On 23 October I, along with Phil Wolstenholme and and Catherine Lillie presented at the AUA Development Conference.

These were our aims;

Understand the breadth of Jisc digital literacy work
Explore digital literacies administrators need to be successful in their current roles and beyond
Describe how AUA and Jisc support the development of these capabilities, and generate ideas on how they could better support them
Identify priorities for action once back in the office

In order to
help achieve an excellent digital experience for all

Here’s the PPT http://bit.ly/jisc_aua_dev_conf_session

It was lively as we explored the attributes administrators in the widest sense of the role need in order to be effective and efficient in a digital environment. Delegates worked in teams to draw the digitally literate administrator highlighting the attributes they thought were needed. The results were extremely complex and wide ranging and I only wish we had the time to video the presentations. Sadly the timing didn’t allow for that so all we have are the images themselves. Authors do feel free to add, or send me narrative!

We went on to look at the enablers, what Jisc and AUA have made available to help. These are linked below.

Next was a quick look at what people felt was missing in terms of needs from team leaders, heads of department, institutions, Jisc and AUA summarised below;

Encourage the use of appropriate services, rather than being told by IT that that ‘isn’t supported’ or isn’t allowed. Not being allowed to use Prezi was quoted as one example.
Make sure barriers/restrictions are sensible, control is relaxed when appropriate, and exploration is allowed. Is there evidence for why restrictive policies are in place?
Moving quickly to change, but in a managed way. Sensible strategies.
Clear ownership of online material – course descriptions etc.
Communicating the benefits when new systems/services are introduced – technology supported by staff development – how to make the most of things.
Responsibilities for new technologies can be assigned to those who show interest and existing own skills rather than those in traditional tech/comms areas. One delegate quotes how a member of administrative staff showed a group of colleagues how to livetweet etc at a launch event. Here the support and advice came from this member of staff, not from a Marketing or IT department. People with existing skills could be encouraged to contribute through competitions.

AUA’s role:
Highlighting best practice. Providing examples of who is doing things well – case studies.
AUA and UCISA – bottom up development of resources. Encouraging IT to be enabling not restrictive.

Lastly we called for action and people were most interested in the AUA Digital Tool Box http://services.aua.ac.uk/digitaltools and the revised Jisc shortcuts for AUA members http://bit.ly/aua-jisc-shortcuts-oct13.

All in all a great little interactive session with plenty of opportunities for follow up and action for delegates, Jisc and AUA.