Webcasting CILIP events and the CILIP CDG collaboration on webcasting CILIP Qualifications Event

This could equally have been titled ‘Watching London Evening Events from Glasgow Afternoons In The Office Is Lovely’!

Yesterday I FINALLY got the worktime peace to watch the recorded CILIP CDG event on Certification, Chartership, Revalidation and Beyond from last month. A wide-ranging event that concentrated on portfolio building techniques useful for all CILIP qualifications.

Background

In the last few months there’s been a few CILIP experiments at webcasting CILIP events live (the CILIP AGM in September) and last month at webcasting live while also recording events (e.g. this event and the eHustings for the CILIP Trustee Elections).

Now, I’ve attended a fair number of these qualifications and portfolio building events physically down the years in a whole variety of locations, initially as Candidate, and then subsequently as Speaker at various (being a long-time CILIP quals specialist even if I don’t have the time I used to have to give to it anymore).  So I was really curious about how it would come across taking a physical event replicated in main components around the country regularly and broadcasting it as a live webcast.

So what’s different about watching it as a live webcast?

I had tried to watch the qualifications event live over the websteam, but I got interrupted so much work-wise (joys of open plan offices) that I called a halt to that plan as I was missing a lot more than I was catching which was a bit frustrating.  Watching the recorded version at a very quiet date seemed a lot more conducive to concentration!

So watching it live was quite difficult for me, but it did allow the real-time interaction of the ‘viewing’ community and being able to see what they were commenting as we watched. The questions of the ‘viewing’ community were also picked up very well in the room real time and fed into the discussion and asked, so there was interaction between real and virtual world, there were answers.  Which was all really good.

How does that compare in experience to watching the recording later instead?

Viewing it over a month after it actually took place was actually excellent.

I love the fact that –

• It’s there for anyone who can’t make a physical event for whatever reason.
• It can be accessed anytime from any location as long as the IT set-up to view it is there.  

This is really important as there are Candidates all over the country and abroad for whom this is valuable useful content. New Candidates start the process all the time, it may be some time before there’s a course physically close to them that runs, and that might not be practical to attend for various reasons.

Specific Benefits of  Recorded Webcast Over Physical Attendance

Having watched it I also think it gives some different benefits to what you get out of the actual event compared to attending in real time. I definitely interacted slightly differently with it.

• It can be viewed whole, or done in bits if you’re flagging.
• You can pause proceedings at any time to catch up in your scribbled note-taking.
• You can pause while you go have a quick look at that web resource or document that’s just been mentioned while you’re actually thinking about it.
• You can pause for reflection on something interesting that was said that has a specific resonance for you before you lose the thought.
• You can easily go back a few minutes if you didn’t quite catch the end of a segment.
• You can go back and re-view particularly relevant parts of it another time to remind yourself of key aspects you’re currently working on.

Does it replicate entirely the experience of physically attending an event? 

Well no, it doesn’t. The physical event has benefits that the webcast view cannot replicate.

• Ability to meet fellow Candidates in person and chat to them and set up informal networks.
• Ability to look at physical Portfolios that have been successful (there are various ones on the CILIP website, but it’s not the same as leafing through something).
• Actually physically meeting key people involved in delivering the qualification (e.g. Qualifications Adviser).
• Can see the actual powerpoint slides and the presenter (though the powerpoint is on the CILIP website so can fairly easily access both at same time if watching online but more fiddly).
• Can participate in the groupwork and individual work exercises. This section of the overall event wasn’t broadcast as webinar because it wouldn’t have worked as a straight webcast, or not so easily.  It’s probably do’able, but it would require a bit of thought on how easiest to do it and integrate.
• Coffee breaks in the programme seem a lot less long when you’re actually there. With the webinar view the coffee break was three quarters of the way through the parts of the event being broadcast over the web, but half-way through for physical delegates doing the workshop elements. So on the webinar view there’s kind of a lot of twiddling thumbs as you can’t just go for coffee and gab with fellow attendees the same way, and then there was a very short session for the second part.

Conclusion

While the physical event and the webcast cover much of the same material the experience is different and not all aspects of the course are catered for by the webcast. However the webcast has advantages over the physical experience too as discussed above. 

So I think it comes down to try and attend a course that is running locally (because they all have variations, for all they seek to reinforce the same key things) if possible, but the webcast is a really good reminder that can be gone back to at any point to be used in addition.

If a physical course just isn’t very feasible it’s also the next best thing to view this, it replicates a lot of the experience content-wise.

This event has had over 400 views so far. That has to be worthwhile.

By the by....

If after this discussion of Physical v Virtual attendance you're now wondering what the actual content of the events is...

The courses essentially talk Candidates through the key qualifications, what’s involved in them, highlight key things you need to know and be aware of, discuss where the sources of help and support and additional guidance are, what the process is, how to put together portfolios that meet the requirements and the award criteria, why it all matters. The courses  highlight common elements across qualifications in terms of what is required to be submitted and concentrate on demystifying those. They often have workshop elements to them. Courses may be on one specific qualification or they may discuss a whole range as this one did.  There are always local variations in content and amount of detail depending who's speaking on what for what intended audience.  But core aspects are covered by them all.

The IDOX Open Day, December 2011

IDOX Information Services is a division of IDOX, a company that provides  Information Solutions, Information Services, technical support and evidential basis for policy formulation primarily for the public sector, but is also used by private companies.

IDOX usually has an Open Day around December each year in the Glasgow office, a chance for subscribers to their various services to go in, meet people, hear about the latest developments.  This year there were more presentation-type aspects to the afternoon so the below is a quick gab through these.

IDOX Overview

We started with an overview of IDOX and Information Services and the impact of the economic environment upon their clients and their own business and the changing information landscape necessitating a need to review their offer and services.  Therefore there is work underway to evolve the existing service e.g. taking account of social media through tweeting and a new blog coming, adding on related produces and  services e.g. becoming an accredited training provider.

First Presentation – value of information services and the evolving IDOX Information Service

The first presentation was on the value of information services generally and how the IDOX Information Service can help their clients deliver their own agendas. It talked through the changes in the information landscape with an emphasis on the use of good information and research to underpin policy formulation which was given funding to make possible.  It was noted that link had disappeared under recent and continuing funding pressures, much less new information and research was being produced and there was a need for intelligent use of what already existed so information was best fit – correct, up-to-date, clear, understandable, accessible, concise.  Information specialists save time and money to organisations by giving quality assessment and assurance to information and using their skills to save staff time elsewhere in the organisation.  Downsizing in organisations has meant a lot of staff have been lost along with their knowledge, skills and expertise, corporate memory is lost, people start to repeat themselves and spending money on it without realising.

In response to all these pressures IDOX would still give a full library service, but it was also branching out increasingly to give information on funding and grants, produce CPD accredited training, produce products that could be sold independently to the market e.g. GRANTfinder.

Second Presentation – Use of Communities of Practice in local government

The second presentation was by Mike McLean, Head of Knowledge Management at The Improvement Service.  He was talking about the use of knowledge management, what it brought to his organisation, and how they were utilising Communities of Practice on an IT platform to bring people and expertise together at a time of severe pressure on local government and finance.

The Improvement Service assists local government in Scotland. The local government sector generally is huge in the UK (employing 2.1 million people, 370 councils, providing 700 services in the UK) to improve their practices and services in a collaborative manner.  The speaker talked through why knowledge management is important and how it can be used generally before concentrating on the use of Communities of Practice (CoPs).  He talked us through the use of the CoP platform they had built and noted it had a very slow take-up initially in December 2007 but now had 110,000 people registered on it (of which 10,500 were in Scotland), 2,200 Committees were present on it, it had members from every Council in the UK.

He noted that the actual platform is locked down in design and layout, it cannot be changed by individuals, , no training is given to use it though support is given to people acting as facilitators, anyone with a local authority connection can register to use it, it has a single sign-in, up-dates are linked to email.  It consists of core area’s – forum, events (used for event planning, circulating agendas, documents etc.), new members, library, wikis (for document collaboration etc), blogs (limited to specific people or open to whole platform).

He talked about the key uses of the CoP (and the accompanying benefits too), from team workspaces, to responses to government consultations, to space to host online conferences. 

The online conferences struck me as particularly good, he noted that there was nothing stopping willing international speakers giving talks online, never mind local ones, with bookings and agenda circulated first, materials posted up, and comments taken which the speaker responded to in a timescale afterwards.  Everything available afterwards through the CoP. No direct expenses for the much distributed delegate list geographically, no travel time or expense for anyone, least break in own work achievable, no inconvenience. As he noted it’s even good for carbon footprints and many Councils are no longer authorising travel expenses outside their own boundaries as part of cost control so there needs to be other ways of bringing people together.

His list for a good Community of Practice was:-

Clear purpose on what it is to be used to do.

Creating a safe and trusted environment.

Commited core group of active participants.

Being motivated.

Knowing the needs of participants.

Having a clear action plan with activity to meet needs.

Blending face-to-face and online activity.

Good active facilitation.

He ended with discussing the new Knowledge Hub they had under development.

Pondering issues in copyright and CLA Licences

In true end of year fashion I’m thinking I should ponder forth on some of the things I’ve attended in the last month or so. Somehow I like to tidy off outstanding strands of one year before really contemplating the next one.

Copyright Webinar

I attended the Copyright Webinar for Scotland’s Colleges last month. This was given by Alan Rae, Copyright Consultant to Scotland’s Colleges who has a new blog here.

Mostly what attracted me to this was the fact it was a free webinar I could access from my desk, on an ever-relevant subject, but one which would come at it from an angle I was unfamiliar with (that of Further Education) which might give an interesting different perspective on some perennial issues.  I’ve also been trying to do more webinar type things recently, so it also fitted in with that initiative too!  All in all it was very enjoyable and really useful to hear another perspective, a lot of the issues are fairly common to all sectors.

The session was split into three main parts. 

CLA Licences and the rights they can (and can't) grant and potential changes

The first part dealt with the CLA and the on-going re-negotiation of their CLA licence Scotland’s Colleges are currently going through.  This is where I felt myself on thinnest ground listening to it all as it’s not my sectoral background (it’s a long way from the type of CLA licences I deal in in a law firm).  As the CLA Law Licence is in the middle of being re-negotiated it’s interesting to hear what’s happening with licences being re-negotiated in other sectors and how it is being approached there.  In this case it seemed to be more about aligning the new licence more to the existing Schools one rather than to HE.

The discussion gave me an appreciation of how entirely different the component parts that make up calculating a licence in education are from the commercial world and the sheer volume and size of the CLA licence in that context.  Scotland’s Colleges spend over one million a year on copyright currently, 600k of that being on the CLA Licence.

Other aspects of the discussion were a lot more familiar such as the extent to which (or not) a CLA licence is appropriate or necessary and in what circumstances and the cost issues. How do we deal with ‘born digital’ resources (through contractual terms and conditions mainly, do we want a CLA solution for as well, what if it’s more stringent?).  Do we need a CLA solution for free to view websites or in some contexts such as education can alternative resources be utilised or fair dealing exceptions or whether websites own terms and conditions will cover.

There was discussion of the potential usefulness of a web logging tool to solve perennial disputes about whether organisations pay more than they use or whether there is under-reporting during official CLA audits.

Social networks and copyright

This was mainly going over established ground that can’t re-use third party material unless have some form of licence, permission or legal defence no matter where it is posted.

There was interesting discussion of different approaches between different social sites however from YouTube increasingly using cease and desist through to Flickr setting up a channel for Creative Commons use material.  The Flickr discussion was interesting as I’ve been meaning to have a proper look at Creative Commons.  Usually Creative Commons licences exclude use for commercial purposes so as a law firm librarian that’s pretty much it. Unless it can be argued the precise use is non-commercial, but that’s difficult.  However I’ve been meaning to have a bit of a looksee at Creative Commons just from a ‘useful to know about’ generally viewpoint.  One for the New Year I think!

Digitising for VLEs

This part was back to can’t reformat unless you have some form of explicit agreed licence, permission or legal defence. Need to take care when sharing resources.

Joyous BL…

I am racing around like a mad thing between too much schedule and things needing done - as ever...

In the vague seconds between all of which there is this little thing called Christmas on top (gulp), which also has a deadline helpfully enough (sighs), traditionally 25 December each year.

Being both running about like the proverbial xmas turkey, and behind still as ever despite it, I am most grateful for the BL Xmas e-cards this year as I Christmas at horrendous speed. Especially for people I can’t quite find physical addresses for to hand and don’t have time to go hunting as they’ll be late if I do(!).

So seasonal felicitations to the British Library!

Much appreciated!

The Cylons had A Plan, and so did CPD23….

Background

The 23 Things for Professional Development course ran during Summer 2011. It was split into weeks with one or more Things allocated per week. Participants wrote a discursive blog post for each ‘Thing’ or part Thing to evidence completion of each item. Where a Thing or week comprised of multiple aspects I have occasionally split a Thing over multiple posts.

As I did the programme somewhat out-of-order and in time what my CPD23 posts relate to will not be obvious(!) the below is an index post essentially of what each Thing was linked to my entry for it on this blog.

Yes, I’m in Xmas blog  tidy-up mode!

The Plan

Week 1 (20th June) - Blogging

Thing 1: Create your own blog, write about what you hope to get out of the programme.

Thing 2: Explore other blogs and get to know some of the other cpd23-ers.

Thing 3: Consider your personal brand

Thing 4: RSS feeds, Twitter, Pushnote

Thing 5: Reflective practice

Thing 6: Online networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, LISNPN, LATNetwork, CILIP Communities)

Thing 7: National/Regional groups, Special interest groups and looking outside the library sphere

Thing 8: Google Calendar

Thing 9: Evernote

Thing 10: Graduate traineeships, Masters degrees, Chartership, Accreditation

Thing 11: Mentoring

Thing 12: Putting the social into social media 

Thing 13: Google Docs, Wikis & Dropbox

Thing 14: Zotero / Mendeley / citeulike

Thing 15: Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events

Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published.

Thing 17: Prezi / data visualisation / slideshare 

Thing 18: Jing / screen capture / podcasts (making and following them)

Thing 19: Some time to think about how you might integrate the Things so far into your workflow and routines.

Thing 20: Library Day in the Life and Library Routes/Roots 

Thing 21: How to identify your strengths, how to capitalise on your interests, how to write something eyecatching that meets job specs. 

Thing 22: Volunteering to get experience 

Thing 23: What have you learnt and where do you want to go from here?

Once you've finished

Feedback and certificates (certificate sign up ends on 30 November 2011!)