BUILDING CAPABILITY PROGRAMME
EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FORM
Introduction
The Building Capability programme will enhance the application of JISC outputs and outcomes in the Higher Education Sector.
The programme will work with senior change agents in HEIs (Pro Vice-Chancellors or equivalent) to create senior management
led change in a number of key strategic concerns that are facing that institution.
At the end of the programme JISC will have identified methods for the effective deployment and use of project outputs,
providing a body of evidence that provides uptake-assistance to the wider sector from a cohort of beacon institutions, the
processes and lessons learned will provide a roadmap for wide-scale take up of emerging JISC outputs and outcomes from
projects and services.
Programme Aims

Create an environment in institutions in which JISC Projects and Services’ artefacts (e.g. guidance) can be deployed with
minimum barriers;

Learn about models of successful uptake identify institutional processes that will ease deployment of JISC outputs, and
share these with Services;

Demonstrate the value of using senior institutional staff as ‘business change agents’ in the institutions’ adoption of JISC
outputs, in this document referred to as ‘Agents’;

Articulate mechanisms of how benefits from projects can be identified and drawn into institutional needs;

Learn more about how to work successfully in partnership with and through established networks across the sector to
assist in the take-up of outputs, drawing upon a small group of strategically aware staff from institutions;

Provide feedback to improve the artefacts themselves (to increase their attractiveness to institutions, so that they
usable, useful and used).
Example Strategic Concerns
Economic recovery and public funding
Quality standards and reputation
Research funding and governance
International competitiveness
Social mobility






















Efficiency in services (data centres, shared services)
Bidding processes
Reporting on funding
Management of Information
Institutional audit
National Student Survey
Research reputation (Institutional and Team/Individuals)
Research Excellence Framework
Management of Research Information
Increasingly competitive research grants environment
Legal compliance
Knowledge transfer / exchange
University branding
Student funding
Reputation
Language
Knowledge transfer / exchange
Widening participation
Lifelong learning / workforce development
Employer engagement
Disability
Retention
This form is an iterative document that will serve as the basis for both a workplan and funding letter. If you require any
information, or assistance in completing it please get in touch with Lawrie Phipps, Programme Manager (l.phipps@jisc.ac.uk) or
Craig Wentworth, Programme Director (c.wentworth@jisc.ac.uk).
Name
University Role
Prof. Geoff Layer
DVC (Academic) University of Bradford
Contact details
The programme manager will need to get in touch and clarify some elements of this form, please provide a telephone number
and email.
Dean of Students
Becka Currant
Area of Strategic Concern to be addressed
The goal of this project will be to deliver an integrated web/mobile support system that relates to the three major corporate
aims listed below and which will produce identifiable gains in terms of both student attendance and engagement/retention.
Our Corporate Strategy “Making Knowledge Work 2009-2014” http://www.brad.ac.uk/publicationscheme/media/PublicationScheme/making-knowledge-work-2009.pdf outlines our key institutional aims for this period, a number of which are relevant to this call.
The first aim of our corporate strategy is to “provide all our students with a first-class learning experience” and our participation
in this programme will be an important enabler. There is much we can learn from current JISC programmes such as Curriculum
Design and Delivery and we can identify both general areas, such as the use of mobile technology to improve feedback to
students, and work in specific projects (e.g. the use of online tutorials in the COWL project) which relate to our strategic aims
and current practical issues.
There is also the potential to make further improvements in areas where our own JISC projects have made important progress
(e.g. work in e-portfolios – ELP1,2 - computer-aided assessment – IT4SEA – and employer engagement – WELL)).
The project will contribute towards this strategic aim by creating technology enhanced pedagogies which lecturers can use to
embedded mobile learning within their courses. These pedagogies will make use of the outputs from the following two strategic
goals of the project.
Aim 4: 'to invest in the welfare and support of our students ...'
Most if not all higher education institutions across the UK are wrestling with problems of measuring/specifying student
attendance in ways which are both efficient and effective. As well as relating to issues of legal compliance (e.g. with health and
international students), this has important implications for student engagement. For example, the importance of identifying 'atrisk' students early in their course has been demonstrated in several initiatives. This depends on reliable data which is correlated
with engagement.
The University is currently exploring different technological solutions to the measurement of student attendance and is ideally
looking for some system which offers value-added benefits in terms of its potential use for educational purposes. For example, it
has been suggested that student response systems, if implemented systematically on an institution wide basis, could
automatically monitor attendance while providing lecturers with significant educational opportunities that do not require
additional labour-intensive tracking of students.
Our other key aims also fit very clearly into this programme, as for example –
“AIM 6 To deliver professional and customer-focused services and an appropriate and supportive infrastructure which
communicates, guides and governs effectively ...
 C18 By providing robust , innovative and supportive IT and administrative services and systems alongside processes
which are adaptable to change and which support and enable flexible modes of learning and working;
 C20 By providing high-quality and responsive student services and spaces which reflect the diversity of our student
population and their study and work patterns”
Our IT Strategy is informed by the Corporate Strategy and included a more detailed Vision Statement for how we will achieve
this:
“The Corporate Strategy 2009-14 will be enabled by emerging mobile, self-service capabilities provided by information
technologies and systems, which will deliver the three themes:


Web enabled campus supported by wireless and mobile computing (infrastructure)
Smart administration for flexible learners (administration)

Communicating in the information age (curriculum)”
In particular, we wish to develop our initiatives in mobile and flexible learning, alongside our commitment to inclusivity. As part
of this strategy, the University of Bradford has recently procured CampusM, a mobile service that uses a web page or native
application that gives access to University administration systems, alerts / news, Library and IT services. To implement this
solution we are required to expose existing systems as web services. There are other similar products (e.g. Blackboard Mobile
Centre) in use across the sector, and many other institutions developing web services. Rather than “re-inventing the wheel” we
propose to do a literature review of previous JISC projects to see if we can make use of any processes, products, techniques or
other methodologies that can help us to develop these services. As many Universities’ use or are looking at similar products or
have it may be that some of work will be directly transferable.
As well as the work that will specifically look at web services, we would also review more general mobile projects produced for
JISC in the hope of identifying work that can be done to compliment the rollout of the system such as further development of
our existing mobile web presence www.braduni.mobi
The end result of this project should be that students will be able to access administration systems, and teaching and learning
content from their personal mobile devices. It is envisaged that access will be provided through a combination of native mobile
applications and web based services. We believe that by improving access to systems in this way that it will improve
engagement on their courses and lead to improved retention which is a key strategic goal for our organisation.
By using the mobile systems in classes students will also be providing evidence of their participation and attendance in classes
and it’s possible that we could incorporate this into an attendance monitoring system.
This form must be returned to Lawrie Phipps, l.phipps@jisc.ac.uk, if you do not get an acknowledgement of receipt, please
contact Lawrie on 07775 900 635.