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Are we all information professionals now?

The ongoing arguments about CILIP’s name change, to “Information & Library Professionals UK”, include the negative impact of the proposed name shifting “Chartered” to the tagline (the one thing I said in my survey response should not happen).

For me, this raises the questions of if all “knowledge economy” workers can consider themselves “knowledge professionals” and thus engage with CILIP.

The fuzziness of who is an information professional (in the ‘knowledge professions’ as ILPUK would put it) is one of CILIP’s greatest challenges. Once members could be identified by working in a library – how do professionals such as myself now associate themselves? There have been valid arguments made that CILIP would be better scaling back to ‘Library Association’ focus in ensuring a defined purpose.

Of course libraries are changing too, from paperless public libraries to supporting free online resources in academia. Both Sage and Taylor Francis have recently tried to argue libraries can continue to curate in a non purchasing world:

– Sage report: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/repository/binaries/pdf/Library-OAReport.pdf

– T&F report: http://www.tandf.co.uk/libsite/pdf/TF-whitepaper-free-resources.pdf

Perhaps the point here is to scare librarians into thinking, actually the paid for content is what is keeping us going? Certainly I have been to at least one presentation by publishers where the message seems to be, to librarians and researchers, ‘let Amazon win and we all lose’.

One issue is that traditional Library Management Systems do not always serve web resources very easily, thus it is increasingly of use for others to curate themselves. I have mentioned before the increasing discussion within L&D circles that curation is now an L&D role, for example:

http://www.brightwave.co.uk/practical-guides/curation-white-paper

Perhaps the future of the information professionals (UK or not) is in hybrid roles acting as the ILP for their team in a wider circle – just as RSS opened up current awareness (a service offered by many information teams) to the individual, perhaps bagtheweb, scoop.it, etc may now do the same for personal ‘libraries’.

I am the 83 percent

http://www.perforce.com/product/commons/i-am-83-percent

It may well just be me, but there seems to be more and more going on online about the issues caused by poor working practices around collaboration, in particular around documents.

This is interesting as it follows a presumption a few years back that, with Google Apps and new versions of Office, these problems were set to disappear. As always, technology implementation without good change management has led to problems for some and what seems to have instead emerged are a complicated picture where:

Some companies have failed to adopt new technology. The imminent death of XP may drive laggards into reviewing practices and supporting improvements through tech. For now, people are continuing to face challenges and wasting time due to inefficient IT.
Some have adopted office solutions, badly. I am increasingly of the belief that what is needed is ‘possibilities’ training in the tech sphere. There is no point throwing people in to hours of, say, Excel saying training when what they actually need is for someone to look at what they do and offer possibilities for improvements. For example, I wonder what percentage of the world’s population uses Excel everyday but do not know Macros even exist, never mind how to author them. Sitting down with someone to spot where efficiencies can be made and identify the small differences in application understanding can, ultimately, add up to big efficiency savings. This works across the board, for example I often sat down with people to show them how to do something with learning management systems only to end up asking ‘why do you do that?’ about how people operate in Office and other software.
Some feel the need to look further afield. I guess the outstanding question is if Office, Google and other major players are actually what you need. The video above is a nice example of the problems identified by a company looking at alternatives whilst the likes of Huddle offer what can be seen as simpler but more effective solutions.

It is then of interest to see iCloud finally step up to the plate and potentially try to fill the enterprise-sized gaps in Apple’s offerings.

CILIP rebrand part two – aka for the love of ‘qualifications’

I had not intended to follow up my previous post with another but the disaster* that has been the CILIP corporate rebranding exercise has perhaps allowed for just as big an issue to go seemingly unnoticed.

This elephant in the room is what is happening to CILIP Qualifications. Firstly, I will admit it’s not all bad but this just seems to make it even more disconcerting, the PKSB is good (as I’ve already suggested) and the simplifications in process make sense. So what’s bad then? Well…

Fixed time (20 hours) for CPD – many members will know the problems this causes in their industries. Lawyers, accountants, teachers and many more have professions backed by timesheet driven box ticking – no focus on learning outcomes or application of learning in the workplace or other professional activity. Building a portfolio of evidence can be a pain but if we genuinely want reflective practitioners, working from a strong research basis, then portfolios are far better than saying ‘yep I’ve attended a course for two hours’. This time driven approach is also difficult in light of 70/20/10 and other models which recognize the fuzziness of informal learning. Again a portfolio, which for many people will be based on a blog they are maintaining anyway, allows for better recognition, articulation and reflection of and on learning. I presume this is a change to encourage members to re-validate chartered status rather than doing it once and then letting it lapse, I fear it will simply water down the status of the ‘chartered’ role. Of course a name change, from CILIP, within the rebrand may do this anyway.
“Registration” – from primary school to Ellis Island this implies, to me, something you have to do. Something you are forced into to make sure a greater power is aware you exist. This is not how I envision my professionalism. It is a tricky one, granted, but why not ‘career path’, ‘development path’, etc? Perhaps the logic is that new professionals can be told to ensure they are ‘professionally registered’. However, it again implies something you are doing for the good of CILIP rather than yourself.

* I’m taking “disaster” as the correct term on the basis that:

it has split the membership (the General Meeting vote being roughly 50/50) and undoubtedly alienated many people (the c.90% of members who did not vote).
correctly singled out on JISCmail lists and elsewhere as how not to perform change or communication management.
seemingly led to CILIP HQ being on the defensive and even less representative of the members than normal; the decision to call on branches and groups to support the rebrand seemed particularly odd as branches should be the conduit for membership concerns, not the other way around.
it even led to a horribly tabloid piece in The Times.

What does this all mean – well it encourages me to become even more withdrawn from the organization. Indeed I may well fall into the ‘paying my dues and revalidating for the sake of it’ group I hint at above. Amazing that a group I had such enthusiasm for six or so years ago can sap it away from you quite so impressively.

Did the Corporate University kill the Learning and Development department?

A lot of interesting stuff in the LPI’s report on the first results from L&D professionals mapping their skills to their new capability profiles.

For me, the big question which emerges seems to be if the trend for ‘corporate universities’ (CU)/’academies’/’business schools’/etc. have ultimately restricted L&D down a path they will struggle to come out of. Yes, the CU focus can be argued as having created rigor in course development and deployment, often decreasing the reliance on third party training providers or off-the-shelf content, but they have in places restricted L&D to a fairly narrow subset of the the parent organization’s focus. The LPI summary suggesting the results show L&D professionals “lack the breadth of skill required”.

Where L&D is disparate from other support functions (including HR, IT and KM functions) there is immediately a risk of disconnect when it comes to actually building an overall framework for employee development and increased work efficiency.

Of course this isn’t necessarily a problem, yes you might need a wakeup call but, in some organizations delivering/developing trainings might be just what is needed. It might be that the organization needs what LPI results would suggest, at least historically, the respondents can supply.

The challenge from the LPI and other benchmarking would be for these professionals to reflect and consider if their team really offers what their organization needs and, perhaps more importantly if they do not, is another department at least filling the gaps. As an L&D professional you might want a role that we can see as the “21st Century profession” but other professionals are similarly looking at expanding responsibilities so I slightly question if the “Training Ghetto” is inevitably a bad thing.

Just as an academic university is only as good as its student support (including libraries, IT and facilities) perhaps the challenge now for corporate universities is recognizing how to create the collegiate atmosphere around courses (social learning) and user generated content management (library services). That information architecture and developing communities/collaborative learning are identified as weaknesses in the LPI results then it would seem to be an area L&D departments need to improve in or at least leverage other teams in their organizations.

RSA videos on the school system

A One Nation Schools System (Stephen Twigg)

Stephen Twigg has emerged from the shadows, aka the often criticised for being policy-light opposition benches, with a ‘One Nation’ take on schools. His talk is on the RSA video channel and his opinions have been picked up elsewhere, including on the Local Schools Network (LSN) and The Guardian.

I find it interesting that the YouTube comments have picked up on why online learning is not considered in the debate. I’ve mentioned on various platforms in the past that online education should allow for better interaction between educators and parents and more consistency for students. It sounds like ‘One Nation’ Labour are still looking for ‘local challenges’ to schools rather than recognizing the need to educate, not for local communities, but for a globalized world. To raise aspiration, I would argue a key aspect is to make young people aware of the opportunities available to them by not looking locally but to the national and global level. This would help deal with a number of issues facing our nations, including assisting with making young people more entrepreneurial and aware of the importance of exporting goods and resources.

Twigg calls for “networked” schools but the focus seems to be on local communities playing their part, it will be interesting to see if the announced work for David Blunkett simply recommends a return to more LEA style-coordination. Presumably, as Labour introduced academies, they are potentially just as likely to ignore reports into their weaknesses as Twigg suggests the current Education Secretary has around Free Schools.

He also suggests schools working together, but still doesn’t mention online learning and tutoring specifically in this speech. I would say the physical bringing together of children in schools immediately puts up walls, physical and metaphorical. Schools create a “them and us” mentality; online platforms ignore location in a way that would enable the level playing field Twigg desires. This would include sharing the best teachers to more pupils and dealing with the challenge of meeting the crisis of students outside educational institutions, again ignored here.

Twigg says Free Schools, via their current approval process, will dry up but I don’t think he actually sets out how he will deal with the challenge of places he acknowledges (and is asked about). The necessity of likely school building costs needs to be seriously considered, and has probably been made even more pressing by the axing of the Building Schools for the Future programme. There is a suggestion in the Q&A that Labour will not throw money at the challenges, thus how will One Nation labour save money and deal with the exploding issue of class sizes fuelled by immigration under the last Labour government? Twigg identifies quality of teaching, by qualified teachers, as a way to improve schools. This includes making outstanding schools partner and support those that are struggling. He does not, in such a short speech, get into specifics. However, class sizes were the old argument piece in education (pre-Free Schools) and I would argue a shift to online would allow us to move from worrying about class sizes, within physical schools, to the better measure of 1-2-1 educator to pupil time.

I would agree with the LSN post that Twigg’s positivity is a big step forward, as opposed to the current cycle of argument between schools and government. However, whilst the current anti-Gove atmosphere in schools is one thing it should not be forgotten that the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, was not particularly popular with educators either when responsible for schools. A move to online could offer the teachers, who feel stressed and alienated by the current environment, a flexible working model that allows them to continue to contribute to the profession. Those who excel in 1-2-1 coaching could concentrate there whilst large group presenting masters could specialize in that area.

The following speaker, from Kings College, identified the current patchy quality. I would again argue an online schooling system can deal with this challenge. Bringing the sector together online would help to deal with the inequalities she highlights, including pupils identifying themselves by their local hierarchy.

Overall, the talk and Q&A confirms the insular approach of schools, I would say regional government has to be seen as failing here. The public sectors advantage should be in freedom to share and network, league tables have not helped but are not solely to blame for the cultural problems. There are clearly a whole host of challenges to tackle; online schooling, I would argue, is a potential solution. Pitching it to teachers unions, educators, parents and evidently politicians is the next step – and I would not be keen about using the ‘cloud’ term.

Redesigning Education: Shaping Learning Systems around the Globe (Global Education Leaders’ Program)

This second video has a vision more in line with my own, as hinted at above. However, the six design principles ‘GELP’ highlights are hardly revolutionary in their own. Indeed there is still talk of ‘classrooms’ and brining technology into the classroom. In addition, a lot of the ‘ecosystem’ talk is largely meaningless, at least in the detail afforded by the presentation format.

There is a growing consensus that system transformation, not school improvement, is the necessary response.

This excellent comment from the GELP website does not really seem to get followed up in the presentation as their ‘transformation’ seems to be about schools working together (as Twigg advocated) but not transforming the system. Again, I would argue there is no reason why such collaboration has not existed in the past. Whilst league tables can be blamed, universities do collaborate in a similarly competitive admissions market. The argument for forcing change on schools would be that have they failed to transform themselves.

The Q&A inevitably leads to the point that schools are effectively forced by parents/students demand to focus on grades due to their implications in the post-school (work/university) world. This, again, is a common complaint in the university sector where educators fear students are solely interested in reaching the 2.1 benchmark. Personally I would advocate that Open Badges, ePortfolios, etc might be what is needed here. Ultimately a ‘young persons’ LinkedIn’ (like http://tyba.com/) to make young people more transparent to employers could be built out of online schooling and help with the crisis of youth unemployment?

Whose Education is it Anyway?

In answer to this website’s fundamental question there is clearly a flaw in both of these presentations – the ‘Global Education Leaders’ and politicians may decide what they think is best (based on varying research/practice bases). However, as shown in a recent report, parents and students (at least in the US) are already recognizing the value in online. The challenge for the UK, in my opinion, is for the online developments to be led by teachers and school leaders rather than having a system imposed upon them. Success will make it impossible for politicians, or anyone else, to then pull the rug away.