Innovation and Communication - Recently Updated Pages

Case Studies

rob_needham — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:40:07 CDT

In September 2007 UCISA put out a call for case studies showing examples of good practice in communicating with users in IT/Information and Converged Services.
The successful case studies were:

A Blended Communication Approach (University of Wolverhampton)
Hi Applicant Community website (Edge Hill University)
IT Communications (University of the West of England)
Staff IT and Library Newsletter (North East Wales Institute of Higher Education)
The UK Web Focus blog and related dissemination channels (UKOLN)
The Teaching and Learning Network (UCL)

The following case studies were also highly commended.

Speed Updating (University of Exeter)
Improving Communication with Central and Distributed IT Support Staff using Facebook (Oxford University)
Communicating with ResNet Users (Lancaster University)

New Casestudies

Do you have examples of good practice you could share? If so, please add your case-study to the list below and create a new page for it.

Brighton University social networking site
The University of Sheffield CiCS brochure -myCiCSnews
The University of Sheffield CiCS - Service Status page

Liaison

straightsword — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:15:49 CDT

An important aspect of communicating with service users is a set of activities sometimes called "Liaison", or alternatively "Relationship Management".

[Insert definition here!]

A meeting hosted by the University of Edinburgh on 19 March 2008 brought together liaison practitioners and managers from the Universities of Aberdeen, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds and (by conference call) the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We discussed the differing approaches taken to Relationship Management in our respective institutions. A number of common themes emerged:

Science and Engineering disciplines are challenging to liaise with - Computing Science particularly so. They value their independence from the central IS provision. There is also in such departments a tendency for the head of department to leave IT issues, including strategic direction, to the department IT manager.
The role of representing central IS within departments is easier than the job of representing departments within central IS!
Linked with this is the challenge we all have of getting central IS staff to understand what our role is, what it involves, and indeed to recognise and value the skills required.
And again linked with both the above, but also to ensure it is adding sufficient value to the institution, it is important to find ways to evaluate the success or otherwise of the liaison activity.
It can be challenging to strike a balance between liaising on operational and strategic matters, although there is some evidence to suggest that strategic issues take on more prominence with time as the relationships grow.
It was generally agreed that a key 'tool' for managing relationships is a Service Handbook/Catalogue listing all the services that central IS provide from the top-slice.
[Add more common themes]

Of particular interest was the idea of developing a Community of Practice in the UK, bringing together liaison staff in UK HE institutions. The experience of Steve Winig of MIT was particularly interesting - he has found that the MIT Relationship Management Programme has greater commonality with RM in the corporate sector than with other apparantly similar roles in the HE sector. The Community of Practice he has built up involves MIT and a few industrial partners, and they have together developed a four-stage "maturity model" describing different phases of a relationship.

It is important to understand the extent to which the HE IT community is engaging explicitly in Relationship Management, and whether the scope of that activity is sufficiently wide and strategic in nature to support an HE-only community of practice. One way forward is through UCISA-TLIG, and it's been confirmed that theTLIG Communications, Liaison and Information Working Group (CLIWG) has a remit which covers this activity. The forthcoming TLIG/SDG conference will have a discussion panel on the issue.

Home

straightsword — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:01:08 CDT

This wiki has been setup to support the Innovation and Communication workshop. The workshop is aimed at staff in IT/Information and Converged services in universities and HE who are looking for advice on communicating with their users. It will be held on 14 February 2008 in Coventry.

If you are interested in attending the workshop you can find more details on the UCISA website.

Pre-Workshop activities

How do I contribute to this wiki - some advice to get you started
Before the workshop please read through the casestudies. If you have any questions or comments specific to a case-study please post them in the discussion thread under each case-study.
Workshop discussion sessions - if you have any general topics you would like raising in the workshop discussion session, let us know. Click on the Discussion Forum link on the left and choose the 'workshop discussion' thread.

Workshop resources

Case-studies - details of the case studies submitted in response to the original call. If you have your own example of good practice in communicating with users please add it to the case-studies page.
Social bookmarking - we've tagged some bookmarks you might find interesting at http://del.icio.us. Please add your own by including the tag 'cliwg'
If you've never used social bookmarking before have a look at this short video or see the help pages at del.icio.us.
Workshop presentations

Liaison/Relationship Management

Liaison/Relationship Management community of practice

About

This wiki has been set up to support the Innovation and Communications workshop. It should only be used for this purpose.

Technical translations / plain English

Sue_Cunningham — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:15:43 CST

When you get technical information, how do you translate it into plain English for your users? Here are some examples - please add more of your own.

Original	Translation
outage / downtime	break in service
mail gateway	outgoing messages

Glossaries

Internet and web glossary from Berkeley
Foldoc - free on-line dictionary of computing
Jargon buster from helpwithpcs.com

Workshop presentations

Sue_Cunningham — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:06:35 CST

Brands, services and products: a perspective from Design Wales
Gavin Cawood, Operations Director, Design Wales

A Blended Communication Approach
Nici Cooper and Sue Penzig, University of Wolverhampton
Video clips from Nici's talk are on the Case study page

Hi Applicant Community website at Edge Hill University
Alison Wildish, University of Bath (formerly of Edge Hill University)

The UK Web Focus blog
Brian Kelly, UKOLN
Casestudy 5 (PDF)

Slides: (also available from UKOLN Web site)

Workshop groups and feedback

Tools and communication methods

s.penzig@wlv.ac.uk — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:49:53 CST

This page lists some of the tools and communication methods used in the casestudies

building communities - Oxford, UCL, Edgehill
- In Oxford, ITSS community built through email lists, weekly e-newsletter, community wiki, seminars, lunches, vendor events, web pages. Wider community - OUCs reps on college/department IT committees (by invitation)
face-to-face meetings - UCL, Exeter
e-newsletter - Wolverhampton, NEWI, UWE
Paper newsletter
- Oxford - termly, colour, photos, news and articles, adverts for conferences, OUCS services, etc.
login messages - UWE
Welcome email to new starts - Oxford, Wolverhampton
Welcome letter to new starts - Oxford
Welcome leaflet to new students - Oxford, Wolverhampton
Freshers Fair stall - Oxford
Adverts in university newsletter - Oxford, usually on a specific service or event
Annual report - Oxford, full report on all services, changes, usage, etc. ; Wolverhampton
Induction presentations
- Oxford - provide staff and/or slides to colleges/depts. Termly "Breakfast at OUCS" for new staff - 30 mins presentation, 30 mins coffee and croissants
Newsfeeds
- Oxford - several aimed at different user groups
Web 2.0 - Edgehill
Moddle - open source Course Management System http://moodle.org/
- UCL
Blogs
- UKOLN - http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
  See also the wiki from UKOLN's 'Blogs and Social Networks workshop'
Facebook - social networking site http://www.facebook.com
- Oxford. ITSS group and group for past/present staff and associated people
- Introduction To Facebook: Opportunities and Challenges For The Institution, slides and audio from a talk given by Brian Kelly, UKOLN

Workshop discussion sessions

Sue_Cunningham — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:01:36 CST

At the workshop we had several discussion groups looking at the same issues. As there was a lot of overlap all the responses have been collated.

What are your main communication issues?

Identifying your target audience, and then the best way to communicate with them.
White noise – people ignore messages. How do we get them to read our messages? How do we ensure we are sending out the right amount of information?
Getting feedback on communications. Communication needs to be a dialogue
Blogs / social networking - which blog, where should it be hosted, finding time to write / read them
Communication with students:
they see email as 'old-hat' - should we be using other methods eg texting
Translating issues - communicating between 'techies' and non-technical people
Emergency updates - how often should you send out information about the problem / resolution?
Communicating with senior managers to communicate the value of IT services/resources
Cyber bullying
Whose views – personal vs organisational
Should we be using printed and / or electronic media
Marketing your service - difficult because people only come to IT services with problems
Communication skills should be recognised as professional skills within universities
Issues over who has control / power / policy making
Tension between 'techies' who may not want to advertise a new service too much and desire of communications people to sell their services

Casestudy 1

lisbk — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:00:15 CST

A Blended Communication Approach

Nici Cooper, Information and Staff Development Manager
Sue Penzig, Information Co-ordinator University of Wolverhampton

Casestudy (PDF)

Video Clip

A video clip of part of Nici's talk is available from YouTube.

Casestudy 5

lisbk — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:58:57 CST

The UK Web Focus blog and related dissemination channels

Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath

Materials

Casestudy (PDF)

Slides: (also available from UKOLN Web site)

test area

lisbk — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:56:15 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Abstracts

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:49:01 CST

A Blended Communication Approach

Sue Penzig and Nici Cooper, University of Wolverhampton

Three different styles of communication are described to target three very different types of customer:

The IT Services Annual Report sent to senior University staff
A monthly email newsletter sent to technical support staff
Welcome emails sent to all new staff and students

We highlight how each method improved communication, and what criteria we used to evaluate this. The main problems we encountered in producing these different types of communication are identified, and our solutions to them, including sending the Director of IT Services home to write a personalised message on 200 bright pink post-its that we stuck on the front of the annual report! Also included are some ideas for best practice such as design for re-use, using information that’s already available and automating processes. We conclude that by using a blended approach to communication it has helped us to better target our communication with our customers, delivering the information they need in a format that suits them.

See Case Study 1

The UK Web Focus blog

Brian Kelly, UKOLN

This presentation will describe the first year of the UK Web Focus blog. The talk will explain why the blog was set up and the approaches taken to launching the blog. A description will be given of how the blog developed over its first year and became a key component of the dissemination and user engagement on behalf of Brian Kelly, the blog author, in his role as UK Web Focus at UKOLN.

The presentation will conclude by arguing that blogs should be playing an important role in the communications activities of IT Service departments. Brian will describe support materials he has developed to help others establish blog services and ensure that their successful deployment into service

See Case Study 5

IT Communications at UWE.

Derek Norris, University of the West of England

A practical insight into improving communications from IT to the wider University community. The brief presentation will describe the challenges, how to get started, a strategy for message delivery and discuss the wider benefits associated with the initiative. As with all things measurement is the method of benchmarking and a brief look at the types of measurement used will be included.

See Case Study 3

Casestudy 2

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:13:00 CST

Hi Applicant Community website

Alison Wildish Edge Hill University

Casestudy (PDF)

Casestudy 3

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:12:34 CST

IT Communications at UWE.

Derek Norris, IT Customer Service Manager
University of the West of England

Casestudy (PDF)

Casestudy 4

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:12:11 CST

NEWI Staff IT and Library Newsletter

Robert Stockton
North East Wales Institute of Higher Education

Casestudy (PDF)

Casestudy 6

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:11:22 CST

The UCL Teaching and Learning Network

Phil Riding UCL

Casestudy (PDF)

Casestudy 7

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:10:49 CST

Speed Updating

Deborah Welland University of Exeter
Casestudy (PDF)

Casestudy 9

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:10:25 CST

Communicating with ResNet Users at Lancaster University

Pauline Woods-Wilson, Dave Bleasdale and Matt Weaver Lancaster University

Casestudy (PDF) - Appendices (PDF)

Casestudy 8

Sue_Cunningham — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:09:33 CST

Improving Communication with Oxford University Central and Distributed IT Support Staff using Facebook

Tony Brett
University of Oxford

Casestudy (PDF)

Help

Sue_Cunningham — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:22:13 CST

It is easy to edit this wiki. On any page just click the EasyEdit button near the top of the page and start typing.

If you want to practice first, use the test area.

For more information see the WetPaint FAQ page

Social Bookmarking

Sue_Cunningham — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:47:17 CST

Social bookmarking websites allow you to store and share bookmarks on the web. Adding tags to your bookmarks lets you, and others, find related bookmarks. We've added some bookmarks you might find interesting to http://del.icio.us but we'd like you to add some more - visit http://del.icio.us/help to find out how.

When you tag your bookmarks, please add the tag 'cliwg' and your bookmark should automatically appear in the list below (this may take a couple of hours).
If you can't see the Flash reader below, you can view the bookmarks at: http://del.icio.us/tag/cliwg