Staying afloat on the digital fall, resilience and new library and information professionals

Pisgah Falls TV. McKin BY: NC-SA

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of teaching one of the sessions on the Information Organisations and Their Management modules on Manchester Met’s Masters in Library and Information Management course. The module develops students’ understanding of the information organisation landscape. It encourages them to take a wide perspective on contexts in which their skills might be relevant, giving them the opportunity to develop their management knowledge and skills, including people skills such as leadership and teamworking.

I called the session “Libraries and Their Digital Offerings, Disruption and Resilience”.  I began by reflecting on my career development over the last 20 years in the context of a digitally disruptive society. I punctuated my career timeline with significant digital happenings that had taken place along the way.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         For example in the library I worked in as pre-professional trainee the Times Newspaper was on CD-Rom on the floor above, which could only be networked when somebody physically put the disc in. Now look where we are today in a world of mobile devices and media saturation.





I then followed with a series of group activities based on my own case studies which mapped to the Digital U values of the University project I am currently involved in:

• Communication, Collaborator & Participator:  using technology to network and develop working relationships and effectively communicating online - Case study: reading list upgrade communicating with suppliers at a distance using conferencing software
• Information & Data Handler: managing and interpreting data, as well as keeping it secure - Case study: collection management review, understanding data and communicating this to academics
• Creator and innovator: using a range of technologies for different activities - Case study: identifying technological solutions with limited resources, cloud solutions and open source
• Leaner and self developer: utilising different digital learning opportunities and using a range of online tools to participate in this - Case study: constructively developing knowledge in an new area using MOOCs and joining professional networks
• Digital ambassador: developing a positive digital profile and looking after personal health and safety in digital settings - Case study: how to select an area of expertise and building your professional profile    

The aim of the case studies was to help the students to identify the digital skills they had and would need acquire to make them resilient in the future digital library world. This was a collaborative digital exploration, I was really impressed by the innovative contributions of the cohort. As I have illustrated above the profession has changed considerably over the last 20 years in the public and private sectors, mainly due to digital disruption. New professionals have to be resilient with respect to addressing unexpected challenges, challenges that some had predicted but possibly not so soon and not so impactful. The group’s engagement revealed a prepared awareness and enthusiasm to promote their existing skills and to find ways to develop these. This showed a real commitment to the profession making the whole experience for me extremely rewarding, I felt an optimism for the profession knowing it will be in such good hands.  

Technically tetchy, hoping for more women digital leaders is it hopeless?

V McGarvey 2 Tetchy Pumpkins
CC-NC-SA

I know it's not Halloween but it was the best tetchy image I could find in my collection. I am a feminist, I follow loads of hashtag discussions @ women in tech. However, it is still really frustrating to see air punching moments when one more woman gets a CEO tech job, or a one-off award for a innovative enterprise when it should be the norm. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to work in and manage 2 progressive areas in HE, elearning and librarianship, the former male dominated the latter female, both areas have demonstrated great creativity in their use of technology. Even so I have observed across the sector that males still have a strong presence in the management of the digital and technical domains and this has made me tetchy but despite my tetchiness or should that be "techiness" I have hope.

With the swell of organisations supporting women's progression in the tech world and pressures within education to adopt more inclusive approaches to teaching technology, I think things may gradually change. This is also supported by the growth in the number of female led technology focused SMEs, particularly in the wearable market. These companies have been established by women too impatient to wait for the trickle of change.  Brighton based Brighton Digital Women founded in mid 2015 brings together women with a shared passion for digital. Eloise McInerney's  March 2016 blog post on digital leaders reducing the gender gap, referred to last year's government press release which reported that the proportion of women in the digital and creative industries falling  Despite this she injects some hope into the debate stating that "there are a growing number of dynamic, forward-thinking women in the UK digital sector who are not only successful in their own fields, but who are also leading and designing initiatives to get women and young people more excited about digital" She then goes on to profile 5 female leaders who are making an impact with innovative enterprises. A complimentary report is Elearnor Burn's article in the Computer Business Review which listed10 of the most successful women in UK technology. Burns says that although there are "a number of high profile tech leaders Gender equality is a fantasy in the business technology world - men outnumber women and it is apparently going to take around 100 odd years to reach gender parity".  This sounds pretty hopeless however Burns concludes that when we have women in positions of digital leadership, we have role models and role models with a voice. So am I still tetchy? When I see articles that surprisingly exude the isolated success of another female digital leader then yes, but if the article exemplifies hopeful illustrations of leading female role models in the disparate tech world, then I have hope, hope that we are moving closer to the norm.

Acknowledgements

5 Female Digital Leaders Working to Reduce the Gender Gap
29/03/2016 Eloise McInerney

10 of the most successful women in UK technology on influence, leadership, equality and being digital role models Eleanor Burns April 26 2016

This is a modern world: a framework for developing students' digital leadership skills

Bijmer Centrum Amsterdam V McGarvey BY-NC-SA

In June I was awarded a University Teaching Excellent Fellowship. This is a 2 year fellowship and my focus will be on the development of a digital leadership skills via an online multidisciplinary module for final year and postgraduate students, that can be repurposed for different subject areas, using badging for competency acquisition. The focus will be leadership behaviour rather than role. I will be using Staffordshire University's Digital U digital capability values, based on the JISC digital capability framework, which are:

• Communicator, collaborator and participator: using technology to network and develop working relationships and effectively communicating online 
• Information and data handler: managing and interpreting data, as well as keeping it secure
• Creator and innovator: using a range of technologies for different activities and creating digital artefacts and materials  
• Learner and self developer: utilising different digital learning opportunities and using a range of online tools to participate in this
• Ambassador: developing a positive digital profile and looking after personal health and safety in digital settings

Proof of concept will be demonstrated via a mini MOOC for academic staff, which will develop their digital leadership skills and will enable them to be involved in the development of the module so that it is of a quality to deliver to students.

Wan NG at the Sydney University of Technology, has undertaken extensive work on digital literacies, saying that leaders in today’s world need to be digital literate, this means the ability to adapt to new and emerging technologies quickly and being able to engage with the new methods of communication that arise. This literacy includes an intersection of technical (online interfaces, applications), cognitive (critically thinking), and social– emotional (netiquette, safety) dimensions in digital literacy

Edinburgh University Business School's Dr Jim Hamill has stated that transforming digitally is the number one business challenge facing organisations today. Staying relevant in a digital world is the number one personal challenge we all face. We need leaders who possess both the confidence and personal skills to drive digital-led organisational change

Josie Ahlquist's 2014 article, Trending Now: Digital Leadership Education Using Social Media and Journal of Leadership, affirms that leadership educators are charged with preparing students to be relevant and productive citizens; capable of taking on the challenges our society has in store. Technology is a particular challenge that students have to deal with as it is all pervasive, can be disruptive and ever changing,which requires flexibility and being able to adapt. Ahlquist has developed a digital leadership framework, which has 10 competencies that equip students for digital disruptive world, which I will also look at integrating.    

    

1. Awareness of emerging technologies 

2. Digital content analysis and evaluation 

3. Online self awareness 

4. Establishing personal values, privacy, time management 

5. Cultivating professional strategic career online branding 

6. Building personal learning network 

7. Cyber conflict resolution and mediation – identification of negative behaviour 

8. Digital decision making strategies based on positive authentic constructive activity 

9. Integration of digital technologies into leadership presence – common activities encouraging other leaders leading by example 

10. Using social media for the social good 

The aim will be to engage students with the concept that leadership is not only role driven but about showing leadership within a given role. Developing a core set of competencies which they could possibly illustrate in a portfolio of evidence and also applying social change model which integrates reflection. This will develop resilient individuals that are prepared to enter digital world they are about to enter, that can show digital leadership in their given role.

Ahlquist, J., 2014. Trending now: Digital leadership education using social media and the social change model. Journal of Leadership Studies, 8(2), pp.57-60.

  

JISC Digifest 16 Blog (better late than never)

My JISC Digifest blog is available on the Staffordshire University Digital U project blog.  Together with recent blogs I have written for the project.

Wonderful Smart Copenhagen

Now I'll Have Nyhavn TV.McKin cc by: NC-SA

Last weekend I had the pleasure of making my first visit to the aptly described wonderful Copenhagen. Truly the smartest city I have ever visited and one of the politest. A place that is so obviously networked both virtually and geographically, with just a 20 minute metro ride from the airport to the city centre, as well as technologically driven but not technologically determined or is it?. I observed that the use of cash is a rarity, financial exchange for goods is often via a card or quite commonly via a smart app. Cyclists have safe parallel carved highways through the city, eradicating competition with motorists.  The WiFi in our apartment was superfast, and ubiquitous, on coaches, in shops and bars. I even saw a Bluetooth  app driven coffee machine in one of the bars, the barman was under-impressed by my over-impressed comments, "it's just a box, bluetooth and an app, it's not that difficult" he said.  Even the commentary on our pleasure boat cruise around the city was GPS driven. (By the way did you know that Bluetooth invented by Ericsson was named after the tenth-century Danish king Harald Bluetooth).

Needless to say when I got back to the UK I did a little bit of research on Copenhagen's Smart City credentials. In 2014 Copenhagen won the world's smart city award for its Connecting Plan, using of wireless data from cell phones, GPS’s in busses and sensors in sewers and in rubbish bins to reduce, congestion, air pollution and CO2-emissions. There is also the ambition that by 2018 travel time on buses and by cycling will be reduced by 10%, where as car travel will remain the same. (Smart Circle Becoming a Smart City is not a goal in itself)

However, the fear associated with this, is the challenge to individual privacy. Liv Holm Carlsen's 2014 article Copenhagen's Smart City Plans Pressure Citizen's Privacy in http://www.kommunikationsforening.dk/ argues that Copenhagen's strategic implementation requires a "substantial surveillance infrastructure diminishing the sphere of privacy" for the citizens.  She states that the objects that we carry are plugged into this infrastructure with every transaction logged therefore citizens should have an opportunity to debate how this data is being used.  Carlsen contends that the Copenhagen's Smart City pre-feasibility report focused on the economic and social benefits but "did not did not particularly shed light on the political, human and psychological parameters that will be affected by a smart initiative."

Another 2014 article in the Guardian "The truth about smart cities: ‘In the end, they will destroy democracy"   reporting on the Future Cities summit also commented on the challenge of Smart Cities to individual privacy. Referring to Jonathan Rez of the University of New South Wales, who suggested "that a smarter way to build cities might be for architects and urban planners to have psychologists and ethnographers on the team.” so that technologists can get a better understanding of citizens.  Last week Max Opry's article "Adelaide to become Australia's first smart city but could lose out on privacy" again in the Guardian also outlined the fears of the misuse of data.

For many this may seem far away from home but already MOOCs are awash with references to Smart Cities, IOT and Big Data. Last year the Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey's oppening address to The Telegraph's Smart Cities Conference 2015 referred to a range of Smart City initiatives throughout the UK. The Nesta Report Rethinking Smart Cities From the Groundup  proposes that the smart city vision often fails to recognise the role that behaviour and culture play in the way cities work (p.14). However, the word privacy only appears once in the description of D–CENT a Europe–wide, EU–funded project creating decentralised and privacy–aware applications for direct democracy and economic empowerment.

The smart city is an extremely challenging digital paradigm for our time. It is evident how accessing data can improve the environment making it greener and leading the way to more sustainable urban initiatives. However, the privacy debate adds even more challenges identifying a need for more public consultation.

So next time you switch location on, on your mobile device, think about how your data is adding to the big data pool, what do you think about this, does it matter, do you care? For me I am now slightly ambivalent reflecting on how my short visit to to the fabulous city of Copenhagen has contributed to its smart analytics via my digital footprint and whether this really matters to me if the result is an improved city experience.

Looking into the sun, effective learning

Sun Set in December Zandvoort Beach The Netherlands
Vicki McGarvey BY-NC-SA

When you look directly into the sun, first you see the beauty and then your eyes start to hurt. This is how I feel sometimes when I try to examine learning processes. Learning can be a wonderful experience however studying effective learning can metaphorically cause you eye strain. Trying to unravel what is effective learning is a complex business, however, this what the University College of London's Coursera delivered MOOC, What Future for Education, is trying to undertake.

This is a self paced MOOC. Given that my completion rate for MOOCs is low compared to my enrolment rate, I am dipping into this, taking the pressure of myself by not completing all the assessed pieces and just engaging with the content. Reflection is an integral part of the course and in the first week, which concentrated on how we learn, we were asked to reflect on successful and unsuccessful learning experiences, as well as our preferred way of learning.

From the age of 7, when I entered a streamed middle school, I stopped enjoying school.  Even though I was in the top stream, I spent most of the years up until high school on the bottom table because academically I found school a challenge. The bottom table was also the naughty table, where the misbehaved were demoted to.  This experience for a long time had an impact on how I saw myself academically and to a certain extent has created a small lifelong dent in my educational confidence. In the 1970s, I saw my inability to keep up with two thirds of my classmates as my fault, now with hindsight and having more knowledge of the learning process, I realise that education was to blame. I am a constructivist leaner and I like to interact whilst learning, I have a good cultural memory, I am not great at remembering details, tests at school were a nightmare for me. My parents said they found it frustrating at the time, they could not understand how I could be so verbally articulate outside of school, but still continue to struggle academically.  My mum even asked if I could be put in a lower stream so that I could be nearer the top of the class, which the teacher reassuringly said was not a good idea.

I continued to be streamed right through high school, and still thought myself academically average, Admittedly I do not have a packed case of O'levels and A'levels, but I got a good degree, an MED and have done well in my professional life, mainly because I think work suits my learning style. Despite this I often say I am academically average, which annoys my husband and quite rightly so. For me, my successes are a result of effective learning, so unsurprisingly I was better at sociology than physics. My husband's education journey was far more challenging, working class Irish parents, failed eleven plus and employment on building sites until his late twenties. This was followed by an educational flourish. Thanks to a funded education access scheme and a free degree, education changed his life. He and many of his peers went on to get good degrees, followed by postgraduate qualifications, in my husband's case two masters. They have continued to make major contributions to society in various professions. This is all because education helped them to escape the predestined career that selective education had planned for them. From labourer to social changer, now that is a wonderful sight for sore eyes.


For more on the horrors of streaming please see:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/25/school-streaming-pupils-english-primaries