Openness in HE and the unprecedented student admissions cycle in 2020
The objective of this assignment is to demonstrate a critical understanding of openness in HE and show how it relates to current practices, policies or cultures. Having read other examples of OKHE2, my peers use their own practice to inform their opinions. At times I have found it difficult to relate open knowledge to my role at the University of Manchester and speaking to others in similar supportive roles, I know I am not alone. I have often asked myself the same question, which Sam asks in her OKHE1 submission, ‘Can I be open as an administrator?’ She goes on to say that “I am open as much as I am able to be, I am confined to the guides, policies and practices of my Line Manager, her Line Manager, the Department, the Faculty and so on”. In a similar role to Sam, I completely agree.
For my OKHE1 assignment, submitted at the end of May I thought about how important ‘open learning’ was to me and to my role in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) as a PGT Admissions, Recruitment and Conversion Administrator (especially in the current climate.) Obviously 2020 has been a challenging time for many ‘office’ workers, with the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) as a worldwide pandemic and its subsequent consequences. I concluded that ‘open resources are useful and have helped to provide me with a sense of belonging in these turbulent times’.
What is Openness?
Openness is a reaction to the 1963 Robbins Principle, which still remains at the forefront of HE policy. Thankfully for working class people like myself, Lord Robbins said that University places ‘should be available to all who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so,’ which opposed the viewpoint at the time. Currently, with 50% of the UK population attending University (a suggested target for 2019 declared in 1999 by Tony Blair) compared to 15% in 1980 and 25% in 1990 the HE system has developed a great deal and along with the post-1992 ‘new’ Universities it has transformed radically since 1963. These advancements, along with the growth and mainstream use of technology, have nudged the Open Movement in Higher Education. This includes the introduction of OERs, MOOCs and e-textbooks.
MOOCS
“Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are online university short courses aimed at making higher education more accessible to more people. Instead of physically attending lectures and seminars or hitting the library, you complete the course usually over a set number of weeks using university materials and resources posted online.” (The UniGuide).
The first MOOCs were innovative, driven by new technology and were free of charge. These days, they are not. Kez, in his OKHE2 submission describes the majority of MOOC users as ‘already educated’ and MOOCs tend to attract ‘already proficient independent lifelong learners’. Sharon says in her OKHE2 submission says that they have become ‘monetised and more closed’. The UoM offer MOOCs through Coursera and FutureLearn. Taking a look at some of the courses available for instance, Clinical Bioinformatics: Unlocking Genomics in Healthcare I agree with Kez, a course not for the mainstream or the less educated and more appropriate for post grads for a specific, tailored specialism.
OER
“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium — digital or otherwise — that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.” (UNESCO, 2019).
Conole and Brown (2018) claim that digital technologies are the ‘key and most commonly accepted affordance’ to enable open practice. OER allow student and teacher the flexibility to co-create their learning experience. According to Wiley’s research, the 5R permissions are: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute. Students benefit from OER as it provides access to unlimited content, improving instruction and saving on the cost of expensive textbooks.
The growth of MOOCs and OER is the direct consequence of the technology revolution and the mainstream use in the ‘digital technologies’ now available to us. In 2020 there are nearly 4.57 billion internet users which is 59% of the global population. A study in January 2019 disclosed that 98% of students have been recorded to have a smart phone. It is with no surprise that on 19th August 2020 Apple became Wall Street’s first $2tn company since it started in 1980 ‘only two years after becoming the first company to be valued at $1tn by Wall Street’.
From a more personal perspective, the use of digital technology and access to the internet has allowed it possible for me to work from home. Due to COVID 19 in March 2020 I went to work as normal, to be sent home at 2pm with a UoM laptop, a mouse, an extra monitor and a carrier bag of cables. For the first time in my career, I was asked and expected to work from home for the foreseeable future. I haven’t been back to campus since then and it is now the end of August. I am surprised to have been able to complete my admissions work to the same standard remotely, both operationally and technologically. During this time I have relied heavily on my digital capabilities and have coped well to deliver the same level of work as I would have in the office. In my opinion, it has proved that flexible working, for ALL grades of job can be a successful model.
Understandably, the emergence of new technology helps to drive innovations in HE, which is particularly relevant in 2020. From a student admissions point of view my team and I have embraced new and effective ways to communicate remotely with each other. We have also successfully communicated with applicants and offer holders globally, all of whom have been affected at different stages of the pandemic depending on location. Luckily the technological tools available to us have allowed myself and the team to successfully respond to the crisis.
A negative aspect to this new way of working is knowing when to ‘switch off’. It is important to maintain a work-life balance, which is difficult when work and home have blurred lines. Many reports have been written about the importance of digital wellbeing on remote workers. Jisc’s definition, “considers the impact of technologies and digital services on people’s mental, physical and emotional health” and this model identifies four aspects of digital wellbeing for individuals:
Jisc deliver an online workshop which focuses on ‘digital identity and wellbeing’ and other similar online courses are also available. In my opinion this would be beneficial to protect remote workers at a time where remote working can feel overwhelming, without due care taken.
Does Open Knowledge exist in the process of student recruitment?
OERs provide ‘economies of scale’ Baranuik (2018). In Recruitment and Admissions we had to find a way to replicate the UCAS open day that takes place in June. The UCAS open day is designed for potential UG students to visit the department, the accommodation and the city. Normally we plan a full schedule of lectures, tours, meet and greets and goodie bags of freebies. Students are able to get a feel for the course and the surroundings and can often make their UCAS first choice based on the success of such a day.
Without face-to-face interaction our virtual UG open day was a limited experience and anticipating this, we used the strapline ‘Explore undergraduate life from your own home’. This entailed a week of events including virtual tours, talks on demand and options to chat with staff and current students. Applicants were encouraged to join us on line for live Q&A’s and photo tours. We created new pages of rich content dedicated to discovering the campus and exploring the city. These webpages are crowded with inspirational short video clips of students, the culture, Manchester heritage and quotes. We were able to promote such an event by using Twitter, Instagram and Facebook along with the usual channels via email using Communigate.
The webpages presented were live, informative, accessible and motivating. They were also visually pleasing allowing visual learners to understand what is available through watching engaging material. We used high quality and dynamic images, which reflect the expectations of their own normal digital activities which according to Jess Power and Vidya Kannara is ‘fast, visually pleasing and resilient’.
The advantages of this is that although we were forced to address this differently, we can repeat and redistribute for the October UCAS open day with little extra effort. This relates to a term that I have come across many times in other OKHE1 submissions that ‘you don’t have to reinvent the wheel’. Richard says in OKHE1- ‘Discussing Openness in Education’ submission that “having open educational resources is an enormous advantage as teachers don’t need to remake things that are already there… having the availability to use those materials can help the teaching experience”. In Dani’s ‘Should I be more open?’ submission he demonstrated a similar point of view and illustrated it by using this image:
In July I helped to arrange multiple subject specific webinars using the software GoToWebinar for our overseas Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) offer holders in an attempt to convince them that travelling and studying abroad was still a possibility.
The live webinars were recorded and deployed online for students to attend or view at a later date. Along with a Program Director, a student ambassador and a member of the Teaching and Learning team we answered many questions. This recruitment and conversion activity was targeted to the specific subject and students received a robust insight into the course content and were able to virtually meet with leading researchers in the field. They were also given the opportunity to meet with current and former students who gave a presentation on their Manchester experience and how they were coping with COVID and how they had been supported through it by the University of Manchester and its network. This is a good example of how I have used and shared open knowledge.
In the department of MACE we have also successfully adopted the Unibuddy scheme. This facility allows potential applicants to chat with current student ambassadors who make themselves available to answer questions online. Unibuddy is student focused and is recognised by other Universities and UCAS. With the inclusive nature of peer-to-peer communication applicants are able to gain useful and authentic information to be able to make informed decisions.
According to the CEO, Diego Fanara, Unibuddy was ‘born out of my own frustration in trying to make my university choice’ and has grown since their launch in 2017 from having 5 Universities to 250 institutions worldwide ‘recognising the value of digital peer-to-peer’. This type of open practice is changing the way applicants make their decisions. Engaging the applicant with up-to-date information, which will avoid further Google searches, causing user distraction or disengagement. An applicant can also join an existing relevant chat to gain information that their peers have already initiated.
The new reality for 2020
There is a new reality for HE. The UoM and other Universities worldwide have had to re-evaluate their teaching methods and design new strategies to cope with the impact of COVID and the ever changes rules around it. In the department of MACE overseas students, with a minimum level of overall 5.5 in their International English Language Test (IELTS) now have the option to complete a 10 week pre sessional English course. This taught course is a way to increase that score to the minimum entry requirement of 6.5. The students arrive 10 weeks prior to their main course starting to complete the course and to get acquainted with the City.
The University Language Centre (ULC) recently agreed to deliver courses via distance learning as a way of halting the arrival of the overseas students allowing the situation to improve. Rather this than losing the students altogether due to their English qualification and finding a way for those student to continue with their MSc as safely as possible. Without Blackboard, or another virtual learning environment and the technology required this would have been impossible. COVID has sped up the necessity for blended and distance learning at a rate that no one expected and will have perhaps change teaching and learning methods for good. Using Blackboard to support online communities of practice will be vital in creating a stable environment, to allow the learner and the lecturer to interact, providing crucial two way contact. OER facilitates this.
The numbers:
Analysing the facts, it seems that despite everything, students are still keen to attend University. According to a UCAS tweet on the 9th July, University applications increased by 17% between 23rd March 2020 and 30 June 2020–54,810 applications compared to 46,770 in the equivalent period in 2019.
It was a controversial A Level results as UG teams worked hard to meet UG targets and likewise for Foundation Year teams. Following the Government announcement (17 Aug) to U-turn on the contentious algorithm method resulting in downing-grading 40% of results the President & Vice Chancellor of the UoM, Dame Nancy Rothwell issued a statement promising to honour not only the places that were confirmed on the day but also to those who have now achieved the grades required. So numbers have increased. This is if capacity allows and some deferrals will be necessary. Another fact that was not predicted at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak.
I am not surprised that Universities met their targets. It is likely to be connected to the uncertain job market and reduced opportunities to travel or take a gap year. Young people are resilient and will find ways to overcome adversity. In fact, it is their rite of passage. Research proves that in a recession, education is often the only answer and a better educated workforce will boost the economy having a ‘knock-on beneficial effect on society’s health, crime rate, election voting and volunteering’. This sounds very promising if you have the privilege of waiting for this up-rise.
I know from a personal perspective, my colleagues and I have worked tirelessly to compensate for the possibility that our offer holders in MACE may choose to withdraw or defer under the current circumstances. MACE usually has a large intake of overseas students and it is this demographic who understandably have concerns about travel and health. In order to innovate our offer holders we have had to radically adapt. We have had to create and distribute information to communicate to them in new ways to respect lockdown laws and rules around social distancing.
In summary, lockdown has been a scary time due to the unpredictable job market and looming recession. Responding to the pandemic quickly but safely by protecting our students and staff has been challenging. But with innovative approaches to flexible working, the use of digital technology and access to open knowledge, so far myself, and my team have been as successful as ever. As a non-academic working at the UoM, I have enjoyed completing this unit despite initially finding it difficult to apply open knowledge to my work. However, recent events have presented me with opportunities to experiment with OER, which has really helped and supported the unprecedented 2020 student admissions cycle.
