Manchester Metropolitan University

Nicola Critchlow from the SRC project and Careers, has produced a summary of how the ProDev days started and the experiences of students, staff and employers as it has evolved through three annual events. Read Nicola’s thoughts here.

The first SRC annual conference was held on 5th November 2009 and was attended by thirty people from across MMU. The purpose of the conference was to encourage university-wide debate on the responsive curricula issues which SRC is trying to address and seek input on priorities as the project moves from baselining to starting to implement change. It forms part of the validation plan for the project and will be repeated in subsequent years of the project.

The conference was opened by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Kevin Bonnett, who introduced the guest speakers – Freda Tallantyre from the HEA who gave a national picture of initiatives involving employers and HE and Fleur Corfield from Staffordshire University who discussed lessons learned from their initiatives in engaging with work-based learning programmes. Mark Stubbs gave an overview of the first year of the SRC project and was followed by Nicola Critchlow (Creative Digital) and Claire Hamshire (Physiotherapy) who described work with employers and professional bodies within these two subject strands. Detailed notes of the event produced by Rachel Forsyth and the powerpoint presentations can be downloaded below:

• Notes from the Conference - Rachel Forsyth (pdf doc)
• Developing a Responsive Curriculum - Freda Tallantyre
• Employer Engagement at Staffordshire University - Fleur Corfield
• SRC Briefing - Mark Stubbs (powerpoint presentation)
• Digital Creative Strand - Nicola Critchlow
• Physiotherapy Strand - Claire Hamshire

We have had several discussions about the direction and purpose of this workshop.

The latest involved, Nicola, Eddie, Jane and Robin.

We decided :

• Workshop for staff - Jane to have a go at drafting some objectives so that Nic and I can plan it.
• Focus group for students to ask the following questions (to be reviewed)

1. What will the LPC provide you with?

2. What do you think you will be doing on the LPC

• Structure (compulsory elements/electives, skills, etc)
• What will it contribute to your professional development (beyond skills & knowledge, e.g. “professional conduct”)
• How have you found about this?
• How would you find out about this?

3. What is PDP

• How have you evidenced the skills you have acquired?
• From units?
• From external sources such as p/t jobs?

4. What influenced your decisions about where to apply for an LPC?

• Was it vocational elements that were available?
• Are some universities better for employment?
• Are there issues about where you have studied that influence your career progression?

5. How will you provide evidence to employers about the skills and knowledge and professional ethics that you have acquired during your course?

It quickly became clear that mapping Skills/Competences to assessments would encourage an instrumental attitude in students which was undesirable. Hence map to Units.

A problem for the software structures we envisage is that skills might be mapped to several units, skills are often transferrable between contexts/units.

A question arose about the equivalence and mapping between the professional frameworks that Physio work with, e.g. CSP curriculum framework, Skills For Health (SFH), Knoiwledge and Skills Framework (KSF) and Health Professions Council (HPC). We discussed asking Simon grant to look at this and advise about ways forward that will minimise completxity.

The SRC steering group asked me to find out more about the Staffordshire University Fast track validations FLAP.

I have just spoken to Mark Stiles at Staffordshire and am circulating my notes on the conversation and raising some questions about where we take this. In particular Mark has asked us to clarify what we want to know and I have started to list some questions. PLease let me know your thoughts on this by going to the Project Web page and adding your comments.

Spoke to Mark Stiles at Staffs Uni re their fast track validation process - FLAP.

First thing to note is that this process is only for courses of 60 credits or less – I learnt today that we have some kind of fast track for 120 credits or less already, but I don’t know how our process works.

At first I thought that Staffs will have little to offer us but as Mark talked around the subject I realised that it is not that simple.

They also have two kinds of validation for larger courses – one that is only in-Faculty and another that has two levels of approval – Faculty and University.

They are also looking at extending the FLAP model to take account of using already validated units in new programmes, a little like our Digital Creative Industries is likely to do.  They are also reviewing the documentation they use as they believe it is trying to be “all things to all men” but failing in supporting the validation process and the consequent courses as a result.

He suggested we try to formulate our questions. This will then allow us all to see how best to take this forward. He is happy to come and talk to us but wondered whether a small meeting with Heads of QA and Academic Development (not sure what our equivalent is) and … from the two organisations might be a useful starting point.

What do we think about this?
What are our questions? - I have listed some below.

Robin

1. Does the Fast track validation cut corners in terms of QA/QE or does it simply compact the process?

2. Could the fast track process Staffs have adopted to used for larger courses?

3. Does the Fast track compensate by doing more detailed post delivery feedback from staff and students?

4. How does Staffs handle the re-use of units that have already been validated for a different course?

5. Has Staffs investigated the use of a generic programme framework that is validated with the intention of  slotting  in additional units in the future as needs arise?

Robin and I have been finding the scenarios useful to help us to think about the processes in more concrete ways and to map examples against the current processes. We’ve agreed to continue collecting/writing scenarios from as wide a range of quality enhancement situations as possible, and from as many perspectives as possible. Not all of them will need detailed analysis and we may construct ‘composites’ later. Liz is making appointments with a variety of people for me to ‘interview’ them to try to get some further scenarios but I’d also welcome examples from as many people as possible. I think it would be especially useful to get some administrative perspectives and some ideas of where problems have arisen in the past.

I’ll also try to talk to project leaders from the key institutional projects of Retention and Student Success and Embedding Employability to see how they see their work being embedded in QE processes.

Robin is also going to ask projects who are undertaking specific PARM activity to record what they’re doing using voice recorders which we’ll transcribe, to try to find out if there are any additional processes - or shortcuts - which are currently undocumented  and which we might need to factor in.

mail from Alan Paull

We are currently working on the Archimate and systems thinking stuff.

The Archimate work is proving very interesting.  As the current system
is paper-based, we have no actual Enterprise Architecture type
structures (no ICT), which means the COVARM-in-Archimate will be
business layer only.  We will have some comments on the COVARM model as
it stands, having discovered one or two dangling threads!

I would like to make a note here about complexity and the purpose of our
process modelling.  The COVARM model of MMU processes is complicated and
reflects their complex nature.  The purpose of the COVARM model was to
enable the project team to analyse the processes alongside processes at
other institutions in order to create a generic course validation model,
so it is not very accessible to other audiences.  On the other hand our
purposes are four, I believe, at the moment:

(1)    To gain an understanding of the whole process, with a view to …

(2)    Presenting potential interventions (ICT tools and process
improvements) to a wide audience and …

(3)    Modifying these in the light of comments and experience, and
finally …

(4)    Recording the changed processes, with the engagement of the
community in the maintenance of the models.

This means that the parameters of our models might be these:

The viewpoints need to cover the concepts relating to the HEI staff
practitioners, those involved in the processes, rather than from the
viewpoint of application developers.  Viewpoint from employer would also
be essential.

Understanding of the current processes, indication of intervention
points and presentation of any new or revised processes will mean the
focus is probably not as fine-detailed as the COVARM version.

Concentration should be on the main flow of processes, with only a
passing mention of exceptions or alternative flows.

The models will be iterative and therefore subject to change as we
receive stakeholder comments.

We will keep a clear split between our ‘as is’ model and our ‘to be’
model(s).

The model will not provide all the answers!  I think this is important.
Witness that the COVARM model does not include a lot of highly pertinent
information, for example the extent and nature of the documentation
referred to, which will colour perceptions of those actually involved in
doing the processes.

Alan Paull has persuaded us that using scenarios will be a good way of working through the issues relating to quality enhancement and the SRC project. The ideal situation will be for colleagues working on the different strands to suggest these so that they can be mapped to see if there are any oddities or inconsistencies in the workflows which are being developed. I found it quite difficult to get started with the scenarios but there are now a couple of examples on this page if that helps others to think about them.

The idea is that we will use the scenarios to develop workflows (who does what, when) so that we can start passing that information to relevant people who might find it useful as well as asking Alan to do some more technical modelling. We will also use scenarios in workshops with stakeholders looking at mapping the QE processes. And they will almost certainly get used to help us to produce appropriate staff development materials to inform colleagues about QE processes.

I’ll do my best to collect bits of scenarios from the main project strands as and when I bump into people around campus, so be prepared (either to recount a tale of QE activity or to invent an urgent appointment elsewhere as appropriate).

Process Review Meeting 8/1/09

Present: Rob Baker, Philip Lloyd, Alan Dove, Nigel Farmer, Peter Leyland, Rachel Forsyth, Robin Johnson

Aim: to bring CASQE and PMI up to speed with SRC plans regarding process review and to capture their thoughts about the best way forward. In particular, the meeting aims to discuss ways to undertake the baselining activity and to discuss a workshop proposal to capture the views of a range of stakeholders regarding responsiveness within process review.

1.    There was considerable discussion about the need for SRC to integrate its activities with other projects and University initiatives in order to avoid duplication of effort, conflicting goals, internal competition, etc. It was felt that this will arise because there is no clear strategy for the work being undertaken in these projects and initiatives.  The following diagram (to be inserted) highlights the projects and initiatives that SRC is currently aware of but it is possible this is incomplete and certain that this list will change considerably during the course of the project.

2.    It was noted that considering “responsiveness” was not sufficient and that we also needed to consider Quality and Risks.

3.    It was pointed out that the responsiveness required in considering qualifications to meet the needs of 18-21 year olds was quite different to that required to meet the needs of employers CPD.

4.    It was decided that this group would meet again to review the COVARM model of MMU’s review processes. ACTION: Robin to produce an A0/A1 printout of the model and arrange meeting.

5.    Philip felt that it would be useful for users of the process review processes to also review the model, possibly separating them into those that are experienced and those that are less experienced in using it. ACTION: Robin to arrange small group review meetings (suggested attendees?)

6.    We ran out of time to discuss the workshop, so attendees agreed to look at the plan and provide feedback by email on approach and membership. ACTION : All.

Process Review Workshop

Birmingham 9/12/08

Rachel, Robin, and Alan attended.

The format of the workshop was:

In the morning:

Short input on Process Review

Activities to attempt some simple landscape mapping – not very helpful in our opinion.

Some presentations about no-tech, low tech and hi-tech approaches:

• JISC process Review book stuff on swim lane diagrams, RAEW, collaboration diagrams, rich pictures etc
• Archimate – looked very useful and we decided Alan would try and convert the Covarm process model to Archimate. It can be used with Visio and Omni Graffle using templates, or a dedicated tool called BizzDesignArchitect. It uses a 3 x 3 grid focussing on Business, Application (systems) and Infrastructure layers considered in terms of Information, Behaviour and Structure. It provides a single view for each stakeholder. It uses very simple notation to represent relations in these 9 areas which can be more textual or more diagrammatic. It can be converted to UML, It does not support direct application development in the way that UML does.
• IBM Web Sphere and related technologies – Heavy!

In the afternoon :

Rachel presented our plans on Process review , using the Covarm Model , validating it, constructing scenarios to model ideal solutions to key processes, using a workshop to: capture creative solutions from key stakeholders; identify responsiveness measures, and comment on our scenarios.

Christine Stewart presented a very interesting talk on LEAN approaches to process re-design. This is not what I thought it was. It centres on “Maximising the value for the customer” using a cycle of continuous improvement involving: identifying customers and their values, identifying and mapping the value stream, creating a flow by eliminating waste, responding to customer pull and pursuing perfection. The process is one of alignment of needs with solution. It is not just about slimming down the process by cutting it down, as I thought.

Helen Emerson from City University talked about engaging stakeholders and referred heavily to the Managing Successful Programmes approach (Prince 2 for Programmes) which has a substantial amount of material about this which she rated very highly. I have ordered the book for this so I can find out more.

We finished with some review and reflection about our needs. Most importantly we noted the need for professional facilitators to support the workshops which are planned as part of the benchmarking activity.