University of Roehampton: getting a head start on the road to digital transformation

Democratising technology

The university has developed its business plan aiming to create the richest possible learning and teaching experiences, automate repetitive tasks and extract more value from its management information and existing digital assets. There are three ‘enabling strategies’, focused on research and knowledge exchange, sustainability and student education, designed to help in realising the key aims.

In late 2022 managers began to scope out an ambitious digital strategy to underpin all this work aspiring to make sure, as Mike Hall, director of campus operations, puts it:

"Everyone can use technology to improve everything."

Organisational priority

The new strategy was a priority and the university invested time and money in developing it, including creating new job roles to manage the anticipated change. Senior managers asked a variety of stakeholders for their input. They also asked peer institutions about their experiences and met with various sector bodies, including Jisc, for advice and guidance. And that’s when they decided it made sense to ask Jisc’s digital transformation specialists to play a bigger part in developing the strategy.

"We realised Jisc were the ideal people to take a lead on this and then help us develop a roadmap.

"Jisc associates have experience with higher education institutions of various kinds and they understand the specific needs and challenges that the sector has. We recognised that making use of all this would give us a head start."

Assessing readiness

In July 2023, Jisc associates began working with the university to identify priorities. We completed workshops with senior leaders to discuss the project and secure buy-in and talked to stakeholders across the university to communicate the vision, find out how they were experiencing digital within the organisation, tease out their requirements and identify any pain points we’d need to address.

These conversations are extensive and they’re an essential part of the process. Depending on the institution and its digital maturity the discussions can uncover issues such as gaps in digital skills or confidence, time or financial constraints, training shortfalls and many other potential barriers. Mike decided to leave Jisc to manage those conversations. He explains:

"We didn’t want to influence anything with our own expectations and ideas. We thought it’d be best to get involved only when clear action points were identified.

"Jisc associates planned and managed the workshops over a few months and, in November 2023, we delivered a draft digital strategy and delivery plan that focuses on the university’s specific ambitions and the things it needs to do to achieve them."

Implementation

Following on from the success of the first phase of work, our journey with Roehampton continues - and we've already delivered a proposal for phase two. The next stage is to refine and take forward the delivery plan, and we’ll continue to provide input into this. It is a detailed, living document tailored specifically to Roehampton’s requirements and with clear goals and milestones set out. These will make it easier to monitor progress and evaluate effectiveness.

Roehampton has set up a ‘digital innovation and development group’ to oversee socialisation of the plans and make sure they’re ‘Roehamptonised’ – ie developed and delivered in a way that fits with the university’s culture. Various sub-groups are responsible for specific aspects of the task and these are reporting on their progress to the main group.

Our associates are supporting the digital innovation and development group. For example, we continue to work with senior leaders to show them the many ways in which technology can make the business work better and keep them up to speed with developments. As Mike says:

"Often this isn’t their field of expertise and it’s good to have recognised external experts working with them on it to get their full attention and buy-in.

"We’re also using Jisc’s knowledge to guide how we invest in digital solutions. The insight into what’s available and how it can be leveraged in higher education will help us identify what we want and make a business case."

Socialisation

"This is not an IT plan it’s a whole institution plan. We have to live and breathe it."

Skills development is a big initial focus, so the university has a programme of work with staff at all levels to explain and socialise people into a ‘digital mindset’.

"We are democratising technology and creating entry points for everyone. Our message is, ‘whatever you want to do, we’ll help you use digital to do it better’."

Major projects for 2024 are planned around customer relationship management (CRM) and automation. They’ll support reputational and business efficiencies and free staff from repetitive tasks. Some existing job roles will change: Mike believes that as automation mops up more of the day-to-day tasks people will have more time to think about improvements, and they’ll be valued and rewarded for enhancing efficiencies and outcomes.

Most of the focus so far has been on engaging university staff. But in the near future there will be structured projects with students, to kick off focused work on how Roehampton can use digital technologies to keep enriching their experiences of learning and university life.

Early benefits?

When staff at the University of Roehampton began to think about digital transformation they wanted digital to help them innovate, improve learning and teaching, deliver effective training, improve reporting as well as data management and curation, and get more value out of its existing digital assets and systems.

"We’re expecting to see a range of measurable benefits before the end of the 2023/24 academic year. They include more staff participation in digital initiatives, better curation of data assets and more of the mundane tasks successfully automated.

"We’ll have a development plan in place for our digital infrastructure and we’ll be seeing more staff members developing their skills so they can use technology to work more effectively."