Help shape the CPE website

We are rethinking the Centre for Public Engagement's website and aim to have a new site launched by December 2009. The site will have numerous distinct audiences, including members of the public, members of the University and people in external organisations interested in public engagement.

This is your chance to help shape the new site! We would like to ask for your input into the development of our website, and would love to know what you think. Here are some questions we'd like your help with:

• What would you expect from the website of the University of Bristol's Centre for Public Engagement?
• What would make you bookmark the site?
• How should it talk about public engagement to (a) the general public, (b) the University community, (c) external organisations?
• How could it be effectively used as a public engagement tool in its own right?
• How can we embrace social networking through the web as a tool for public engagement, using the web to support two-way conversations with the public?
• Any other thoughts?
  

Please post your reflections in the Comments section below. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Festival weather

The students -- and half the staff -- may have vanished for the summer but we're still here to support engagement. We'll be attending a Good Practice Workshop on Universities and Festivals organised by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement next Tuesday. It'll address questions like "What are the key ingredients for a good festival?" and "How can participating in festivals help universities' public engagement?" Should be interesting.

If you have any questions or thoughts you'd like to share, but can't be there, let us know by commenting on this post.

Photo by: Mick Y

Frank talking about social enterprise

When research has a social purpose, it can be even more important to communicate with the public about it. Professor Bronwen Morgan and PhD student Sarika Seshadri of the University of Bristol's School of Law, together with Professor Dave Gordon of the School of Policy Studies, are researching social enterprises: businesses that trade for social and environmental purposes.

Read the full story.

Science for all

Caroline McKinnon is a biochemist with a difference. When not researching the causes of cancer, she is keen on communicating her passion for science to schoolchildren and the public. Over the past few years she’s volunteered at Cheltenham Science Festival, been part of the award-winning Science Alive! 2008 team, and most recently led the Biochemistry Schools Week, which gives Year 11 and 12 students the chance to visit the department to learn by doing hands-on experiments.

Read the full story on the Public Engagement Stories website at the University of Bristol.

Wildlife detectives - Bristol BioBlitz

Who needs Glastonbury? The real action on the weekend of 26 June 2009 was happening just over the Clifton Suspension Bridge at the Ashton Court Estate in Bristol, where hundreds of volunteers, children and members of the public braved some damp conditions for Bristol's first ever BioBlitz.

Read the full story on the Public Engagement Stories website at the University of Bristol.

Photo by: BioBlitz Bristol

Engaged teaching and learning

Notes from the Engage 2009 session on "Engaged Teaching and Learning".

Characteristics of engaged learning

• It’s an attitude/mindset - can't be taught > has to be learned experientially
• Service learning > rendering a service to a community group
• Informal settings for learning

Examples

• Engaged teaching > Physiology and Pharmacology final year students (became teachers)
• Engaged learning > BA in English Literature and Community Engagement > participation

Why is it important?

• Experience: "Translating the value of education into the rest of their lives"
• Increases through engaged teaching > affects other people's lives
• Deeper understanding of your own subject
• "One of the best ways to learn a subject is to teach it"

Potential at University of Bristol

• Undergraduates are currently involved in outreach
• Formalise as part of their courses > Dissertation?
• Harnessing what you're already doing
• Engaged teaching as a vehicle for skills development > subject-specific

Benefits

• Give courses a unique dimension, something distinctive
• Experiential way to gain transferable skills > employability
• Understanding the value of your work, education and subject > works with vocational and non-vocational courses > broader view
• "Translating the value of education into the rest of their lives"
• Can harness to what you're already doing
• Employee/student satisfaction
• Students reflecting on their educational experiences

Pitfalls/risks

• Going to lose didactic teaching time
• How are people (i.e. future employers) going to know that this has been part of your course?
• Resource implications
• Unclear drivers
• Lack of student interest/acceptance
• Quality assurance
• What does success look like and how do you measure it?
• "Failure" can have far-reaching consequences – for students and for the communities engaged
• Research is valued over teaching, never mind "engaged teaching"

Impact and evaluation of public engagement

Some outcomes from the workshop on impacts and evaluation.

• There's a lot to learn from reviewing evaluations already done (meta-evaluations). Unfortunately, too often evaluations are done as a check-marking and this needs to be avoided. It's important to take up the lessons learned; RCUK is doing a bit of this by reviewing evaluations.
• Categorising types of impacts and benefits is a critical step in evaluating public engagement.
• There are then stories and matrices that can be developed based on the type of impact being explored.
• Experience shows that quantitative indicators can be hard to find, difficult (and expensive) to measure; qualitative indicators have value. One of the greatest challenges with them, though, is making qualitative evaluations systematic; how to make generalisations and themes emerge from storytelling and case studies etc.

Top tip: Be clear on why you're doing evaluation (while recognising that motivations may change over time)

• How to select measures which reinforce or triangulate other measures or data - need to be creative, but this is worth thinking through.
• Important drivers for impact evaluation are RCUK and other funding councils.
• Need to find ways to ensure it fits your own purposes too.
• Need to be creative in finding ways to record.
• An important starting point for making use of evaluations is a desire to improve your practice. Ultimately, evaluations (at least formative ones, not after activity is over) should inform your practice.
• Evaluations must be simple and not a difficult add-on; efficiencies should be a cornerstone. Participatory methodologies are worth exploring.
• Self-reflection is also a valid tool in evaluation; how did doing something change you and your thinking on an issue, a methodology, etc.? This might be as valuable as any impact evaluation directed to recipients of your activity. For example, if your practice or insight changes as a result of doing something.
• Seeing and quantifying impacts is extremely difficult/unlikely/not realistic with most short-term projects and research. Too much time needs to pass, too many attributing other factors.
• Choosing the right time to evaluate is also key; to get valid feedback (i.e. choosing to gather responses immediately following an event, vs a week or a month or more later).
• Making meaning of results can be challenging; support in understanding the process of drawing conclusions would be helpful.
• Despite usually messy and less than rigorous methods, evaluations that seek trends or generalities are still important. A basic sense of costs vs. benefits of doing something (vs. not doing it) can be really important.
• Evaluating inputs and processes can be really helpful, and more realistic sometimes than looking for long-term impact.
• There's lots of expertise in evaluation out there, just as there are in public engagement. Researchers can't be expected to become experts in this area and so need to have help to connect to appropriate resources and people. This doesn't have to be expensive ongoing evaluation support, just resources, possibly a workshop, etc.
• Language used in evaluations is important - can isolate others.

Web and new media for public engagement

Top tips

• Set up a Twitter channel
• A University of Bristol blogging platform is available (though this is unsupported)
• Use the services of the Institute of Learning and Research Technology (ILRT)

Pitfalls

• Resources to manage, for example:
• YouTube requires editing and checking footage
• Quality control
• University Facebook page - managing interactive areas
• You can go in as organisation or business
• Portal to areas in University site
• Need a dedicated staff member for social networking

Lessons

• Set up a news feed from your department - Twitter
• Good marketing
• Access to audiences
• Entry on Wikipedia? But this needs monitoring
• Wiki - four official entries for University of Bristol
• Mobile platform

Challenges

• Creating communities - be honest
• No resources to keep even normal web pages updated
• Officiality?
• Anyone can set up a social networking group - how to keep track of this?
• Information Services - provide tools for interactivity
• There's a potential to miss audiences if we ignore Facebook, Twitter and others

How can CPE and the Web Editor Team help?

• Review outdated sites
• Talk to heads of department about the importance of the web
• Massive digital footprint
• Need to prioritise
• Continue this group - action learning set

Working with schools

What can/should the CPE help with?

• How to market your offer?
• Can we have a one-stop shop for engagers with names, topics, lesson plans, session ideas etc.?
• Yes to teacher panel
• Can we have an artist in residence - earth science, nanotechnology etc.?
• A public art/undergraduate competition

Tips for going into schools

• Check out the school
• Liaise about different abilities and class sizes
• Different ideas for different classes
• Plan for large group events, e.g. PSHE [Personal, Social and Health Education] days and assemblies
• Work closely with teachers
• Get a mobile number
• Think about summer schools
• Expect the unexpected!
• Visit the National Curriculum website
• Plan ahead (6-12 months at least)
• Bring a risk assessment
• Do it! It's not so bad the second time

Funding and sustainability

Funding and sustainability of public engagement was a big topic, especially in the current recession.

Challenges

• Funders may not encourage experiment
• They want to know your output before you've started
• There's no money available for research, let alone for public engagement

Tips

• Include public engagement in research grant applications
• Think laterally
• Solicit donations or sponsorship
• Try non-higher education schemes
• Be persistent
• Use the CPE and NCCPE websites
• The CPE can advise on seeking funding

Working with community partners

Workshops explored a range of topics at the Engage 2009 conference. These are some of the outcomes on the workshop about working with community partners.

CPE should/could/must...

• Connect with students
• Don't forget online communities
• Work needs to be inclusive: "community work" is not "charity work"
• Facilitate funding for outreach work
• Explore methods for gathering ideas and views from the public - maybe?
• Do some world cafés on different topics
• Get a community voice at Engage 2010
• Send CPE representatives to community meetings
• Use new tools: arts, technology etc.
• Encourage bottom-up

We can/should/will...

• See ourselves as part of a community
• Help the CPE connect with students
• Attend the world cafés (if relevant)
• Receive, read and respond to the CPE when they send thoughts about communities

What words or phrases describe relationships between the University and the community?

• Lack of interest in each other?
• Closed; no direct contact points? Random connections
• Top-down? Funding to higher education institution instead of community?
• Inflexible and static?
• Inaccessible?
• But public engagement is a massive opportunity for change