ucisa bursary scheme 2020 further information

ucisa bursary scheme supports IT and IT-related staff in the education sector

ucisa fully appreciates the pressure that our HE/FE colleagues are under at present. In particular, we understand that all IT personnel are needed, perhaps more than ever, within their institutions in the coming weeks as they implement the digital solutions that are at the heart of every institution’s response plans.

In light of the current global health situation; the advice from government and the needs of our sector IT departments, the 2020 ucisa bursary scheme has been postponed.

Applications for the 2020 ucisa bursary scheme will be open soon.

The deadline for submission of applications (via the application portal) is noon, Tuesday 31 March 2020. Please ensure that you carefully consider the Criteria, Selection, Funding, Judging and administration of the bursary scheme and Terms and Conditions as well as the Guidance for applicants below before making an application.

You may also find it helpful to look at the ucisa LinkedIn page for hints and tips in the Comments section for what makes a good application (from people who have been funded in previous years). We'd like to make it interactive, so do please ask questions and add comments.

Criteria

As part of our 2018 – 2022 Strategic Plan, ucisa seeks to provide bursaries to individuals from a broad range of backgrounds and experience. We are encouraging submissions for attendance at the following (and with this weighting):

1. Conferences and events that have been recommended by ucisa special interest groups

2. UK based cross sector events

3. International events where the case for the benefit that will be returned to the sector can be strongly made.

Selection

Candidates should:

set out how they would represent ucisa at the conference they are funded to attend; outline how the conference will benefit them personally, and their department/institution and
demonstrate how they would share what they have learned with the ucisa community and the higher and further education sectors and how they would publicise good practice within the UK.

Preference will be given by the judging panel to the most effective representation and dissemination methods.

A key feature of the bursary scheme is to support event attendance from early and mid-career staff. However, more senior staff whose institution would not otherwise be able to fund their attendance to the event they have chosen will also be considered.

The judges will always look to see how any applications can support the wider ucisa community. Unfortunately, ucisa is not able to support applications from academic staff or staff looking to support academic development.

Applications for training or development programmes or events where attendance is required at different points in the year (for example leadership courses or action learning sets) are not eligible for bursary support.

Funding

All arrangements for travel including registration and accommodation for successful applicants will need to be made and paid for by your university or college.

If your application is successful, ucisa will make a significant contribution to your registration, conference accommodation and travel costs. For UK conferences, this comprises of the registration fee and an accommodation allowance of up to £100 a night. For international conferences, this comprises of the registration fee, an accommodation allowance of up to £100 a night and a travel allowance of up to £500. Exact funding amounts and maximums will be confirmed by ucisa to recipients. Any subsistence, additional travel costs or visa charges will need to be met by the institution as they are not included in the bursary. ucisa does not cover the cost of pre or post conference workshops.

Following attendance at the event and after you have undertaken the majority of your dissemination activities, your institution will claim the agreed funding from ucisa. Your institution will invoice ucisa for the actuals incurred, up to the agreed maximum contribution for each component element (conference fee, accommodation and travel) and will send receipts with the invoice.

List of events recommended by ucisa special interest groups

The events below are recommended to bursary applicants by ucisa's special interest groups. Please note you do not have to select from this list but strong applications for these events will receive priority in the selection process. If you are applying for an event which is not listed below, ensure that you choose one that is taking place after 1 June 2020 and please include as much information as you can in your application.

ASCILITE 2020: 37th International Conference on Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education, 30 November - 2 December, Armidale, Australia

ALT C, the Annual Conference of the Association for Learning Technology, 9 – 11 September 2020, London

AWS Re:Inforce, 30 June – 1 July 2020, Houston

Business Analysis Conference Europe, 21 – 23 September 2020, London

Business Process Management Conference Europe, 26-29 October 2020, London

CISG-PCMG20, 18-20 November 2020, venue tbc, organised by the ucisa Corporate Information and Project Management Groups. See event information from last year’s conference

Digital Pedagogy Lab, 27– 31 July 2020, Denver

Digital Transformation Expo Europe, 30 September – 1 October 2020, London

Collaboration Summit, 8 -10 June 2020, Wisebaden, Germany

EDUCUASE, 26 – 29 October 2020, Boston

EUNIS, 10 – 12 June 2020, Helsinki, Finland

Inclusive and Supportive Education Conference (ISEC 2020: London), 3-5 August 2020, London

Infrastructure20 (IG20), 8– 9 October 2020, Cardiff, organised by the ucisa Infrastructure Group

IT in the Park, Autumn 2020 (date tbc), Edinburgh

LeanHE International Conference, 21 – 23 October 2020, Melbourne, Australia

Media and Learning 20: Images and Sound in Higher Education, 17 – 18 June 2020, Stuk, Leuven, Belgium

Microsoft Ignite, 21- 25 September 2020, New Orleans

Playful Learning Conference, 8 – 10 July 2020, Leicester

Pure Storage Accelerate 2020, 14 -15 September 2020, Austin, Texas

Open Group Edinburgh 2020, 29 -29 October 2020, Edinburgh

Spotlight on Digital Capabilities, 3– 4 June 2019, Birmingham, organised by the ucisa Digital Capabilities and Digital Education Groups

Support Services 20 (SSG20), 1 – 3 July 2020, Cardiff, organised by the ucisa Support Services Group

VMWorld, 30 August – 3 September 2020, San Francisco

Judging and administration of the bursary scheme

The ucisa bursary scheme is judged by members of the ucisa Leadership Council and managed by Anna Mathews, ucisa Head of Policy and Projects.

Bursary applications are collected via a survey tool and anonymised. Applications are then categorised by topic and sent to the relevant Chair and Vice Chair of a ucisa special interest group for their feedback. Once all feedback has been collected it is presented to the ucisa bursary panel for review. The bursary panel comprises of: Sally Bogg, ucisa20 Conference Chair; Adrian Ellison, Vice Chair, ucisa Board of Trustees; Mat Flower, Chair of the ucisa Infrastructure Group and Anna Mathews, ucisa Head of Policy and Projects.

Guidance for applicants

How might you represent ucisa at a conference?

All successful applicants receive personalised advice from ucisa on how to get the most of the conference you have chosen, and insight and ideas on who to connect with from the ucisa community. There are plenty of ways to let people know who you are and what your interests are before and during the conference. Some bursary recipients do this by getting active on the conference Twitter channel in the weeks leading up to the event. If you prefer a face to face approach you could think about wearing an “ask me about ucisa” badge or lanyard, or you could organise an informal meet up for other newcomers at the event you are attending.

How can you share what you learn with the sector?

Blogging is a very popular way for bursary recipients to share what they have learnt. If this is something that you chose to do, ucisa can give you plenty of guidance to get you started, and you aren’t expected to add blogs on to the ucisa site yourself. Just give us your content and we’ll do the rest! Another good way to get across your findings to the ucisa community is to write a report on the potential transferability of a service, product or concept to the UK HE and FE sector. You could report back to ucisa special interest group at one of their regular committee meetings, so that they can explore if what you have learnt can be weaved into their group’s other activities. You could also think about presenting about your bursary experience at a ucisa

Selection questions in the application portal

1. In this section please indicate how you would represent ucisa at an event. Please refer to the event programme, or if that is not yet available, you may wish to refer to the programme from the previous year.

Examples of representation at the event might include: informally telling delegates you meet about ucisa’s work, building up a social media presence and then including relevant ucisa news, distributing or publicising relevant ucisa resources, making yourself available to delegates who want to ask questions about ucisa’s activities.
If you are applying for a ucisa event, you might think about asking questions at the conference on behalf of the wider HE and FE IT community (perhaps gathered via one of the ucisa special interest group’s mailing lists). You may wish to concentrate on meeting with a small group of people – maybe those from a university or college with a similar mission or student numbers, or institutions from the same region or other delegates who are attending the conference for the first time.

2. How will the conference benefit you and your department/institution?

In this section, you should outline how the conference will benefit you and your department. If you are aware of other institutions that are having the same challenges, please indicate that here. Please refer to the event programme, or if that is not yet available, you may wish to refer to the programme from the previous year. Below are a couple of example paragraphs taken from successful applications:

“Gaining an industry understanding of emerging architectural models and how these support business requirements, along with an understanding of the direction of market in respect of cloud and SOA, will help to shape the direction of the University’s architecture. A further benefit of the summit would be to gain ideas for ‘selling’ EA, ensuring alignment to the business and using roadmaps to communicate and drive change. This will also help colleagues in the sector facing the same challenges with whom I can share information.”

“The conference theme of ‘disruptive technologies for transformative learning’ is directly relevant to the work of UCISA’s Academic Support Group on digital Skills and development (DSDG), and dovetails with the group’s focus on supporting students and staff in the effective use of technology for learning, teaching and assessment. The conference’s two primary strands, Open Badges and e-portfolios for learning and assessment, offer exciting – and in the case of Open Badges, emerging and innovative – opportunities to address a key [ucisa] strategic challenge of developing staff and students’ digital literacies.”

3. If selected, how would you share what you have learned at the conference with the ucisa community and others in the higher and further education sectors? What channels and methods would you use to publicise an item of best practice/share your experiences?

Communicating what you learn at your chosen event will benefit the sector as a whole – there are many channels available. Below are some example paragraphs taken from successful applications:

“…as well as the usual daily blogging and live tweets about the conference, it would be my intention to produce a short beginners guide, ideally published under the ucisa banner, to help those universities going on the same journey as us. I would hope to create something informative and useful, with attributed nuggets from sessions and those I meet.”

“At the Conference:
Twitter – members can post questions to me whilst I’m at the conference and I’ll attempt to find out and/or attend the relevant session on the programme
Yammer – we have a site within our institution which is campus wide (staff & students)
Facebook – set up a dedicated Facebook to page to post photographs, documents and reflections
LinkedIn – updates to my own and ucisa pages”
“One of the key benefits of my chosen communication channels are that they make communications a two way process and allow the ucisa community to participate in discussions and share their own opinions. Facilitating the community to talk about issues, debate them and discuss their own views and opinions is the best way to spread information and take it into communications channels and networks that one person on their own could not reach.”

“I believe that a multi-channel approach is best to reach the widest possible audience. I would be happy to blog, present at a ucisa meeting and would also be keen to present a webinar to the community. I have presented in a couple of webinars in the area of research data management before and have found them to be a good way to reach a large audience.
I would also like to write a short ‘how to’ guide for institutions, highlighting some dos and don’ts of good risk management. I’m also open to other suggestions for how to share what I’ve learnt at the conference.”

Terms and conditions

When you are completing your application you will be asked to confirm the following:
• My university or college is a ucisa full member institution.
• I have not previously attended the conference I have selected in my application.
• I have not previously received a ucisa bursary.
• I confirm that without the ucisa bursary, I would not be able to attend the event.
• If I receive a bursary, I will undertake the dissemination activities I have listed in my application. I will also provide a 1 page report on the benefits of receiving a ucisa bursary (to my professional development, to my institution and to the HE/ FE IT community) three to six months after attendance.
• Payment of the bursary to my institution is conditional my completing stated dissemination activities.
• All arrangements for travel including registration and accommodation for successful applicants will need to be made and paid for by my university or college.
• If your application is successful, ucisa will make a significant contribution to your registration, conference accommodation and travel costs. For UK conferences, this comprises of the registration fee and an accommodation allowance of up to £100 a night. For international conferences, this comprises of the registration fee, an accommodation allowance of up to £100 a night and a travel allowance of up to £500. Exact funding amounts and maximums will be confirmed by ucisa to recipients. Any subsistence, additional travel costs or visa charges will need to be met by the institution as they are not included in the bursary. ucisa does not cover the cost of pre or post conference workshops.
• Following my attendance at the event and after I have undertaken the majority of your dissemination activities, my institution will claim the agreed funding from ucisa. This should be within six months of attending the event I have been funded to attend. My institution will invoice ucisa for the actuals incurred, up to the agreed maximum contribution for each component element (conference fee, accommodation and travel) and will send receipts with the invoice.
• By submitting this application I have consented to the collection and use of the personal information that I have provided to support the judging process and the administration of the ucisa bursary scheme.
• I acknowledge that if my application is successful, details of my bursary award will be listed on www.ucisa.ac.uk and publicised by ucisa.