Preparing for the workshop

Dumebi was unfortunately unable to attend the workshop in person, but offered to deliver her introduction to Archi via web-conference from Canada. We met this morning using Blackboard Collaborate to test out the system. All went well, the sound was particularly clear.

EA Case Studies Webinar

Jisc Emerging Practices free webinar: Transforming Business Practices with Enterprise Architecture

On the 16 January we participated in a very successful webinar that introduced two case studies about the use of EA in institutions. JISC Advance hosted the webinar and provided Blackboard Collaborate as the web-conference tool. The webinar was well attended and there was a good discussion. Ray Reid presented a case study about using EA to transform the External Examiners process at Staffordshire University. Stephen Powell from University of Bolton presented on improving faculty business processes.

Ray had not delivered an online webinar before, and his reflections on the process are below:

Webinar experience

I’ve completed my first experience of speaking in and listening to a Webinar, the following is a summary of what I thought of it, hopefully it will prove useful to you when deciding whether this is the route that you should take.

Tools / Equipment used:

• Blackboard Collaborate (used to be called elluminate)
• Toshiba Laptop (Windows 7), Windows XP wasn't as fluid so a reinstall was called for.
• External Microphone
• External Headphones

Advantages:

• Easy to setup, although first run setup can have Java issues, so it would be best to check that you don’t have these by attempting to access the room well in advance to your webinar time.
• People don’t have to travel to be in a particular location to participate.

Disadvantages:

• No feedback when you’re talking, just silence to keep you company, yes your listeners can ask questions but the feedback which you get whilst talking to people face to face or via Skype is just not there.
• Very dependant on attendees’ equipment, so if you have a poor quality microphone you will come across badly to the people who are listening – so it’s best to do a pre-recording if you can, that way you can listen to how you sound. One of our hosts on the day sounded very tinny. 
• My topic was on Enterprise Architecture, it was difficult to see if the audience was following what I was saying, I had done several run-throughs of my session and had also recorded it, but that still didn't stop me from thinking what I was talking about didn't make sense due to the silence whilst doing it live. I found myself dumbing down my content as I was talking, which in hindsight I don’t think I should've done as it’s very noticeable by all the pauses. 

The Webinar can be accessed here: http://emergingpractices.jiscinvolve.org/wp/webinar-applying-ea/

Ray Reid.

Webinar January 16 2013

Our next event will be a webinar for anyone interested in Enterprise Architecture. It's being delivered by Staffordshire University and University of Bolton on 16th January 2013 (11:45-13:00). The session will include two case studies followed by discussion:

- Staffordshire University (delivered by Ray Reid and Ian Watts): using EA to transform the management of external examiners

- University of Bolton (delivered by Stephen Powell): improving faculty business processes - a mixed methods approach

You can register for the webinar using the following link: http://applyingea.eventbrite.com/

Creative thinking events

Unfortunately, our event planned for the 6 November with the RSC West Midlands in Wolverhampton had to be re-scheduled for 28 Feb 2013 due to insufficient numbers of participants. We have been wondering if it's just the wrong time of year, or the language we use to describe EA for new users.

I met with one of the participants from our summer event, and she described EA as a very exciting and useful  tool. She has used Archi to create many maps to help with planning and future proofing of plans. She had had 'coaching' from Sam and Fleur to help her develop her skills and she found this the most useful development activity. It's likely that she will present a short case study about her experience at one of our future events.

Impact of workshop

I met recently with Sam Scott who had attended the StaffFest event on Enterprise Architecture to ask her if the session had been useful. She currently works in the marketing department with a wide variety of disparate teams on the course data project. She has used her knowledge of EA to create and use several maps to help thinking through the processes and as a way to share her understanding with the various teams. She hopes to use EA to continue to support planning in the future that she hopes will enable her to simplify and make more efficient the existing processes.

Creative Thinking

The project has been progressing, albeit slowly, over the summer months.

We met with our project partner, Stephen Powell from Bolton, on 18th September to share our plans for the workshop on 6 November with the RSC, and had some useful feedback.

We have planned a second workshop for April 2013 (probably the 9 or 16th) in Newcastle with Andrew Stewart.

Ray and Ian have been working to develop the workshop materials, activities and Powerpoints. Ian and I have created some 'cards' based on the Archi icons to use in the workshop for the initial activity. We hope that by engaging participants with a hands-on activity to create a simple process map with cards they will be able to conceptualise the EA process and be able to transfer to the Archi software easily.

We are planning to deliver a webinar with Stephen Powell sharing our case studies in January. This may be delivered as part of a face-to-face workshop.

I have arranged to meet with one of the participants from our first workshop in July to see how they have been implementing EA

JISC Meeting

I met with Sarah Davies from JISC today on the phone. We discussed the project activity so far and I agreed to send up dates of the events we had planned. Sarah offered to help with promoting the events to appropriate colleagues.