| Question |
Answer |
| Given a user-centred/learner-centred approach to curriculum design, and user engagement as a key theme of our approach, we want to start right away with piloting as a part of an agile design process. So, could the model that suggested doing design in year 1 and piloting in year 2 allow for "piloting the pilots" from the start? |
Yes, that would be fine. |
| Regarding the synthesis and support project – is that internal or will there be a call going out to the community? |
At the moment we are looking at running it as an internal project through our JISC Services, working with other partners in the sector including the Higher Education Academy to draw in key expertise. |
| Will this work join up with the e-Framework and other innovations? |
Yes, where appropriate we will ensure join up. |
| I’d like some clarification around the statement that only one bid will be accepted per institution. If an institution is leading on one bid, can teams within that same institution be involved in another bid led by another institution? |
Yes |
| You’ve made a big thing about institutional commitment being important – what guidance can you give us on costing this into the bid? |
It is more about ensuring that senior members of the institution are aware of and committed to their involvement in support days. In terms of costing – assume that we will expect attendance at around 5 events per year, with Birmingham as a location, with projects paying travel costs. JISC will cover any overnight stays for two day events. |
| What has come across today is the scale of the work. Curriculum redesign is the bread and butter for institutions, teaching and learning aside. The vision as is in the circular has been discussed as one we might not be able to achieve, but institutions are already doing this, and have been doing so for some time. So it’s not as ambitious as it could have been. What is JISC’s role in curriculum design? If we are to achieve the vision, on the institutional side this is a big programme of work, and it must already be underway. So the institutional contribution to this work would be large – many days over many years. The funding provided covers maybe 2 full time people. So JISC are only really buying a small part of that curriculum design process. So in terms of deliverables, it would it be useful to have set of papers documenting the change process, but that is too big. Should we be focusing more on technology? That could help to define the role of the call for institutions and help them be clear about what JISC’s role is. |
I see it as a two way process. There is a lot we would like to highlight to institutions, through our activities over the last 5 years. We’d like to help institutions make more effective decisions and choices around technology. But we also want to know more about institutional processes and blockages. The funding is there for buying out staff time to enable them to engage and take space out of their everyday work. So we are not looking to fund just two staff full-time per project, we are looking for projects to fund at least a half-time project manager, and the rest for time to engage other staff in relevant roles in the institution. Key to this work is enabling the sharing of issues, that’s what JISC’s work is about, supporting sharing. |
| Some institutions won’t want to share their challenges, as institutions are competing. |
It is not about airing institutional challenges in public, but more about building a picture of what is happening in the sector. One of reasons we want to do this is so that we can encourage use of technology to support the sector more effectively. Findings from the projects will be shared in a sensitive manner by the support project, but sharing processes and findings is key to being part of the funded cohort for this call, so if institutions aren’t comfortable with this, they may choose not to bid. |
| Is this call more about institutional processes than technology? |
Both are key. Our role is to suggest how technology might be able to support institutions, to feed in lessons from our work on how you can look at the potential of ICT to support the processes you are already doing. Processes may need to change in order to make the most of some of the opportunities presented by the technology, and a wider understanding of institutional process in this area can support the development and implementation of more appropriate technologies. |
| Is this about technology? All our institutional practices are based around commercial software. Some of the project would need to be about linking those? |
If that is what would be needed to better support your processes, that would be fine. If your particular technology or approach is not transferable to other institutions, you might need to put extra thought into what outputs you can offer that are transferable. |
| You said wanted it to be about institution wide processes, but also wanted particular pedagogic approaches to be involved. If institutions don’t have one institution wide pedagogic approach, is this a problem? |
No, the examples provided in the call were ideas to illustrate some of the different challenges or approaches institutions may be facing. Your challenges will be different. There are some projects, though, which have explored the use of one pedagogical model, for example TESEP and REAP (funded under the Scottish e-Learning Transformation programme). |
| You talk about design – does this include redesign? |
Yes |
| Regarding the relationship between the design call and proposed delivery call – would it be appropriate for one institution to bid under both calls? |
Yes, but be aware we aim to fund a balanced portfolio, with only up to a maximum of 24 projects across both calls. If one institution were to put in a bid under each call, they would have to be clear on how the two different bids complemented each other and didn’t overlap. |
| Will both groups of projects be supported by the same support project? |
Yes. |
| Say one institution wanted to bid to this call and another to the delivery call, could you indicate at this stage how they would relate? How might bidders demonstrate links to potential curriculum delivery project partners/affiliates? If delivery is to be informed by design how can we begin to makes the links now? |
See them as separate, but could indicate any relationships where there are any. You could think about related bids from institutions in some sort of consortium relationship. |
| We are from a School of Medicine, and we would have problem bidding for the design call as our medical school is very separate and runs an independent structure, so looking at processes across the institution would be hard. Would this mean we would be better going for the delivery bid? |
For both calls there is an assumption that the institution will learn lessons, that they will take notice and take it as good practice etc they could consider for other departments. Neither case would we be looking at a school in isolation. For the delivery call there is potential to look across discipline areas, for example to look how the lessons learnt in an individual school could impact on other schools. For the design call, if an individual school was large and autonomous enough to have its own institutional-type processes around curriculum design, these might form a suitable basis for a project. |
| You state that there is no significant funding for software development? |
Paragraph 42f of the call states that it is not anticipated that significant amounts of project funding should be spent on hardware and software. This was intended to refer to the purchase of hardware and software products and licences. With respect to software development, these are not primarily technical development projects, so we’re not aiming to fund a lot of tool development, but we would be willing to fund integration work or other work to join up or make the most of systems you already have in place, and facilitate and support institutional processes. |
| Software development – if part of the call asks you to focus on technology and how it can help enhance processes, then shouldn’t some of it be about looking at the technology? |
Yes, do look at the technological aspects, but we would suggest you don’t plan to spend the majority of the funding on software development. Where you do carry out development, ensure that it is integrated with the rest of the project and engages a wide range of users throughout the planning and development cycles, rather than happening as an isolated strand. You should also consider what benefits the wider sector will derive from your proposed developments. Deploying, using and integrating technology would all be possible under the call. If you do anticipate needing to spend significant sums on purchases of hardware and software products and licences, you might like to consider making this part of your institutional contribution to the project. |
| We will be doing curriculum design on the basis of some technologies being in place. They are not yet in place. They will be acquired by the institution and shown as an institutional contribution to the project. We do not, therefore suppose that we have to license the platform or the user contributions to the platform to the JISC. What we have to do, and correct me if I am wrong, is to make clear our licensing arrangements and provide access to the *curriculum designs* that worked on our platform? |
If you are not funding it with our money, there are no restrictions. You just need to think about what you will be able to offer the wider sector in terms of transferable outputs and lessons. |
| There has been a lot of reference to Appendices and what should and shouldn’t be included as an appendix or in the main section of the call. Please can you clarify? |
CV’s, and letters of support should all go as appendices. Any strategic documentation could also, but bear in mind that markers don’t have to read anything past the core 10 page bid, so don’t put anything in as an appendix if it is essential to the bid. The various forms that we ask you to fill in are also technically appendices and not part of the main bid. |
| We are an English FE college partnering a bid. Thinking of the course to be reviewed in terms of processes, does it have to be a course at the lead institution? Or can it be from the partner college? |
We are not looking for a course to be reviewed, but more the institutional processes. The processes reviewed would be expected to include those at the lead institution, but could also include those from partners, if these were connected with higher education provision. |
| Could you clarify the length and timings of these projects? |
Projects should start between 1 and 30 September 2008, and should run for at least three years and nine months, and until 31 July 2012 at the latest. The maximum possible project duration would therefore be three years and 11 months. |