1 Ref: F68756 24 August 2015 MEMBERS OF THE EDUCATION FUTURES STRATEGY GROUP Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Innovation) as Chair (Professor Gilly Salmon) Dean of Coursework Studies (Professor Grady Venville) Chair of the Academic Board (Associate Professor Cara MacNish) Chief Information Officer (Ms Assine George) Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning/Education) of each Faculty/School, or nominee of the Dean; Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts (Ms Sophie Giles) Faculty of Arts (Associate Professor Helene Jaccomard) UWA Business School (Professor Philip Hancock) Faculty of Education (Associate Professor Grace Oakley) Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (Dr Nicole Jones) Faculty of Law (Ms Meredith Blake) Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences (Professor Sandra Carr) Faculty of Science (Associate Professor Peter Hammond) School of Indigenous Studies (Mr Grant Revell) Director, UWA Student Residences (Mr Chris Massey) Associate Director, Student Support Services (Dr Judy Skene) University Librarian (Ms Jill Benn) President of the Guild of Undergraduates (Ms Elizabeth O’Shea) Nominee of the President of the Postgraduate Students’ Association (Ms Jelena Rakovic) Co-opted member (Professor Helen Wildy) Executive Officer (Ms Sally Jackson) EDUCATION FUTURES STRATEGY GROUP AGENDA BY CIRCULAR As advised by email on 12 th August 2015 the meeting of the Education Futures Strategy Group scheduled for Monday 17th August 2015 was cancelled due to insufficient business to warrant a meeting. Attached are items for consideration by circular. If you do not agree with the recommendations from the Chair in Part 2 or would prefer that the items be referred to the next meeting for discussion, please contact me no later than close of business on Thursday 27 th August. If there are no objections by that date the items in Part 2 will be processed in the normal way and the recommendations will be recorded as resolutions of the Education Futures Strategy Group. Ms Sally Jackson Executive Officer
Transcript
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Ref: F68756 24 August 2015 MEMBERS OF THE EDUCATION FUTURES STRATEGY GROUP
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Innovation) as Chair (Professor Gilly Salmon) Dean of Coursework Studies (Professor Grady Venville) Chair of the Academic Board (Associate Professor Cara MacNish) Chief Information Officer (Ms Assine George) Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning/Education) of each Faculty/School, or nominee of the Dean;
Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts (Ms Sophie Giles) Faculty of Arts (Associate Professor Helene Jaccomard) UWA Business School (Professor Philip Hancock) Faculty of Education (Associate Professor Grace Oakley) Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (Dr Nicole Jones) Faculty of Law (Ms Meredith Blake) Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences (Professor Sandra Carr) Faculty of Science (Associate Professor Peter Hammond) School of Indigenous Studies (Mr Grant Revell)
Director, UWA Student Residences (Mr Chris Massey) Associate Director, Student Support Services (Dr Judy Skene) University Librarian (Ms Jill Benn) President of the Guild of Undergraduates (Ms Elizabeth O’Shea) Nominee of the President of the Postgraduate Students’ Association (Ms Jelena Rakovic) Co-opted member (Professor Helen Wildy) Executive Officer (Ms Sally Jackson)
EDUCATION FUTURES STRATEGY GROUP AGENDA BY CIRCULAR
As advised by email on 12
th August 2015 the meeting of the Education Futures Strategy Group scheduled for Monday
17th August 2015 was cancelled due to insufficient business to warrant a meeting.
Attached are items for consideration by circular. If you do not agree with the recommendations from the Chair in Part 2 or would prefer that the items be referred to the next meeting for discussion, please contact me no later than close of business on Thursday 27
th August. If there are no objections by that date the
items in Part 2 will be processed in the normal way and the recommendations will be recorded as resolutions of the Education Futures Strategy Group.
Ms Sally Jackson
Executive Officer
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AGENDA
PART 1- ITEMS FOR COMMUNICATION AND NOTING No items.
PART 2 – ITEMS FOR DECISION
1. PROJECT BLACK SWAN – PROGRESS REPORT - REF: F70456
As part of the reporting requirements and governance of Project Black Swan, a regular report is referred to the Education Futures Strategy Group (EFSG) for its consideration and referral to the Education Committee. The EFSG is asked to consider and monitor progress of the Project against key milestones and success factors. To this end, please find attached a report from the Project Manager (PBS), Mr Grant Godfrey, (Attachment A).
The Chair notes that the Blackboard LMS platform is now fully operational and stable and that the project is now tidying up some loose ends whilst preparing for a post implementation review and that key project milestones during this reporting period have been met. The Chair recommends that the attached report be noted and referred to the Education Committee for its information.
2. EDUCATION FUTURES STRATEGY GROUP: GUIDELINES FOR SELECTION –
EDUCATION FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES REF: F73394 At its June 2015 meeting, the EFSG resolved as a standing group the Education Futures Funding Selection Group (Selection Group) to consider both seed funding and secondment schemes as key activities of the Futures Observatory and to be responsible for the administration of the Education Futures Seed Funding and Scholarship Program. A number of suggestions were made at the meeting (refer Item 4.2 EFSG Minutes- 22
nd June) and subsequent amendments have been incorporated into the guidelines. Since the meeting
additional funds ($100,000) have been provided from the Education Committee to support an evidence-led project aimed at improving student satisfaction in a particular unit or themed across a major sequence in a series of units. As such, the guidelines have been further amended to include additional SURF focused selection criteria. All three activities have been supported by the Selection Group. The Chair recommends that the Education Futures Strategy Group approve the revised guidelines: Education
Futures Strategy Group: Guidelines for Selection – Education Funding Opportunities (attachment B). Upon
approval, the Centre for Education Futures will commence selection procedures immediately in order to
maximise participation in the 2015 program.
3. NEXT MEETING
The next meeting of the Education Futures Strategy Group will be held on Monday 9
th November at
10am in the Senate Room. The cut-off date for submission of items for the agenda is Monday 26th
Primary Author(s) (name and position) Description of Version Date
Completed Provided
To
0.1 Mr Grant Godfrey Progress Report for the Education Futures Strategy Group
10th August Education Futures Strategy Group
DOCUMENT APPROVAL
Approved By (name/position of approver) Resolution Date
Education Futures Strategy Group
Page 1 of 1
Black Swan
Highlight Report
6/6/2015 – 31/7/2015
Project Title - Attachment A - PBS Report Page 1 of 5
Project Summary:
UWA to move to a new Blackboard LMS platform by July 2015 (Phase 1)
Status Summary
This
Period
Scope G
Project Exec: Alec Cameron Senior User(s): Gilly Salmon Budget G
Schedule G
Key Stakeholder(s):
Core Project Team, Educational Specialist Deans
Project Manager: Grant Godfrey (UWA) Peter Leong (BB)
Resourcing G
Overall G
BA: Nicola Robinson Senior Supplier(s):
Assine George
Go Live Date: 20th July 2015 Phase 1
Commentary
BlackBoard Phase 1 conversion for Semester 2, 2015 is now operational, with 1900 units now operational.
What went well
The Blackboard LMS platform is now fully operational and stable.
Some difficulties
The Black Swan project team and Centre for Education Futures (CEF) colleagues have managed our way through a wide string of issues including the bulk transfer of units from the Staging environment to the BlackBoard production, significant rework by the project team to recover content lost or damaged during the transfer and then assisting teaching staff prepare for the start of semester. .
Student access to units was opened on the week of the 20th July for the majority of units. That first week
co-incided with a cyber attack on BlackBoard. Blackboard services to all clients was slow and was lost several times during the week as the sheer volume of the attack overwhelmed their network’s ability to cope. Black Swan and CEF were also receiving and investigating reports of access difficulties from people off campus.
On the first day of Semester 2 there were 35,000 successful log ins to UWA’s BlackBoard site but with up to 15% of external access requests being rejected. Workarounds (principally using the university VPN) were distributed and communicated whilst we and Blackboard sought resolutions to the remote access problem.
Over 30,000 successful hits to BlackBoard per day continued during the week and the number of queries from remote based people dropped as the workarounds were adopted. On Friday 31 July a code change was applied to BlackBoard’s UWA customised code. This substantially remedied the remote access issue. Notification that off-campus staff and students can access BlackBoard normally was sent out Tuesday 4 August.
The Blackboard LMS platform is now fully operational and stable. The project is now tidying up some loose ends and preparing for a post implementation review.
A1
Attachment A - PBS Report Page 2 of 5
Grant Godfrey
This Reporting Period: 6 June – 31 July 2015
Communications: Staff & Students
• Carpe Diem Workshops continue – 172 units redesigned
• 11 Black swan Newsletters
• Continuing dialogue with Teaching & Learning Assoc Deans in all Faculties
• Established LMS Faculty Admin Communications group to provide a feedback forum
Technical Stream
• Significant re-work and manual intervention to resolve conversion triggered errors
• Unexpected complexity and issues emerged when moving content between environments
• Helpdesk overflow (to Blackboard) utilized to provide backup to UWA team
• Migration of non teaching units
• Conference & Learning Stream
• Preliminary planning for November 2015 Conference
• Faculty
• Reid Library “drop in” support sessions for unit co-ordinators & teaching staff have been well utilized between 15
th June and 31
st July:
- 215 attendees at Reid Library
- 60 attendees at the Medical Library
• Student support
• Information and Communications material distributed around Libraries and electronically.Library staff have provided strong support to students seeking help
• Students and staff were, on the whole, highly supportive and tolerant where challenges occured and worked with the team to resolve issues quickly
• Seek feedback from students via student focus groups
• Project Management
• Conversion processes and all other issues have been documented to inform and improve the Sem 1 2016 conversion
• Complete the Service Design Package
• Planning for Phase 2 – Sem 1 2016
• Trigger Moodle Archive Process for Sem 1 2015
• Commence gradual Moodle decommissioning actions
• Review, prioritise and document and integrate plans for other CEF project activity
• A full project implementation review (PIR) is planned for mid August
A2
Attachment A - PBS Report Page 3 of 5
Next Reporting Period: 1 August - September 2015
Complete Phase 1 clean up of loose ends
Complete Project Implementation Review (PIR)
Continue development of BlackBoard user and Communication forums
Commence Planning and initial actions for Phase 2 – the Semester 1, 2016 conversion
Key Risks
Risk # Description Rating Mitigation Current Status/Actions
01 Lack of adoption by staff such that 100% course target takes longer to achieve than target
Medium A full transition program throughout 2015 is planned, code named ‘Black Swan’. In addition to the technical transition it includes streams of project work that together make an integrated whole including communications, learning design, students, faculties, conferences and resources.
A lead individual has been identified from across UWA for each stream, working under the sponsorship and lead of PVC EI. Feedback from initial “Hands-on” Faculty day attendees has been most positive. Requests for early access to units coming in as well as requests for blank shells to develop new units.
02 Lack of adoption by students Medium Black Swan includes an extensive student support program.
Students initial “Hands-on” experience very positive. Library front house staff all trained on BlackBoard.
03 Transition Project misses target launch dates.
Medium Blackboard project team is highly experienced in completion of Moodle conversions. Their knowledge of Moodle is outstanding as the underlying Netspot business continues to host many continuing Moodle installations so they have access to skilled Moodle support if needed in the transition.
Internal UWA project team has been selected for their knowledge of UWA required interfaces and their time is being 100% devoted to these project streams. Incremental resources being made available.
04 Insufficient resources to manage project in a timely fashion
Medium Key technical expertise currently located in CATL will be devoted to this transition. We have access to the experienced Blackboard project
Additional resources have been approved and Moodle / BlackBoard have provided extra technical and other support.
A3
Attachment A - PBS Report Page 4 of 5
management team.
05
Key Resources are lost mid project.
High We are partnering with the leading LMS vendor in the market which places us in a strong position to replace lost internal staff with appropriately skilled staff from our vendor partner who understand both Moodle and Blackboard.
Project staff have changed, strong support provided by Stakeholder Group to replace lost staff.
06 BITS staff has conflicting priorities and are unable to provide sufficient support.
Low Ensure that any resource clashes identified are resolved with reference to the SITIMC prioritization of major University projects. CIO has identified this project as priority.
A devoted project manager assigned on
the UWA side to co‐ordinate BITS deliverables. BITS Phase 1 work is nearing completion.
07 Resources are over-utilised due to project timeline.
Medium Timeline has always been challenging, early adoption units have added to the fun!
Resource monitoring and support Executive Team in place and meeting fortnightly.
08 Some Unit Content (certain quizzes) will not automatically migrate to BlackBoard.
High Education Futures Technical team will replicate quizzes that do not transfer. Learning technology team will work with Faculty to resolve other issues. Specialist advice being arranged to support Anatomy issue.
Additional resources assigned to Quiz resolutions.
Requests For Change
Change # Title Details Status
Change #1 Additional Support Staffing
Additional funding requested for Conversion Consultant and Learning Technology System Support Officers.
Approved DVCE
A4
Attachment A - PBS Report Page 5 of 5
Project Milestones
Milestone % Complete
Baseline Start
Baseline Finish
Actual / Forecast
Start
Actual Finish
Forecast Finish
Business Case 100 Nov 2015 Nov 2015 Nov 2015 Nov 2015
Contract Signed 100 Dec 2015 Dec 2015 Dec 2015 Dec 2015
Project Team Assigned 100 Dec 2015 Dec 2015 Dec 2015 Dec 2015
Project Kick off Completed 100 Jan 2015 Jan 2015 Jan 2015 Jan 2015
Project Plan Approved 100 Jan 2015 Feb 2015 April 2015 April 2015
Conference 2 100 Apr 2015 Apr 2015 April 2015 April 2015
Conference 3 100 Jun 2015 Jun 2015 June 2015 June 2015
April Faculty Day 1 - 4 100 Apr 2015 Apr 2015 April 2015 April 2015
June Faculty Days 100 Jun 2015 Jun 2015 June 2015 June 2015
Carpe Diem 50% Dec 2014 Dec 2015 Continuing
Collaborate Standalone Rollout 100 Feb 2015 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Mar 2015
Technical Readiness 100 Dec 2014 Apr 2015 June 2015 July 2015
Raw Content Migration 100 Jan 2015 Apr 2015 April 2015 April 2015
Progressive Release of Sem 2 Units
100 May 2015 June 2015 June 2015
Online MBA Go Live 100 Feb 2015 May 2015 May 2015 May 2015
Learn Go Live 100 Jan 2015 July 2015 July 2015 July 2015
1. Seed funding for an innovative learning, teaching or assessment scholarship project 2. Secondment for up to three months, full or part time to the Futures Observatory in order to undertake
a supported Scholarship project 3. Project funding to undertake an evidence-led project aimed at improving student satisfaction in a
particular unit or themed across a major sequence in a series of units (Riding the SURF).
GENERAL SELECTION CRITERIA
Funds will be awarded based on the following criteria:
the feasibility of the proposal, including a realistic timeline, budget, dissemination plan within UWA and capability of the individual/s ;
the potential benefit for improving student learning and/or experience; the potential for sharing and scaling findings across other school and/or faculties; the potential for the project to lead to teaching awards, external funding and/or publications; the relationship to the seven principles of UWA’s Education Futures; and support from the applicant’s Head of School or equivalent
Preference will be given to proposals that have not previously received funding from the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT), one of its predecessor organisations, or internal UWA funding.
Additional ‘SURF FOCUSED ’ SELECTION CRITERIA
General conditions apply and preference will be given to projects related to units with SURF scores of three or below across one or more of the six SURF questions within the past two semesters in which a unit has been available which demonstrate at least one of the following:
the potential to improve SURF scores based on student comments in SURF which provide evidence of an issue/problem that the project will address; or;
the potential to radically improve feedback to students which should improve SURF scores;or the potential to improve SURF scores by implementing evidence based changes (For example, using
evidence from high rating similar units in SURF).
Conditions
1. Applications will be considered for amounts normally between $5,000 - $10,000 but projects for lesser amounts will be considered. A total of $250,000 is available for Seed Funding and/or Secondment deployment of which a minimum of $100,000 will be allocated to Student Satisfaction (SURF)
2. Applications are to contain a detailed budget indicating how resources will be used, e.g. technical and pedagogical support, research and evaluation activities; or travel associated with the project’s conduct and/or dissemination.
3. Applications would not normally include the following expenses within their budget:
E F F S G S e l e c t i o n G u i d e l i n e s P a g e | 1
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a. Salaries and on-costs of UWA staff b. Standard personal computers, tablets, smartphone or IT related equipment
4. ‘Buy’ out from teaching duties may be considered, with the agreement of the Head of school 5. Travel which is not directly related to achieving the outcomes of the project will not be funded 6. Funding should not duplicate funding provided from elsewhere applicants should consult Centre for
Education Futures staff prior to submitting their application if specific support or expertise is required from the Centre to underpin the project
7. Funding will be allocated in two stages – 50% on commencement and 50% on submission of the final report.
8. Funded projects must be completed, and funding expended, within 12 months of the project start date. Extensions may be granted under exceptional circumstances.
9. The Applicant is responsible for ensuring the expenditure of the funds is in accord with the budget presented in the application, and that any major variation is approved by the Education Futures Scholarship Selection Group.
10. Any costs in excess of the allocated funds will not be borne by the Education Futures Scholarship Program, and must be sought elsewhere.
11. Upon completion of the project, any unspent funds are to be returned to the Education Futures Scholarship Program.
12. Projects will be expected to have a blog and social media presence, open to all UWA staff, with monthly progress blog reports.
13. A summary report providing an update against specified deliverables is to be submitted to the Education Futures Scholarship Selection Group within two months of the project’s completion. The report is to address the selection criteria, key findings, outcomes achieved, future plans and include a budget expenditure statement.
14. Applicants are to identify ways to disseminate findings within the University, and will be required to present findings at least one of the following events held by the Education Futures Scholarship Program or Futures Observatory, the Teaching & Learning Forum and/or Education Futures or Faculty Conferences. Applicants will also be encouraged to submit their findings to as a conference paper or journal as appropriate..
15. Funding is not transferable to any other institution in whole or in part. 16. The applicant(s) Head of School/Section must be consulted and agree to the application. 17. We recommend that a Carpe Diem workshop(s) is included early in the project plan. This requirement
is essential for ‘Riding the Surf’.
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