Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Barbara Newland et al.
and I strongly believe that recommendations of a group such as this one, can make a difference to
Senior managers (as opposed to my recommendation). I would like HeLF to be involved in more of
these initiatives.”
Some members suggested collaboration with other national bodies such as JISC. JISC is a UK
national body which “inspires UK colleges and universities in the innovative use of digital
technologies, helping to maintain the UK’s position as a global leader in education.” (JISC, 2011) One
of the reasons for suggesting collaboration is the scale of the undertaking for a voluntary organisation
such as HeLF. HeLF has no income from subscriptions or events and therefore cannot employ any
staff to undertake the work. There was also a suggestion that HeLF could lobby the commercial
providers, such as Turnitin, to “meet the needs of the UK HE community.”
No-one responded that this was not a role for HeLF. Three members agreed that the work needed to
be undertaken but were unsure if it was a role of HeLF. One of these three responded “Certainly a
role for someone, not sure if it needs to be/should be HeLF, but anything which promotes good
practice and documents adoption across the UK.”
HeLF members identified their need for further information regarding the whole area of eSubmission.
They said that “support and help is desperately needed right now” and they would “like to share and
work with others.” “We all want e-submissions systems. We are struggling with, how do we have a
single point of submission integrated with University systems.” One member stated “We will inevitably
move towards making this universal at undergraduate level. Handing in bits of paper is not going to
be viable. But it has implications for standardising processes across very disparate departments, and
that - where technology is perceived to be affecting custom and practice - is a challenge.”
There was interest in sharing information on policy, process, engaging academic staff and technical
developments. This information would be useful for members as “evidence from the sector would help
members to influence practice and policy in our own institutions.” “Some general consensus would be
welcome in order to benchmark against other institutions.”
In relation to policy and practice members were interested in guidance on policy and university
regulations, guidelines for implementation and guides on using software eg Turnitin. Also, “Managers
briefings on Faculty/enterprise level adoption – consideration of risk/risk management/mitigation.”
Many members were interested in case studies of eSubmission. Members said that positive case
studies “of eSubmission in external institutions assists further adoption internally.” “Examples of
where it has been shown to work in other institutions - what needed addressing and by who, how was
this done, what are the benefits for different stakeholders to help "sell" it.” These case studies could
also include “examples of process models / work flows for managing e-submission” and identification
of administration processes which had to change. Others were interested in case studies whether
they were “successful or otherwise” to include “warts and all.”
Members were interested in “strategies for engaging academics”. There was awareness that this
move to eSubmission and eFeedback required changes in the ways in which academics work so
there was also interest in change management approaches. ”Experience from other institutions is vital
to convince academics of the benefits/deal with fears.”
There was also interest in sharing technological information about how institutions are implementing
eSubmission looking at the “pros and cons of each implementation.” “Institutional approaches to
secure infrastructure to support the variety of submission formats, including large media files.
Examples of institutional procedures for the archiving e-submission records.”
4. Conclusion
This strategic overview of the impact of eSubmission shows that it is currently an important
development in UK universities. It is changing the roles of academics and administrative staff and
creating more work for learning technologists. The technical infrastructure is in place to support
eSubmission and mainly used in an opt-in basis. There could be greater integration of VLEs,
plagiarism software and student record systems. Plagiarism policies tend to advocate the use of
plagiarism software for student development but it is often used for detection. There is positive
support for a new role for HeLF to collate and share policies, guidelines and case studies.
584