The Lesson from the Sex App

They got it – phewf.

For those of your poised at the edge of your seats wondering what the hell I was on about yesterday when I introduced the Sex App Video.

It was this:

The campaign is brilliant and was genuinely successful. This group in Stokholm wanted to improve sexual health among young people and the campaign led to a 39% increase in the number intending to use condoms. Excellent.

But what really struck me was the willingness of these people to share this amount of data. 5,900 people went through this process:

1. find out about app
2. download app
3. fill in personal information about yourself
4. find a partner willing to use it with you
5. Use the app during sex
6. remember to turn on before sex
7. remember to turn off at the end of sex
8. upload highly personal information to a public website
9. compare and contrast their sexual virility with their peers

I find that fascinating and very inspiring. Not because I have any interest whatsoever in the sexual behaviour of young Swedes, but because that amount of people were THAT willing and practically eager to share that amount of highly personal data.

It was for a good cause and a is an excellent case study in budge theory, because it achieved its main aim.

This interests me because I wonder how much this principle could be used by Universities. We are extremely keen to get data and information from students, we are infinitely eager to know and understand more about the highly complex and diverse student body that exists on our campuses. But we have hit a wall on surveys and focus groups. Students just don’t take part any more, they are not interested.

This app shows that if you work on something, put a bit of creativity into it, make it fun, interesting and convenient people are willing to share all sorts of information about themselves. Time to get our thinking caps. What sort of app could be created to gather intelligence from our students, so that we can understand them better.

Meeting student expectations – Lessons from the Sex App?!

I’m on an early train from Exeter to Leeds. I’m one of the keynote speakers at their annual student education conference, the topic is a good one “Great Expectations”, I’ll taking about how we identify, set and meet those expectations in the £9k environment.

I’m looking forward to it, there are plenty of interesting speakers and workshops lined up. The thrust of my argument will be that there are four things any University must do if it is to successfully meet the growing expectations of its students:

1. Respect them
2. Understand them
3. Empower them
4. Trust them

Understanding and empowering are not easy but relatively straightforward, you put systems and structures in place to gather intelligence about student views and opinions and give them opportunities to be involved in decision making etc. I say this isn’t easy because I know that almost all Universities have been striving to improve these systems and structures in recent years. I think Exeter is quite good at it and leads the sector in many ways (I would say that wouldn’t I!) but is by no means perfect.

Respect and empower are tricky. These cannot be address by putting systems and processes in place, they are cultural. Once you have gathered intelligence about your student body, it is important to take it at face value, your students are who they are, not who you want them to be. Easier said than done.

I intend to show this short video at one point during the presentation, I haven’t tried showing it to a large audience yet so I hope it works!

I won’t give the game away by saying what the lesson is, the conference delegates can look forward to that!! Guesses welcome . . .

Predictions for 2013 – Politics

I’ll have a go at politics now, I did a bit better here than on HE last year so fingers crossed:

1. All three party leaders will remain in post again
2. There will be some sort of bargain struck over boundary changes (perhaps equalising number of seats without reducing the number)
3. UKIP will not win any by-elections
4. UKIP will not sustain polling numbers above 10%
5. Lib Dems will end the year with their highest polling numbers since the 2010 honeymoon
6. The economy will grow reasonably well for 3 out of 4 quarters
7. George Osbourne’s budget will have some giveaways to stimulate growth, but the coalition will refuse to acknowledge that it is a stimulus package, or plan B.
8. The Government will announce major reforms to the immigration system to cope with new wave of immigrants from EU accession countries and to deal with anomalies that are hindering the relocation of highly skilled workers and international student recruitment
9. There will be no mass reshuffle, only tweaks to deal with resignations
10. Chris Huhne will be found not guilty of speeding offences. He will not return to Government though
11. The ridiculous and torrid Plebgate scandal will rumble on with no firm conclusion. It’s ultimately impossible to prove who said what without doubt. Andrew Mitchell’s reputation will be restored though, but he will not return to Government.
12. More huffing and puffing about Europe. Nothing will actually happen.
13. Labour will win every election going, handily.
14. Cuts in child benefit for households with an earner in the higher tax bracket (i.e. households earning more than £45,000 per year) will go down like sh*t in a cake and there will be an almighty hoo-hah. Not because of the inequity of it, but because that’s how much journalists earn and they consider themselves “average earners”. Average UK household income is about £40,000 with two earners.

Predictions for 2013 – Higher Education

Hooray, I can now have a go at guessing predicting what will happen next year. Here’s what will happen in HE during 2013 (not in any order)

1. David Willetts and Vincent Cable will remain in their posts again
2. There will be no HE Bill again
3. The will be a big shake up of Mission Groups with members shifting between the 1994 Group, University Alliance and Million+
4. University application figures will be up on 2012, but not on 2011
5. An FE College will gain University title
6. MOOCs will continue to whip up hysteria (I will predict their demise on 1 January 2014), at least 3 new groupings of UK Universities, latching on to the hype, will be announced.
7. The REF submission process will go very smoothly (note: the skies have not fallen in and Hellena Handcart has not made an appearance as a consequence of ‘impact’ being measured!)
8. Conservative MPs will find some spurious reason to pick on Les Ebdon and OFFA
9. At least one University will have to close or merge to make ends meet.

Apprenticeships not degrees – for everyone else!

A nice piece in the Telegraph this week by Matthew Hancock, the new Minister Skills at BIS.

His basic argument is that far too many people are taking years out of their careers to gain University degrees that help them to enter the professions. The solution is vocational courses and apprenticeships for those students. “University is not for everyone” he argues.

Here we go again. I actually think there is something to this argument; but I’m afraid I have always had a small nagging doubt in my mind whenever it emerges. When I read these articles or listen to the eloquent proponents on TV or radio, one thing is always present in their tone and language. They are always talking about other people; not themselves, their brothers or sisters, their own children, but other people for whom University is not for! Usually the argument is dressed up in nice language about empowering people to make the right choice and different people having different skill sets, but it is always other people who do not have what it takes to experience what they have experienced; a University education.

So to those people who make this argument, I always have one simple response. I will believe it when I see you trying to persuade your son or daughter to take an apprenticeship rather than go to University!

Revisiting Predictions for 2012 part 2 – Politics

Yesterday, I had a look back at my HE predictions for 2012, how did I do with politics?

1. All 3 UK party leaders will remain in post

Score. They all are.

2. Ken Livingstone will win the London mayoral election; giving Ed Miliband a much needed mid-year boost

Ouch.

3. Nick Clegg will finish the year with his and Lib Dems’ highest poll numbers since they joined the coalition

Correct. They are hovering at around 13%, while not impressive in itself that figure is higher than at any point since the post-General Election crash.

4. There will be a reshuffle mid-year, but it won’t bring much change. Cheryl Gillan, Caroline Spellman and Andrew Lansley will go and be replaced by Maria Miller, Theresa Villiers and another Conservative woman newly introduced to the House of Lords. (if Chris Huhne is charged for that speeding stuff, he will be replaced by Norman Lamb, otherwise Lib Dems sit tight)

A half point for this I surely! Gillan and Spellman did go. But Lansley stayed (albeit in a much lower profile role), they were replaced by Maria Miller and Theresa Villiers. Chris Huhne was charged but wasn’t replaced by Norman Lamb in his cabinet post, however he was brought in to Government as a consequence.

5. There will be a lot of huffing and puffing over Europe, but the UK will continue to wield a veto on treaty changes so no referendum will be required

Lots of huffing and puffing, some veto threats. No real change.

6. House of Lords reform will be scuppered by an alliance of Conservative MPs and Clegg hating Labour MPs

I think this is the prediction I am most smug about! Conservative MPs were never really in favour of this and Labour decided it hated Nick Clegg more than it wanted reform.

7. More and more celebrities will tell the Leveson inquiry about their terrible put-upon lives, and the whole thing will lose sight of the genuinely gross abuses that have been inflicted on innocent people

Hard to quantify this really. But the Leveson inquiry was driven off track by a stream of attention seek celebrities and lost sight of its core purpose, how to deal with criminality in journalism. It was never meant to be about regulating the press.

8. Nicolas Sarkozy will be re-elected as President of France

Ouch. I think he lost by something like 58% to 42%!

9. Neither Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will be the Republican nominee for President

I think I just shouldn’t predict election results!

10. Barack Obama will be re-elected and it will be a much closer election than we expect (one day we Brits will realise that Americans don’t see things the same way as us!)

On the other hand, maybe I should. It was close, but still relatively comfortable for Obama.

11. Vladimir Putin will be re-elected and crack down on protesters in Russia in a brutal and shocking manner

Not really an election prediction anyone could get wrong. But the Pussy Riot business makes it clear that Putin will not stand for opposition!

12. Nobody will start a war with Iran (again!)

Phewf!

So I make that 8 ½ out of 12.

Revisiting my predictions for 2012 – Higher Education

At the beginning of 2012, I made some guesses for might happen in the world of HE in 2012. I thought it might be fun to have a look back to see how I had done. So here they are:

1. David Willetts and Vince Cable will remain in their respective positions

Score. I was right about that. I think there was a lot of speculation that one or the other would be dumped or that responsibilities for HE would move to the Department for Education. Thankfully, none of it came to fruition. I know it’s not fashionable but I think we are favoured with two of the Coalition’s most able, thoughtful and moderate Ministers here.

2. The Higher Education Bill will not materialise. Now that the fee system has been legislated for, the Government will conclude that they can make the vast majority of their desired reforms using delegated powers under current legislation

A lot of huffing and puffing from the sector and the media when this did not happen. It was never going to, it was only a matter of time before BIS Civil Servants worked that out.

3. Applications for university places will fall, but by much less than doom-mongers predict (no more than 4%)

This one is debatable I suppose and your view will be skewed by the University at which you work or represent. Overall figures were down by 9%, BUT if you look at A-Level entry (i.e. 18 year olds) the drop was far lower than predicted down 2.4%.

4. HEFCE will publish a list of Universities in financial difficulty

Wrong. Didn’t happen, or anything like it!

5. No universities will have to close or merge

I feel technically correct on this one. I was referring to Universities having to close or merge because of financial difficulty. However the Stalinist approach take by Leighton Andrews in Wales does mean that some Universities have been forced into marriage. I hope it works out well for them. The excessively hands on approach by the Welsh Assembly Government is worrying and there are signs of it in Scotland too.

6. QAA will launch a blog (I promised this last year, but failed to deliver!)

And they did.

7. A new UK league table will be launched with much fanfare

Wrong.

8. There will be serious talk of a new mission group made up of the top-10 recruiting institutions in the UK. It will not happen.

Score. There was and it didn’t!

So, on my count, I get 5 ½ out of 8 (69%, a decent 2:1!)

Bill Clinton only sent two emails. EVER

You know those moments when you read something and think “What the Flip?” (or something like that!)

I had one of those moments this morning when I read this blog post that had been shared on Twitter.

Bill Clinton did many things while president. He enacted the North American Free Trade Agreement. He reformed the nation’s welfare policy. He got impeached. He created a budget surplus. And then he left office with a higher approval rating than any president since World War II.

Bill Clinton did not send many emails during this period of time. In fact he sent only two, according to a surprise talk he gave at today’s Wired for Change conference at the Ford Foundation in New York:

I sent a grand total of two emails as president: one to our troops in the Adriatic, and one to John Glenn when he was 77 years old in outer space. I figured it was OK if Congress subpoenaed those.

Here’s the “electronic message” Bubba sent to John Glenn. It’s now printed in a book.

Astonishing. Can you imagine Barack Obama, who just won by a landslide thanks to highly sophisticated use of email and social media (£), or David Cameron announcing that they have only emailed twice in their entire political career? Tony Blair was famously a technophobe, but even he mastered email and text messaging in the end!

I guess the reason this is most surprising is that Bill Clinton is not a faded memory where quircky stories like this are read with misty eyed nostaligia. He is still on the scene; his presidency happened within the lifetime of anyone over 11 years old. So this is a very stark reminder of how quickly things have changed.

Which social media should universities use to promote global reputation?

Two of my favourite things combined here, social media and an infographic.

What I find interesting is the spread of social media networks map that you can see at the bottom of this chart. While it’s clear that Facebook has pretty much taken over the world, I am struck by the fact that Facebook is not dominant in 4 out of the 10 most populous countries. China, Brazil, Russia and Japan.

So what? Well, I don’t need to rehearse the points about how important social media is an organisation’s brand, so why don’t UK Universities have profiles on Orkut, Q-Zone and Mixi?

The trouble at the top of HE policy making

Every time any new policy or initiative is announced that has an impact on Higher Education, I have to admit that I feel slightly embarrassed by the “sky falling in/we’re going to hell in a handcart” tone that our sector takes in response. But I have a few friends who work in other sectors and they always remind me that they respond in the same way too, so I get over it!

Having said that, I do think we have an immovable problem with Government policy making on higher education in that it is totally dominated by people who are perfectly capable and intelligent, but whose education experiences and insights are shaped by two institutions that are far removed from the higher eduction that the vast majority students experience. By that I mean they gained their HE experience at Oxford or Cambridge.

I mean no disrespect to those two institutions, they are excellent in so many ways and their reputations alone do the whole of the UK HE no end of good. But the way they teach their students, the type of learning that takes place, the way students interact with academics and each other is a world away from anything that happens on any other campus.

I hadn’t really thought about this until I read an article written by Professor Alison Wolf in the Times (£). It is worth a read, she highlights the fact that all key players in the current Government Cameron, Clegg, Osborne, Cable, Willetts were Oxbridge educated, all five contenders for the Labour leadership went to Oxford, this is not to mention the dominance of the civil service!

Of course the article is behind a blessed pay wall, so here are some of the best bits:

All elites think they understand higher education, because they experienced it. But the distinctiveness of Oxbridge means that our elite has little feeling for how contemporary British universities operate . . .

A decade ago, the Government, along with 28 other European nations, signed up to the “Bologna Process”. This commits every signatory to standardising their university system, around three “cycles” (bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral). In addition, through the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), students must collect a certain number of credits in order to graduate: normally 60 ECTS credits per year for a full-time programme.

Many countries have been reorganising their whole degree structure post-Bologna. We didn’t need to, but most universities did introduce a full credit-based system.

Does Oxbridge arrogance explain why our two best-known universities haven’t followed suit? No, something more fundamental. Their resources have protected, so far, the individualised practices of a bespoke or cottage industry. The rest of us have moved into mass production.

The vast majority of British degrees, including ours, are also now modular. Each course — typically from four to eight modules a year — is assessed, more or less as soon as it is finished, by the academic teaching it. Students build up marks and credits, module by module and year by year.

This is also the North American style, and we adopted it, gradually, for the same reasons. It suits a pressurised, competitive system. Modules can be dropped, or readopted, as staff leave, are hired, or bought out on research grants. If a degree doesn’t get many takers, you can fold it into an ever- greater selection of joint offerings. Cross-departmental options promise enticing economies of scale. Students can study part-time, drop out for a year, interrupt when their job requires it. And almost a third of UK undergraduates are now registered as part-time.

Lets not get too bogged down in the fact that Bologna does not compel anyone to do anything, and it’s not really about standardisation. The point about modularisation stands. Over 95% of UK universities operate a credit based systems for awarding degrees where student study a series of modules and accumulate credit that is all added up after 3/4 years and classification is calculated using an algorithm involving all their marks for each of the modules. This system has been widespread for almost 20 years. Oxford and Cambridge are the only two large universities in the UK that do not do this (the others are specialist HE providers with very small provision).

“So what?” you might think . . .

I’ve sat in many meetings, in Whitehall and Westminster, where people have talked up credit systems without the faintest idea that we have one. The middle-aged were educated in a different system; at Oxbridge, our future rulers still are. There, full-time students take final examinations set centrally, not by the people who teach them. They learn in tiny groups, and receive weekly personalised feedback on non-assessed work: by far the best way to learn, and something that has pretty much vanished elsewhere. And they are selected through intensive scrutiny of their work, and face-to-face interviews.

It is splendid and expensive. But students at Oxford and Cambridge pay exactly the same fees as in Newcastle or Plymouth. They do not see how different these universities are, or that the Oxbridge system is highly precarious, maintained by enormous cross-subsidies, endowments and rich alumni.

On current form, Oxbridge dominance looks set to endure or indeed increase. It might not, of course, if costs force both universities to slash quality. And it might not, conversely, if we made it possible and attractive for some other universities to promote intensive teaching. But our current politics, combining fiscal pressures with a protected Oxbridge elite, is bad news for the quality of undergraduate education

I am not questioning the intelligence of the policy making elite, or their desire to improve things, but if their core understanding of HE is so removed from the reality that they think something like modularisation is a new innovation, then we are in trouble. We saw this last year when David Willetts announced with a great deal of fanfare that he wanted to see Universities work with community (FE) colleges to deliver higher education. It’s been going on for bloomin’ years and continues to go from strength to strength!