Buckinghamshire College Group
Buckinghamshire College Group is on a mission to support staff digital skills development, and Tom Andrew, Head of digital learning innovation, took some time out to chat with FE Skills senior consultant, Andrew McFadyen, about how Jisc’s Discovery tool is helping them.
Everyone should be able to participate in a tailored training programme
Tom Andrew, Head of digital learning innovation
Choosing a tool
Tom and his team were keen to assess staff digital skill levels, but it was important to approach this in a way that included staff rather than isolating them. After trialling several approaches, Tom settled on the Discovery tool to move beyond broad assumptions and accurately identify the real areas of digital skills need. The user-friendly tool allowed the Digital Learning team to delve deeper into these needs to offer impactful development at a greater pace.
Focus
Rather than launching the tool across the entire college group, Tom focused on targeted areas first. This was an efficient starting point as he admits that rolling out across a fast-paced organisation like the college group might be too time-consuming and present as many challenges as opportunities. This supported the objective ‘that everyone should be able to participate in a tailored training programme’ and reflects the team’s ongoing commitment to supporting staff in the best way for them. Furthermore, the Digital learning team, led by Tom, created college personas from the existing role profiles from the service website, making tailoring support easier.
Innovation
The college group’s Digital Learning team’s ability to innovate and create a bespoke programme of support while using the Discovery tool was evident, and the team
- Created their own Digifest event for the whole college group to take part in many sessions focussed on developing digital skills
- Created a step-by-step video guide to support staff through the process of exploring their digital capabilities via the tool. This guide gave colleagues the chance to pause while they completed the relevant question set at their own pace before finding out what to do next with their personal report and accompanying resource banks to develop their skills further. This approach enabled the team to effectively be in every room while their colleagues began their digital development journey.
- Created an initiative called ‘Tech weekly’ so that colleagues didn’t have to come and find them; the support was there when and where their colleagues needed it. The 20-minute online and face-to-face training sessions are hosted at different times, offering a flexible programme of support to colleagues with a different theme each week.
By providing training in ways that were more accessible to his colleagues, the team was successful in countering the need for staff to ‘put themselves out there’ and find the support themselves, meeting potential vulnerabilities with safe spaces of assistance.
I think what the discovery tool really taught us was that we had an overall picture of digital skills, but when we started looking deeper, we discovered that there's a huge variance, everybody's skill level is different
Tom Andrew, Head of digital learning innovation
Personalising the approach
Another of Tom’s key innovations was recognising the evolving nature of career change and understanding that ‘every role is different, people have different work-related goals and need support to get there’. He promoted the opportunity for teaching and business support staff to develop digital skills outside their immediate role, offering greater value for his colleagues and their career aspirations.
The data gained from the discovery tool and project also helped the Digital learning team construct more personalised programmes of support. Analysing the insights from the tool’s data dashboard allowed the team to pinpoint where support was most needed. This enabled more targeted development and strengthened the relationships they had built, empowering colleagues with greater agency in their own learning and growth.
It's important to consider how someone may feel using the tool and anticipate those feelings. You can then be proactive from the outset about how you introduce the tool and talk about the results
Wrapped around all of these innovations is Tom’s clear vision of offering a supportive environment, walking in other people’s shoes, and creating real connections with his colleagues. This strategy has ensured that innovations aren’t gimmicks, as shown by the simple but profound act of building personal relationships, creating a transformative rather than transactional process.