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This is the proposal text, edited for wiki formatting, as it was submitted to JISC!

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= Expression of Interest =

'''Institutional Innovation programme''', '''Benefits Realisation Small Project Funding'''.

== '''Name(s) of Partner(s) and contact name(s): ==

''Steeple partners: ''

* University of Cambridge
* Oxford University
* The Open University

''Benefits Realisation Project Supporters: ''

* Glasgow University 
* Harper Adams University College / National Rural Knowledge Exchange
* Higher Education Academy network for Mathematics, Statistics and OR
* University of the Highlands and Islands
* Nottingham University
* Oxford Brookes
* Reading University
* The Royal Statistical Society 
* Sheffield University
* Sussex University
* University College London
* Warwick University

It is expected that many further partners will join as the project progresses.

== '''Contact Details for Primary Contact/Lead:''' ==

'''Name: Björn Haßler'''

'''Institution: University of Cambridge'''

[[User:Bjoern|Contact details available here]]

== '''Length of Project:''' ==

'''12 month'''

'''Project Start Date:''' 01/09/09

'''Project End Date:''' ''31/08/10''

== '''Benefits Realisation Activities''' ==
'''1) Packaging/Synthesis''' / '''2) Capacity building''' / '''3) Increased take-up'''

== '''Total Funding Requested:''' ==
£50,000.00


= Outline Description =

Based on outputs of the Steeple project, this project embeds specialised knowledge for supporting effective use of audio and video (“podcasts”) using emergent technologies within the UK HEI landscape. Such emergent technologies streamline complex audio-visual encoding activities through enterprise level services, and thereby significantly ease burden placed on departmental support structures by demands for institution-wide podcasting services.

The Steeple project itself was conceived among a group of early adopters of institutional podcasting work flows. It was clear from the beginning that the synergy between three institutions would be very valuable indeed. And so, with significant commitment from the participating institutions, Steeple was undertaken as a collaborative project. To achieve our goals within the available funding, the project needed to be tightly focussed on solving certain key issues for the participating institutions, such as improving specific workflows.

Since the start of the Steeple project there have been very rapid developments within the UK HEI community, leading to widespread interest in the adoption of institutional podcasting. The Steeple project has therefore attracted strong interest within the wider UK HEI community, leading to request for support through workshops, further documentation, and for help in adoption of Steeple tools. We currently have a mailing list with over 120 members, and our Twitter feed has attracted significant attention at times. A number number of HEIs have asked for detailed advice on technology and policy, and have visited the Steeple sites for workshops and consultations, and/or engaged in sustained email conversations. The list of institutions includes UCL, Oxford Brookes, Reading University, Nottingham University, Birmingham University, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield University, and Leeds University.

Due to the resource constraints on the Steeple project, and the already substantial commitment from the participating institutions, there are few resources available for ongoing support of the wider community. Through the present proposal, we seek to address the issue of community support, and thereby making Steeple outputs available towards creating a sustainable community of interest in the UK. The present proposal integrates well with existing UK-based activities (such as the Podcasting for Pedagogical Purposes network, the DIVERSE network, ELTAC, as well as wider networks). However, there are also many non-native institutions outside relevant networks, that we will also work with. It is a key component of this proposal to engage with these institutions through outreach visits and calls to understand their requirements, to explore the challenges, blockers and opportunities as regards institutional podcasting for them (and to report on these through the Steeple wiki where possible), and to determine the way in which the Steeple outputs can be of benefit to them. The current proposal is key to raise awareness for Steeple outside the existing community of interest, and to explore the requirements of non-Steeple institutions.

== '''Fit to the benefits realisation strands''' ==

'''1. Synthesis/Packaging: '''Through the synthesis part of the programme, we further collate knowledge, experience, and outputs in order to feed into a growing network of HEIs. The primary focus for this is the documentation produced by the Steeple project (including our guides and adoption strategies), that now needs to be validated in additional institutions, to make sure it fully meets the local needs of those institutions. A key element in this is the collecting of additional materials (such as tutorials and reports) from additional institutions, and to explore the adoption challenges that non-native institutions face and to share what we can of these. By including those institutions, we give them a voice and adequate space in this growing community. The documentation will be assembled in a public space (on the Steeple wiki), and there will thus be no significant lag between enquiries and additional documentation starting to appear. A personalised enquiry will thus lead to immediate benefit for the wider community. Beyond this phase, the online documentation is expected to be widely known and form the focus of self-sustaining ongoing activities.

'''2. Capacity building through workshops.''' A number of community-wide workshops and conferences have been conducted as part of the Steeple project. These were very successful in attendance and feedback terms, and there is a clear need to offer further training opportunities that will increase skills/knowledge of participants across the wider sector. Through this proposal, we offer a programme of replicable and scalable hands-on workshops, to promote Steeple outputs and knowledge within the community. We stress the importance of the hands-on element. Our workshops have been successful, because they were run with 'hands on keyboard': rather than discussing ideas abstractly, participants explored relevant software and techniques, building a community of practice through facilitated peer support. Online learning opportunities are available through publicly available workshop materials.

'''3. Increased uptake of best practices'''. There are a number of tools that have been tested, adopted, and developed in the Steeple project. While full documentation on this is available through the Steeple project, each institution varies in their detailed needs, and often short direct engagement can be more effective in terms of getting started. Through this element of the proposal, we offer tailored advice to individual institutions. We provide online, phone and when required in-person support to help resolve institutional issues hindering uptake. We will also offer face-to-face meetings, for instance to meet particular stakeholder groups within an institution. Through this we can engage in an individual and personalised way with institutional needs, offering understanding and building bridges between diverse stakeholders, making the case for Steeple outputs and practices within that institution, and thereby increasing uptake. This is closely tied to synthesis and capacity building activities, and we expect that those face-to-face meetings will provide important input for additional workshop topics.

By way of example, here is a one possible cycle for how an institution would engage with this project. An institution would discover the project through a post to a mailing list, or through a networking event. Following an initial conversation, we engage through further calls and face to face site visits to work with them to explore the challenges, blockers, and opportunities around podcasting for their institutions. Based on this, we would provide support (if appropriate) on how to apply existing Steeple outputs to their situation and would explore and record how other solutions might help in this particular case. Two members of that institution would then use the online demo environment, and later come to a workshop to find out more. After further use of the online environment, a tailored event takes place specifically focussing on human resources and legal aspects. Further email support is provided throughout the implementation. Through this process, appropriate Steeple outputs are take up by the institution, which in turn contributes back to ongoing community efforts.

All of these activities will be of interest to a range of universities, including both older and newer universities. Institutional podcasting infrastructure requires knowledge across a wide range of specialist areas, and even larger institutions often do not have suitably qualified staff. The deliverables will thus be tailored to be accessible to a wide range of diverse institutions, with a diverse knowledge base.

'''Sustainability. '''One additional goal of the project is to identify a set of ongoing services for the development of the UK institutional podcasting community, which could be sustainable beyond the duration of grant funding. For instance, while working with institutions on (barriers to) adoption, the project will attempt to identify what services the institution would sufficiently value, so that they would consider contributing an annual fee, and, if so, what the level of that few would be. About 50 engaged institutions, at an annual fee around £1k/p.a., would provide a sustainable model, with a total funding similar to this initial grant-funding. The key challenge of this goal is to identify this set of valuable services (applicable to a broad range of diverse institutions), that would sufficiently valuable for an institution to contribute a modest amount annually.

'''Project staff. '''The project will be led by Dr Björn Haßler at the University of Cambridge. Dr Haßler was one of key shapers of the Steeple bid, and will continue to work on the Steeple project in parallel with this project. He has made significant contributions to institutional podcasting development both within the University of Cambridge, the UK HE community, and the international audio-visual community. He is a highly respected innovator, and has acted as a consultant both for businesses, professional societies, and non-governmental organisations. He is a member of Information Society Working Group of the National Commission for UNESCO. Additional expertise is of course also available from the other Steeple project partners through the ongoing Steeple project, where outputs can be tailored towards the Benefits Realisation program as needed. More widely, the project integrates with the international Opencast community, which will strengthen longer term sustainability significantly.

'''Value. '''The project is significant value for money. The project seeks to create a viable community of practice, and the project's success will be measured through the degree of community embedding and ongoing activities beyond the end of the project. We anticipate that this benefits realisation program will lead to the absorption of the Steeple outputs into the community, who will appropriate the Steeple outputs. This will be indicated by the initial degree of uptake of the support services, as well as by a broadening of contribution to the Steeple online documentation, and to community understanding of challenges in this area and potential solutions, as the project progresses. Success will be measured qualitatively and quantitatively through surveys among the project partners.

= '''Proposed Outputs '''''(i.e. workshops, online activities, papers, institutional briefings, user guidelines, etc.) '''''with approximate delivery dates and target numbers where applicable.''' =

The primary goal is to get a further 10 or more institutions using Steeple outputs in some form. In order to achieve this, we will engage in a number of activities. However, these activities will be continually reviewed for effectiveness, and, if necessary, we will adapt to requirements of the community in an agile way. 

We will engage with and gather information from non-native institutions, and provide support via email and phone to be able to respond to individual circumstances. In response to this, and building on key Steeple outputs (such as the Institutional Podcasting Handbook, the Institutional Podcasting Policy and Legal Workflow hand book, Institutional Podcasting Technical & Server infrastructure handbook), we provide direct high-value support to the community. For technology demonstrations, we can provide an online demonstration server environment. Through this demonstration environment, institutions can try software explored in the Steeple project (such as Matterhorn and Podcast Producer). These are ongoing activities. We expect to handle around 20 in-depth enquiries per month, and to generate further documentation in response to this. We expect this tailored support to be very valuable for all institutions. However, particularly for small institutions it is important to provide a comprehensive service, that provides focussed engagement directly towards finding an appropriate solution.

In total, we expect to deliver 5 face-to-face workshops and 12 webinars across the lifetime of the project. Within the face-to-face workshops, three of these will be stand-alone workshops, distributed across the UK regions. Up to two of these will be run as part of other conferences. In addition to tailored phone support, we will run a monthly webinar, updating and training the online community. Webinars will feature guest speakers from within the Steeple project, and other experts. The workshops will be delivered at a rate of one per academic term (2009/2010), and the conference based workshops will be delivered in spring and summer 2010. The webinars will run monthly throughout the project.

We will run tailored one day meetings at around six locations, supporting between one and three non-native institutions per meeting, with a total of about 12 institutions.

An additional output of the project is a blueprint or service description and funding model proposal for a sustainable ongoing service for the development of the UK community beyond the duration of the present grant funding.

All project outputs will be available under appropriate open licenses (OSI approved open source licenses, Creative Commons licenses for open content). The project will frequently update the wider HE community about new development, through the usual range of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogging and podcasting.