 Okay, we seem to have got sound now. Good afternoon, everybody. I'd like to make a start on this afternoon's session. We've got two great speakers and without any further ado, I'd like to first of all introduce Heather Thry. Heather is head of her learning and teaching at Hefke and she's going to be talking about enhancing learning and teaching through technology, a policy view. So, over to you, Heather. Thank you. Can you hear me? Is this on? OK. Excellent. Thank you. Well, I'm going to talk about enhancing learning and teaching using technology, but it's going to be very much from a policy and finance direction, as that's where I now work at the Higher Education Funding Council, and that's therefore what my involvement and Hefgey's involvement is in this sort of area. And, forgive me, it's also therefore going to be primarily about England if one can confine things to a geographic region, but some of what I'm saying may only apply to England and not other parts of the UK if I'm talking about particular policy or funding initiatives. So, first of all, then, how does Hefgey support learning technology? And I think the answer is in a lot of different ways, and many of them will be ways that you will have encountered. So, first of all, Hefgey is the largest funder of JISC. We fund JISC to the tune of about 72 million in the most recent period, and that includes, of course, capital and other funds. And many of you will know many of the things that JISC does and the large part it plays in supporting the use of learning technology. It also, of course, plays a very large part in computing in universities in general and in supporting research. So, not all of that money is used directly for learning and teaching, obviously. Another way in which Hefgey invests in learning technology is through support for the Higher Education Academy, which I think is increasingly part of the learning technology world in UK higher education. Through a lot of project work, through workshops for professional development for staff, and through working through subject centres, I think in particular in the current phase of the Higher Education Academy's work is probably where they would put a lot of their emphasis, some of which won't necessarily be badged up as e-learning or learning technology in terms of what actually goes on. And I suppose one of the most influential things that the Higher Education Academy has done in this area concerns the benchmarking projects in which about half of HEIs in England took part to benchmark their learning technology activities. We also, of course, fund universities in England for teaching through the block grant. And hopefully every institution regards the use of learning technology as an absolutely integral and key part of learning and teaching in that institution. And so some of the block grant will be, the block grant for teaching, will be being used for that purpose. But we also offer, not offer, give additional money to institutions in the form of a targeted allocation to support the enhancement of student learning and student success. And this is the money that some of you might have known of as TQEF in the past, now called TESS, which has been used within many institutions to support and take forward learning technology agendas. TESS continues, or in a slightly different form continues TQEF, and within that there's money particularly attached, for example, to learning and teaching strategies and assessment strategies of which e-learning, I'm sure, is an embedded and key sort of part. HEFGI also, of course, has capital funding available to universities and a lot of that is used in infrastructure, but including infrastructure, of course, that supports learning technology. When new facilities for teaching are built and when learning technology capabilities are built into them, then this funding will also be being used and be part of what's going on there. And I think lastly, I want to mention a new initiative that HEFGI's funding and that's the Open Educational Resources Program, which many of you in the audience may know about or may be part of. And I'm going to say a little bit more about that later on during this talk. So I think moving quite swiftly from funding towards policy. HEFGI does get involved in policy at, if you like, a fairly sometimes what might seem a remote level from what goes on inside universities. But of course that's the way we have to work. And in 2005 we published an E, I think it was then called an E learning strategy. And that has now been updated and has become enhancing learning and teaching through the use of technology. The original initiative was evaluated and one of the things that came out of that evaluation was that HEFGI's guidance for the future need to emphasise and work much more at the level of institutions rather than at the level of sort of national bodies. And that that was where the focus needed to be. We also drew on a lot of other work that's been going on, for example carried out by JISC that demonstrates the benefits of E learning in terms of retention, in terms of application, attraction to HE in the first place when learning technology is used effectively. And so as I've perhaps already indicated, this is the main thrust of the new guidance that we issued earlier this year. And so I think what we're wanting to emphasise now is that it's really key how institutions think about how they perceive the use of learning technology. How within an institution it fits with their mission, with their community, with their students, with the subjects that they teach. And I guess what we would do is urge institutional leaders to be thinking very strategically about how they're thinking of using learning technology. And I guess we would be encouraging everybody involved in using learning technology to be thinking in these sorts of ways. It's very easy to, I think, be deeply involved in what one is doing on a day-to-day basis. But there's also a need, I think, if learning technology is going to thrive to see the bigger picture. And as we all know, institutions are very political beasts. And if one is to have the attention and the resources and so on that one actually needs, one does have to get involved in that game and one does have to convince leaders of universities. Some are already convinced, others may need convincing that this is an area that they need to be thinking about and paying attention to. So the purpose of this document is very much to encourage institutions to think strategically about e-learning, to see it as something that is key to the future, key to student success, but that every institution has to tackle and think about in a different way, a way that suits what it is trying to achieve and what its students are doing and where its students come from, and that not one size will not fit all and that it does therefore have to be thought about at a much more local level. As I know it is being, but I think that's where we would want to encourage people to put emphasis and encourage institutional leaders to think about learning technology in terms of potential efficiency gains depending what you're doing, but for example in e-assessment, a lot of upfront investment, but potential payoff down the line in terms of enhancement of student learning and in terms of transformation, transformation for students and transformation potentially for institutionally in terms of how learning and teaching is conceived and embedded within curricula and within what the institution is doing. So this is as it were then, if you like, the sort of policy direction that Hefki would be trying to encourage and asking universities to think about learning technology in that sort of a way, what needs to happen for students and for staff to use learning technology effectively and in ways that will fit that institution. I said I would come back and talk a little bit about the Open Educational Resources Initiative. This is a pilot programme that Hefki has funded working through JISC and the Higher Education Academy, so you may well associate it with JISC and the Higher Education Academy. They're running the programme. The money though comes from Hefki and at the moment it's a one year pilot phase and I think underlying the programme is probably some of the things in a way that Martin Bean was touching on this morning. For example, I think a strong feeling underlying it is that to use Open Educational Resources requires a culture change in institutions and among teaching staff because the idea of protecting what you do, not sharing it, not being able to use other people's materials, having intellectual property rights over what you create, etc. All of these are changes that if Open Educational Resources are going to thrive and be used fully, have to move on as it were. I think also echoing something that Martin, sorry, not Martin Bean, another session I attended this morning was emphasising was the importance of thinking about the business models that institutions may be needing to think about when you're talking about Open Educational Resources. What implications are there there? So, at the moment the pilot projects are being funded with about five and a half million pounds. There's 29 projects currently operating. Some of these are operating institution or wide to explore some of the sort of issues that I've already mentioned. Others are operating through a subject base, through consortia of institutions, usually led by an HEA subject centre, working to develop materials and there are also 14 individual projects operating in a rather more limited area than the other two. But all of the projects, no matter what their scope or breadth, are exploring these issues in the true form of a pilot to try and see what the issues really are, how they can be tackled and what the implications might be in the future. The projects are due to end in March and I think we're just starting to see some of what's actually happening in them and what will come out the other end. I think the last thing I want to talk about is an initiative that Hefgir is undertaking. We've created what's called an online task force. This has government backing. It hasn't met yet the task force. The task force is made up of the great and the good. It's chaired by Dame Lynn Brindley from the British Library, has a number of VCs and academics but also a number of people operating in the commercial world of e-learning. So a diverse if you like population and we hope that it will also work across the UK rather than just being confined to England. I think arguably the UK is already world leading but this task force is wanting to look ahead. What do we need to do in this country to maintain or extend where we are now and we're not just talking in hard sort of market share type terms. It's talking about innovation, investment, collaboration to achieve some of these things. Are the new markets that should be being accessed internationally and again Martin Bean was talking quite a lot about some of these areas. How can and should UK higher education be supported in terms of learning technology? Can learning technology be better used to increase access and to improve the skills level in this country? I think that one of the things the task force will be doing is commissioning some pieces of research to help it look at some of these areas including probably looking at what provision already exists, looking at what students want and what they need because that may be two slightly different questions and also exploring the opportunities internationally. What are the market opportunities internationally for distance learning of international students? This is my last slide. Steve, reminding me of the time, is very timely. I want to actually end there. I think what I've attempted to do is just draw attention to some of the funding streams and some of the policy activities that Hefke engages in to actually, as it were, underpin all the work that you do. And I guess this will demonstrate where I come from that I think in all of this we always have to keep sight of the student and student learning. Heather, thank you very much indeed for those insights. Could I ask four questions from the floor please? One at the back there. Thank you. I'm Claire Euston from the University of Greenwich. I came in slightly late so forgive me if you covered this but my question is about the funding methodology and particularly funding of distance learning and whether your online task force is going to look at that, how and what the timescales are that you may envisage. Thanks. It has, of course, it hasn't met, has to agree at terms of reference when it meets but that's very much within its sort of frame. It should be producing a report in late spring or early summer and so that's the sort of timescale that we're looking at. It's not a sort of three-year activity. It's a much faster activity than that which I think is appropriate to the area that you all work in. Question down the front here. Actually, while you're dashing down I'll ask a quick question. Is there any plans to extend the pilot of the open education resources and so how much more money? Our hope very much is to be able to extend the pilot but best plans get overtaken by recession and so at the moment has to be said funding position for the future is uncertain and to an extent we are dependent upon government funding priorities but that was certainly the intention and if the means are available then that will be where things will go and that's the very purpose of calling it a pilot that other things should follow. Nigel Ecclesfield from Bector. Very quick question. How far will HEFKI through its policy initiatives be supporting and stimulating collaboration between HE and HE and FE institutions in order to take advantages of the technology to widen access and participation? Yes. I mean I think that in a sense the question for me would be not how far do we do that in terms of learning technology but how far do we do that more broadly in terms of access and widening participation and I think we have a lot of policy and in fact quite a lot of funding that goes into that sort of an agenda. I think the other thing to bear in mind and I think something that may have increasing influence in the future is that of course a lot of higher education takes place in further education colleges and where that happens there is automatic opportunity hopefully there should be automatic opportunity for synergy and rub off between the two sectors if you like so hopefully that should be something that will happen but as with everything many things don't happen automatically. Thank you. Any further questions for Heather? Whilst people are thinking I've just got one more for you. The quote you had from the HEFKI revised document emphasised technology. Now I know the rest of the report has good things to say about staff development and professional development. Perhaps you'd like to just make that point as well. Yes I mean I think as this document and many other emphasise the key to enhancing learning technology is moving beyond the enthusiasts amongst staff for using technology and ensuring that everybody just regards it as an automatic part of what you do as part of your teaching. Yes there will always be enthusiasts and innovators and there will always be people who will be more creative in how they use technology than others but increasingly we live in a world where everybody should just be using to an extent and as appropriate learning technology and it again doesn't happen automatically and a lot of it is about attitude change but some of it is also just about professional development so think about how to use learning technology appropriately. Good well thank you very much indeed Heather for that and those insights into HEFKI. Thank you.