Category Archives: careers

This is what the UK governement intends for education services

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Much of the publicity about cutbacks in public spending in education in the UK have focused on the limitations in student numbers in universities and on the axing of the school building programme.

However, perhaps the most dramatic affect to date is being felt by the Careers Service, usually called Connexions. The Unison trade union have produced a summary of what is going on and it does not make for pretty reading.

Here are a few examples drawn from their survey.

In Luton, trade unions and employees are now being consulted on the Connexions proposals which involves the reduction of 12 full time posts, nine of which are currently filled; early cancellation of contracts with some voluntary sector providers; and reduction in the budget available for resources and other services to support work with young people.

In Thurrock, at least £304k cut from Connexions budget in year with approximately 10 jobs going, leading to reduced time available to provide a universal Information, Advice and Guidance service and track young people so as to support them into Employment, Education and Training

In Norfolk the cuts are more dramatic. “We are losing the Connexions brand and becoming guidance advisers, we are threatened with a 50% reduction in funding and the loss of 65WTE jobs. PA jobs are being cut and the structure for services vastly pared down impacting on delivery. Centres are being closed down so YPs have no access. Guidance will be electronic and phone based and two tiers of working are being delivered – targeted and tailored, suggesting some grading differential in pay too. No LDD PAs or casework managers.”

Similarly in Northamptonshire. “The whole Company, numbering 175, has been placed at risk of redundancy. The in-year cut to the Connexions service is £1.3 million out of a budget of £5.4 million, which will require a 40% reduction in the second half of the year to end of March.”

And so it goes on. Meanwhile the government blathers on hypocritically about its commitment to a universal and high quality careers service. Indeed, the Conservative Government in their manifesto proposed a new all-age careers service. At the Institute of Careers Guidance conference (November 2009) then shadow education minister David Willetts stated that he recognised the critical importance of high quality, impartial, universally available careers information and advice and of the economic and social benefits these bring

Sadly few outside the careers services realise what is going on. But everyone in education in the UK should be watching. For what is happening to the careers service today is a blueprint for what may happen to schools, colleges and universities tomorrow.

Free workshop on educational transitions

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The autumn conference season is in full swing. One  of my favourites is Online Educa Berlin - this year being held on 2 and 3 December. If nothing else Online Educa is a great social event – a chance to catch up with friends from round the world. Online Educa also organises a series of pre conference workshops on 1 December. and this year we are organising a workshop for the European funded G8WAY project on educational transitions. Whilst there is a fee for many of the workshops, the G8WAY event is sponsored by the project and is free to participants.

The workshop will focus on the issue of how educational transitions can be made easier for young people through Internet-based services (e.g. career advice, information and guidance).

According to the workshop website the importance of helping young people in their quest to find employment is widely recognised and there is growing interest in the potential of technology-assisted learning when it comes to helping young people make the transition from education to employment. However, this area of learning remains in its infancy and throws up a series of issues for policymakers, researchers and practitioners alike.

The European project G8WAY: Enhanced Gateway to Educational Transition is investigating how social software and Web 2.0 applications can be used to help young people in make transitions.

The following key issues will be explored in the workshop:

  • What are the challenges of educational transitions – how can young people start a career in recession-hit European societies?
  • What is the potential of social software and Web 2.0 tools in the context of transitions?
  • What role can careers guidance and support play in this process?
  • What is the future of technology-based learning regarding career education?

The active involvement of participants, exchange of expertise and creation and further development of ideas will be the key elements of this pre-conference workshop.

whilst the workshop is free places are limited and pre registration is necessary. If you are going to be in Berlin, don’t miss our workshop.

Using Open Data for education

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I am excited by the possibility of using linked data to provide new services in education. The new UK government appears to be continuing the previous policy of releasing more government data through the excellent Unlocking Innovation web site, resulting from consultancy by Tim Berners Lee and Nick Shabolt (interestingly today the governement COINS database was opened up providing information on all central and local government spending – see Guardian newspaper web tool for exploring the data).

I have been looking at the possibility of using linked data for providing labour market information for careers advice and guidance. We are considering developing a demonstrator of this for use on a mobile device as part of the European funded Mature-IP project. This is a possible use case I have written for the project.

“Sarah is a Careers Personal Advisor. As part of her bob she visits schools to provide personalised careers guidance for young people. One young person she meets is interested in becoming an occupational therapist..

Sarah checks out in the Connexions knowledge database but discovers there is no relevant and up to date information on becoming an occupational therapist. She uses her mobile phone Careers application to seek information.

Sarah inputs the occupation and the post code of the client.

She is able to access an information sheet from the Jobs4You database about occupational therapy.

She can also see the average wage of occupational therapists both nationally and regionally through an API to the ASHE data available through the UK open government data site.

From  the LMS database she can find out the total number of occupational therapists employed in the UK and the trend in employment over the last ten years and can view the job vacancies as an occupational therapist reported to job centres in Kent over the past ten years. She also has access to a video about the job of an occupational therapist searching the iCould database.

The application tells her possible careers routes to be becoming an occupational therapist from information in the Jobs4U information sheets as well as local courses for occupational therapists using an API to the xcri course information standard.
Sarah is also aware that the national Health Service Careers web site also has information about associated careers and qualification routes. She uses her phone web browser to view that information.

Sarah reviews all the information she has accessed. She provides a short audio report on what she has found out and what she considers is the importance of the information for her client. She reviews the information once more and decides that it is ready to share. She checks with her online diary looking at possible times for a video meeting with her client. She presses share which formats the information in the form of a multi media package, including visualisations of the data, which is sent to her clients mobile phone and offers her client times for a meeting.

Finally Sarah adds key words to her report and uploads it an organisational knowledge based of information about different careers.”

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans!

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Yesterday I wrote about the perosna methodology we have been trying out in the European G8WAY project on educational transitions. At the recent project meeting in Bucharest we split into groups to look at some on the initial interviews which have been carried out. I presented two interviews, undertaken in the UK by Angela Rees from Pontydysgu.
We had been asked to look at the interviews and discuss:

  1. What is the most relevant learning event of the case?
  2. Is this learning event only relevant in its national context or there features common to different countries?
  3. How we can make use of this learning event in relation with:
  • Benefits for young people (What kind of support can we provide?)
  • What is the impact on the proposed project Web 2.0 platform?

In this post, I will present Kat. In our discussion we consiered Kat to be almost a persona in herself, with a little further analysis added to the case study. Kat is focused on what she wants to do and an accomplished self directed learner. She learns from courses, from different jobs she undertakes, from the internet from reading and from her own research. We noted that transition is becoming more and more a permanent or overlapping state. Kat is constantly learning and her life appears a long period of transition with shorter periods of more intense transition occuring from time to time.

In terms of the potential of Web 2.0 to support Kat in her transition she lacks web tools to present her knowledge, research and achievements. Kat also explains that she spends much time searching for potential PhD opportunities. It seems somewhat surprising that noone has thought to develop a portal to allow easy access to such opportunities (or have they?). Kat might also benefit from the provision of e-guidance or e-counselling.

The project partners felt the case study to be relevant for their own countries (Portugal, Greece and Sweden). In fact Kat might be seen as following the typical career of a modern international researcher!

Kat,

Case Study

Motto: Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans!

Demographic and biographical Characteristics

Kat, 29, female, comes from a well educated background, she is currently living alone in rented accommodation in France. Kat finds herself moving house frequently between London, France, Spain and her family home in Newcastle in order to take advantage of short term work placements as they arise. She enjoys the arts, always has her nose in a book and has an extensive, global network of friends and acquaintances.

Transitions

Educational and transitional pathways:

After graduating from her first degree in Zoology in 2003, Kat has been opportunistic in her method of finding field work, relying on contacts, friends of friends and recommendations.

“The issues I faced were gaining relevant experience to work in my chosen field, although that’s probably an issue specific to ecologists/biologists. I found it wasn’t too hard to get a job, but said jobs were little or no paid field assistant positions. My university lecturer helped me to find my first job, after that it was various contacts I made along the way. I’ve still not decided what I want to be when I grow up!”

This has lead her from the extremes of studying meercats in the Kalahari to birds on Skomer Island. Because of the nature of project work, Kat finds it difficult to find employment all year round. Her long term ambition is to study for a pHd and so lead her own research projects. With some fieldwork and research experience behind her Kat decided that the best way to pursue her dream was to return to Academia, she graduated with an MRes from Imperial College London in 2008 and has since been in a transition period waiting to be accepted onto a pHd. During this time she has been applying for pHd courses in her specialist area and working as an office temp in between taking on temporary research positions. She thought that the Masters level qualification combined with her research experience would give her an advantage in gaining a PhD placement.

Motivations and Strategies: Kat is quite particular about the type of research she wants to do, as such she has limited her search for a doctorate to universities which she perceives to be good. She also has a clear idea of the specific area in which she wants to work. She would rather wait to be accepted to study her own research proposal than compromise her ideals and spend four years working in an area that does not interest her, even if it would mean her being able to lead her own research sooner. She thinks that it is more beneficial to her to work on short term field work jobs in the meantime in order to make more contacts and keep her research experience current.

Ad hoc learning scenarios

The diverse nature of field work means that every six months or so, Kat embarks upon a new project and has to learn a new set of skills from scratch. Examples of this are identifying species of trees or birds, tracking, capturing, tagging and weighing animals, learning to use different laboratory management tools and data entry systems which are unique to the project. The work is very hands on, she says that it would not be possible to learn the skills as part of an on-line training course.

Support Services used

Lecturers and tutors on her first degree course passed on email addresses of researchers working in Kat’s areas of interest, from these few contacts she has built up her own network of potential employers and project supervisors.

Learning type:

Two main ways of learning are detectable:

Learning from practical experiences: Kat learns new skills on the job, now that she is becoming a more experienced researcher, she also finds herself supervising and teaching skills to the less experienced project workers.

Self-directed learning: Kat will find relevant research papers on the internet and also borrows books from the library. She also uses e-books, particularly when she is working outside of the UK.

Information and Communication Technologies

Much of Kat’s networking has been done via email, she also keeps in contact with colleagues via Skype. She uses websites to search for biology PhDs and field assistant positions.

“ I tended to use those websites more just for browsing to look for job adverts rather than creating a profile and finding people with similar interests. People with similar interests tend to be potential competitors for natural science-type jobs & PhDs which are a bit scarce, I imagine a facebook style network might inhibit a free and easy sharing of info and tips on jobs that you’ve seen.

Plus I really doubt that researchers or potential employers would take the trouble to search the site for good candidates. The nature of PhDs and field assistant jobs is that there are so many people wanting them, you just put the advert out there in New Scientist or wherever, then sit back and wait for the applications to flood in.”

She thinks that the most useful web tool would be something that pooled all of the jobs available onto one site,

“kind of like a temping agency who were in touch with every single Life Sciences university department and every ecological organisation in Europe, with details of jobs or field assistants required. You could go to them and say “I have these skills, I’m looking for paid/volunteer work, I’m available from this date” and they could place you in a suitable position. I doubt it’s feasible, as it would be an enormous undertaking but I, for one, would definitely sign up to such a thing. It would take away all the work and the hours and hours spent browsing online for positions.”

She does think that social networking could be useful particularly for putting new graduates in contact with established researchers, however she is very wary of networking with people in the same position as herself because of the fierce competition for jobs and placements.

Researching Careers and Educational Transitions

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This week sees another of our mini series of blog posts featuring particular projects or areas of research and development in Technology Enhanced Learning. This series will focus on careers and career transitions, based on a number of different projects in which Pontydysgu is involved.

The EU funded G8WAY project is looking at transitions between school and work, school and university and university and work. It aims to use Web 2.0 and social software to support learners in making those transitions. And of course that raises a series of methodological questions. What issues are effecting young people in transitions? What kind of support do they presently receive? What works and what doesn’t? How do they use information and communication technologies? How do they think such technology could help them? And, in the context of a project involving partners from six different European projects, are the issues raised specific to particular countries or educations systems or are they common to learners in the different countries? Most critically, how do we find out? We need this information in order to start designing software applications which can support young people. Of course we could undertake a large scale survey. But G8WAY has limited resources and is under some time pressure.

After some discussion we decided to undertake a methods based on identifying personas. The initial results are very promising, proving not only a basis for use cases for designing software applications, but also proving a rich picture of the issues facing young people in managing transitions. In today’s post I will outline the methodology we have used. Tomorrow I will publish some of the initial case studies undertaken as part of developing the personas.

Using story telling and perosnas to research transitions: A short guide

1. Introduction – Storytelling and personas as a way of understanding transitions

Scientific. research seeks to draw out key concepts and ideas by abstraction and the application of logic (Bruner, 1996). In a holistic approach to understanding and meaning making story telling and narrative can enhance such scientific enquiry in order to examine actions, intentions, consequences and context. (See: http://www2.parc.com/ops/members/brown/storytelling/JSB.html John Seely Brown: ‘Story telling’ for more on this approach).

A good story should be emotionally engaging, capable of application in different contexts and provide a broader framework for understanding generalities, partly because there is a certain looseness of ideas. Generalities in this sense are different from knowledge derived from abstraction: in this case learning and knowledge are the result of multiple intertwining forces: content, context, and community.

Following Brown (op cit), in purposeful storytelling people should get the central ideas quickly and stories should communicate ideas holistically, naturally, clearly and facilitate intuitive and interactive communication. Our intention therefore is use story telling to enable us to imagine perspectives and share meanings about different educational transitions by conjuring up pictures more conducive to a culture of learning and development than a formal analytical presentation which is more in the form of knowledge transmission.

The G8WAY project itself is focused upon an abstraction: processes of transition. Further it fits within the enlightenment tradition of knowledge and learning being forces for good and the path to an improved future, both individually and at a societal level.

Obviously the main focus for the G8WAY project is an analysis of real-world transition practices, resulting in the development of sound general conceptual and pedagogical models for supporting learners in the transition  process and ways to overcome barriers. This approach has considerable value but in order to understand the variety of transition processes and experiences of young Europeans a story telling approach could provide us with a richer background enabling us to develop scenarios and provide social software to support the transition process.

We propose to tell our stories in the form of personas.

2. About Personas

Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic, attitude and/or behaviour set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way (Wikipedia). Personas can be seen as tool or method for design. Personas are useful in considering the goals, desires, and limitations of users in order to help to guide decisions about a service, product or interaction space for a website.

A user persona is a representation of the goals and behaviour of a real group of users. In most cases, personas are synthesised from data collected from interviews with users. They are captured in one to two page descriptions that include behaviour patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment, with a few fictional personal details to make the persona a realistic character. Personas identify the user motivations, expectations and goals responsible for driving online behaviour, and bring users to life by giving them names, personalities and often a photo. (Calabria, 2004)

Personas can be based on research into users and should not be based purely on the creator’s imagination. By feeding in real data, research allows design teams to avoid generating stereotypical users that may bear no relation to the actual user’s reality.

Tina Calabria (2004) says personas are relatively quick to develop and replace the need to canvass the whole user community and spend months gathering user requirements and help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use.

Here is a sample persona created by the Seventh Framework MATURE project looking at strategies for knowledge development and learning by careers advisors. This may be helpful to you in creating Personas or you can just skip to the next section.

Name

Andrew

Motto

No idea how I learned that – it just happened!

Education and professional background

Andrew has gained an off-the-job postgraduate qualification in career guidance, together with an employment based National Vocational Qualification Level 4 in information, advice and guidance (IAG).  Additionally, organisational training also formed part of his induction.  As part of his on-the-job training, there were opportunities to visit employers and research different sectors of the labour market.

Role / degree of standardization

Andrew has been working as a careers adviser for the last 3 years.  There is little standardisation to his work as has to react to the needs of the clients.

Workplace / colleagues

He works in one secondary school helping young people with career decisions ensuring that they have the skills to make informed decisions. When not in school, he works in an open administrative central office with his laptop – hot-desking.

Learning

Andrew likes to learn and is keen to find out more about different websites which can help him further his knowledge of the local labour market.

Knowledge

Andrew has to continuously acquire knowledge in the form of national, regional and local labour market information.  This includes: education, training and employment opportunities; occupational trends and forecasts; information on local employers etc. Over the last 3 years, Andrew has gained a significant amount of local knowledge about the labour market and the education, training and employment opportunities available.  This knowledge has not be gained through any conscious process or training.  It was considered as ‘something you get to know’.  As a new employee, Andrew asked questions of his colleagues to gain this information and knowledge.  By reading internal communications sent by email and local newspapers he has been able to gain knowledge about the local labour market, which is central to his role, exemplifying his title as a knowledge worker.

Content types

He primary uses office software, email, the internet, organisation management information systems.  Information can be received in both electronic and hard copy.

Structures

Information on clients is stored on a national MIS maintained by the organisation.  Local intranets are available for storing and retrieving information.

Problem solving and other knowledge routines

The internet has become a valuable resource for researching and developing knowledge of the local labour market and the available opportunities.  A favourite website, Planit Plus, has information on local opportunities and labour market information (LMI) and is often utilised.  Email communication for colleagues also ensures that he is aware of current opportunities for training and employment in the local area.  This soft data is vital to his work and needs to be continuously updated.  Due to work pressures, he believes that in the current work climate there is little time to undertake employer visits to gain (and develop) knowledge about local employers.  Time to research different sectors and gather LMI for analysis and synthesis is restricted and considered a luxury.  Advantage is taken any opportunity presenting itself. Andrew recognises that he would value more time to develop his local knowledge by not only supplementing it with hard data, but also by returning to knowledge development methods used during his training and induction within the organisation.

Reaction to requests from colleagues

Requests for colleagues are normal by email and are usual a general query to see if he knows a particular piece of information.  As a new employee, Andrew asked questions of his colleagues to gain this information and knowledge.  By reading internal communications sent by email and local newspapers he has been able to gain knowledge about the local labour market, which is central to his role, exemplifying his title as a knowledge worker.

Communication strategy / approach to knowledge sharing

Serendipitous knowledge maturation – Knowledge sharing and maturing is ad hoc and haphazard. Knowledge typically developed and shared as part of a development process for a product or service within the organisation or as part of training. Over the last 3 years, Andrew has gained a significant amount of local knowledge about the labour market and the education, training and employment opportunities available.  This knowledge has not be gained through any conscious process or training.  It was considered as ‘something you get to know’.

Formal training

He regularly has the opportunity to attend training courses run by the organisation and has regular review sessions with a line manager.

Important tools

Office tools, internet (including Planit Plus, organisational website), email, MIS

Motivation / drives / interests

Andrew is sceptical about some applications of IT and does not like to rely on them for information.  He says it is unprofessional to go to the organisational website with a client to show them some information and then it freezes or is unavailable.

Task management

Andrew has no daily or weekly routine as he is reactive to client needs and requests.  Task are managed by an electronic diary.

Attitude towards technology

He is keen to use technology and sees it as a way forward for many of clients in developing their research skills in locating local education, training and employment opportunities.  Email communication is central to networking and finding out what is happening in the local labour market.

3. Creating personas for G8WAY

3.1 Decide on a research approach

The purpose of the research is to identify trends or patterns in user behaviours, expectations and motivations in transitions to form the basis of the personas. The best ways to gather this data is to talk to people having completed, or are currently undergoing, educational transitions. This might be through individual interviews or through a focus group or group discussion. You should explain to them first the basic aims of the project and that all information gathered will only be used for research purposes and will be anonymised (note in some countries / institutions you may have to get them to sign formal papers agreeing to this). The information we wish to know might include the following. However, this should not be used as a questionnaire. We want to encourage participants to explore around the topic and reveal their motivations, frustrations etc. Therefore it is only a starting basis for the research. Questions should follow the natural course of conversation which is dominated to a great extend by the topics chosen by the participant.

Background

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Educational / work background
  • Social background e.g. have they moved away from home, do they work in a group, on their own, if they at school what is their planned future careers, if at university how long have they been there?

Transitions

  • What transition are they currently undergoing (or have undergone), including specific details?
  • What did they experience during this transition period?
  • How did and do they perceive this transition, before and after it happened?
  • What went well?
  • What were the problems / issues?
  • Did they get support – did they ask for support or was it a service available to them?
  • Who provided support? (examples: employment agencies, teachers, friends…)
  • What sort of support – was it providing them with information, with guidance, help with problem solving, mentoring or  access to learning? (here, it might be useful to give some ideas e.g. employment agency,
  • how and where did they get that support – in school, in social settings, in work?
  • How did it help – or did it not?
  • What motivated them to get support?
  • What kind of support would they have liked to have/ did they miss?

Information and Communication Technologies

  • Did they use the internet for support in transitions?
  • If so what did they use it for?
  • What software did they use e.g. Google for searches, forums, web sites, social networks?
  • What support did they find best for them?
  • Which other internet tools can they think of/ do they know that can be supportive
  • How proficient would they say they are in using the internet?
  • What advice would they give us in developing the project?

3.2 Analyse research data and identify persona set

Review all the research data and look for patterns in attitudes and behaviours. For example, if you interviewed people about travel, you might find patterns like users who are price driven as opposed to quality driven, users who travel frequently as opposed to infrequently, and users who prefer to research their holiday rather than asking others for suggestions.

Whilst listing these patterns, you will begin to see clusters of attitudes and behaviours that make up different personas, such as the frequent traveller that is skilled in researching holidays and finding the best prices. This persona is motivated by keeping the cost of each holiday down so they can travel more in the future. The persona’s goal is to go on as many holidays as possible.

Once you have defined these clusters of attitudes and behaviours, give each persona a brief description, such as ‘independent traveller’ or ‘bargain hunter’. There is no ideal number of personas, however try to keep the set small. Three or four personas work as effective design tools, whilst over ten personas may introduce the same confusion as a large user requirements document.

This means ideally you should try to talk to ten or so people in order to gain enough evidence for your persona. This could be through a focus group, through formal interviews or though informal chats.

3.3 Writing personas

Start writing the personas by adding details around the behavioural traits. Select details from your research, such as working environment, frustrations, relationships with others, skill level, and some demographics. Give each persona a name.

Here are some more tips to follow:

  • Keep your personas to one page, so they remain effective communication tools and can be referred to quickly during design discussions.
  • Add personal details but don’t go overboard.
  • Include goals for each persona. This can include experience goals as well as end goals.  An experience goal could be as simple as  ‘not to look stupid’, whilst an end goal would be ‘remain informed about the company’.

Once your personas are written, review them to ensure they have remained realistic and based on your research data. Check that you have a manageable number of personas, and if two personas seem close in behaviours and goals, see if you can merge them into one persona.

References

Bruner, Jerome S (1996) The Culture of Education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

Calabria T, (2004) An introduction to personas and how to create them, http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_personas/index.html

Seely Brown J, Story Telling, http://www2.parc.com/ops/members/brown/storytelling/JSB.html