Talis Aspire - QMUL - Making an effective business case - 17 November 2011

Making an effective business case

Pat Simons

Queen Mary, University of London

About Queen Mary• 21 academic

departments• 18,000 students• 1,600 academic staff• A wide range of

subjects.• Ambitious

Once upon a time…

We had an in-house reading lists system that worked– For one School– When we got the lists– With 4 hours inputting from

library assistants per list– Only understood by our in-

house systems team

Everything is changing

Social learning Teaching Collection

New virtual

presence

Everything is changing

IT Transformation

New management

Pedagogy

New VLE

Importance of student experience

Value for money

Library priorities

What is a reading list?

• Who uses them?• Who gets them?• Reading list or

bibliography?• Directional or

optional?• Who cares?

What about the Library

• Desperate to get reading lists

• No formal channels• No staff time for

processing lists• Poor quality of many

lists

Is a system what we need?

Yes• Time-poor students• Constrained budgets• In house service was

popular• Need to promote e-

resources• Improve communications• Centralisation and

standardisation

• Research intensive• Don’t want to “spoon feed”• “Academics will never

change”• “Reading lists are too

restrictive”• Reading lists are too long• Time-poor academics

No

Strategic fit

• SA2: Knowledge Dissemination

• Improving standards of teaching

• E-learning• Student satisfaction• Efficiency

Getting the money

• A proper business case• Investigate possible

systems– Visits– Demonstration

• Project proposals– Library projects fund– Student Experience Grant

Two projects for the price of one

Library• Stock management• Helping students 24/7• Exploit resources• Reduce workload• Student experience

Humanities• Quality of teaching• Guidance for

academics• Better communication • Student experience

Then the work began

2 Project teams

Project managers

Appoint project worker

• Pilot in one faculty or all together?

• Teaching & Learning Advisory Groups

• Presentations to academics

• Identify champions

Good things

We caught the zeitgeist

Senior support from day one

We’re in good company

Academic liaison librarians “got it”

Fast progress

Project governance and procurement procedures

Not so good

Lack of communication between the two projects at the start

Time slippage caused by staff leaving and recruitment delays

Project governance and procurement procedures

The verdict

This isn’t a library thing

Academic liaison is crucial

Senior support

Strategic fit

Student demand

More than technology

Has become a factor in other changes

Any questions?

[email protected]

http://lists.library.qmul.ac.uk/index.html