
Key component for communities sharing resources over the Web; for individuals finding, discussing & recommending relevant resources.
Group web spaces (e.g. Ning, Google Groups) = 35%
Offer private discussion and activity space requested by ECN members since the ECN JISCmail list started.
This indicated a clear training and support need to be addressed by the project.

The Story of SHEEN Sharing

We had 4 introductory meetings ...
With a handout .
We started a project blog , to:
Be a central dissemination and discussion point.
Introduce people to the idea of using RSS feeds.
Provide a place to demonstrate different tools.
Homework was for everyone to:
Set up their own newsfeed reader.
Subscribe to the project blog newsfeed.
We set up weekly drop-in support webinars using the OU’s FlashMeeting tool.

Jessica talks about how Google Reader and finding out about newsfeeds has changed her life. Gavin didn't do the homework: re newsfeeds- local IT support has been a barrier for him.

Anyone who wanted to try posting was given an account:
This was experimental: no clear purpose other than “having a go”;
Some disappointment over lack of engagement early on!
Others tried out commenting on the blog.
The blog was used to demonstrate how RSS feeds could be pulled in from other tools and displayed in a single site:
A couple of early bookmarking feeds from Delicious were set up: one for the project literature review and one for anyone tagging sites of interest with “sheensharing”
We started storing our public project documents on Scribd , and used a feed to put these up on the blog
We started a Twitter account - @sheensharing – and put a feed from this into the blog
The Development Group agreed that we should have project theme groups to trial different tools for different purposes: each group got its own blog “ page ”.

We started by asking folk to join Delicious and bookmark their favourite employability sites using the tag “ sheensharing ”.
I also tagged everything I came across in the literature review as “ sheensharing_web2 ”.
This introduced people to the idea of web-based bookmarking, tagging and creating feeds to share resources.

The first 4 months were uncomfortable for people:
“ Where’s our nice repository?”;
Ambiguity about purpose of blog was difficult;
Many didn’t even bother with setting up a feed reader;
We had regular Flashmeetings but there were technical problems at a few institutions - Flashmeeting has virtually no tech support;
We made a few early, passionate, converts who have become the CoP’s expert users;
I probably wouldn’t do it much differently knowing what I know now!
Threshold concepts are key to personal development and learning – and they are troublesome and scary!
Would use the CoP more right from the start to tell their own success stories.

The Development Group decided the formal trials phase should focus on:
Sharing resources (and experiences, opinions, recommendations);
Public and private space to discuss them;
Having a place to disseminate in a targeted way for the sake of other stakeholders.
During the project review, an interview with George Roberts of the JISC Emerge project alerted us to Diigo and Netvibes.

Diigo:
Research: Annotate, Archive, Organise: http://vimeo.com/6747389
Sharing: Build a Personal Learning Network: http://vimeo.com/6747537
Collaborate: Create a Group Knowledge Repository: http://vimeo.com/6747628
Netvibes Examples:
http://slides.diigo.com/list/morageyrie/sheen-sharing-examples
Our Netvibes Site:
http://www.netvibes.com/Employability

About 85% of the ECN attended introductory / requirements gathering meetings.
About 65% of the ECN attended the Diigo training workshops signed up to Diigo & have their existing bookmarks in their Diigo accounts.
Nearly 100% are members of the public & private Diigo groups, and half have signed up for regular alerts.
About 50% of the ECN did the follow-up Diigo trainings in December.
Since then the number actively contributing resources has gone up from 33% to over 50%.

Prema from the University of Abertay reflects on usefulness of Diigo. She has evangelised its use to other people at her university!
Gopalakrishnan Premalatha (Prema): Employability Project Officer, Career Development Centre, University of Abertay Dundee
Audio clip is 1:13 minutes long: not publicly available but played at event.

Gavin & Jessica on the wonder of Diigo. Sharing resources (SHEEN Sharing’s original remit); accessing your resources wherever you are; supports efficiency. How can we get more people to share their bookmarks there?
Video clip is 3:42 minutes long: not publicly available but was shown at event.

Jessica remembers specific technical barriers at her institution: needing IT support to install most tools at work (but more reflections on how her life has been revolutionised). Gavin reflects on barriers looking forward: encouraging engagement.
Video clip is 5:52 minutes long: not publicly available but was shown at event.

JISC Emerge (2009) found that “[t]he effective use of Web2.0 applications depends essentially on human networks. This raises questions of inclusion, exclusion and identity”.
We’ve had to stay very aware of the different levels of engagement/confidence and utilise the CoP and peer stories to help people along.

People feel they don’t have time to engage because they perceive a difficult learning curve ahead;
They understand intellectually when experienced CoP members say: “it saves time and enhances work”;
But until they put an initial bit of time in to learn, they don’t get the personal experience that validates that.

Results of the Benchmarking Survey in February 2009 compared to the Evaluation Survey in September 2009.

NB: This is the only question that didn’t indicate increased confidence levels in September 2009. We didn’t have the Netvibes site then and people had difficulty visualising it until we started working on it. We hope that this question, if asked now, would show increased confidence levels similar to the previous slides!

Pam Andrew at St Andrews University is using Diigo’s Webslides feature to make her student experience wiki pages more accessible:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/careers/wiki/Work_experience
We supported the SHEEN Placements Project in thinking about dissemination requirements: they used a project blog and Twitter, plus individual student blogs for student reflections.
We met with the EvidenceNet team in York to talk about mutual affordances.
We discussed requirements with the SHEEN International PDP Project.
Gavin McCabe and Ruth Donnelly have begun using Diigo internally at Edinburgh University Careers Service
Cherie Woolmer has run an initial development session with Strathclyde’s Careers Service using SHEEN Sharing resources.

Fiona Boyle from Queen Margaret University reflects on her own learning curve and that of the ECN. She started off sceptical and became a core supporter of the project, utilising Web 2.0 in her own SHEEN project on voluntary sector placements.
Fiona Boyle: Employability Coordinator,
Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
Audio clip is 1:13 minutes long: not publicly available but played at event.

Currier, S. (2009) SHEEN Sharing Benchmarking and Final Requirements Report. Final Public Draft. Higher Education Academy. Available: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16529191/SHEEN-Sharing-Benchmarking-and-Requirements-Report-Final-Public-Draft
Currier, S. (2009) SHEEN Sharing Review. Final Public Draft. Higher Education Academy. Available: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16529201/SHEEN-Sharing-Review-Report-Final-Public-Draft
Hughes, A. (2009) Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World: Report of an independent Committee of Inquiry into the impact on higher education of students’ widespread use of Web 2.0 technologies. JISC. Available: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/heweb2.aspx
JISC Emerge (2009) JISC Emerge: A User-Centred Social Learning Media Hub: Supporting the Users and Innovation R&D Community Network . JISC. Available: http://reports.jiscemerge.org.uk/Publications/
Margaryan, A., Milligan, C. And Douglas, P. (2007) CD-LOR Deliverable 9: Structured Guidelines for Setting up Learning Object Repositories. Available: http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/documents/CD-LOR_Structured_Guidelines_v1p0_000.pdf

Image on 1 st slide by ycc2106:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ycc2106/103383461/ available under Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB
Slides by Sarah Currier, Consultant, SHEEN Sharing Project
http://www.sarahcurrier.com/
[email_address]
Interviewees:
Gavin McCabe, University of Edinburgh Careers Service.
Jessica Henderson, Heriot-Watt University Educational Development Unit.
Audio clips speakers:
Cherie Woolmer, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Gopalakrishnan Premalatha, University of Abertay, Dundee
Fiona Boyle, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
Slides © 2010 Higher Education Academy.

SHEEN Sharing Launch: Employability Resources on the Web

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