1. Shân Wareing, Pro Vice Chancellor
Learning and Teaching, Bucks New
University
Changing the Learning
Landscape
Formulating Strategy /
the nature of change

2. Contrasts
 Large scale
nihilistic outlook
 Strategy
 Long term
outcomes
 Think global
 Fleeing disaster
 Small positive
steps
 Tactics
 Short term
outcomes
 Act local
 Journeying with
hope

3. Apocalyptic metaphors
for Higher Education 1

4. Apocalyptic metaphors
for Higher Education 2

5. Change and supercomplexity
 Multiple change agendas – e.g. employability; MOOCs;
sustainability; student engagement: challenge fundamental
assumptions about HE purpose and structure
 Institutional structures and connections; programme benefits
realisation; linking up IT, pedagogy, disciplines, support
systems, staff training, etc.
 Budgets: doing more, differently, with less
 Assumptions about time and space: who works when and
where, how we calculate credit
Challenge = aligning forces for change to increase momentum
rather than cancelling each other out

6. Balancing Act
 between conflicting institutional needs e.g. for
ethics, reliability, small turning circle (for future
flexibility), price
 between robust integrated institutional structures and
space for individual choice and experimentation
 between structured guidance, e.g. charts and
matrices, and evolving, local, participatory communities
of practice approach
 between the scale of the change we are trying to
achieve, and the tiny steps of conversations held, an
hour’s training attended, a new twitter account
created, one module taught as blended learning

7. Our aspirations can seem so disproportionately
high compared to where we are now

8. In the midst of prophecies of doom
(Pearsons), I see green shoots

9. Small positive personal
steps...
 Unlocking an ipod that’s been locked for
22,000,000 minutes by a two year old
 Twitter, blogs and skype, + build an avatar
 Leading to a renewed sense of the
possibility of my own learning
 A respect for the diversity of disciplinary
discovery, evolution, technical solutions

10. The hacker I can outwit

11. my homemade avatar

12. Landing a virtual jumbo jet in a virtual
Gatwick airport – a discipline-specific digital
solution

13. Recent Initiatives
University of the
Arts London
Bucks New
University
 Process Arts
http://process.arts.ac.uk/conte
nt/dial-projects-and-activities
 Digital Integration
of Arts Learning
(DIAL)
http://dial.myblog.arts.ac.uk
 Changing the
Learning
Landscape
Strands 1,2 and 3

14. Activity
 Rank a range of project outputs/benefits
 1-5 where 5 is high
 Draw on your own context in terms of
relevance/significance
 Compare with a neighbour

15. Rank project outputs/benefits
 Artefacts – discipline specific digital learning objects
 Platforms - educationally focussed interactive sites and
tools
 Partnerships across HEIs and other education providers
 Events – internal and external
 Measurable, specific increase in reported staff digital
skills and confidence
 Staff development taking place across related fields–
change management, project management, pedagogies
 Institutional capacity increased via distributed leadership
of change projects
 Conceptual development – e.g. Identification of the need
for social learning and networks in the ecology of
repositories to realise the benefits
 Project participants able to articulate the power of
openness in education

16. Rank project outputs/benefits
 Contacts –
local, national, international, leading to...
 fertilisation of new ideas
 a sense of wider community
 a support network
 resources to call on and share
 potential for joint activities in the future
Changing approaches to leadership and
change
Systems improvements (e.g. Integration of
registry & learning systems and data)

17. Have we got the scale right?
 Are we going far enough? ‘Programme or
be programmed’?
 Don’t agree with ‘we’re all doomed’ – but
expect to see a de-bundling, fundamental
change in course structures, pricing, quality
processes, staff development, institutional
structures

18. Can we change the story from fleeing from an
analogue Armageddon, to be journeying purposefully
towards somewhere welcoming, safe, and with hope?

19. shan.wareing@bucks.ac.uk
Thank you