Implementing and Managing a Digital Education Service
- Carol Elston
- Nov 2, 2022
- 2 min read
Welcome to my Blog. This first post considers the role of a digital education service within higher education, although the approaches discussed could be equally applicable to further education or to other university services.
A year has passed since I left my role as Director, Digital Education Service at the University of Leeds. During this past year I have found digital education discussions on social media to be varied and rich. Threads explore some new challenges, but there are also topics which seem to circle around, in some cases for many years. I certainly don’t have the answers to these challenges, new or old, but I do have experience of managing some of the resulting complexities facing those leading digital education services. I would like to share some of these experiences to add a more practical response to the mix. It is difficult to know whether my approaches will be of any help, but one of the joys of social media is that you have the choice to explore or ignore.
Digital education is now embedded within most universities, sometimes centralised but often disparate. The challenge facing leaders is how to provide a consistent approach to maximise efficiency, minimise confusion and to generate a coherent community of practice for digital education staff. My advice would be to start by providing a digital education service definition, discussed, and agreed institution wide. It is vital that the service is defined by aligning the digital education provision to the overriding strategy.
This is not a five minute, back of an envelope task, it takes time and several iterations. It also needs collaboration and buy-in from senior stakeholders. To provide more context and detail I have written an article which comprises a summary, to serve as a reminder for the initiated, followed by more in-depth examples for those starting out. I have linked to a PDF version but if this is not accessible, please get in contact and I can provide the document in an alternative format.
If you find this article useful, I would be happy to use this blog to expand on any aspect, just let me know in the comments if this would be helpful.
My second post is prompted by recent discussions about the relationships between universities and external online platform partners. What did FutureLearn ever do for us?, is my personal reflection. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
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