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Felicity Callard Profile picture
@felicitycallard
Jun 13, 2018 • 9 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
Your regular UUK update (or: Keeping an 👀 on the rolling out of the marketised vision of UK HE)

So, yesterday, UUK held an event on "Improving Student Retention" universitiesuk.ac.uk/events/Pages/s… #UUKSR #YesUniCan
The proud sponsor of "Improving Student Retention" was Civica, 'the leading provider of business-critical software, digital solutions & managed services for our public sector and regulated markets' Screen shot of Civica tweet quoted in the tweet
Civica also contributed to the workshop with a session on "Your data, valuable insights: Using data to drive improved student retention" universitiesuk.ac.uk/events/Pages/s… #UUKSR Screen shot of Civica session at the workshop
On the increasingly tight embrace between data analytics & university students & staff (including role of Civica) see @BenPatrickWill: "The hidden architecture of higher education: building a big data infrastructure for the ‘smarter university'" (2018) …naltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.11… Abstract of article linked to in tweet
.@BenPatrickWill discusses …naltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/track/pdf/10.1… the HESA "Data Futures" program hesa.ac.uk/innovation/dat…, scheduled for completion in 2020 #UUKSR
"Data Futures" emerged out of a complex assembly involving HESA, OfS (& particularly Michael Barber's metricised vision), KPMG, Deloitte, & others.

The data platform itself involves partners from both public & private sectors, e.g. Civica
Incidentally, #USS signed an outsourcing deal with Civica in 2013 – placing all its infrastructure in Civica's data centres.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of hosts & bodies, material & virtual, as I attempt to track UK HE computerworlduk.com/it-vendors/uks… screen shot of article linked to in tweet
.@BenPatrickWill discusses the 'governing by dashboard' that 'Data Futures' will enable – bringing with it a 'concentrated emphasis on metrics, indicators and measures, more intensified forms of monitoring and analysis' …naltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.11…
And there's loads more great stuff out there to read on metrics & governing through data.

In the meantime, real-time monitoring of league tables & metrics that we haven't even thought of yet are coming, very soon, to a university near you
END

#YesUniCan #UUKSR

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More from @felicitycallard

Felicity Callard Profile picture
Oct 2, 2018
Given importance of HE sector "there may be a case for future governments to consider alternative options" (incl "state-backed guarantee" or "measures enabling more risk-taking"). Powerful piece from @JMariathasan on #USS DB debate post-#JEP ipe.com/analysis/blogs… #USSstrike 1/
Article argues that central problem lies in regulatory changes that transformed management of a DB pension scheme into "a risk management problem, not an investment one" 2/
More info about the @CSFI1 debate over #USS and DB pensions discussed in @JMariathasan's article at @OpenUPP2018

See:
And: 3/
Read 4 tweets
Felicity Callard Profile picture
Sep 22, 2018
Thank you to @EricRoyalLybeck & all the other organisers in Exeter, as well as @ExeterUCU: Volunteer University Revisited was such a magical day. Gathering all of our energies for the months & years to come #YesVolUniCan 1/
Particularly magical to meet some people in the flesh for the first time -- incl. @thetroutpouts @lizmorrish @TheGraceK @sstroschein2 Mike Finn, Alison Wood, @ProfAlastair @ms_rhian @NoisyBits 2/
So many ideas for ways forward. So many kinds of expertise being bought to bear on what now, how, for universities as a community. Also so many testifying to violence, intimidation, threats to academic freedom – & of particular subjects being of course more exposed 3/3
Read 4 tweets
Felicity Callard Profile picture
Sep 16, 2018
There's a bonanza of new FOI responses that give us a much better sense of the range of university responses to #UUK #USS consultations from Oct 2016 and Feb/March 2017. Picking through them it's fascinating to see which universities challenged the direction of travel 1/
e.g. Aberdeen: "Aon ... & UCU have indicated that it may be advantageous to consider other models. We are interested in the Trustees views as to whether there are alternative models that could result in a more considered outcome" whatdotheyknow.com/request/508696… cc @aberdeen_ucu 2/
e.g. LSE: "We note that the latest benefit changes were implemented less than 12 months ago. The School’s view is that it is too soon for further changes to be made." whatdotheyknow.com/request/509128… 3/
Read 6 tweets
Felicity Callard Profile picture
Sep 16, 2018
So with the publication of the #JEP, the issue of UUK consultations with employer institutions is back big time. Both the famous Sept 2017 survey – and now the possibility, if JEP recommendations are taken up, of UUK reassessing employers' appetite for risk.

I'm worried. 1/
#JEP has emphasised the problems with how UUK framed the questions. What's really obvious if you look back Sept survey is that all the focus is on risk and on a *reduction to benefits*. And NOT on the potential to increase contributions. Or on amending the technical provisions 2/
You can see the structure of the questions here, in Nottingham's response (one of the institutions that wanted less risk): whatdotheyknow.com/request/440685… 3/
Read 18 tweets
Felicity Callard Profile picture
Sep 15, 2018
2. #JEP has a lot to say about Test 1. Its sentence 'The view of the Panel is that Test 1 is not well understood outside of USS' is ... well ... certainly marvellously diplomatic.

Cf. and 6/
3. #JEP's discussion of #USS's & #UUK's 'differing perspectives' on the shift from Sept to Nov valuation shows just how murky the deliberations that resulted in this shift still are.

This remains a big issue, given #JEP proposal to reassess employers' atttude to risk (p. 45) 7/ Extract from p. 45 of JEP report
4. #JEP agrees w many of us that UUK's 'framing' of questions around risk in their consultations has serious consequences.

How can we be confident that any future assessment of employers' risk appetite by UUK shows an improvement in their use of social scientific methods? 🧐 8/
Read 13 tweets
Felicity Callard Profile picture
Sep 15, 2018
After a few weeks away from Twitter, I'm back to think – alongside many others – about content & rhetoric of the #JEP.

And abt what we at @USSbriefs have been doing all summer w @OpenUPP2018 to encourage deliberations over #USS valuation to take place in public #USSstrike 1/
Many (incl. @NJSHardy @gailfdavies @DrJoGrady @etymologic @MikeOtsuka) have already provided cogent analyses of the #JEP report & its implications. So here I'll just going to pick out some of what has struck me most forcefully on a first read. #USSstrike 2/
1. There's a judicious use of rhetoric – particularly around 'confidence', '(mis)understanding' & 'communication'. This cleaves closely to that used by #UUK & Bill Galvin – whether that is deliberately so as to increase likelihood of acceptance by those parties, you can decide 3/
Read 5 tweets

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