Time pressures

Just an observation, really. Staffing, time and space have been particular challenges for us, the appointment of our Research Fellow having fallen through at the last minute, major refurbishments of our workspace getting underway, students disappearing for the summer, staff holidays coming up fast – oh, and the small matter of other work we all need to do in addition to Pathfinder!

We’re all optimistic about staying on course, but October onwards will be particularly mad. Are there extra funds available for therapy, I wonder…

Our first VC Project Pathfinder Group meeting – 28th June, 2007

Getting this many members of a large group around the table at the same time was quite an achievement in itself – all the more so because we’re 100 miles or so apart. The meeting itself was therefore videoconferenced. Amazingly, and thanks to the attention to detail of those concerned, people, papers, technology and food all arrived in the right places at the right times!

The Pathfinder Group consists of the core team and key contacts with academic Schools. The purpose of this initial meeting was to introduce everyone to each other, report progress so far and initiate discussion about the project and where to go from here. Information about project planning, documentation and blogs was also conveyed to the group.

Two of the three project team members, Rachel Kowalski and Sue Howell, are now officially in post. Our Research Fellow, Ruolan Wang, has also been appointed and will start work as soon as possible.

Aims and outcomes of the project were then reviewed, and representatives from Schools asked about the extent of any existing data on the student experience in particular, eg through module evaluation.

Finally, School representatives were invited to talk about their particular interest areas in relation to the project. These included:

• Managing expectations and inducting students into VC situations for learning and teaching
• Improving interaction and engagement with students at remote sites
• Linking VC with other technologies to complement delivery (eg resources in WebCT)
• Making links with experts from other institutions or organisations, including international links
• The need for flexible induction and training of staff in the use of VC for learning and teaching

Group members were invited to think creatively about conference presentations and other scholarly outcomes that the project team could help to facilitate.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, one participant from the Exeter contingent was concerned that the Cornwall-based staff had a more impressive lunch. Still, the Danish pastries and sausages disappeared very quickly here at the Exeter end!

Why videoconferencing?

After reading our initial post, you may be wondering why we’ve chosen to focus on videoconferencing for our project. Afterall, it’s ‘old’ technology – haven’t we been there and done that? Well, in a sense yes, but in our context we’ve decided, the answer is to do with what can happen when a University like our own has to adapt rapidly to new campus development and academic partnerships.

Although Exeter has been involved with VC since the early 1990s, much of this activity has been fairly small-scale, VC being used to facilitate access to experts in particular research fields. In the past few years, however, use of VC has grown to support, in some cases, significant amounts of cross-campus teaching. A particularly active user of VC and also videostreaming is the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD), a partner institution with the University of Plymouth and the NHS.

But how do these activities affect our staff and students? Well, this project is our opportunity to find out!

Through Pathfinder we will evaluate the impact of delivering by VC on the experience and practices of academic staff as well as students – in a variety of contexts and across a range of disciplines.

One of the most important outcomes of our project, we hope, will be an informed debate about appropriate use of this technology in particular academic contexts, and the collection of data to underpin staff development.

All of us in the Project Team are very excited about the prospect of working with our cluster group, and also with Betty Collis, our critical friend, which reminds me… we’ve yet to fix a date for Betty’s visit. I must get on to that!

My next report will be about where we are in the project, so watch this space!