Consultation workshop, 10 December, Oxford
Around 30 hardy souls came to Oxford for the second in a series of three JISC workshops focusing on BCE. Beginning with a welcome and keynote from Di Martin, chief information officer at the University of Hertfordshire and chair of the JISC advisory group, the day’s sessions looked at the barriers that exist when it comes to BCE, and what can be done to overcome them.
Simon Whittemore (JISC’s BCE programme manager) gave an overview of what BCE is and how JISC encourages it. He said JISC’s approach to BCE isn’t about dictating which external organisations institutions should develop relationships with, but rather enhancing institutions’ BCE operations through enhanced systems and processes, and improving access to institutions’ knowledge assets for business and community external partners.
He also fed back from the first workshop, which had participants from the “demand side” – businesses, SMEs and other external partners. Among other points, they reported that universities are thought to work to a slower timescale than businesses; that businesses are looking for short-term and long-term benefits; that business development people are viewed with suspicion by academics; the lack of understanding between different types of organisation; limited awareness of the resources available via universities; and the different technologies that people are using for communication.
The workshop participants gave their own thoughts on what they thought the barriers to BCE were, which included: individuals and departments not understanding the benefits of sharing; the wish for RAE credits to acknowledge BCE work; geographical location limiting a university’s outreach work and the businesses it has access to; and businesses not knowing how to approach universities.
The afternoon session began with breakout sessions, one on internal engagement and BCE advocacy with institutional support functions and institutional training and development policies and opportunities for BCE practitioners; and one on the civic engagement agenda exploring the business case and how institutions respond to clients at different speeds. The group facilitators then fed back to the whole group. Di Martin took the floor again to invite the workshop attendees to come up with what they’d like to see JISC taking forward. Suggestions included a BCE national community of practice, guidance on data management, maintenance of CRM, and metrics. Martin closed the workshop by highlighting three themes – how institutions do business; how institutional benefits from BCE can be extended to other areas of work; and building trust between sectors.
Hello world!
The JISC Advisory Services BCE Team will begin to provide various items of information, relevant to the JISC Advisory Services and BCE practitioners from across the UK FE/HE sectors via this Blog. This may include summaries from events attended, BCE specific news items, summaries of publications/Advisory Service outputs, key findings from meetings attended etc. If you feel that you can contribute to any of the postings please feel free to comment!