Friday 18 November 2011

JISC Service Design event with We Are Snook

Hello.

The project team (Laura, James and Pete) have made it back to Glasgow after encountering the most crowded train ever. I think I could write an entire blog post about the journey, but I'll concentrate on talking about the Service Design event instead.

Firstly, thanks to JISC and Aston University for organising and hosting the event. We had been keen to meet with Snook to discuss our project, so when the opportunity arose to attend we were most keen.

I took two things away from the event that I believe will be most useful for our project.

1. I'm looking forward to using the 'personas' tool when planning and testing our programme content. The event placed an even greater importance on understanding that whilst we think (and our research is indicating) that we have engaged alumni and students, we should not lose sight that not all will fit into this category. It's never going to be possible for us to speak with every different type of person who may or may not be involved in our project, so using personas can help us at least try to deliver a programme that can be all-inclusive.

2. The 'stakeholder map' will be a useful tool further into our project, so that we can take stock of how we started, what we've achieved and where we envisage we might develop. So I must remember to actually draw one out right now.

Additionally, the event was also a good opportunity to catch up with Leo and Loretta from our Cluster group and hear of the progress of their projects.

Thanks for reading!

Oh and if anyone wants to comment (and be the first from outside our Project Team to do so!), then please do!

University 'consumer culture' warning

Thanks to our Critical Friend, Peter Kawalek for sending on this article.

Maybe the most important statement is, "We need to talk about the student experience less in terms of transactions and more in terms of relationships..."

As an aside, the article touches on a criticism of focusing too much on undergraduates and ignoring postgraduates. This is something that the University of Glasgow is proactively working on through its external facing departments, setting itself an ambitious target of doubling it PGT numbers.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Visual Understanding Environment

This is maybe a tool that is used widely (or not) but has proved invaluable for myself and our project team.

Visual Understanding Environment

It's a free resource and very easy to use. Looking back at some of the original maps that we used for project planning, they are absolutely huge, difficult to read and not as focused as they could be.

The tool has enabled us to focus on the elements of our programme that are important to its success eg. resources/tasks.

Enjoy!