Description
Example 1: Microsoft Teams
Communication is an essential part of my role. The COVID-19 Pandemic and the move to remote learning and teaching have made this even more critical, as we have transitioned from on-campus to remote and then to hybrid workers – and then back again. These transitions were coupled with the introduction of new software as we deployed Microsoft 365 at the University of Hull in October 2020. This meant we were working under new conditions and with new communication tools. I was part of the Microsoft 365 delivery group, leading the implementation of Microsoft 365. The group prioritised the launch of Microsoft Teams to facilitate remote working. While the Teaching Excellence Academy drove the use of Teams with our academic teams, I led in pushing Microsoft Teams with professional services. Even with the return to campus, we have a lot of staff hybrid working, and even years after the initial lockdown, training and support for Microsoft 365 is still very much in demand.
When I worked for the Library, I was responsible for training University Library staff to use Microsoft Teams. As part of this, I established the structure of Teams we set up. This was carefully crafted to ensure we did not have too many Teams or channels, helping to ensure colleagues were not overwhelmed or confused about how to communicate through Teams. I set up a process to ensure colleagues did not create teams, as I wanted to manage this process carefully. This helped shape Microsoft Teams as an effective tool for the Library.
Based on this experience, I have been invited to support communication in my new role. I’ve supported the Faculty of Arts, Cultures and Education in enhancing their newsletters, ensuring greater accessibility and clearer design. I’ve also been supporting my department, the School of Education, using Microsoft Teams. I am in the middle of supporting Programme Directors to roll out the use of Teams to provide enhanced communication and collaboration opportunities that break away from a reliance on emails.
Example 2: Social media
I was responsible for marketing and social media for the University Library – leading their internal communications. Over the last two academic years, I created a new Marketing and Social Media Team, centralising print and digital marketing for all teams in the Library. The Team also manages social media (including Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook). As part of this, I expanded the Team and developed a new University Library Marketing and Social Media Strategy. My new team revolutionised how the Library communicates with our customers, seeing double the level of engagement compared to previous years. All of our social media has seen phenomenal growth, driven by increased activity and quality content growth. I have also led on integrating of Twitter and Facebook into the Library live chat system, allowing customers to connect with Library staff during working hours instantly. All of my work with social media has had a lasting impact, continuing to operate after I left the Library, demonstrating how effective this work has been.
Social media is something I actively use in my own practice. This practice-based expertise has helped me support academics and students in how they use social media. Social media is a significant component of the SPOCs and MOOCs I’ve run, and having the personal experience to draw upon has been essential to building authenticity.
Example 3: Visual communication
I strongly believe in visual communication for both internal and external communication. In particular, I have developed the use of images across our social media channels. This was driven by providing access to specialist software for my team and providing the training for it. I also use visual means when communicating with colleagues. When we first moved to remote working, I was responsible for re-coding our systems not to allocate rooms, but to allocate online meeting spaces. To communicate the changes to my team, I recorded videos and wrote instructions with screenshots to support them using the new system. This worked very well.
In the evidence section, you will find examples of visual communication that better demonstrate my work in this area. I’ve been significantly influenced by the ACRL (2022) visual literacy framework, primarily inspired by the research of my colleague Jacqui Bartram (2021). Her work shows how visual communication is often underappreciated and underutilized in the largely text-heavy world of academia. While some disciplines are better than others, there is great potential to expand this. Effective visual communication can better communicate complicated ideas and can benefit some students who are neurodiverse or have specific learning differences.
Evidence
Leading the use of Microsoft Teams at the University Library (Example 1)
This video is a case study that I filmed demonstrating the use of Microsoft Teams at the University Library. As described above, I led the implementation of Microsoft Teams at the University of Hull. I delivered Microsoft Teams training for the Library and managed the Teams set-up to ensure we didn’t have too many.
Statement of support: Rachel Welch, Head of Customer Services, University Library
Lee was the Library ambassador for MS Teams, which included helping the larger Library team to transition and acclimate to the new platform. This was no small feat as different groups within the Library were using different means of communicating with one another. Lee is a skilled communicator and helped to emphasise the useful features of Teams and helped our colleagues understand the value of engaging with this new platform. In addition, whenever anyone had a question about how to use an aspect of Teams, Lee always made the time to answer those queries. I think this approach by Lee is why the Library team has grasped onto the Teams platform and uses it consistently.
Visual and social media communication (Examples 2&3)
Under my leadership, the use of video to communicate dramatically increased at the University Library. Under my direction (2020-2022), I helped the Library gain 3523 subscribers and release hundreds of videos. This success was reported in one of my recent journal articles (Fallin, 2021).
Visual communications in social media
Where possible, I use visual communication techniques for internal and external communications. Here are some examples of images I’ve created, followed by a couple of tweets that demonstrate creative communication.
Statement of support: Kathryn McIlveen, Head of Customer Services, University Library, University of Hull
Lee helped source software to support my journey in design work. Snagit, Contensis, Creative Cloud – his training within InDesign have proved really useful when designing artwork. Lee was always there to bounce ideas off in the social media team and helped develop that thinking around engagement and the Library audience – his passion for communication and listening to others really supported me to flourish within this group and I am proud to continue his work.
Visual communication
Statement of support: Gordon Asher, Independent Scholar
I’ve used your own session that I made at ALDCon and the cracking map you made when you attended mine, to inform my own thinking and attempted development as to Critical Learning Development and conceptualisation of Critical Academic Literacies.
Visual communication in teaching
This video is an example of some of my teachings supporting visual communication. This example focuses on diagrams, illustrating the difference between effective and ineffective visual communication.
Supporting students with visual communication technology
I have developed and delivered taught workshops and in-curriculum sessions to help students develop their ability to write public communications. This responded to new assessment forms that asked students to write newspaper articles and blogs or produce posters and presentations. Often, there was a core software element to this, and students needed support in grasping this technology, especially in visuals.
I have a forthcoming book chapter written with my colleague Jacqui (Bartram, & Fallin, in press), recognising our expertise in building visual communications and supporting this in the curriculum.
Delivered sessions:
- School of English and Creative Writing – developed sessions on producing newspaper articles (including the use of Microsoft Word for typesetting) and producing a wiki (including supporting students with the use of Canvas for this assessment).
- School of History sessions on wiki (including supporting students with the use of Canvas for this assessment).
- School of Geography and Environmental Science sessions on public communications – including newspapers, blogs, magazines and opinion pieces (including the use of Microsoft Word for typesetting).
I have run over 9 sessions like the ones listed above, supporting hundreds of students to utilise technology for communication, directly impacting student outcomes.
Student MEQ comment:
The library skills team were very nice and very thorough. I’ve really enjoyed this module, the flexibility in its assignments has been a major stand out. Best assignment I’ve done in 2 years.
Supporting student self-help for public communication
I successfully received funding for a student internship focused on public communication assignments. With my training and support, the intern concentrated on producing a brand new Public Communication SkillsGuide. Although only 18 months old, this guide has received over 21,500 visitors – demonstrating the reach and impact of this topic.
Also see: University Library Social Media and Marketing Strategy
Statement of support, Michelle Bell, Customer Services, University Library, University of Hull
Whilst a member of the Skills Team in the University library, Lee’s work involved training and enhancing a student’s study skills, not only on a one-to-one basis, but also in a group capacity. I cannot count the number of times Lee dropped everything and helped ‘in the moment’, when a student is struggling with their studies. This could be Ref Works, One Note, Canvas, Microsoft Office or something we have never heard of before. I’ve seen him help stressed students at the PC’s, only to see the student look full of confidence and empowered after he has guided them.
On a personal note, when I reached out to Lee to teach me how to use Microsoft Visio he greatly assisted me. He provided me with the information I needed to go forward. Lee showed me how to produce Visio diagrams and flow charts. He also spent time with me to produce a PowerPoint on Visio, a Visio Induction for staff.
Accessible communications
While this is drawn on for my Understanding and engaging with legislation and Understanding and engaging with policies and standards I wanted to make the connection to communication. Communication is only appropriate, ethical and legal if it is accessible, and this is an area in which I’ve done significant work accessibility is most often driven through technology.
Statement of support: Rachel Welch, Head of Customer Services, University Library, University of Hull
The Designing for Diverse Learners framework helped influence how we manage our library social media and marketing. Lee’s leadership of this meant our marketing is consistent, planful and is better at connecting with our audience.
Reflection
I have always prided myself on my strong communication skills. The pandemic has allowed me the opportunity to develop this further, especially with the use of technology. In leading on customer engagement for the Library, I was allowed to create and lead the new Marketing and Social Media Team. There was a significant amount of pressure in this area, as during the pandemic, we were reliant on digital and social media communications – and lost all other routes to our student audience. My Team significantly improved our external communications, and I am so proud of what the team has achieved.
I think the most significant thing I have been able to develop is that of trust. Previously, external communication, especially social media, was limited to three or four people. Under my leadership, I demonstrated I could expand the number of staff working in this area without compromising on quality. This all started with trust. This example is an excellent demonstration of communication and working with others. There is, however, still space to develop. In particular, I want to see a growth in quality and long reads – especially via the Library Blog, which I relaunched in September 2021. Having left the Library – this is perhaps one of the concrete parts of my legacy. The Library has maintained the strategy and team I established, and this work continues to this day. Knowing that I have established practices that still meet business needs gives me great pride. My old wish, in hindsight, is that I had better segmented social networking messages early in my leadership. I mistakenly pushed too much textual content out of Instagram (as images). As soon as we switched this to visually striking imagery, the network performed much better.
Concerning visual communication, I am happy with what I am delivering. I wish I could draw better. Having said that, I don’t let it stop me – and I still think I can communicate visually despite not being an artist. Right now, my focus is on pushing visual communication means to staff and students, promoting visual communication. Now that I have developed into my new role as an academic, I am cautious that time is ever more pressured. I’m fighting hard to maintain good visual design and literacy for all my content – even when I am under pressure. I fear that letting one slide slip will be an excuse for another. For this reason, I am focused on maintaining my high standard of visual content.
I have enjoyed reaching out to colleagues regarding my work in this area. It was particularly nice to engage with Gordon, as it helped me realise how my visual communications are used beyond my own institution. Even today (27/02/2023), I had a colleague from Buckinghamshire New University email to ask for access to one of my mindmaps. This is further supported by Helen Webster, who noted: “I look forward to [Lee’s] shared notes and blog posts on conference papers to enhance my own learning and keep the conversation going!” – this really gives me pride – to know my shared notes and visual communications are of use to others in the sector.
References
ACLR (2022) Companion Document to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: The Framework for Visual Literacy in Higher Education. Available online: https://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/Framework_Companion_Visual_Literacy.pdf [Accessed 27/02/2023]
Bartram, J. & Fallin, L. (in press) Killing the hidden essay: Supporting disciplines to move to multimodal public communication assignments, in Murphy, M., Beene, S., Greer, K., Schumacher, S. & Thompson, D. S. (eds), Unframing the Visual: Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information Spaces. Chicago: ACRL Press.
Bartram, J. A. (2021) Bridges and barriers to developing visual literacy in UK undergraduate students. EdD Thesis. University of Hull, March 2021. Available online: https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:18418 [Accessed 12/01/2022].
Fallin, L. (2021) Teaching academic software via YouTube videos in the Covid- 19 pandemic: potential applications for learning development The challenge. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education(22).
Revisions for reassessment:
The description section has been reorganised into three examples, including the expansion and update of each with new references. The most significant change to this page is that of evidence. I have added five statements of support provided by four colleagues to demonstrate my work in this area. I’ve also added new forms of evidence to further support my work, especially around my in-curriculum support to help students with communication, visual communication and public communication. I have expanded and enhanced my reflection to meet the new evidence and description. Numerous grammatical and style changes.