Purpose

End Result/Outcome

Reflection & Forwards

DIAL 2014 - The 2011 – 13 JISC funded DIAL project (see final report) was extended by UAL throughout 2014 in order to explore future project work/approach integration and alignment with UALs/CLTAD existing structures.  

‘DIAL develops and supports self-identifying and sustaining communities of practice in the creation of new resources, processes and learning networks’ Read more here.

DIAL 2014 collaborated with staff and students within and across the colleges.

DIAL focused on staff and student engagement in emergent digital practice. Staff and students worked together to collectively identify challenges and aspirations in current and future digital practice. Responsibility and ownership was devolved to staff and student who developed communities of practice to lead and deliver the projects.

Examples of DIAL 2014 activities are listed below:

Reflection: Over its time the DIAL project tried to ensure ‘communities can be increasingly autonomous and continue to develop confidence and capability in the adoption and integration of digital technologies and practice’. This is evident in the overall direction of the DIAL ‘identity work’ See overview of Online identities projects at UAL. 

Forwards: Build on and establish collaboration opportunities between CLTAD and College through joint project work and shared interests. Areas such as: Online learning, Open educational practice, Online presence/identities, Digital Literacies, IPR, Emergent digital practice, Creative digital practice etc.

Dissemination - Early part of 2014 was spent realising the benefits of the JISC work and communicating these. With an aim to raise awareness of DIAL as part of CLTAD & established new opportunities for collaborations and partnerships internal and external.

DIAL featured at conferences and events at UAL colleges and externally at national and international events including: OCWC Global 2014 | BETT 2014 | UAL Learning & Teaching day | The Tate | See more presentations here

An executive summary hand out was also produced see here.

Forwards: Other HEI’s, Tate gallery and museum ‘online learning’ collaborations will be pursued in 2015 (MOOC collaboration possibilities TATE, CLTAD & CCW).

DIAL Resources of expertise: CLTAD to make best use of DIAL work and those involved in DIAL through future collaboration work.

CLTAD support for grassroots work – Explore the potential and capacity for CLTAD to discover & support progressive digital practice across colleges, co-develop as small projects and communities of practice.
 

DIAL 2014 focused less on supporting multiple projects as in previous years and more on a specific topics around digital/online ‘identity work’, these were divided into manageable sub-projects, please see below:

Focusing on a specific area was useful and beneficial in terms of managing capacity. Forwards: There remains a need for UAL/CLTAD to try and support the surfacing of grassroots activities and interests across UAL through DIAL like informal/ UAL wide scoping work?

Changing the Learning Landscape

HE Academy funded project  - aim to celebrate, embed, share, critique and raise awareness of the 2011/13 JISC DIAL project work – original bid info

HEA Changing the Learning Landscape project worked with student community developers & researchers to engage with student interests & issues around online presence & identity archive resources and CLL Final Report.

Forwards: Possible opportunity for CCW to take this work forward in collaboration with CLTAD, particularly the student community developers and researchers. Maybe some DIAL work benefits realisation.

DigiTell 2014

Following a series of student workshops led by students and referencing previous DIAL identity work, the DIAL student community developer proposed a student led symposium event to explore ‘Online Presence in Creative Practice’.

We received an overwhelming positive response, with requests for further events at UAL in a similar vein.

We had 46 Attendees, an interesting mix of staff and students from all 6 colleges and industry attendees see more feedback here and an audio recording of the event here.
 

The DIAL student community developers proved really successful in terms of student engagement and surfacing student led initiatives. This is also a good model for bringing staff and students together to explore digital issues.

Forwards: The DigiTell event and concept would make a great vehicle for future work in this area e.g. DigitTell 2015 events.

Student led course, website & online community

Creating a student led course, website & online community for developing Creative Online Identities.

Common feedback from the workshops 2013 & 2014 was a need for support with developing an ‘Online Presence in Creative Practice’. See online identities overview here.
 

Rather then creating a new environment from scratch, the development work on the new (ASO) Academic Support Online site fits well with what this environment would require.

Some DIAL time and resources were spent on ASO development with the understanding we could look into duplicating and adapting this environment in the future. See some scoping interviews with staff here.
 

This work/project requires a lot more time and resources to develop, e.g. some scooping workshops with staff and students. A lot of the environment & user requirements are similar to the work being carried out on the ASO site.

Forwards: Re-use a copy of the ASO site. Develop a joint project plan, scoping document and carry out workshops etc. Would need to fund a developer and external development server space.

DIAL/CLTAD run learning studio events

The learning studio concept was originally created by CLTAD but many colleges find it hard to adopt and run.

DIAL successfully used the learning studio approach to bring together communities of interests around digital issues, see more here. 

Forwards: This could be a good approach for CLTAD to maintain college engagement, either leading or partnering with colleges in the planning and delivery of events.

Wearable Technology in the Arts

Explore and share potential benefits and challenges of wearable tech and the potential impacts on arts practice and learning and teaching.
 

Received interest from staff and student’s. Tested Google glass with individuals and in workshops. Created some online resources and info here. Also possible future collaboration with Joanna Neil lecturer at University Centre Blackburn College.

We have some staff and student contacts that are interested in testing Google Glass but more time and preparation is required. Forwards: This could be followed up in the New Year with college support as well as the Blackburn collaboration.

Online Learning Collaborations: Galleries and Art Schools

A project exploring new online learning collaborations between art schools and galleries and to explore how both institutions are approaching concepts of online learning.
 

This has been a long ongoing exchange of interests & ideas with digital learning staff and curators at the Tate as well as the V&A and staff with related interests. The Tate has been involved in DIAL projects at UAL and DIAL have presented at the Tate see info - Online Learning Collaborations: Galleries and Art Schools

There are a lot of similarities between the two institutions and a good relationship has been built between the Tate and Chelsea College. Forwards: Next steps are to involve Chelsea/CCW fine art students in the Tate MOOC/Khan academy evaluation work. Look into collaboration work with the Tate in the creation of an art MOOC.

Tablets in workshops and studios

A continuation of last years project. Aim to carry out a small number of staff and student led projects and case studies, which will explore the pace of technological change and its impact on the day-to-day practices.

See the Digital Textiles iPad - Introduction & Research Plan

There are benefits of being able to provide staff and students with equipment they don’t have to test to work out if they need it or not or to build a use case for purchasing from local budgets. (Offering Google Glass is another good example).

Process.arts

Process.arts has been used throughout the DIAL project as a project management tool for user generated online dissemination and an online space to aggregate and openly share group information and resource.

See DIAL information and activity process arts – All groups on process.arts have some connection with DIAL either through project or groups DIAL has supported getting online - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/all-project-groups -

Chris Follows content on process.arts - http://process.arts.ac.uk/user/12/contents

Joe Easeman content on process.arts - http://process.arts.ac.uk/user/2583/contents

Before the recent CLTAD changes process.arts was due to be taken on by CLTAD service. Unfortunately this never materialised. It would be good to meet with CLTAD and look at a way forward for process.arts platform e.g. discuss the kind of service process.arts provides. Process.arts originally came from CCW and I would be happy to explore the possibility of taking process.arts forward or a similar L&T online project space either in collaboration with CLTAD or with CCW.

DIAL website

The original request for a DIAL server for the DIAL project website was requested way back in 2011 and we only received the server build from IT in 2014. Having received the UAL serve, a DIAL website was created to test the internal process of project site building and how projects could build communities and share online.

We created a very basic site on the UAL servers - http://dial.arts.ac.uk/

Its hard work creating a website in-house at UAL. Apart from the 2 year wait for the server build, the work of building the actual website takes a lot of extra work. So it’s fair to say process.arts provides a much easier way for UAL groups and projects to build an online identity, an online community and openly share project work online.