The University of Exeter’s Digital Team were invited to speak at the Times Higher Education (THE) Digital Universities Europe conference this month. Helen Cocks, Head of Digital Strategy and Engagement, and Joe Holland, Head of Design, were at the conference last week at the Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona speaking and learning about the three key themes of: leadership strategies for a smart, digital campus; student success in the digital era; and teaching, learning and assessment innovations.
Helen and Joe hosted a talk and workshop titled ‘Show not tell; can the humanities help bring your digital strategy to life?’, where they shared our human-centred approach to communicating our digital strategy and how we are using design thinking and the creation of concepts to bring it to life.
“They were the best 5 minutes of the whole conference” said Kevin, who is the Senior Advisor for Digital Strategy and Learning Innovation to the President of the University of Ottawa. This was in reference to our account for life concept and how it decentralises, removes silos and shifts the focus from a team/department/faculty/solution or system thinking, to the user.
The session was designed to share the innovative story telling techniques that we have used to communicate our digital strategy and engage our stakeholders with it’s development. As well as to share how we have started to respond to subsequent challenges. It was designed to give attendees the opportunity to share their own experiences of challenges and share their insights and best practice on how to tackle them.
Attending the conference was an opportunity to learn more about how European institutions are going about their own digital transformation, their priorities, and the methodologies they are using. Joe reflected “there are so many common themes, the challenges we face are the same being faced by Universities across the whole of Europe”.
The University of Exeter is hosting the THE Digital Universities UK conference in April 2024 on our Exeter campus, and Helen confirmed “the theme of the event is ‘Building inclusive digital futures’ and we want to explore how we position higher education as a flexible, inclusive and life-long learning experience that prepares everyone with the skills they need for the future workplace”.
The Digital Team talk at the conference went down so well that we have been asked to write an article for THE Campus which provides useful resources for academics and university staff – look out for the article soon!
Read this blog to find out more about the THE Digital Universities UK conference and how you can come along and get involved.
-Written by Helen Cocks, Head of Digital Strategy and Engagement