Establishing a digital development group

As part of my Digital Curriculum Support and Developer role in the Institute of Health and Allied Professions (IHAP), in the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University.  A part of my remit is leading on facilitating, developing, capturing and disseminating colleague effective practices in online, blended and ePortfolio-based learning, and promoting available digital technologies.  A common aspect found in learning technologist roles.

As like most of my blog posts in sharing my approaches and processes, this blog post focuses on the creation of a institute-specific digital development group - a kind of special interest group.  Not just what it is and what it offers but how I created it, the strategic approach and influencing membership, which are not often shared.  In chronological order the following is what I did/happened, inspired by my own approach as detailed in the 'Introducing digital leadership' section in Chapter 6 of my forthcoming book 'Digital Learning, Teaching and Assessment for HE and FE practitioners'.

1. Identified the need and established and documented my vision and top level information and plans for the group.  Again this is integral and a core part of my role to nurture and capture technology enhanced learning and teaching practices and developments, support and facilitate digital innovation, building champions in context, consulting, showcasing, inspiring/generating ideas, sharing digital/online practice and plus many more...
2. Named the group, uninspiringly called 'IHAP Digital Development Group' but offers what it says.
3. Outlined a brief (top level information) group proposal and strategy through a Microsoft PowerPoint slide deck.
4. Discussed the need and my vision with my Head of Department whom I work closely with and obtained her approval.
5. Defined and refined the top level information into a shorter 'tantalising' slide deck, ready to communicate to staff, see video below.
• The group is informal and flexible by nature; we are all too busy for further formalities, e.g. mandatory synchronous attendance, minutes etc.  The group is focused on being collaborative and productive with tangible outputs.  A hands-on approach with creating and developing through digital technology.
• Synchronous meeting attendance is optional, but members encouraged to participate and communicate asynchronously if not attending.
• Show and tell style doesn’t work for everyone and this group is not about that (I learn best by doing and evaluating), and I feel that collaborating and joining up of projects brings about much better outcomes.
• The group also acts as my committee that can identify other needs and steer my own focus/priorities.
6. Communicated the groups presence in our department meeting as part of my digital development agenda item.
7. Shared the above slide deck to all of IHAP via email after the department meeting - a better response rate as they tend to use email more than Teams for department communications.
• To my surprise I received more responses than I thought I would.  I was hoping for at least 3-5 to start off small and expand outwards as the group progressed.  I received 11 expressions of interest and the department at present (constantly growing) consists 40+ people.  Which includes academics, technicians and business support staff.  All of which were academic responses which is the primary target for the group, but as stated in the slide deck the group is open to all that support learning.
• Besides the blanket email, I tactfully approached some people personally that I think would like and gain and contribute to the group, such as existing digital champions, early adopters of institute-specific digital technologies and those with low-level digital literacies and skills.
• Everyone’s got different confidence and competent levels of ICT skills.  I envisage the group to be accessible to all, no matter the level of your ICT confidence and competence.  The group should naturally develop these aspects through active participation.
• I sent a follow up email (any more for any more) to prompt further membership, and stating some names that had joined, including some Principal Lecturers, in the hope to motivate others - which it did.
8. Created a Teams space to host meetings, outputs and resources.  Not as a community – our main IHAP Team space provides that.
9. Scheduled the first meeting, 1 March 2022, that included the following agenda items in a healthcare visual slide deck.  My overall focus of this meeting is to further establish and refine the group, and have a solid ground and group goals for first 3-6 months.
• Introduce rationale for the group (5 mins)
• Confirm group structure and frequency (10 mins)
• Activity: identify our focus areas and priorities (20 mins)
• I used Microsoft Whiteboard for the activity which proved to be good digital practice modelling.
• The Whiteboard was full of responses to refine and group together.  The yellow post-its are the final outcomes.
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• Discuss Team space use, structure and principles of communicating (10 mins)
• Any other business
10. Brief summary of meeting outcomes and action log (extract below) posted into the meeting.  Which also supports asynchronous participation and communication.
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When closing the first meeting, I received feedback from a Principal Lecturer.  She initially thought that she was going to turn up to a 'techie' type group.  However, she was surprised by this and she felt at ease with doing small things like the Whiteboard activity - simple and small is ok!  She wanted to thank me for how I made her feel and not be something she couldn't participate in.

The second meeting has been scheduled.  I'll blog more as the group progresses.

EDIT January 2023:

The group has been effective in providing a digital development space and to allow inspiring conversation, practise time and take action towards set goals.  The group has met three times since its conception in March 2022 and has 12 members – back then out of 30+ academic staff.  We meet bi-monthly but are encouraged to participate asynchronously if they cannot make the meeting; instilling a flexible format for the group.  One of the first activities I planned was to draw up a list of priorities that inform our direction for the first 6 months.  I did this through a collaborative online whiteboard design (above).  I facilitated this as a collaborative group and agreed as a group, the outcomes are on the yellow post-its.  Doing it this way enables ownership and members to work with others on similar or overlapping interests.  To close the meetings and ensure actions are assigned to designated members, I created the action log below for the group.  Noting details and timescales to manage members and keep everyone on track.  I also created the visual agendas that follows.  One of the topics I inputted was on the VR immersive wall, which another member of staff wanted to trial in their subject area of nursing.  We have met to scope and flesh out the purposeful exploration project, which was to video record a mental health related assessment inside a home, where two people are having a conversation with various distractions happening.  The video will be played in the VR room with props.  Students will watch and listen and are expected to take notes whilst all the distractions are occurring.  Which can mimic a busy ward handover or a busy dwelling.  With a view exploring advanced live stream capabilities later on to further configure the kit so that it’s even more usable for other lecturers.

Whilst attendance has been active, I am aware that this is very much a doing group, which is what it aimed to be.  But I am conscious that I sold that I would introduce/try digital learning and teaching tools etc, so I plan to invite comment on the group and progress thus far.  I aim to grow membership as new members of staff join the institute of express interest in technology enhanced learning and teaching.  To continue providing a collaborative and forward-thinking space in this specific topic and context.

As I describe in my blog post ‘Newsletters as a vehicle for progressing digital practice’, I will also be continuing to capture, make visible, and disseminate best digital practice and nurture my collaborations through such vehicle.

The last meeting was scheduled on 19th October 2022, though there was no attendance, most likely due to timing, workloads, leave and long-term leave.  However, as part of the agenda I wanted to review the group format.  In the effort of maintaining our collective input, therefore I wanted to float the ideas below to gauge members thoughts on the group’s future.  I asked them to respond to the poll below with their choice or suggest other option(s) in the comments.

• Continue the group and format as it is, along with priorities we set, but with more showcasing of digital tools and practice
• Convert group into a once-a-term CPD-style event (morning or afternoon)
• Devolve group into a less frequent once-a-term meeting to discuss priorities/development/issues to help steer IHAP digital curriculum developments
• Don’t continue with this group or alternate options

The response so far has been towards option 2; once-a-term CPD-style event.  This highlights my ability to adapt and maintain membership engagement, to influence and facilitate digital developments.

EDIT March 2023:

Lobbied idea to merge into the IHAP department meeting as a bi-termly ‘digital showcase’.  To maintain engagement better to keep in the same meeting than separate.