Leadership Team Update from Otago Polytechnic

17 December 2009

2009-12-21T09:50:00.001+13:00

First Staff meeting for 2010
Remember, our first staff meeting for 2010 is on February 4th. We will commence the day with the usual BBQ from 7.30am at Manaaki followed by the staff meeting in the University of Otago College of Education Auditorium at 9.00am. The staff meeting will be followed by a half day of staff development activities which are highly relevant to the year ahead. See Insite for the draft programme.

Christmas Cheer - Special offer:
Otago Polytechnic’s very own Bannockburn Road Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2008, for sale.

Central Otago had a bumper crop in 2008, and as the fruit was too good to sacrifice, it was made into quality wine and bottled as cleanskins, with the intention of making it available to staff at a really fantastic price.

The grapes were grown by students, but the wine made for us by Quartz Reef. Therefore this is a quality Central Otago Pinot Noir, and is yours for the fantastic price of 180/case ($15/bottle). Case purchases only thanks.

Please place your orders by emailing Barbara on barbara.emmitt@op.ac.nz

Professor Annemarie Jutel
The Professorial Committee at its most recent meeting recommended that Associate Professor Annemarie Jutel be appointed to a position of Full Professor. The committee comprising senior staff from Otago Polytechnic, Auckland University and Auckland University of Technology were unanimous in their praise for the level of and development of Annemarie’s scholarly work, particularly the development of her area of research on the “Sociology of Diagnosis”. Annemarie’s work is leading in this area and she has published prolifically in international journals and is working with multidisciplinary teams to develop this research further. Annemarie is also on the Editorial Board of a number of journals and is a reviewer for several others as well as being invited regularly to present her work internationally.

Happy Christmas
This is the last Update for the year and on behalf of Leadership Team I would like to thank all staff for your many and varied contributions to our success this year. It has been a very challenging year but we have finished up in a good place: on budget, strong enrolments for 2010 and most of all in good spirit. We are looking forward to a good year in 2010, leveraging off the many organisational improvements we have made this year. It is certainly time for rest and recreation, so we hope you all have a happy Christmas and a good quality break. See you in the New Year.

Best wishes
Phil on behalf of Leadership Team

3 December 2009

2009-12-03T13:58:00.002+13:00

Software Requirements 2010
Over the Christmas break ISS will be working hard to ensure classroom computers are fit for purpose for 2010. Please read the attached memo from Michael Collins and do your bit to ensure everything works well for our students next year.

Computer Upgrades
As well as updating computer software in our classrooms ISS will be upgrading computers – hopefully those dreadfully slow computer boot ups will be a thing of the past!

Leadership Programme Development Approvals
Approval has been given for the development of two new programmes in Hospitality:
· Bachelor in Culinary Arts
· Diploma in Professional Cookery Level 5

Formative Assessment
Attached to Update sent via Outlook is an article which talks of an assessment revolution which has already swept through our primary and secondary schools and is about to enter the halls of tertiary organisations. The article is a "must read" for all academic staff. The stand out line for me is: "of all the factors that make a difference to student outcomes, the power of feedback is paramount in any list".

Part of our programme review discussion in 2010 will be about assessment practices in each programme - and especially those where student success needs to improve, so please take a look at the attached article.

Assessment Results
The year is rapidly drawing to a close, and we know everyone is intent on tidying up all of those administrative loose ends. But one of the big ones is finalising and entering in Jasper assessment results. We will really appreciate it if care is taken to ensure that 100% of results are in before heading off on leave.

Blackboard
A reminder to all staff that Blackboard will cease to operate from December 31st . Please notify EDC as soon as possible if you have any students still needing to access online course materials over January. Assistance is also available to help with organising your resources that have been migrated into Moodle… please don’t leave it until February!

Relocations
As most of you will now be aware the various relocations that are happening around campus over the semester break have started and there is a lot of activity. For those who are involved in the shifts this is obviously a very busy and demanding time, especially within such a short time frame, and we can appreciate that in some cases people are having to clean out/pack up things that have been gathered over quite a few years in this short time. Thanks to everyone involved for your cooperation and understanding during this busy period. There are sure to be lots of questions about various aspects of the moves. Please direct these questions to your HOS/HOP/Service Managers in the first instance who can then escalate them to the appropriate people.

Due to the sheer logistics of moving many people within a tight time period, there is a high chance something may get moved/not moved in error, or a small detail such as a pinboard or whiteboard may be missing or not quite in the right place when you arrive in you new destination. Again, please identify this to your HOS/HOP/Service Managers and it will be rectified for you as soon as possible. The physical moving of equipment/boxes will be completed for staff, hence the need for everything to be clearly labelled. Whilst offers of help are appreciated, please do not move anything yourself. We would like to avoid manual handling injuries and there is a specialist team of shifters to assist.

It is important that that this process is followed to avoid confusion and complete the task on time.

If you would like any more information or have any questions please feel free to contact the project manager Brian Shea via your HOS/HOP/Service Managers.

Christmas Party
Don’t forget that the staff Christmas get together will be held at Manaaki tomorrow Friday 4 December, with food and drinks available from 3pm. Partners welcome. Taxi chits available if needed (see Paula Petley). See you there!

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

20 November 2009

2009-11-24T13:18:00.003+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 – 1pm in G106 on Friday 4 December. Topic to be advised.

Review of Work Environment Survey
We would like to capture any feedback for improving the Work Environment Survey whilst this is fresh in people’s minds. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please send directly to Stuart Terry stuartt@op.ac.nz.

Improving the Work Environment
Attached to the Update sent via Outlook is an action planning tool which has been sent to managers to help focus attention on those aspects of the work environment which need improvement.

The tool indicates where responsibility lies for initiating action, wherever results are under 80%. Priorities are established as follows:
- Priority 1: any element where the result is under 60%
- Priority 2: any element where the result is below 61% and 70%
- Priority 3: any element where the result is between 71% and 80% AND tracking down
- Managers will transfer their own area results across to the template, for each of the three priority areas and will be expected to demonstrate at the time of the 2010 Programme/Service Area reviews action in accordance with the priorities.
- Leadership Team will be following through on all areas with the priorities for which we have primary responsibility.
We encourage all staff to take individual responsibility for helping to improve our work environment, by taking action in the areas identified.

The second attachment shows the priorities for the Polytechnic at large. We are making workload and work related stress our major social sustainability focus for 2010.

Email Address
The migration from Novell to Microsoft has enabled the capability for staff e-mail addresses to now be firstname.surname@op.ac.nz . This new address is already in place for all current staff so you can start to use it immediately. This and your current address name will work for a period of time. However, as you update your business cards, stationery, e-contact details you should start using the new address.

Christmas Cards
In the interests of sustainability, we have resolved to not have Christmas Cards printed this year, but will have an e’version available soon for those who like to send Christmas greetings.

Turning Point
The following dates have been set for Turning Point programmes in 2010:
27,28,29 January
10,11,12 March
14,15,16 April
20 June, 1,2 July
4,5,6 October

For those of you who have not heard of Turning Point, the course is very much about personal development - it is about you enhancing your understanding of yourself, and enhancing your personal effectiveness, whether that be in your work or personal life. The course has the potential not only to help you cope better, and be more effective, but also to equip you to assist your work colleagues to do the same. You will not only gain fresh personal insights, but also many useful tools and techniques.

Please book in with Jeanette Corson early, and please understand that your booking is a commitment and a priority, so be sure you really do want to take advantage of the programme.

Ako Aotearoa Good Practice Publication Grants
We have had three publications published in the Ako Aotearoa Good Practice Publication Grant e-book which is available on the Ako Aotearoa website www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/gppg-ebook. These publications were awarded in the 2008 round of the Good Practice Publication Grant scheme:
Ø The Benefits of Open Educational Resources
Ø Simpa – A Very Useful Toolkit
Ø Assessment of Prior Learning Using Graduate Profiles

Congratulations to those involved with the applications.

Congratulations
To Kay Lion, who has been appointed HoS, School of Applied Business, effective immediately. Kay has been Associate HoS for the last 2 years, and takes over from Chris Morland who has been Acting HoS for the last 12 months, as well as Group Manager. Thanks Chris for a job well done.

Christmas Party
A reminder that our annual Christmas get together will be held on Friday 4 December from 3pm at Manaaki. If you do not already have this date in your diary, do so now! Come along and enjoy some food, drinks and fun with your colleagues.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

6 November 2009

2009-11-09T14:05:00.004+13:00

Staff Forum
Next staff forum will be 13 November in G204 (note room change) at 12.00. There will be a presentation showing how far the Polytechnic has come over the last five years or so in terms of strengthening our financial viability and sustainability.

Insite
Congratulations to all those who have worked on the development of Insite – a great result. This is a vast improvement on Polybase and offers exciting potential for improving our communications many times over.

Opportunities for Improvement (OFI) Programme
Talking about Insite, you may have noticed the section headed up Opportunities for Improvement (OFI). As yet, there has been very little use but that is probably because we have not yet explained what this is all about. Hopefully what follows addresses that.

We all know the challenges that we face and securing the sustainability of the Polytechnic and I’m sure we all appreciate that developing a strong continuous improvement culture is a prerequisite not just for financial sustainability, but for keeping ourselves at the top of the sector in terms of educational quality.

To help us grow an improvement culture we are introducing the OFI programme and we sincerely hope that “OFI” becomes part of our every day language.

The essence of the programme is to encourage staff to submit their ideas for improving what we do and how we go about it by being public about these suggestions and by requiring that they be taken seriously by those who are responsible for the areas about which suggestions are made. So, we not only want to encourage you to think about how to improve services in your own area, but also other areas in the Polytechnic. We hope that improvement suggestions will be constructive and received non defensively and in the spirit with which they are given.

The rules of the game in essence are:

Any staff member can register a new OFI. It is really easy to do!
The Manager of the area to which the OFI relates will be alerted to the suggestion by email and is required to consider the suggestion and to respond
The Manager can do any of the following:
o Accept the suggestion and set about to give it effect, explaining the likely timeframes.
o Accept the suggestion in principal and to undertake more investigation and indicate when a final decision is likely to be made.
o Reject the suggestion and explain why. This may well be on budgetary grounds in which case all such OFIs will be accumulated and considered for possible implementation when we do the next budget or reforecast.

So, you can see that it is our intention to have public accountability around the suggestions which you have for improving the Polytechnic. What’s important though is that suggestions are put forward constructively and not frivolously. Those putting forward suggestions are required to identify themselves so that the responsible Manager can engage in further discussion and clarification if need be.

Why not give it a go – I’m sure that there are plenty of ideas just waiting to be aired.

Work Environment Survey
We are in the process of posting the WES reports on Insite. All of the reports will be available for staff to peruse and you are encouraged to do so.

Tertiary Education Strategy (TES)
You will be aware that government is developing a new TES which will be the key document which steers the tertiary sector the next five years. In the draft, government has given some really clear signals about what it expects of the tertiary sector:

A more efficient sector (surprise, surprise!)
Better educational performance, i.e. better course and qualification completions, more New Zealanders achieving higher level qualifications and especially degrees
A priority to young people, i.e. those under 25

However, the draft strategy was wanting in several key areas and we have put in a Polytechnic submission to endeavour to encourage a better final strategy. The draft strategy itself can be accessed through the TEC website.

Our financial challenges – how far have we come?
There will be a presentation on this at the next staff forum. You will see that our efforts to ensure a financially sound 2010 have been successful and barring unforeseen major disasters, 2010 will be a good year. You will also see that we still have work to do for 2011 when the funding cuts really kick in. However, our success so far gives Leadership Team considerable confidence that we can position ourselves appropriately for 2011; and time is certainly now on our side for us to achieve this.

Applications and Enrolments for 2010
At this stage applications are looking strong for 2010 and we are running approximately 15% ahead compared with the same time last year. Our approach to this strong demand will be to accept as many students as we possibly can in Semester 1 and to worry about possible “over enrolment”, should it occur, in Semester 2. Heads of School have been asked to prepare contingency plans to run additional occurrences if demand does warrant this and to ensure that every occurrence is full. This includes anticipating the inevitable withdrawals that occur in the first few weeks by “over enrolling” unless this is unreasonably risky in terms of the availability of specialist equipment or health and safety reasons.

We can all help achieve a successful start to the year by encouraging people we meet to consider study at the Polytechnic and by providing top notch services to those who make enquiries or who are on campus checking us out.

Puna Kawa
Yesterday Council accepted a Leadership Team recommendation to change the name of the Council Room to “Puna Kawa”. We made this recommendation as an important symbolic step towards raising awareness around te reo, as part of our commitment to Otago Polytechnic being a learning environment supportive of Maori. There will be no translation of Puna Kawa which has the meaning “the place where things happen” – which of course is exactly the purpose of the Council Room.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of Leadership Team

2009-10-13T09:18:00.002+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 – 1pm in H127 on Friday 30 October. Topic to be advised. Please note change of room.

Head of School – School of Art
I am pleased to advise that Professor Leoni Schmidt has been appointed as head of the School of Art. We wish Leoni well in her new position.

Congratulations
Congratulations to our Chaplain, Mike Wright, who yesterday was inaugurated as a Justice of the Peace. Well done!

BITLAN 2009
Over the weekend the School of Information Technology ran a very successful BITLAN at the Art School Gallery, attended by 50 gamers from as far afield as Christchurch. For the non-IT person, a LAN event is a 24 hour BYOC (bring your own computer) gaming experience. Tim Elder kept the teams focused all night with challenging computer game tournaments and prizes.

The event was generously sponsored this year by PBTech, who supplied Gigabit switches and $600 of prizes. The network, servers and power systems to supply the requirements of the 50 participants were developed by our technician, Ashley Martin, and installed with the help of a team of volunteers.

Thanks to all who contributed – including ICT staff and students and the Campus Environment team.

Successful Panel Visits Last Week
Last Monday we hosted the Accreditation Panel for the Metro Group’s collaboratively developed Bachelor of Engineering Technology. The programme document is in the final approval process and the panel met to assess our capability to deliver the degree. We have some easy-to-meet requirements to enable the panel to recommend accreditation to ITP Quality Board.

Congratulations to John Findlay and his team, and a particular mention to the involvement of Glenice Mayo.

On Wednesday and Thursday the Accreditation and Approval Panel for the suite of post-graduate visual arts programmes met. The Panel was satisfied with our submission, we have no requirements and they will recommend to NZQA that we be given approval and accreditation for this suite of programmes.

Congratulations to Leoni Schmidt, and in particular Bridie Lonie and Rodney Browne who were the main developers of the programmes.

A big ‘thank you’ to all School of Art staff who met with the Panel and presented such a cohesive articulation for the qualifications.

Work Environment Survey Results
Thank you for the excellent response to the survey. The Chief Executive Office was the first area to have 100% completion so have won a team meal at TECHnique. A draw has been held of those areas who also attained 100% completion – HR, Midwifery, Leadership Team and Customer Services and I am pleased to advise that Midwifery are the winners and have also won a meal at TECHnique. Enjoy!

The survey results themselves were very positive, especially in the circumstances, i.e. we are undergoing a lot more change as we work towards meeting that huge financial challenge for 2011. Three of the overall reports are attached to the Update sent via Outlook:

· Overall Trend Analysis 2004 - 2009
· Overall Comments Report
· Overall Results Report

(please don’t print all of these – they are big documents!)

We did have an all-time record response rate this year – 78%, which was good to see – thank you. For most of the dimensions in the survey the agreement level has increased over last year and in many areas are also at an all-time high e.g. 94.3% of respondents reporting they are happy in their work; and 84.4% feeling valued. 93.3% feel they are treated fairly and 92.3% agree that their right to hold and speak an opinion is respected.

It was particularly good to see such a high level of understanding of and agreement with our Polytechnic vision, goals and objectives, and an extremely high endorsement of our organisational values. It is reassuring to have this support.

However there are some downsides, which were not unexpected but which we will be taking seriously:

· 29% of respondents are experiencing unacceptable levels of work related stress
· 28% of respondents do not experience a sense of trust at the Polytechnic
· 40.5% of respondents report not being able to take regular breaks during allocated work hours and 31% are not able to make use of their allocated professional development time.
· 35.8% of respondents find staff morale in their work area not to be high – although this is down from 40.1% last year.

Where to next?
The School and Service Area reports will all be completed this week, and will be distributed for discussion and action planning (where needed) in your work areas. We will be looking for ways to lift our game in all these areas where agreement ratings are below 80%, and especially where they are below 70%. Watch this space!

Automotive Repair Service Staff Trial
The Automotive staff are about to trial a new initiative to operate a working garage as part of the student experience, and put the “applied” into applied and hands-on learning.

The trial begins on October 19 and runs to October 30 and is available to all staff who work at OP. If it is successful it will become part of the full time automotive programme offered for 2010, and will provide you with an onsite solution to your automotive requirements. For a list of services offered, and the costs, please see the information sheet attached to Update sent via Outlook.

Book in early so you won’t be disappointed!! Email CaraS@tekotago.ac.nz

Turning Point 2010
We have just finished our last Turning Point for 2009, and feedback from participants has once again been excellent.

We will be running TP again in 2010, and are planning two courses, if there is the demand, at the start of the year:

January 27, 28 29
February 1, 2, 3

For those of you who have not had the TP experience this will be a great start to the year – guaranteed! Please book in with Jeanette Corson, and if you can do either of these dates please let her know – that flexibility really helps the planning.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

23 September 2009

2009-09-29T14:34:00.005+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 – 1pm in G106 on Friday 9 October. Topic: Q&A.

Promotion Round - Associate Professors and Professors
I am pleased to announce our fifth promotions round for professorial positions. Up to four promotions may be made in accordance with our policy (AP403). Applications are to be sent to Robin Day by Friday, 30 October. For more information about the professorial positions please refer to “Managing Your Career” on Polybase. For advice regarding the promotions process, please contact Robin.

Nominations for Student and Staff Awards
Nominations for Student and Staff Awards are now open and are to be received by the Deputy Chief Executive office no later than 5pm on 30 October 2009. Attached to the Update sent via Outlook is a memo from Robin Day, outlining the awards available. Nomination forms and further information are in the attached policies - including purpose, evaluation panel membership, criteria and nominations (who you can nominate for what).

Staffing Reviews
It is with considerable regret that I need to advise you of staffing redundancies in the School of Art and the Community Learning Centres in Wanaka and Alexandra. We will be losing 5 colleagues from the School of Art and one each from the two Community Learning Centres. These decisions are solely a consequence of the funding cuts which we are trying to cope with for 2010 and 2011. Regrettably, we are unable to continue to cross-subsidise areas of the Polytechnic that are unable to pay their way. This is a very stressful time for the staff concerned and I would very much appreciate your support to your colleagues at this time.

Work Environment survey
Thanks to all of you who completed the Work Environment Survey. We have had a record response rate at over 78% and I know we will be getting valuable feedback. The first of the reports will be available after the semester break.

ACE (Adult Community Education) Awards
Congratulations to the following staff and students who received awards at the ACE Awards ceremony held in the Dunedin Town Hall recently.
Ø Jill Davidson, Programme Manager, Foundation Studies, who was presented with an Exceptional Adult Educator Award
Ø The Learning Centre team, which was collectively the recipient of an Outstanding Educator Award
Ø Students Karyn Hucklebridge and Lynda Jackson, who were each the recipients of Outstanding Adult Learner Awards

Associate Head of School – Social Services
Some of you may be aware that Dianne Begg is planning to retire at the end of the first semester in 2010. We are pleased to advise that Chris Williamson has been appointed as the associate Head of School as from 1 February 2010 and Sally Pairman will take on the HOS role and work with Chris for the School when Dianne retires.

Congratulations
to student and part time staff member from Design, Lisa Richardson, who won an award in the NBR Audacious Student Entrepreneur Challenge held recently. Lisa’s Business called the Foundry, a tourism venture in a new and growing sector ‘creative tourism’, won her the Most Socially Responsible Business Award. The prize value was $2500 to use towards development of the business.

Absence from the Polytechnic
I will be away from the Polytechnic next week on annual leave. Philip Cullen will be acting Chief Executive during that time.

Semester Break
We are about to go into a semester break and I would like to wish all of those of you who can take a break at this time a relaxing holiday. It has been a stressful year to date and we really do need to seize the opportunity to recharge our batteries when we can.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

28 August 2009

2009-08-28T15:11:00.003+12:00

Work Environment Survey
The Work Environment Survey (WES) for 2009 opens today, and staff will be able to participate until 5.00pm Friday 18th September.

There have been some refinements to the survey this year, in particular:

A change to the response categories to: Agree, Tend to Agree, Tend to Disagree, Disagree and where the option is provided – Unable to Judge. This should help somewhat for those questions where people are not cut and dried on their response, yet not destroy comparability with prior years.
A reordering of the questions, starting with your immediate job and finishing with the perspectives relating to the wider Polytechnic.
A consultation within the WES re our organisational values. We have had ambiguity about our values, with these appearing in different places both explicitly and implied. Work has been done to synthesise what we have previously expressed and you will be asked to give your views on how they are now expressed.

Please do participate. We know we are all feeling the pressure at the moment, but it is most helpful to see what is still working well for everyone and where the pressure points really are.

As usual, a team meal for the first work area to secure 100% participation by permanent staff and a draw for all areas that secure 100% participation.

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 – 1pm on Friday 4 September. This will cover the refined OP Strategy; as well as a general Q & A session.

Spring Breakfast
Have you diaried Tuesday 1st September for our traditional spring breakfast to be held in Manaaki from 7.30am?

Spring in2 it!
I hope you have all registered for the Institute of Sport and Adventure’s healthy workplace challenge. This is a 10 week fun, fitness and food challenge where you will be encouraged to exercise for 30 minutes a day, eat your 5+ a day of fruit and vegetables, and to stay hydrated. If you haven’t already done so, log in to https://springin2it.op.ac.nz/

Leadership Team
New Withdrawals Policy
Proposed changes to the policy extending the last date for withdrawal with a refund, intended to help improve to increase retention and success rates were discussed. A decision has been made to amend the policy as follows:

The final date for withdrawing with a refund from courses in a programme commencing in February 2010 and for Semester One or full year courses in 2010 is 31 March. The final date for withdrawing from courses in a programme that commenced in Semester Two and receiving any refund for 2010 is 31 August.

A 6 – 7 week period following enrolment is proposed with a 75% refund. It was agreed that there be no 10% rule for stand-alone courses and short awards.It was also resolved to develop an Operational Guideline to run alongside the policy: those enrolling in full year programmes are not able to obtain refunds if they withdraw from second semester courses. The issue of how occurrences are entered in the SMS was raised. Sue Thompson will initiate a meeting with key people to identify the issues associated with the proposed changes and report back to the next meeting.

Changes to OP’s Evaluation Framework
The following changes to enhance the current OP evaluation programme were approved:

From 2010:

the teacher evaluation form is reduced to 10 quantitative questions and two qualitative questions and retaining a similar 5 point rating scale.
Each question will have a descriptor to explain to students about what they are being asked to rate
a similar but slightly altered 5 point scale of Disagree/Tend to Disagree/Tend to Agree/Agree/Unable to Judge to be used.
the questions
What does this lecturer do particularly well and should do more of?
What could this lecturer improve or do less of?
will be replaced with
Please comment on this lecturer’s teaching strengths
Please comment on how you think this lecturer might improve the teaching and learning in this programme.
from 2010 the open question course evaluation survey is replaced with a slightly longer 15 question survey consisting of 11 compulsory questions, two questions chosen by the lecturer/school and 2 standard qualitative questions.

New Legislation
Government has now tabled the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill before Parliament. This Bill, if enacted as is, will:

reduce Council to 8 members, removing staff representatives as such
give Government the controlling voice on our Councils, through appointing 50% of the council and also the Chair and Deputy Chair
give greatly enhanced powers for government to intervene in polytechnic affairs.

This bill signals an unprecedented level of government control over a tertiary institution, posing real threats to our autonomy. The full bill is attached to the Update sent via Outlook.

Computer Literacy and Digital Information Literacy Project
A project team has been brought together to develop strategies for raising the overall level of staff capability in computer and digital literacy.

The scope of the project includes:

Computing tools for work
OP systems
Social media
Digital information literacy

and will involve:

identifying, for different job families, the basic computing and digital information literacy knowledge and skills considered necessary for effective job performance, both now and in the near future
identifying for different job families/and/or specific functions the advanced or specialist computing and digital information literacy knowledge and skills necessary for effective job performance
developing learning strategies and training packages to assist staff to develop their capability. Strategies will involve leadership, champions and the use of technologies in the learning process. It is envisaged that the Community Learning Centres will play the major role in developing training packages and supporting staff learning.

Key outcomes of the project will be more capable staff i.e:

enhanced competence and
enhanced confidence to use the skills acquired.

Revised Strategy
Attached to the Update sent via Outlook is a Powerpoint outlining the Polytechnic’s revised strategy, which is substantively the pathway we have been on, but much more focused and simplified – to reflect the challenge we now face.

Also explicit are the organisational values (see item re WES) and the organisational culture which we need to develop to ensure future success in the “brave new world”.

University of Hawaii
Attached to Update sent via Outlook is some positive thinking by the University of Hawaii, in negative funding times. They see two sides to their current situation – feeling “beat-up” versus “up-beat”. A similar situation to our own - we are constantly feeling beat up by TEC, yet there are so many “up beat” things happening around us which remind us that our efforts are all worth it!

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

13 August 2009

2009-08-13T16:25:00.002+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 – 1pm on Friday 28 August. Topic to be advised.

Staff Function
All staff are invited to Manaaki (M Block) for drinks and finger food between 4.30 and 6.30pm on Friday 21 August. This is an opportunity for a get together with your colleagues as well as a look around the new facilities if you have not already done so.

Spring Breakfast
Staff are also invited to the annual Spring Breakfast, to be held on Tuesday 1 September at Manaaki. As usual, the Leadership Team will be cooking breakfast which will be available from 7.30am.

Possible relocation of Schools/Service Areas
Attached to the Update sent via Outlook, is a memorandum setting out our thinking around School/Service Area relocations: what is being considered, why and when changes might occur. Feedback on the proposals is invited.

Leadership Team
National Certificate in Adult Literacy Education (Vocational Tutor/Lecturer or Workplace Trainer)
Leadership Team have approved the development of the above certificate, using CPIT’s approved programme document. The Certificate has a compulsory 30 credit unit standard “Develop adult learners’ literacy and numeracy skills within a training or education programme”, which all those working in adult literacy should have.

Snow Policy
The Snow Policy has been revised to ensure that there is more clarity around decisions to delay the start or close the Polytechnic in the event of heavy snow. The key change was that More FM was the radio station to be used for notification in the event of delayed start or closure of the Polytechnic and that notification would be given by 7.30am at the latest. The policy is attached for your information.

Wellbeing Steering Committee
Expressions of interest are invited for membership of a new group to help provide direction for the polytechnic on wellbeing initiatives offered to all staff. This small team will be responsible for setting objectives and action plans for the future of the programme and be a vital link to establishing and maintaining a wellness programme for staff at Otago Polytechnic. Only a limited amount of your time is required with meetings on a 2 monthly basis. If you have a passion for health and wellbeing and would like to see improved visibility and direction for wellbeing type initiatives offered to staff we need you!

Please forward all expressions of interest and queries to our H&S Advisor – terryb@tekotago.ac.nz by 14th August. More information will follow. The first meeting of this group is scheduled for the 20th August 2009.

Wellbeing Programme – We need a name..
We have a great Wellbeing programme already running well with initiatives such as the staff assistance programme, annual flu vaccination, health monitoring and much more. We intend to build on this and we need your input. We need your help to create a NEW name for the “wellbeing programme” at Otago Polytechnic that also suits our unique identity.

The prize for the entry chosen will be a free Massage voucher for our Student Massage Clinic. Please send your ideas to terryb@tekotago.ac.nz by COB 14th August.

Reducing Emissions
If you believe NZ should be prepared to do more in response to climate change, you might want to add your voice to that of Greenpeace – follow the link attached.

Spring food Festival
Enterprising and committed students from the University of Otago are organising a Spring Food Festival on October 24 as a significant sustainability initiative for Dunedin. October 24 is an international day of action for a more sustainable world. The organisers need and deserve our help, both as participants on the day and to help make the day a success. I have pledged OP’s organisational support, but can anyone as individuals help out. If you can, please e’mail Dunedin350@gmail.com and say what you can do. One of the organisers will be back in touch. See attachments for full details about 350 Dunedin Spring Food Festival; and diary now!

The Importance of Customer Service
A quote from a recent article by our very own Council member, Malcolm Macpherson, in QNews, (the official magazine of the New Zealand Organisation for Quality):
“If you’re recession-proofing, or better still investing in recession recovery, begin where customers first meet your service or produce, and get that right. Great service is something to be proud of. It makes everyone involved in the transaction feel good. And it may just be the edge that gets you and your team through the next couple of years.”

Congratulations!

to Midwifery lecturer and post graduate coordinator Dr Jean Patterson who has recently passed her PhD. Jean will graduate from Victoria University’s Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health later this year. Jean’s research focussed on how decisions are made, the reasons for and the timing of transfer to specialist care from rural maternity care.
to Linda Wilson who has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholarship. This is fantastic news for Linda who is about to embark on a three month sabbatical to the United States.
to Ros Westerman who was presented with AAPNZ Certification in Auckland last Friday night at the AAPNZ Annual conference. Many hours of work and years of commitment is required to qualify for this award incorporating service to the Dunedin group, and recognised academic qualifications. Ros was one of the first members of the local group to be awarded this distinction.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

4 August 2009

2009-08-13T16:19:00.003+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 on Friday 21 August. Topic to be advised.

Welcome
To Hospitality staff who have moved from Tennyson Street and are now based in D Block. This has been a long time coming!

Celebration!
All staff are invited to M Block (formerly the Student Centre) between 4.30 and 6.30pm on Friday 21 August for drinks and finger food to celebrate the move to the new facilities. Mark this in your diaries now!

Staff Calendar
The Staff Calendar which has been approved for 2010. Please note in particular:

designated Polytechnic staff development days, and for some Schools designated School development days (refer to appendix). These days are not available for leave and participation in development activities is a work requirement.
the annual staff meeting first official day back is Thursday 4th February 2010
the weeks not available for leave, unless there are exceptional circumstances. The approval of the HR Manager is required for any leave planned for these weeks.
the Polytechnic closes for all but “essential” staff on Friday December 17th, and for all staff on Friday December 24th. Essential staff are those who are required to keep core institutional services operational, and all those involved in recruitment of students for 2011.

Staff Development Days 2010
Attached to the Update sent via Outlook is our revised Staff Development Policy, which includes changes to funding arrangements and to staff development priorities for 2010.

Your attention is drawn to the following sections of the policy:

Section 3. Changes have been made in 3.1 and 3.6, but it is worth re-familiarising yourself with the whole of Section 3.
Section 4. Several changes have been made here.
Section 5.12 re funding to Schools and Service Areas
Section 7 – a new section on designated development days
Schedule 1 – for revised personal funding allocations and the “rules of the game” to receive funding. There will be a reduction in personal allocations from 2010, as part of our response to our financial challenges, and to reallocate some funding back to Schools and Service Areas for team development.

Sick Leave
It is important that we ensure accurate sick leave reporting occurs during the Red Alert phase of this Pandemic. Please find attached an amended version of the sick leave form HR823 to be used from now. The changes are as follows:
1. Separate reporting for sick leave where the employee is ill versus sick leave where the employee is caring for an ill relative (note this domestic leave is still deducted from the sick leave balance)
2. Both sick and domestic leave categories have a Yes/No category if flu is cited as the reason for the sick leave.
3. Where flu is indicated for the reason for any sick leave, the sick leave form HR823 must now be provided to Payroll with the fortnightly input sheet for correct record keeping.
Any leave queries should be directed to Payroll in the first instance as usual.

Spring Breakfast
A reminder that the annual Spring breakfast will be held at the Student Centre on 1 September. The Leadership Team will be cooking breakfast and this will be available from 7.30am.

HoS – Art
We are pleased to announce that Leoni Schmidt has been appointed Acting Head of the School of Art until the end of the year. Congratulations Leoni.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

8 July 2009

2009-07-08T14:36:00.001+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106, 12 - 1pm on Friday 24 July. Topic to be advised.

Email Free Day
This Friday (10th) is an e'mail free day, to facilitate the migration to Outlook. Enjoy the freedom!

Our Financial Position
Some of you will have seen articles in both D Scene and the Southland Times claiming that the Polytechnic is in financial strife. If we were to believe the headlines we are about to go bust! NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!

The reporter who wrote the story was more concerned with sensationalism than facts, in spite of having the facts. The facts are that right now our finances are fine, and we are on track for a $500,000 surplus for 2009.

But as we all know, we are facing a massive withdrawal of funding over the next 18 months - and we will have over $3m less than expected for our 2011 budget. We are not alone in the sector in facing these savage cuts. And we are facing these cuts because the current government has chosen to withdraw the funding. Let's be clear on that! See below for a synopsis of what the Minister of Finance thinks about Polytechnics!

Government takes a tough line on Polytechnics
Attached to the Update sent via Groupwise is the Education Review report on Bill English's speech to the ITPNZ Conference. You will note that the government does not acknowledge the serious underfunding in our sector, regards financial success as the only success worth acknowledging, and is happy to see polytechnics fail if they cannot balance their books. The attitudes expressed are, in my view, reprehensible to say the least, but there is a clear message here - help ourselves because no-one else will. This is the context for our current transformation exercise - we cannot afford NOT to succeed in dramatically lowering the costs of delivery of our programmes and services. The extra challenge, though, is to do so without sacrificing quality for our own integrity. It can be done - let's prove it!

Thought for the Week
"You cannot cross a canyon on two leaps".
This is worth having in our minds as we rise to the challenge for 2011.

Proposed Changes to Withdrawals/Refund Policy
Feedback is sought on the following proposal to change our withdrawals/refunds policy:

Proposal:
to extend the date for formal withdrawal from a course/programme to:

March 31st for all Semester 1 and full year enrolments and
August 31st for all Semester 2 enrolments

and to reduce the refund to 75% of the fees paid.

Current policy for compassionate refunds remains.

The advantages of this change are:

students have longer to settle in, and we have more opportunity to put support around those who are struggling;
therefore there is likely to be a positive impact on both retention and withdrawal rates
we retain more TEC funding for those who do withdraw.

The risk is that more students will actually withdraw, especially if they fail their first assessment which will in most cases have occurred by these dates. However, we could have 12.5% higher rate of withdrawal than now and would be no worse off financially than now. If the rate of withdrawal was the same, there would be a significant revenue gain. Please give feedback by Friday July 24th.

Keeping yourself and others safe from Influenza A (H1N1 - Swine Flu) during the Semester Break
During the semester break, you may be traveling around New Zealand and/or returning to New Zealand from international destinations. There are no travel restrictions in place, however the following advice is provided by the Ministry of Health:

· If you, or anyone you know, has recently traveled and is ill with influenza type symptoms, the advice is to phone the GP or Healthline (0800 611 116) for medical advice. Do not turn up at a hospital, medical centre or student health before phoning as you can spread germs to other people.
· Signs and symptoms of influenza include fever, cough, sore throat, stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people also experience diarrhoea and vomiting.
· Hand hygiene is still the single most effective measure in protecting yourself. Wash your hands with soap and water and dry them thoroughly. Alcohol-based cleaners are also effective.
· Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth as germs spread this way.
· Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, disposing of the tissue in a lined rubbish bin with a lid or plastic bag, and then clean your hands.
· Try to avoid contact with sick people and reduce time spent in crowded settings.
· On your return to Dunedin after the semester break, if you fall ill with flu-like symptoms within four days of your return, and you believe that you need medical attention, please ring your GP or Healthline 0800 611 116

IMPORTANT Please also contact the HR Department on 0800 762 786 and advise of your situation. A member of the Response Team will be in touch with you by phone within the 72 hours and provide advice for returning to the Polytechnic

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

17 June 2009

2009-06-17T12:07:00.001+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G204 between 12 and 1pm this Friday 19 June. Topic: Q & A
Swine Flu Update
If anyone has returned from any overseas travel and is displaying flu-like symptoms, then they should stay home and seek medical advice by calling the official NZ hotline: Healthline 0800 611 116 or your own doctor to advise that you have recently returned from overseas and are unwell. Do this by phone before visiting your GP or Student Health – they may require you to stay away from the health centre. This applies for any travel overseas including Australia.
Please also contact the HR Department on 0800 762 786 and advise of your situation. A member of the Response Team will be in touch with you by phone within the 72 hours and provide advice for returning to the Polytechnic.

Director of Public Health, Dr Mark Jacobs, says it is important that people who think they may have influenza A (H1N1) Swine Flu, stay put and phone for medical advice first.
Attached is an update from our Health and Safety Officer, Terry Buckingham.

Bahrain Polytechnic
I have just returned from a visit to Bahrain Polytechnic, the costs of which were fully covered by my hosts. The visit was a successful one from both a personal and Polytechnic perspective. The two institutions will be partnering up under a "sister institution" agreement which will see benefits for both over time. In the first instance we will be providing a range of services to help the new Bahrain Polytechnic get established and to grow; and we will be working on programmes to bring Bahraini students to NZ. We will also provide more management development for Bahraini managers, following on from the very successful project earlier in the year. We are also planning joint ventures in international educational service provision in the Middle East.

On a personal note - I did catch up with Gerard Quinn, formerly a lecturer in ABE, who sends his regards.

Good News
Hannah Joynt, Lecturer, Creative Studies and Teaching and Research Assistant in the School of Design, has won the COCA Anthony Harper Award 2009, valued at $10,000. Hannah was selected as winner by arts consultant, author and ‘cultural curmudgeon’ Hamish Keith. This year COCA received close to 400 entries from throughout New Zealand. As one of the country’s leading, and most prestigious, art competitions for contemporary practice, public interest has continued to grow since the inaugural award in 2004. This is particularly significant because last year Hannah opened her first solo show at COCA at the same time as the awards. This is great news for us all. Congratulations!

I am pleased to confirm the following employees have been promoted from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer grade following the May Salary Review Committee.
Doug Rodgers, ABE
Kevin Tansley, ABE
Kate Timms-Dean, EDC
Rachel Gillies, ART
Jill Davidson, FOL
Peter Bilous, Cromwell

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

29 May 2009

2009-05-29T10:26:00.002+12:00

"Not Good News"
I am sure that all of you have caught some of the budget announcements, although mainstream media coverage has been somewhat superficial in its analysis of tertiary education funding. I have therefore prepared for you a summary of what has been announced for 2010, and foreshadowed for 2011, and the implications for Otago Polytechnic.

For 2010
Inflation adjustment has been cut by 0.6% on our main government funding, and cut altogether on ITO, Modern Apprentice and ACE funding. The inflation adjustment on student fees has also been reduced by the same amount.Impact on OP for 2010 - approx $300,000This is additional to the funding reduction of approximately $1.4m which I advised you of 3 weeks ago.This outcome is not as bad for 2010 as had been feared, but does put more pressure on us in the short term than I would have liked.

For 2011

removal of "Regional Funding" - $1m impact on OP
no inflation adjustment - $0.8m impact on OP
no funding for "compliance training" eg health and safety - approximately $0.4m impact on OP
50% reduction in ACE funding - $0.2m input on OP
removal of a range of small funds, which we currently benefit from - $0.1m impact on OP

Impact on OP for 2011 - approximately $2.5m. We need to do a detailed analysis of the removal of compliance training funding before we can be certain of the final impact.

The impact for 2011 is much worse than we predicted and means that we must achieve the transformations in our schools and service areas which are now under planning.

But that's not all!

There is a strong signal from the Minister that performance based funding will be introduced from 2011 or 2012. This will mean that we will either benefit from achieving good retention and success rates, or will be punished financially if we do not. So, as we plan our transformation we must keep our eyes well focused on quality. We really do have to do better with less!!

And the ESI fund has been halved. We have historically been very successful in accessing this fund.

Was there any good news?

"Good" would be an overstatement, but:

- no changes were announced re the PBRF. This does not mean that change won't come, but it is at least not on the immediate agenda.
- the "Youth Guarantee" scheme is being brought forward. There will be limited opportunities for us here if we can come up with the right courses in partnership with local high schools to keep young people in training.

Staff Forum
Today at 12.00, G106. topic: OP's business transformation and the budget: Q & A

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

8 May 2009

2009-05-08T13:41:00.004+12:00

Challenge 2011
Thank you for attending the forums today. The Powerpoint slides are attached to the Update sent via Groupwise. If you were unable to attend and want to see what was actually said rather than written, a video of the session will be posted by 4pm today. The link will be forwarded once posted.

Remember, drinks and discussion in the staff room from 4.00pm today.

Staff Forum
Next staff forum 29 May.

Review of Research Support and Development
Attached to the Update sent via Groupwise are the terms of reference for a review of the support we currently provide for research. It is primarily motivated by the need to economise significantly in our current approach, but also factors in consideration of the possibility that the PBRF will be closed to polytechnics for the next round; without necessarily being replaced with alternative funding for polytechnics.

Congratulations
At the recent TIASA conference, which was celebrating 40 years of service, Ros Westerman was presented with a Recognition Award for significant contribution to, and tremendous support for TIASA over many years. Ros, being a long serving member, has helped TIASA grow into a proud, strong and respected union. Congratulations Ros.

Challenge 2011
Thank you for attending the forums today. Attached please find the Powerpoint slides. If you were unable to attend and want to see what was actually said rather than written, a video of the session will be posted by 4pm today. The link will be forwarded once posted.

Remember, drinks and discussion in the staff room from 4.00pm today.

Staff Forum
Next staff forum 29 May.

Review of Research Support and Development
Attached are the terms of reference for a review of the support we currently provide for research. It is primarily motivated by the need to economise significantly in our current approach, but also factors in consideration of the possibility that the PBRF will be closed to polytechnics for the next round; without necessarily being replaced with alternative funding for polytechnics.

Congratulations
At the recent TIASA conference, which was celebrating 40 years of service, Ros Westerman was presented with a Recognition Award for significant contribution to, and tremendous support for TIASA over many years. Ros, being a long serving member, has helped TIASA grow into a proud, strong and respected union. Congratulations Ros.

Absence from Institute
I will be away from the Polytechnic for 2 weeks - part work part annual leave. In my absence Robin Day is acting Chief Executive.

Cheers
Phil on behalf of Leadership Team

1 May 2009

2009-05-01T09:34:00.002+12:00

Staff Forum
A special staff forum will be held from 12 - 1pm on Friday 8 May. Venue to be advised. This will be a forum on the changes in the Polytechnic to improve our financial position.

Polytechnic Financial Sustainability
This last week has seen further engagement with Heads of School and Service Managers over proposed changes to our way of operating, with the intention of positioning us better to cope with an anticipated harsh funding regime in the future.

Next Thursday you will all receive a full update on the magnitude of the task ahead of us, and what is proposed. This will be followed by the special staff forum advertised above.

We have not released details yet of the proposals because they most affect our managers, and as is our practice we work these issues through with the staff most immediately affected before embarking on more general communications.

In the meanwhile, you may find the most recent speech from Anne Tolley, Minister of Education, an interesting read, and certainly sets out the context for our changes. A translation of the speech might be:
- there is no more money, we have to work smarter
- the best incentive for innovation and creativity is not having any money
- we will strip away the bureaucracy, give you targets to reach and if you don't reach them there will be consequences (real - Government will step in)- we will hold you publicly accountable for getting results i.e. successful students.

Our world is definitely changing.

Staff Development Days - Survey
An evaluation survey for the April Staff Development Conference is now open until the end of May. Your feedback is very important and the organising committee would appreciate you taking 10 minutes of your time to fill it out. Thank you.

This is also an opportunity to remind you of the next Staff Development Day - 8 October, which should be in your diary.

Swine Influenza
Staff will no doubt be aware that Swine influenza H1N1 has now been reported in several countries including New Zealand. This is a new virus with potential to cause an influenza pandemic. The World Health Organisation has declared a public health emergency of international concern. Please take the time to read the information attached to the Update sent via Groupwise from our Health and Safety Advisor, Terry Buckingham.

Quiz Night Tonight
It is shaping up to be a great night tonight - there are 4 team spots left for anyone who wants to get a late entry in, so email Michelle by return. Drinks and food will be available from 4.30pm, with the Quiz night starting at 6pm.

The Fun Committee are short of helpers, so if you have a teenager who would like to come along and help, let Michelle know asap.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

24 April 2009

2009-04-24T11:54:00.001+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 on Friday 29 May. Topic to be advised.

Polytechnic Financial Sustainability
As previously advised, the Polytechnic is facing a reduction in funding in 2009 - definitely $1.4m and up to $3m, depending on whether or not rumoured cuts eventuate when the budget is announced on May 28. On top of that we are under increasing pressure to bring aspects of our teaching and learning infrastructure up to scratch. To do this we need annual operating surpluses. Ideally these will be in the order of $2m - $3m p.a.

Consequently, we have a significant task ahead of us, starting from the premise that we must "cut our coat according to our cloth". At the moment we are wearing an overcoat, but on next year's funding we can only afford a bomber jacket!

So - either we get more cloth (revenue from non-government sources) or we put on a different coat.

To this end we have been working with Heads of School and Service Managers - as many of you will have already heard, and a new way of operating is emerging. Whilst the details will take some time to work through the main elements are:

- each school and service area will operate as a "business" within the Polytechnic business

- bulk funding of each operating area; and a financing model that returns most of any new revenues to the school/service area.

- more autonomy over decision making for each area - led by the HoS/Service Manager but with full involvement of staff. We need you to approach the challenges ahead as if you are a shareholder in your own business.

We look forward to robust dialogue on the changes as they unfold.

Staff Capability Prospectus
Here at OP we have a significant diversity and depth of talent, as regards the many aspects of teaching and learning and discipline expertise. Historically we have missed out on business opportunities because we have not had up to date knowledge of the expertise of staff beyond the obvious areas as well as relating directly to their teaching. Right now, for example, we are preparing an expression of interest for educational consultancy work in Columbia. Does anyone speak Spanish fluently?

So, to address this we will be compiling a staff capability register. First of all we will bring together what we already know ( e.g. from our qualifications and research data bases) and will then be contacting staff to verify this data and to bring it right up to date. We would appreciate your timely assistance with this potentially valuable exercise.

Thanks
Special thanks to all those involved in organising the Staff Development Conference, especially Bronwyn and the EDC team and our staff who presented. There have been some excellent comments on the sessions and the calibre of those presenting.

NZAAE Conference
By all accounts the NZ Association of Art Educators Conference held this week was an excellent event that showcased OP to the country and internationally in the best possible light. Thanks to all who were involved. Special thanks to ISS, Campus Services and the Student Centre and to Leoni Schmidt.

Quiz Night
Be sure to register your team for the Quiz night to be held in the Forth Street staff room next Friday, 1 May. This year Brian Treanor will be Quizmaster, so it promises to once again be a good night, with food and drink provided from 4.30pm and the Quiz night commencing at 6.00pm.

Register your team (up to 6 people), with name to Michelle Barron michelle@tekotago.ac.nz by midday Wednesday 29 April. There is a limit to the number of teams we can fit in the staff room, so get your registrations in early!!

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

2009-04-09T13:00:00.001+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm on Friday 17 April in G106. Topic to be advised.

Staff Development Days (21st-22nd April)
The conference website address is(http://edcevents.blogspot.com/) where the draft programme and the list of Abstracts are located at: Conference registration - draft programme and abstracts. There are a wide range of topics and I am sure that there is something for everyone.

OP Garage Sale 18th April, Block A Car park
On Saturday the 18th of April we are holding a garage sale to dispose of items that are no longer of use to us. The proceeds of the sale will be split between the Hospice and the Otago Polytechnic Education Foundation.

If you would like to contribute to the sale as a result of an Easter clean up at home, and you have discovered long lost usable items that you no longer require, then we would welcome the items to go in the sale with the contributions going to the two charities.

To maximize this activity we are working with the South Dunedin Rotary club who are running a car fair and boot sale from the Polytechnic at the same time. Rotary will charge sellers a fee to operate from the Polytechnic grounds and these fees also go to the Hospice and other charities.

What to do
Just bring your long lost loved items on your trailer, or in your car, on the 18th from 9am and present them for sale. If you are adding to the Polytechnic garage sale, rather than selling privately, please contact Jim Westwood for details as to where to take your items. If you are selling privately (your car, or from your car boot) just follow the signs.

Survey re Graduation Ceremonies
Thanks to all those who completed the survey regarding graduation ceremonies. The majority of respondents were strongly in support of retaining the December graduation ceremony, with students voicing their preference to graduate in the same year as they completed their qualification.

We will therefore be continuing the practice of holding two graduation ceremonies per year and will be looking at ways in which processes can be streamlined in order to cut down on the amount of pressure on staff prior to graduation.

Thanks from Bahrain Polytechnic
The Bahrain Polytechnic Team extend to all staff their deepest thanks and appreciation for the unlimited learning opportunities that have been generously offered to them over the three weeks spent at Otago Polytechnic.

Thanks to all for making this visit so successful.

TANZ Newsletter
Attached to the Update sent via Groupwise, is the TANZ newsletter for April 2009.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

26 March 2009

2009-03-26T14:07:00.002+13:00

Staff Forum
Tomorrow, Friday 27th March in G106 at 12.00. Topics: Impact of the recession on OP (see last week's Update); review of enrolment process.

Poker Run
Due to lack of support, this has been cancelled.

Turning Point
A reminder to register with Jeanette for Turning Point if you have not already done so.

There are still spaces on the following programmes:
29/30 April, 1 May
19,20,21 August
5,6,7 October

This is an excellent opportunity for all staff to attend a personal/professional development course which focuses on one's personal effectiveness.

Blackboard to Moodle Migration
A project team has been established consisting of Terry Marler, Mike Collins, Jeanette O'Fee, Peter Brook, Barbara Kerr with assistance from staff from CPIT, to oversee the migration from Blackboard to Moodle during 2009.

Over the next fortnight the project team will be working to;

Sign off the Project Scope and Approach
Establish School staff to work on the project, (Internal teams for each School will be established)
Confirm Timelines/Approach for each school (may change for each school as some currently use Moodle)

During April - Nov for each school the project team will oversee;

Training for staff re Moodle (Academic and General staff)
Identify Gaps from Blackboard to Moodle Identified/resolved
Initiate more Moodle Systems and Content Training for staff within schools
Provide resources to enable Course Content Migrated as a Service
Assist in a communications plan developed for students, to ensure material is updated for 2010.

The project team will also ensure that the appropriate support infrastructure exist to support Moodle. The expectation is to have the migration completed by 2010. There will be regular communication to staff.

If you have any questions or would like to participate in this project from your school's perspective please e-mail mcollins@tekotago.ac.nz.

Pay & Employment Equity Committee Update
The Pay and Employment Equity project committee recently had its first meeting for 2009 where the content for the final draft of the Pay & Employment Equity Report and Action Plan was reviewed, discussed and agreed upon. The final report should be ready to present to the Senior Management by the end of May. Once this has occurred we will present findings to staff and move ahead with the Action Plan priorities. Otago Polytechnic will be the first polytechnic to complete the project and our final report will then form part of the full Polytechnic sector report which is expected to be ready at the end of 2009.

Applications open for Evolver Design Innovation Projects
Can you see a gap of unmet need in the market?...........got the idea, concept or solution to fill it?Applications are now open for Round 2 of the Evolver Design Innovation projects.

Attached to the staff Update sent via Groupwise is a PowerPoint file with general information about the Evolver model and process, plus an application form which can be completed digitally and returned via email by the closing date, Monday April 20 2009.

Please forward to anyone in your networks who may have access to innovative ideas or concepts that could benefit from this practical investment opportunity.....and encourage them to apply.

Earth Hour
At a recent DCC meeting it was agreed that Dunedin would observe Earth Hour on Saturday 28th March from 7.30pm-8.30pm. This typically involves turning the lights out and you're encouraged to dine by candle light, join the fringe festival in the Octagon and other activities that don't require lighting.

Dunedin will be one of around 40 NZ cities to join with 1000 worldwide and around 1 billion people to observe the hour.

Cheers
Phil on behalf of LT

20 March 2009

2009-03-20T11:41:00.002+13:00

We are all aware of the world wide recession that is slowly but surely gripping New Zealand; and probably aware of the impact on our Government finances. The short story: the NZ Government accounts have been severely hit, and the country faces multi-billion dollar deficits for the next decade. Government has instructed all government agencies to:

Reduce expenditure
Improve services
Work differently/smarter.

There have been significant expenditure cuts throughout the wider state sector; and Government, via the State Services Commission, has made its expectations clear for polytechnics.

What does it all mean for Otago Polytechnic?
We believe that for 2010:

There will not be an inflation adjustment to our funding
Some current discretionary funding will be removed
ACE funding will be further reduced.

Government had made it clear that it will not bail out organisations that cannot rise to the occasion!

The minimum impact on OP is a probable withdrawal of $1.5m of funding in 2010. Worst case scenario: $3m. All of this will be confirmed in the budget on May 28.

There is unlikely to be an impact on us for 2009, except that the $12.5m funding for the new Design School is at risk as previously advised. This means time is on our side to plan carefully the actions we will take.

But polytechnics normally benefit from a recession, and our 2009 numbers are up! What’s going on?

Yes, our numbers are up and if they stay that way, 2009 will be a good year. It is 2010 that is a concern. We have to improve on our current budget by at least $1.5m – in order to stand still. And we really do need some cash in the bank as a buffer if things actually get worse.

Remember, too, that we are in a capped funding environment. Even if we get further enrolments, there is no guarantee that they will be funded.

What are we going to do?

We will continue with our strategy of continuous improvement and revenue diversification; but it is increasingly harder to make gains through cost reduction. However, a number of measures are being worked on, and these will be put out for consultation shortly.

We have proven to be a very resilient organisation, and have made excellent progress over the last few years in spite of the ongoing paucity of funding. We can do it again. We must!

Survey re Graduation Ceremonies
If you have not already done so, click on the link below and complete the survey regarding graduation ceremonies.

http://polybase.tekotago.ac.nz/StudentSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=71Jn85105om1G

We are keen to hear what you have to say about the number of graduation ceremonies we hold.

Leadership Team
Monday's meeting was held in A Block to allow staff from that area to attend the first part of the meeting.

Staff Room
Over the weekend the F Block staff room was used for a function and was left in a terrible mess. If you plan on using the staff room please always check with Syllabus Plus so that they can ensure there is no double booking and advise the cleaners accordingly. And if you do happen to use it, please leave it as you found it.

Good News
Congratulations to Leoni Schmidt, who has been selected as the winner of the International Award for Excellence in the area of the Arts. Leoni's paper "Relational Drawing as Pedagogical Action: Locational Strategies", was selected by the editors of Common Ground Publishing for the award from the ten highest-ranked papers emerging from the referee process and according to the selection criteria outlined in the referee guidelines.

As the winning author, Leoni is invited to present a plenary session at the upcoming Fourth International Conference on the Arts in Society to be held in Venice, Italy, 28 to 31 July 2009.

Poker Run 27 March
Don't forget the Fun Committee's Poker Run which is to be held on Friday 27 March (meet at 4.30pm in the Forth Street staff room). Teams (no more than 5 to a car) are to register with Michelle Barron by midday Wednesday 25 March.

Cheers
Phil

13 March 2008

2009-03-13T11:52:00.003+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 on Friday 27 March. Topic to be advised.

Walk to Work Day
A reminder that next Wednesday 18 March is Walk to Work Day and we will be putting on a healthy breakfast in the Forth Street staff room from 7.30am for those who do actually walk to work on the day.

Turning Point
We are now taking registrations of interest for all Turning Point programmes, in particular the next one, to be held on 29,30 April and 1 May.

This is an excellent opportunity for all staff to attend a personal/professional development course which focuses on one's personal effectiveness.

Please note that the cost is covered corporately and will not be taken from your IDP allocation.

Other dates are:
29,30 April, 1 May
1,2, 3 July
19,20, 21 August
5,6,7 October

This is open to all staff. Please register your interest with Jeanette jcorson@tekotago.ac.nz

Leadership Team
Interdepartmental Costings
Charges for interdepartmental teaching costs which were originally set in 2006 were increased as follows:

For service teaching (excluding CAPL activity) where the total service teaching is less than 10 hours the service charge will be $100 per TTH, or $47 per "ordinary" hour.

For all other service teaching the budgeted EFTS revenue will be allocated 45% to the service school, with the host school contributing 35% of total EFTS to central overheads.

It was also agreed that where the expertise resides in the Polytechnic already with permanent employees, then that expertise must be sought rather than hiring in new staff/contractors.

Graduation Survey
As mentioned in a previous Update, the survey about Graduation Ceremonies will be available for one week from Monday 16 March and will close on Monday 23 March.

On behalf of Leadership Team, I encourage you to complete this survey as we would like to hear what you have to say about the number of graduation ceremonies we hold.

Staff Development Conference
Planning for the Staff Development Conference on 21 and 22 April is moving along well. The overall theme of the conference is "Enhancing Learning and Teaching".

The conference organising committee, chaired by Bronwyn Hegarty, has recently sent out invitations for staff to present, and once the topics offered by staff are received, sessions will be organised into themed streams. Popular topics from the February SD day will be offered as longer workshops if presenters are able and willing. Sessions around sustainability, student retention, health and wellbeing, teaching and learning innovations, RPL, software applications and distance learning have already been offered. The full range of topics is yet to be determined, however you can expect there to be something of interest for everyone. Heads of Departments have also been asked to nominate staff to present.The Conference will run from 8.30 to 4.30 approximately each day. There will be sessions such as:

Presentations (50 minutes) - formal presentation with discussion;
Workshops ( half day - 2-3 hrs), full day (6 hrs) - Interactive, hands on, practical activities, individualized, relevant to your work;
Swap Shop Discussions - Break out groups, show and tell, sharing ideas and interests, facilitated discussion;
Other - your suggestions welcome, e.g. field trips, innovations.

Presenters are asked to fill in and return the form attached to Update sent via Groupwise prior to 16th March and forward to Catherine Lindsay, EDC: catherinel@tekotago.ac.nz

The SD Conference will also encompass the following on-site events:

Art and Design - 2-day Conference (enrolment procedures to be announced);
Treaty of Waitangi - 2-day Workshop (must pre-enrol with EDC)
Numeracy cluster - 2-day workshop - (contact Marc Doesburg) (Day 1 - 1000-1600; Day 2 - 0900-1500);

Enquiries, ideas and suggestions to:
Bronwyn Hegarty, EDC: ext 8360 or 021 435738
Catherine Lindsay: ext 8252.

Information Systems and Development Team
Within Information Systems and Support (ISS), the MIS and Development Teams have been combined as the 'Information Systems and Development Team' (ISD).

Staff are being cross-trained in a number of areas so that in future there will be more than one person able to handle the tasks/services provided. However, in order for this to work all jobs must go through the correct channels, with all jobs to be logged either via Inform, by email to Infotrack or by calling the ISS Service Desk.

It is important that staff are not emailed directly. Urgent jobs can still be phoned through for immediate action. However, it is preferable that these calls go via the Service Desk (479 6039 Ext 8039) in the event that there is no-one able to take your call at the time. ISS will then be able to get your contact details etc and have your request escalated for resolution as soon as possible.

Services Offered:

Data Analysis and Reporting. Includes KPI Reporting, Compliance, SDR, Business Planning, BI integrated reporting across systems, etc.
Process Improvement
System and Business Analysis ( BA Roles to include mentoring of staff to encourage and communicate process improvement processes etc. ie best/correct use of systems.)
System Integrations
Systems Interface requirements
Information Systems Application Specialists
Information Systems Software Release Management
Information Systems Content Quality Management
Information Systems AdHoc Questions, Training etc
Manage Coding Change/Creation Process
SMS Compliance - Course Completions, Qualification Completions, Staffing Return
Web Architecture and Compliance
Systems Testing

Team Leader:Gayle Reihana

Team Members:
Anna Nees - Systems Developer
Alastair Nichol - Systems Developer
Lynda McLea - Web Coordinator/BA
Mark Forbes - Trainer/BA
Mark Stewart - Systems Developer/Server Engineer
Ngarie Harper - Information Systems Administration/BA
Rachel Brown - Information Systems Administration/BA
Tom Bond - Graphics Design / Web Coordinator
Upal Nath - Data Analyst and Report Writer

Relay for Life
Well done to all those involved with the OP team - just over $1600.00 was raised - a great effort!

Fun Committee Poker Run
A reminder re the Poker Run to be held on Friday 27 March - commencing in the Forth Street staff room at 4.30pm.

For those of you who do not know what a Poker Run is, participants travel in cars to various spots around the city in order to pick up seven cards with which to make up a five-card poker hand. Once you have your hand, you meet back at the staffroom for drinks and nibbles while the winner is decided by the hand of cards selected. Sounds like fun and you don't even need to know how to play poker!

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

27 February 2009

2009-02-27T09:24:00.003+13:00

Staff Forum
The first staff forum for the year will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 on Friday 6 March. This will be a general Q&A and input session. Issues under consideration are: graduation, timetabling/rooming, priorities for 2009.

Bahrain Management Training
The Polytechnic has won a contract to provide management training for 7 staff from the recently established Bahrain Polytechnic. These staff arrive at the end of next week and will be with us for 3 weeks. They will be observing as much as they can of our institutional processes and are keen to talk with staff about how we do things here. For sure, too, we can learn from them. This is a good example of using our core expertise to diversify our revenue.

Parking Allocations
Implementation of charging for car parking is approximately one month away. A contract has been awarded to Downer EDI for the removal of unwanted parking lines and painting in the new parks including numbering and this work will be done at night. The contract includes for:

reforming and sealing of the small park off Anzac Avenue into the Art block;
similarly for the access off Parry Street into the rear of L Block; and
creating the link between the two parks between D and G block including closing off the entrance closest to G block .

Staff using these affected areas will be notified when the contractor's schedule is known. A further contract will be awarded shortly for the installation of barrier gates and card readers to control the "Pay as you go" park between D and G Blocks.

The Polytechnic's park areas have divided into four zones:

Zone 1 encompasses the Forth Street campus including Sports, the Student Centre, Finance, the Child Care Centre and CAPL
Zone 2 includes the whole of the Art complex
Zone 3 is the whole of L Block
Zone 4 includes the License to Hunt park at the Display 'n' Sell building in Anzac Avenue.
There is no parking at off-campus Community Learning Centres. Central Otago offices and sites, and Tennyson Street are excepted from the charging regime. Parking at Cumberland Street will charged for.

Those staff who expressed an interest for parking in zones 2, 3 and 4, and at Cumberland Street will be allocated a space/right to park there. Heads of Programmes/Departments and Service areas have advised of special needs cases, which I have approved, for preferential allocation close to their places of work. All other applicants have been balloted to a zone. The Campus Services Manager will be allocating parks within zones and will be consulting with affected managers if this is needed.

By mid next week the allocation process and outcome will be posted to a shared folder for all staff to see. Further processes around payroll deduction authorities and conditions of lease to staff will be available at that time.

Fun Committee
Some dates for you to diary! More details closer to the time.

27 March - Poker Run, starting and finishing Forth Street staff room
1 May - Quiz Night, Forth Street staff room
2 June - Queens Birthday morning tea, Forth Street staff room
24 July - Mulled Wine competition, Forth Street staff room
30 October - Curling
20 November - Radish Growing Competition, Forth Street staff room midday
4 December - Xmas party

As already advised, we will be putting on a healthy breakfast for those who walk to work on 18 March, and as usual there will be a Spring breakfast on 1 September, cooked by the Leadership Team.

Relay for Life
Thanks to the OP team who braved the rather dismal weather conditions on Saturday to take part in the Cancer Society's Relay for Life at Logan Park. Special thanks to Team Leader Heather Cooper for her work in organising the team and everything needed for the weekend, and Robin Day and Lorraine Gourley, who were the Team's mainstays throughout the weekend. Not all money has been collected, but to date, approximately $1000 has been raised. A great effort - thanks to all those who supported such a good cause.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

20 February 2009

2009-02-20T09:47:00.002+13:00

THANKS
Firstly, huge thanks to all staff who have worked long hours (including weekends) to ensure that we are ready to run with our new students. Your commitment at this time is much appreciated.

Staff Forum
The first staff forum for the year will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 on Friday 6 March. This will be a general Q&A and input session. Issues under consideration are: graduation, timetabling/rooming, priorities for 2009.

Mihi Whakatau for Maori and Pacific Island Students
All staff are invited to a mihi whakatau for Maori and Pacific Island students to be held 12 - 12.30pm TODAY in the prefab which has been moved alongside the Campus Environment office.

Staff and students are welcome to purchase a hangi at a cost of $7 from 12.30pm onwards.

Good News
Enrolments are still tracking around 4% ahead of this time last year, which is really encouraging. All we need to do now is to retain students who have chosen to commence/continue study with us. We all know what to do, so let's do it!

Priorities for 2009
Leadership Team has worked through our priorities for 2009, both organisation wide and within our areas of responsibility. These are attached for your information, and if you would like to know more about any area please contact the LT member directly. Project plans for the three large organisational projects will be finalised next week. These are system reviews of:

Publicity - enquiries - enrolments
Performance reviews - development planning
Business planning - budgeting - reporting

There will be significant opportunities for staff involvement in these reviews, which have as their common objectives better customer service and less work.

Service Area Service Reviews
We will be repeating this year both the Service Area service reviews and the Programme Performance reviews in the academic areas. The first of the Service Area service reviews commences March 3. The Programme reviews do not start until late April. All of these reviews are part of our approach to organisational self assessment, which is the new model of quality assurance being introduced to our sector. The service reviews will focus on:

actions/follow up from 2008
customer service - for both internal and external customers
implementation of our Sustainability Strategic Framework
implementation of our Maori Strategic Framework.

Leadership Team Decisions
Sponsorship of staff participating in sporting events
OP will provide branded T shirts where participants enter as an OP team. Other sponsorship (eg fees) will be decided on a case by case basis.
Childcare Services
As a consequence of a significant shortage in childcare services OP will investigate expanding current services with a view to improving access to students.
Communications teaching across the Polytechnic
A stocktake will be undertaken of communication teaching across the Polytechnic to see if there is any scope for rationalisation, coordination and resource sharing.

Microsoft Migration Report
You can find an up to date report on this project on Polybase https://webit.tekotago.ac.nz/departments/indexlist.cfm?linkID=779&dept=ISS

Records Management Project
A 2007 survey of ITPs showed that there was no consistent approach to records management and our practices may not reflect current best practice. We need to concentrate some effort on improving our approach and efficiency.

To address this matter we have embarked on a joint records management project with several other ITPs. This project is now underway and is designed to assist the way our records are managed, and provide the scope to improve our efficiency and ensure our compliance with the Public Records Act. The outcomes should enable several business benefits including:

improved access to relevant and reliable information when it is needed
reduction in the duplication of documents kept and the rework of information where the original cannot be found or is unreliable
greater accountability
consistency of managing records across the organisation, including filing, storage and disposal of records.

The Archives New Zealand Create and Maintain Record Keeping Standard S7, makes it clear that record keeping best practice is to the responsibility of all staff and as such I am keen for all staff to be aware of this important project and to give your assistance as required to our project team. Our project team will be led by Mike Collins.

Staff Development Day
A reminder to send any feedback on the 5 February staff development day to Michelle michelle@tekotago.ac.nz. It would also be useful to provide suggestions on topics you would like to be included in the next staff development days to be held on 21/22 April. Please indicate how long you would like sessions to be - short (20min), 40 min, 1 hr, or workshops - 2 hr, full day, half day.

Staff Awards now on the Website
For your information, the staff awards have now been posted on the Polytechnic's website: http://www.otagopolytechnic.ac.nz/about/staff-awards.html

Turning Point
A reminder that we are once again providing staff with the opportunity to attend Turning Point, a personal/professional development course which focuses on one's personal effectiveness. Opportunities are:

18,19 and 20 March
29, 30 April and 1 May
1,2, 3 July
19,20, 21 August
5,6,7 October

This is open to all staff. Please register your interest with Jeanette jcorson@tekotago.ac.nz

Student Centre Construction Areas
A reminder, despite your enthusiasm and interest, please do not enter clearly marked construction areas, as this poses a hazard to yourself and compromises contractors' and Otago Polytechnic's health and safety practices. If you have a legitimate reason for being there, all access is through the site office. We would appreciate your cooperation with this.

Walk to Work Day
March 18 is Walk to Work Day. If you live within walking distance to the Polytechnic, why not leave your car at home and walk to work. As a special incentive, we will be providing a healthy breakfast in the Forth Street staff room for those who do actually walk to work that day.

Good News

Doug Rodgers, Head of Maths/Programme Manager, Mechanical Engineering, has been selected for the Southern Zone of the Otago Rugby Referees Association. Doug intends continuing his refereeing at this time sharing his duties between this and identifying talent for South Island Selection at Zone level, Under 18 and Under 16.
Congratulations to Annemarie Jutel who was granted $9600 from the Royal Society's Bilateral Research Activities Programme to bring Dr David Rier, of Bar-Ilan University in Israel to NZ to work with her on a project titled ICU Patient Communication, Memory and Perspectives.

Fantastic Idea of the Month
Congratulations to Jan Ferguson who is the winner of the Fantastic Idea of the Month. Jan has proposed that we create a link on Polybase called GoPool or Safe-Hike or similar for staff and students. This would be for people to advertise travel journeys they are going to do and also travel required. We are currently working through the logistics of how this is best to be implemented.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

10 February 2009

2009-02-10T16:13:00.002+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 on Friday 6 March. Topic to be advised.

Thanks
The breakfast and staff meeting last week were a wonderful success - thank you to all who participated. But special thanks to the Campus Services, Hospitality and Student Centre staff who did so much to make the breakfast a success, including the clean up. And to the Student Centre for the wonderful lunch. I hold myself fully responsible for the extra notch I had to put in my belt!

Thanks also to Jeanette, Michelle and Paula who did the work behind the scenes and to Maxine, Adrian and Margo for a truly inspiring start to the staff development session.

As for the staff development afternoon - great feedback, so thanks to all of those who ran the sessions: Well done!

And finally, thanks to those staff who had to miss the staff meeting and the staff development sessions because you were keeping essential services going. The show still had to go on!

Feedback on Staff Meeting and Development Day
We would appreciate your feedback on the staff meeting/development day: what went well, what didn't go so well and what should we consider doing differently next year. Please send your feedback to Michelle.

Staff Awards
Congratulations to those staff who received awards at the staff meeting last week. Attached is a list of recipients - it makes for inspiring reading. Do keep these awards in mind as the year unfolds with a view to nominating colleagues for the next awards who you feel meet the criteria. http://webit.tekotago.ac.nz/polybase2/general/management/mp464.01 staff excellence awards.doc.

Student Retention
Remember that student retention is our single most important focus for the next 4 weeks. Each and every one of us can do small things that can make a real difference to how our students feel about Otago Polytechnic and if they are having doubts, the small things could make the difference as to whether they stay or not.

In particular, the following are essential:

that we follow up on any student that we were expecting to see in class but who has not turned up. Conversely, that students who do turn up that we weren't expecting, are properly enrolled. If your school/programme area has a system established for following up with such students, that's great. If not, Customer Services should be contacted for help.
ensure that students having problems get some help - regardless of what the problems are. If in doubt, please refer students to the new Student Advisor Team, Kitty Keogh, Jane Wilson, Yvonne Fogarty, Sonny Teio and Marlene MacDonald.
be welcoming, friendly and helpful.

Kitty Keogh is keen to help out wherever she and her team are able.

Graduation Ceremonies
We are conscious of the significant stress which staff in both Schools and central services were placed under late last year in preparation for the December graduation. Enquiries around the Polytechnic sector reveal that it is not at all unusual not to have two graduations a year. Accordingly, we have resolved to review having two graduations each year, and also to consider other ways to take the pressure off. This is a very important issue for us to consider, and Council will have the final say. Accordingly we will hold a strategic session in which any staff can participate if you want. This will be held on 6 March 9.00am -12.00pm in the Council Room.

Turning Point
This year we will again be providing staff generally with the opportunity to attend Turning Point, a personal/professional development course which focuses on one's personal effectiveness. The course has had outstanding feedback from those who have gone through so far (80+), so be quick to book your place. Opportunities are:

18,19 and 20 March
29, 30 April and 1 May
1,2, 3 July
19,20, 21 August
5,6,7 October
It is possible that a sixth session may be run 23, 24, 25 September, however this is yet to be confirmed.

Research Symposium
Otago Polytechnic is co-hosting a research symposium with CPANZ (Career Practitioners Association of New Zealand). This will be on Friday 13 March from 9am until 4pm. If you are interested, contact Jane Wilson.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

30 January 2009

2009-01-30T10:55:00.004+13:00

Welcome back and happy New Year! I hope you have all had a relaxing break, whether it was of the shorter or longer variety.

Staff Forum
The first staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm on Friday 6 March and every three weeks thereafter. Topic to be advised.

Staff Meeting and Development Half Day
As previously advised, the annual staff meeting will be held on Thursday 5 February, in the Glenroy Auditorium (entrance off Harrop Street), followed by a development half day for all staff to be held at the Forth Street campus.

The day will begin in the Octagon with a barbecue breakfast cooked by the Leadership Team, with food available between 7.30 and 8.45am.

9.00 - 10.40am Staff Meeting in the Glenroy Auditorium (entrance off Harrop Street). The agenda will include:
Welcome to new staff
Presentation of Staff Awards
Priorities for 2009.
Coffee/Tea

11 - 11.30am Plenary - Inspiring Teams
(Adrian Woodhouse and Margo Barton in conversation with Maxine Alterio)

12.00 - 12.50pm Lunch (Forth Street Staff Room)

1.00 - 3.20pm Afternoon Sessions

3.30 - 4.00pm Drinks and Nibbles (Forth Street Staff Room)

Hard copies of the programme will be distributed to each area early next week.

Leadership Team Review
In November last year I commissioned an independent review of Leadership Team, in terms of the appropriateness of its size and range of capabilities. The review was conducted by Jan Hudson of Tonic Consulting.

Jan has concluded that the current Leadership Team was of an appropriate size and cost to the Polytechnic; and that the individual roles are "very full".

However, as advised late last year, I have resolved to reduce the size of the Team by one member, following Chrissie Mahoney's decision to take voluntary severance in the context of the Student Services review. Chrissie's responsibilities have been assigned to Matt Carter.

Results
Thanks to all departments for a great effort overall in getting results in. Several areas have really worked hard to streamline their processes, which is much appreciated.

Blackboard to Moodle
We are moving from Blackboard to Moodle over a period of 12 months. This has been driven primarily from the uptake Moodle is getting within the sector.

A project team will work with each school that is using Blackboard and offer a service that will migrate the information within Blackboard to Moodle. That team will also do a review of the functionality used within Blackboard for that school and ensure that Moodle can offer that same service.

This project is to span over 12 months so that we can adequately address issues which are raised. Timeframes for the migration will be negotiated with each school so that we ensure minimal disruption to service for staff and students.

Other TANZ sites have already migrated from Blackboard to Moodle so we will be calling on some of their expertise to assist with the project also. ISS and EDC will be working in collaboration on this project; ISS specific to the systems administration and infrastructure requirements and EDC specific to course content and quality.

If you would like to work with ISS and EDC on this project please contact either Mike Collins mcollins@tekotago.ac.nz or Terry Marler tmarler@tekotago.ac.nz with your details.

Microsoft Migration Phase One: Novell Groupwise to Microsoft Exchange
In the first half of 2009, it is our intention to migrate our IT services from the existing Novell platform to a fully Microsoft network environment, including changing the e-mail system from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange. We are doing this for the following reasons:
Complexity: the current Operating System (OS) is complex to administer and support and the current version of Netware will be discontinued
Compatibility: difficulty in upgrading and integrating with the current OS
Costs: Increasing costs to administer and manage the network
Response: impacting IT performance and delaying the introduction of new IT services due to the OS
Integration: technical issues when trying to integrate with new technology
What does this mean for you? Not too much in this initial part of the migration project. The login screen will be slightly different, and your experience of the mail system will be based on Microsoft Outlook.

The network drives will be the same. Your H: Drive and J: Drive letters will provide access to the files in the same areas. Note that the Student Courses Shared Folder structure will also be migrated and available to you and your Students as it is now.

Microsoft Migration Phase Two: New services
This phase will begin after the Microsoft Migration is complete, and you are all using the new Microsoft system.

Phase Two will see the progressive introduction of new services to enhance your productivity and make communications more easy and transparent. To this end, the Polytechnic will be using Microsoft Sharepoint to provide a number of in-house systems such as a revamped Intranet, and other new services such as a Student Portal, as well as other new systems that are currently in the planning stages. Stay tuned for further details!

Phase two will also see the introduction of Microsoft Office Communication Server as part of the Unified Communications Project.

Dates are being finalised and these will be available in the next Communication Update.

All in all, this will be an exciting time for all of us!

Strategic Issues Meetings
we will be holding two strategic issues sessions in the early part of the year:
Timetabling 1 - 3pm Friday 27 February (H605)
Graduation 9am - 12pm Friday 6 March (Council Room)
The purpose of the timetabling session is for us to revisit and review how we go about timetabling and room allocations. The review will be focused on both efficiency (space optimisation) and effectiveness (ensuring that learning environments are fit for purpose for each programme.

The graduation review will consider whether or not we will maintain our current practice of holding two graduation ceremonies in December and March each year.

Discussion papers will be circulated soon on each issue.

Health and Safety Advice
Our new Health and Safety Advisor, Terry Buckingham starts with OP on 23 February. Until then please directly all Health and Safety related matters to the main desk in Human Resources - via email on humanresources@tekotago.ac.nz and extension 8007 or 479 6007. If the matter is serious or an emergency call either Matt Carter on 021 735 457 or John Llewellyn on 021 838 221.

Relay for Life
Plans are well under way for Relay for Life and Polytechnic Team Leader Heather Cooper has held her first meeting with those interested in participating. If you would still like to join the group, please email Heather hcooper@tekotago.ac.nz asap. The relay is the weekend of 21/22 February.

Fundraisers will include cake stalls and morning tea for sale in the staff room on various days for the weeks preceding the event, as well as lucky number tickets for sale. If you can't support by partaking in the walk, please get in behind the group with sponsorship and support for their fundraisers.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of Leadership Team

.

12 December 2008

2008-12-12T12:30:00.002+13:00

Thank you all for a successful year
This will be the last Update for 2008, so we would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for your many contributions throughout the year. It has not been an easy year as we continue to struggle under an unsympathetic funding regime. However, we have achieved much both educationally and organisationally of which we can be justifiably proud.

Leadership Team wishes you all the best for a happy Christmas, and hope you have a relaxing and well deserved holiday break.

Staff Development Days 2009
A reminder that the first staff development day will be 5 February 2009 following the annual staff meeting. Check your emails in the New Year for further details.

Please note that the 4 staff development days in 2009 are normal work days, and are not deducted from your professional development leave.

Leadership Team
Change in Responsibilities
One change overlooked in last week's Update - Philip Cullen has taken over responsibility for the School of Hospitality, whilst Chris Morland is carrying out the responsibilities of Head of School of Applied Business.
School of ICT
Monday's meeting was held in D Block, giving the School of ICT an opportunity to discuss issues arising from the Work Environment Survey as well as their recent pilot of assessment entry into Jasper. We received valuable feedback from the staff who attended, and appreciated their frankness.
National Diploma and National Certificate in Adult Education and Training
It is pleasing to note that 88 staff have been assessed through the CAPL process for the qualifications above.

International Admissions Coordinator
The update about Student Services last week omitted to mention that the International Admissions Coordinator role (Anne Stansfield) has transferred to Customer Services. Apologies if the Update gave the impression that this position had been disestablished.

Good News

Megan Gibbons, lecturer in the Otago Institute of Sport, has been appointed as the athletics coach: sprints, hurdles and jumps, for the NZ Track and Field Team going to Australian Youth Olympics Festival in Sydney in January.
Otago Polytechnic School of Midwifery along with Leigh Blackall and Terry Marler have just had a proposal accepted to work with the Second Life Education New Zealand Team. The project, which will be worked in collaboration with schools of midwifery in Christchurch and Auckland, aims to develop a Second Life virtual birthing unit. This will be used to teach students about the facilitation of normal birth, as well as work them through clinical scenarios. The project which is being led by Sarah Stewart, will take approximately one year. More details can be found on the SLENZ web site: http://slenz.wordpress.com
See page 5 of the latest Creative Commons Newsletter which gives Otago Polytechnic special mention on the CC-BY IP policy. This is great international exposure!http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/newsletter/ccnewsletter10.pdf

Congratulations
To the following staff who have recently received promotions:

Senior Lecturer
David Wade - ABE
Adain Summerfield - ISA
Matt Thompson - ABE
Alexa Andrew - OCC
Kevin McClean - ABE
Tony Heptinstall - HSS
Hillary Jenkins - SAB
Karole Hogarth OCC
Tracy Kennedy DES
Gail Foster NUR

Principal Lecturer
Jan Ferguson - SAB
Leigh Blackall - EDC
Philip Ballard - ABE

Farewells
In addition to those already mentioned in previous Updates, we would like to acknowledge the following staff who will be leaving us after many years of excellent service, and unfortunately as a consequence of staffing reviews made necessary by our financial position.

Art
Rodney Browne (although Rodney will be doing some capex work early 09)
Lyn Plummer
Marilyn Webb

Student Services
Christine Eason
Pam McBride (although Pam will stay on into 2009 to support the transition to our new student support model)
Judy Mackay
Chrissie Mahoney
Katherine-Mary Molloy

School of Business
Chris King

MIS (ISS)
Peter Barton

Engineering
Russell Jordan - Electrotechnology
Brian McCurdy - Automotive
Les Wong - Electrotechnology

We do wish these staff all the best for the future, and deeply regret the circumstances which have led to the loss of their positions.

Prospects for 2009
As of today, student applications for 2009 are running well ahead of the same time as last year, boding well for a successful 2009. However, we still have to complete the enrolment process and once the students have enrolled we have the challenge of retaining them. We will achieve this if we deliver the best possible service and they enjoy the best possible experience - especially in the first few weeks of the semester. Let's all think about how we can do our best to achieve these outcomes to set us up for a good year.

Cheers
Phil, on behalf of the Leadership Team

5 December 2008

2008-12-05T10:59:00.004+13:00

Fantastic idea for November
Congratulations to Gary Smith who is the winner of the Fantastic Idea competition for November. Gary, a lecturer at Cromwell Campus, has suggested that the Polytechnic has a presence in the Cromwell Mall over the Christmas/New Year period to promote the Polytechnic to the numerous holiday makers in the area over this time.

Get your thinking caps on over the holiday break and see what ideas you can come up with by the end of January!

All ideas submitted are posted on the Management Forum site of Polybase.

Student Services
Staff are aware that we have conducted a review of Student Services. This has resulted in significant changes to the way in which we will be organising student support in the future.

First of all, however, in the course of the review Chrissie Mahoney, the Student Services Manager and a member of Leadership Team requested voluntary severance, which was accepted with considerable regret. Chrissie has overseen many important developments in our support services to students including the induction/orientation programme, a scholarship service, an accommodation service, peer tutoring and student mentoring and literacy and numeracy assessments for new students. We wish Chrissie all the best for her future, and trust she will not be a stranger to OP.

As a consequence of Chrissie's resignation we have rethought the placement of Student Services within the organisation and have resolved to create a new group called "Staff and Student Services", which will be headed by Matt Carter, our GM Human Resources. There are some obvious synergies between HR and student services such as in career development, disability support, counselling and health services, not to mention an important staff development function. We can expect to see, in the future, a wider range of services available to staff.

A new model for student support was proposed by a group of Student Services staff and was accepted as an outcome of the review process. It has involved the disestablishment of six stand alone current support roles and the re-establishment of a multidisciplinary support team which takes a collective responsibility for the six functions of student retention, disability support, Maori student support, career development, Pacific student support and international student support. Each team member will have an appropriate specialisation but will cross train and upskill to enable at least first contact support to be provided across the functions. The team will be supported by a full time administrator-coordinator. This new approach has significant potential for enhanced coverage of services through a more economical model.

The support team is complemented by the Student Learning Centre and the Counselling Service, both of which were not affected by the review.

Leadership Team
Last week Leadership Team met for two days of planning for 2009; and to reconsider roles and responsibilities in the light of Chrissie Mahoney's voluntary severance. The decision has been made not to replace Chrissie, reducing the size of the team to 12. This is appropriate given the cost reductions made elsewhere in the Polytechnic.

Changed Responsibilities
Matt Carter: new responsibility for Student Services, as general manager for Staff and Student Services. Matt will not take over full responsibility for Student Services and later next year. In the meanwhile I will have direct senior management responsibility for the area, with Matt assisting.

Mike Waddell: new permanent responsibility for Applied Technologies Group as Group Manager. Mike has been acting Group Manager for six months whilst Alistair Regan has been focused on a range of projects involving design initiatives. Mike is eminently suited to head this Group, given his significant career teaching and managing in the engineering field, and his considerable networks in the industry.

Chris Morland: new responsibility as Head of School for the School of Applied Business, a position made vacant by Bruce Dixon's resignation. Chris will be in this role until the School is re-established on a viable footing, following the downsizing earlier this year. Chris brings a very successful track record in academic management and excellent leadership skills to this role.

Two other acting Leadership Team roles, again initiated to free Alistair to focus on the design initiatives, will continue for another few months:

Mike Collins will remain in the acting Group Manager role for the IT School until end of March 2009; and Sally Pairman in the acting Group Manager role for Art until July 2009.

We are fortunate to have the flexibility and depth of skill and experience in our Leadership Team to enable responsibilities to be taken up in this way.

Priorities for 2009
(1). Overarching themes: concentrate on developing an organisational culture conducive to a high trust, high accountability, high capability and low compliance cost organisation.
(2). Enhancing Teaching and Learning
- maintain initiatives and momentum from 2008
- introduce new self assessment and review processes
- embed “programme performance reviews” as our key review process
(3). Undertake 5 polytechnic wide process improvement projects with a view to simplification, cost reduction and a focus on results that matter
- publicity to enrolment process
- business planning, budgeting and reporting process
- performance review of staff process
- internal communications process
- timetabling and room allocation process
(4). Revenue diversification
- develop implementation plan and action
- tailor initiatives to capabilities and capacity within schools and service areas
- focus on building CAPL initiatives and Community Learning Centre services
(5). Improve work environment
- Intensive focus on least satisfied work areas
Correction
In last week's Update it was mentioned in error that Alison Dixon had resigned from the Polytechnic. Alison's current position in the School of Nursing, had, in fact, been disestablished and although Alison was offered another role in the School she elected to take a voluntary severance. Our apologies to Alison for this error.

Retirement
I would like to acknowledge the services of Mona Cromb who is retiring on 19th December after (nearly) 22 years with the Polytechnic. Mona takes with her a wealth of knowledge and will be missed by her many friends and colleagues. All the very best for your retirement, Mona.

Cheers
Phil

14 November 2008

2008-12-05T10:56:00.001+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held on Friday November 28th 12-1pm in G106 . Topic: Benchmarking.

Benchmarking
We have just received the full benchmark report showing the performance of Otago Polytechnic against all other polytechnics in the sector (except The Open Polytechnic, which is so different in its core business that comparison is not meaningful).

This data provides valuable insight into our organisation, not the least of which is that we are an efficient organisation. It also shows that the sector at large is unable to make surpluses on our core business of teaching and learning. And we know why this is - insufficient government funding.

We would like to share this data with staff who are interested, and will do so at an extended staff forum on Friday November 28th. This will run from 12.00-1.30 in G106.

Fantastic Idea of the month
A reminder to send your ideas to Jeanette by 30 November.

You can see what suggestions were made for September on the Management Forum site on Polybase. Go to "Staff Forum Updates, Presentations etc", where you will find a folder called Fantastic Ideas.

Great News!
Encouraging and Supporting Innovation funding
TEC have advised that the ‘National Engineering Education Plan’ project has been approved for up to $570,550 funding (excl GST) over two years. This project is a collaborative research and development venture between all major participants and stakeholders in the New Zealand engineering education sector. It seeks to develop a coherent national plan for ensuring that the right number of the right types of graduate are produced to meet New Zealand's needs. This will be achieved through six work streams;
- Career pathways and suitable graduate profiles
- Estimating, in conjunction with DoL graduate numbers required
- Research and development of graduate profiles for qualifications and development of programmes to fill any gaps identified
- Research into senior secondary preparation and entry requirements for qualification types
- Agreement of National network of provision
- Consideration of potential changes needed in the nature of secondary teaching to prepare students to meet the entry requirements"

Ako Aotearoa Good Practice Publication Grant
CAPL have been successful in a grant application for $5000 for the production of a video clip on the assessment of prior learning (APL) against undergraduate degrees, using the enhanced graduate profile as the criteria for assessment.

OP/Career Practitioners of New Zealand Development Day
Otago Polytechnic and CPANZ are co-sponsoring an important Professional Development programme on Friday 13 March 2009 from 9am-4 pm at Otago Polytechnic. Registration is $50 for CPANZ/CATE/NZAC members and $75 for non-members, with morning tea and lunch included. Further details are attached.

Sustainability News
Some of our progress and successes to date are captured in the newsletter attached to the Update sent via Groupwise - well worth a read! - and an example of what's in the newsletter:

Paper: the green recycling trays will now be emptied once a week (instead of daily); if yours fills up quickly, you are urged to other trays

Glass, Cans and Plastic: Stacks of 3 bins will shortly be deployed (in fact, they are in some areas already) which are to be used to collect glass, steel and aluminium cans, plastic 1 & 2 and residual waste to landfill. The next move will be to remove bins from classrooms and offices, leaving paper recycling trays. Staff need to lead by example and take care to see waste is correctly disposed of.

Staff Awards
A reminder about the extended deadline for Staff Awards. The new deadline for nominations will be Friday, 28 November 2008 at 5.00pm.

Awards are - Excellence in:
> Research
> Inclusive Teaching
> Research
> Service Provision
> Leadership
> Flexible Learning
> Innovation
> Sustainable Practice
> Research Supervisor
> Emerging Researcher

Cheers
Phil

Leadership Team Update 11 November 2008

2008-11-11T09:52:00.004+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held between 12 and 1pm in G106 on Friday 21 November. Topic to be advised.

Fantastic Idea of the Month
Don't forget to get your good ideas in to Jeanette by the end of the month. These need to be relatively easy to implement and not cost an arm or a leg, and which in some way will make the Polytechnic a better place to work or learn, or which will enhance our reputation.

Graduation
We hope that all staff will be attending graduation on 12 December, whether or not you have students graduating. Remember - this is a time for celebrating and being proud of the achievements of our Polytechnic.

ODT Article
I have received feedback about the ODT article on Saturday and some questions about some of what was reported. First of all, this article was initiated by the ODT who were aware that the Polytechnic funding for 2009 was close to being finalised by TEC. The significance of the article is to place firmly in the public arena my concern that the Polytechnic is simply not getting a fair deal in terms of a level of funding that enables us to continue to deliver quality programmes and services. I feel that the time is long overdue for us to raise the awareness levels of our Otago community and to seek their assistance for our quest that the Polytechnic sector in New Zealand be adequately funded. Already I have had positive feedback from some community leaders in Dunedin. We will continue to be active in making our case both in the public arena and with the new government. It would be appropriate for staff who felt they would like to contribute to raising public awareness to do so.

However, I was also asked about the status of the reviews which are currently in process at the Polytechnic, given the reporting that no more were planned. This should not be construed as cutting across reviews which are currently underway. Unfortunately, this was not made clear in the article, but then there were many other points I had been talking about that were not reported. Unfortunately, we don't get to either write nor check articles before they are published.

Leadership Team
Open Forum
Last week, Linda Wilson and Qassim Saad attended the meeting on behalf of the Ethics Committee to discuss how best to maintain ethical practices (both in day to day activities as well as in research) across the Polytechnic. The Committee has offered to provide guidelines for staff induction and some follow up for academic staff, perhaps as an elective in the Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching. Feedback will be sought from staff as part of this process.

This week we met with staff from Midwifery and Nursing - the first meeting in our new format whereby we will hold every second LT meeting in one of the Schools/Service areas. Hopefully this format will improve the direct communications between LT and staff. Certainly, helpful feedback was provided by Midwifery and Nursing, off to a good start with this initiative.

Scholarships
The following changes were agreed to scholarships offered by the Polytechnic:
- Principal's Scholarships will be awarded by year of programme, following successful completion of that year
- Scholarships will not be offered for the Foundation year for 2009 and onwards, but will be offered if and when the student staircases into another programme.

OP Awareness Research
During the month of September we undertook some market research to investigate the awareness of Otago Polytechnic in our community. The report which is now complete is attached to the Update sent via Groupwise and I encourage you to have a read.

It is pleasing to note that unprompted first responses indicate that we are at the top of the list of tertiary institutes in our region - 54% compared to 39% for Otago University, and when all unprompted responses are taken into account we sit at 83% - just below the University of Otago who are at 88%. While we can always do better, we should be pleased at where we sit in the minds of our community.

The report also helps inform us of actions to take to ensure people not only know about Otago Polytechnic, but to explore how we inform the community of the many dimensions that we cover. For example, the report indicates we are well known for trades and technical education and training, but not as well for other areas such as sport. During 2009 we will develop a plan to increase more detailed information getting into our community.

Another pleasing aspect is that the community indicated that Otago Polytechnic was student focused; a fun environment; modern and up-to-date; well resourced; serviced the whole region and had campuses in good locations.

Extended deadline for Staff Awards
Leadership Team have agreed to push the timeline out by three weeks to give staff more time to submit nominations. The new deadline for nominations will be Friday, 28 November 2008 at 5.00pm.

Please note that the Staff Awards will be presented at the February staff meeting. We have chosen to acknowledge the awards in this way as it is a very important celebration of our staff achievements and we wish to acknowledge all staff who have been nominated as well as the winners; and to do so with most, if not all staff present. On the other hand, graduation is a celebration of student achievement, which we really want to emphasise.

Awards are - Excellence in:

Research
Inclusive Teaching
Research
Service Provision
Leadership
Flexible Learning
Innovation
Sustainable Practice
Research Supervisor
Emerging Researcher

LT shared folder
A reminder that the Leadership Team open agenda and minutes are available to all staff in J Shared/Leadership Team Public Folder.

TANZ Academic Harmonisation
A TANZ project to develop Academic Harmonisation between the TANZ partners to enable a shared academic statute, programmes, policies and procedures,including self asessment tools, has been planned for some time. TEC have now provided $300,000 for the project on the understanding that TANZ is leading the way for the ITP sector. The funding enables payment for work done by the TANZ partner institutions and the use of consultants to support the workplan. The project will deliver the following by 30 June 2009:
A shared glossary of academic terms used in institutional academic statutes, qualification regulations and other formal academic documents, and an agreed process for implementation and review of the glossary. This is being led by UCOL, supported by NorthTec.
A documented process for qualification development and quality assurance body approval, including templates, guidelines and academic board resolution for partner quality assurance. This is being led by NMIT.

A set of shared academic values and principles for teaching and learning that includes differences in academic practice (for example, around intellectual property, open entry, sustainability) that may need to be identified. This is being led by CPIT, supported by Otago Polytechnic.

A generic Academic Statute that includes common understandings of Academic Board and sub-committee functions, and academic regulations (including admission and enrolment, fees, academic requirements, withdrawals from courses, assessment matters, examinations, grading systems, special assessment circumstances, notification of results, programme regulations and course information; and institutional award(s). Statute areas that are specific to institutions and/or programmes will be identified. This is being led by EIT, supported by NorthTec.
Documented collaborative self assessment practices for quality assurance, including shared survey tools, checklists, development of benchmarks, guidance information and good practice scenarios. This is being led by Otago Polytechnic and supported by CPIT.
This project will lay very important foundations for more collaborative programme development and delivery throughout the sector.

Spotlight on Tertiary Teaching and Learning Colloquium 19-20 November
Staff are encouraged to attend this Colloquium for the southern region, which is sponsored by Ako Aotearoa - the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence, Otago Polytechnic and the University of Otago. Please make an effort to attend if you can, as the Colloquium will focus on Tertiary Teaching and Learning which is very relevant to our directions. It will be held in the St David Lecture Theatre Complex on 19-20 November. Contact Catherine Lindsay catherinel@tekotago.ac.nz for more details.

Pay and Employment Equity Review
Thank you to everyone that took part in the survey which was done several months ago now. We have been the pilot for all Polytechnics with this review and while this has been a very useful process there has also been a lot more work involved than anticipated.

It appears that there are no significant gender related issues at Otago Polytechnic. However, the review has highlighted some things we could do better, including ensuring implementation of our practices is consistent across the Polytechnic. The Pay and Employment Equity Committee has now completed analysing the results and hope to have recommendations available early next year.

The Committee had some concern about several specific comments that were made in the survey. However, as the survey is anonymous, these are unable to be followed up. Please contact either TIASA or ASTE union reps or Human Resources directly to address any concerns you may have.

There was a lot of positive feedback about the things Otago Polytechnic is doing well, so we look forward to updating you all early in the new year.

Relay for Life
A reminder that the Polytechnic has enrolled a team for the Cancer Society's Relay for Life, to be held 21/22 February 2009. Contact Team Leader Heather Cooper if you are interested in joining the team hcooper@tekotago.ac.nz.

If you want to find out a little more about the event, take a look at the Cancer Society's website http://www.cancerotagosouth.org.nz/11.htm.

Good News

Congratulations to Tony Heptinstall who will receive funding of $10,000 from Ako Aotearoa for his research project "Innovative Integrated Assessment for Hospitality Training". Thanks to Project Mentor, Maxine Alterio.
And congratulations also to James Sunderland and Justine Camp, who, along with Brendon Flack from the local Runaka, have received $5,000 funding from Ako Aotearoa for research on best teaching practice for students at hui. The project will also involve the production of a documentary which will be captured on CD, with the total project being overseen by Khyla Russell. Thanks also to Jenny Aimers for last minute help with the application.
Good luck to Marty Jillings (Sports Management Coaching student) who has embarked on a charity cycle tour from Bluff to Picton. Marty is raising funds for leukaemia patients.

Fun Committee
The Bowls evening held recently was a great success with Tony Heptinstall, Valerie Lees and Adrian Woodhouse taking away first prize.

And a reminder that the Christmas party is on 28 November. The function will be held in the L Block student cafetaria from 3pm and partners are welcome.
Cheers
Phil

Leadership Team Update 31 October 2008

2008-10-31T09:46:00.002+13:00

Bowls
Yes, the bowls will go ahead this afternoon as planned at the Logan Park and Business Women Bowling Club on Union Street East. The clubrooms will be open from 4pm with the bowls starting between 5.15 and 5.30pm. Don't forget to wear flat soled shoes!

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm on Friday 7 November. Topic: Work Environment Survey.

Polytechnic Finances
Recent Polyears contributions have raised concerns that the Polytechnic is facing another Business Recovery Process with the suggestion that we should communicate with staff along the lines followed in that period.

However, we will not be repeating any BRP processes, because it is not necessary. Why? The Polytechnic is not in a financial crisis at all. Most of our Schools (80%) have stable and strong EFTS and are achieving the contributions to overheads which are expected of them. Most of our service areas are at a satisfactory level of staffing and cost of service. We are satisfied that this is the case because we have made comparisons with similar sized institutions for all service areas. Most service areas have not needed a review!

Further, we will not be restructuring - we have a sound organisational structure overall, and there is no compelling reason to upset this. We also have a sound strategy for our long term development and most of the Polytechnic understands that strategy and most are doing a good job in helping to achieve the goals we have set. We do not need nor want well focused teams diverted from their current course of action.

So, what is the problem? Simply, we have lost funding between 2008 and 2009. Some of this is because of the EFTS declines in a couple of programme areas, and some is reduced TEC funding. So, it has been difficult to put a sound budget together but we have now achieved this - $500,000 surplus, as stated in the last Update. Individual budgets will be tight, but we can cope.

On the issue of communication - this Update is the primary vehicle for keeping staff informed. However, where staffing reviews are involved we always maintain the basic courtesy of full communications with affected staff before informing the Polytechnic as a whole.

China Visit
Robin Day and I were in Shanghai last week as the guests of Shanghai University of Science and Engineering (SUES) as part of their 30th Anniversary celebrations. Whilst there we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SUES to enable our CAPL project (government funded) to proceed; and I also contributed to the celebration event by way of an address. The topic I chose was "Inspiring capability" - my perspective on what educating for capability means for us here at Otago Polytechnic.

Otago Polytechnic Awareness Research
We have recently received the results of market research undertaken to provide us with a benchmark of the perceptions which Otago people have of Otago Polytechnic. The executive summary of the report shows that the Polytechnic is viewed favourably by our communities. We will continue with an initiative to build community support for the Polytechnic to be valued by our communities as “our polytechnic”.

Update on Building Projects
Attached is an update on the various building projects currently underway. Brian Shea, Arrow International, is managing these projects and is happy to answer any queries you may have.

Working Bees
Through the month of November Michelle Ritchie on behalf of the Sustainable Working Group, will be organising working bees every Sunday from 10.30am to 4.30pm at the Permaculture Garden (next to B Block) and the European Heritage Garden (between D Block and F Block). The work will involve preparation of garden beds and seed sowing, tree planting, building no-dig raised beds and timber raised beds, and planting potatoes, sunflowers, tomatoes etc. So if you have some free time and would like to help out with this project, email Michelle directly michelle@organicbydesign.co.nz with the dates you are available.

Good News
Congratulations to Adrian Woodhouse and Maxine Alterio who have been successful in obtaining $10,000 funding from AKO Aotearoa for their 2009 research project "Creating Digital Stories to Enhance Vocational Learning".

Cheers
Phil

Update from Brian Shea, Arrow International
ART School Extension
This project is progressing really well with structure well out of the ground now and looking very imposing. The first floor concrete was poured last week with the structural steel for the upper level following on close behind, work now is aimed towards getting the roof on and getting the building wrapped up and closed in.

The bridges are now installed in the Atrium joining the old building to the new so things are taking shape very quickly. Concurrent with the extension work is being undertaken in the existing P block on the new sprinkler system and lighting alterations, a big thank you to all the staff and students in this area for their cooperation and understanding as it is enabling us to get a head start on this work easing some of the holiday period pressure for the project.

Jason Thom, the Arrow construction manager is going to start attending Thursday morning staff meetings for the Art School so he will be able to update progress and hopefully answer any questions or queries anyone can throw at him.

The project is due for completion 13th February 2009 and is currently tracking on programme.

Student Centre/Barista
Anyone who has peeked around the hoardings will see that the Barista is rocking ahead very fast and looking great, the project is in the painting phase at the moment with all services having completed first fix, and then once painted the services trades will return to fit everything off ready for completion. Handover date for the Barista is programmed for the 6th of November and at this stage is tracking well. At that stage Noelle and her crew will fit out their side of things getting the space ready for serving soon after and I am sure everyone is looking forward to having a cup from this new facility.

The completion of the Barista also signals the start of the construction for the upgrade of the Student Centre proper, the construction fences will start being erected on the 6th of November also with demolition being commenced around the 10th of November. The fencing will encompass a good deal of the carpark at the rear of the building leaving only some parks at the street end of this park. Errol Reid the construction manager for this project is currently preparing a site plan showing the extent of the fencing removed carparks etc and will issue a copy of this to all staff very soon and I understand he will be talking directly to affected staff also to let them know what is happening and when.

Campus Redevelopment Project
This project picks up many smaller moves and shifts around the campus that Arrow are currently coordinating so please bear with me.

Relocatable classroom
For those who don’t know, we are looking to relocate a small classroom from the Tennyson St campus down to the main campus. The preferred site for the room to go is at the top of the large bank just off the A block carpark pretty much beside Campus Environment. It was hoped to have the room here by the end of October but due to some consenting issues and looking at some construction options it is now going to be delayed. This room will initially be used for a temporary common room while the Student Centre upgrade is being completed at which time it will become the new Whanau room.

ISS, ICT, HSS and CAPL dept moves
This project is still well into the planning process with work going on behind the scenes finalizing layout etc. With both major projects into the construction phase I am starting to focus more on this wok and will be in contact with all parties involved to have a catch up very soon with a view to making some real progress.

Kowhai/Counseling Shift
This project is nearing the end of the planning phase with the scope currently being finalized. Some actions will start happening on this work very soon with a view to having the new space ready to go mid December coinciding with the end of clinics at the current Kowhai House. The Arrow contact for this project will be Tracey Howell.

General
A big thank you goes out to all staff and students for their continued cooperation and support around the construction areas but I would just like to remind everyone again that for your own safety please DO NOT under any circumstances cross, move or step through any barriers unless you are authorized to do so.

Finally I would like to invite anyone with a question or comment with regards to any of the work above to feel free to give me a call or send me an email, or if you see myself or any of the Arrow people walking around campus don’t be scared to come and say hello.

Brian Shea

Brian SheaProject & Construction Manager

Arrow International Limited
Vero House, 34 London StreetP O Box 1252, Dunedin, New ZealandTel: 03 477 5830 Fax: 03 477 9904 DDI: 03 474 7152 Mob: 029 289 2713e-mail web

Leadership Team Update 21 October

2008-10-21T12:35:00.003+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm on Friday 7 November. Topic: Work Environment Survey.

WES
The first of the WES reports are now available, and two reports are attached to the Update sent via Groupwise:

Overall Results Report
Trend Analysis Report 2004 - 2008

Really pleasing is the response rate: 367 respondents representing over 70% of the permanent staff.

As for the results themselves - a mixed bag, but with a significant decline in several areas:

Leadership Team
Agreement rates on all dimensions have slipped back to where we were in 2006, negating the gains made in 2007. More about this below under "Leadership Team".
Wellbeing
> Job security has dropped from 81.8% in 2007 to 73.9% this year, which is understandable given the reviews in several areas
> Sense of trust has dropped from 75.3% to 69.5%, again, I suspect, reflecting the reviews.
> Other aspects of "wellbeing" are relatively stable.
Vision and Values
Results here are relatively stable, although fewer staff feel informed about the long term vision: 75.7% this year down from 81.3% in 2007.
My School/Programme Area/Service Area
Overall the results are on a par with 2007, except overall morale has dropped significantly from 72.1% in 2007 to 59.9% this year. I suspect this reflects the very tight budget we are working to and again the reviews.
My Job
Mostly improvements in this area, suggesting that things are generally going well in the immediate workplace. The significant decline related to access to resources required for the job: down from 85.5% in 2007 to 80.5% this year.
Workloads and Workload Management
A significant decline in perceptions of the fairness of workload distribution - down from 76.1% in 2007 to 69.5% this year; and similarly with the transparency of the workload allocation process - down from 73.5% in 2007 to 68.6% this year. However, all elements of "workload" are under 80%, so this remains as our main area of challenge.
Rewards and Recognition
The three indicators in this area all improved, with more staff feeling they are paid fairly - up from 69.3% in 2007 to 72.9% this year.
Learning and Development
All indicators have improved in this area, reflecting the very real effort we put into staff development.
Performance and Recognition
Mostly small improvements in the indicators in this area, with a very small decline from 76.1% in 2007 to 75.4% in 2008 in the perceptions about the helpfulness of the performance review process.
Overall Perceptions
These remain very high with all indicators over 90%, but a small drop in the belief that OP is a great place to work (down 2%) and in those proud to tell others they are working at OP (down 1.4%).

Our overall conclusion: an understandable decline in some indicators, given the very tight situation we are in, but overall we have managed to maintain a positive work environment. We will focus our energies on all of the indicators under 80%, and especially those under 80% and which have declined. However, over the next 2 weeks we will concentrate on getting all of the individual team reports out, as well as reports by different demographics. The next staff forum will be devoted to the WES.

Meanwhile; we are really interested in your take on the results, so please provide feedback either directly or through Polyears.

WES Draw for 100% Completion
Eight work areas who had 100% completion rates for the WES qualified for the draw for a dinner. We are pleased to advise that the School of Applied Business is the winner! As mentioned previously, AQU were the winners for the first to complete 100%.

Student and Staff Awards
Nominations for Student and Staff awards are now open and are to be received by the Deputy Chief Executive Office no later than 5pm on 31 October 2008.

Details of the awards are in the memo attached to Update sent via Groupwise along with an application form and further information in the attached policies - including purpose, evaluation panel membership, criteria and nominations (who you can nominate for what).

Phil Ker's Blog
I have been blogging for six weeks now and am finding my way with this form of communicating. You are welcome to join in on the discussions http://thoughtsfromphil.blogspot.com/.

Leadership Team
Well, LT took a thrashing in the WES, and a study of the comments reveals six themes:

that we are "invisible" and do not communicate directly enough with staff in the workplace
that we are not demonstrating "accountability" when things go wrong
too many decisions come as a "surprise"
that staff affected by decisions are not consulted withthat we are "disconnected" from the work face
that many staff do not know who we are and what we actually do.

We are very concerned to lift our game so we would appreciate further feedback with concrete examples of where things have not worked well from your perspective.

We have acted immediately to try and remedy the communications/visibility issue, and from now on we will hold every second LT meeting in a different work area, and build into our agenda engagement with the staff in each area. This way we hope to have met "at your place" at least twice every year; and created a convenient way for us to hear your issues.

We are working on other changes to our processes to address the other issues and I will report actions in future Updates.

Budgets 2009
Many of you will be aware that the budgeting process for 2009 has proven to be a difficult one, with the outcome that we certainly will not have much room to come and go on. We appreciate the spirit in which managers have participated in the process, and it looks like we will be able to strike a budget with approximately a $500,000 surplus. This surplus will be essential as a buffer against any further and unexpected shortfalls in enrolments, which occurred again this year. We are in no doubt that in the short term the only way we will have more resources to work with is when we succeed in boosting our revenues from sources other than EFTS funding and associated student fees.

In the meanwhile, it still behoves us to prioritise really well - if we don't need to do something, don't, and use the time/energy and/or money elsewhere.

Staffing Reviews
I regret to advise that I have had to call for staffing reviews in the School of Art and in Student Services, and I have also initiated a review of Leadership Team, and will be conducting a benchmarking review of all of our management structures.

The Art and Student Services reviews follow on from redundancies in Business and Automotive, and a review of ISS. We would appreciate it if you provided colleagues with support during this difficult period.

The Leadership Team Review
The purpose of this review, which will be conducted by an independent HR professional, is to evaluate whether or not our Leadership Team is of an appropriate size, with an appropriate representation and an appropriate range of capabilities (in terms of skill mix) given the size and complexity of Otago Polytechnic and taking into account the challenges facing the Polytechnic and the strategic directions we have set.

This is not a performance review of LT, but is a necessary process to see if our expenditure on senior management is reasonable or not, given our need to trim costs wherever there is objective evidence to suggest that we could achieve necessary outcomes more economically.

This review will be completed by November 30.

Benchmark Review on Middle and Supervisory Management
A benchmark review involves comparing our total spend on management with that of similar sized organisations in our sector. If our spend is in line with other polytechnics no further action will be taken. If significantly over what others spend, we will extend the review process and undertake further analysis.

Fantastic idea of the month
Thanks to the four people who sent in ideas and we are pleased to announce that the winner is Jan Ferguson who has made proposals about how the Polytechnic can support staff who are involved. More details will follow.

As we are most of the way through October already, we will give you until 30 November to put forward some of your best ideas to be in for a draw for a $50 petrol voucher. A reminder that this will be a regular competition to encourage ideas for improving Otago Polytechnic in some tangible and visible way. It needs to be an idea that is relatively easy to implement and does not cost an arm or a leg, and which in some way will make the Polytechnic a better place to work or learn, or which will enhance our reputation. Please send your ideas to Jeanette by 30 November.

Fun Committee
As previously advised, the next Fun Committee event is scheduled for Friday 31st October and is Lawn Bowls. The Logan Park and Business Women Bowling Club (on Union Street East) will be open from 4.00pm.

If you and your partner are interested in playing (and also for catering purposes) please email Michelle Barron by 4.00pm on Thursday, 30th October indicating if you are a bowler as bowlers will be mixed with non-bowlers. Games will be triples and/or fours (depending on numbers on the night).

Remember to wear flat soled shoes and if you have your own bowls, you are free to use them, however the Club will have bowls available.

If it should happen to be raining, the bowls will be canceled but there will still be a social get-together at the Club.

Cheers
Phil

Update 26 September 2008

2008-09-26T14:00:00.003+12:00

Staff Forum

The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm today. Matt Carter and Valerie Lees will go over the Salary Review process for those who have not had a recent review and would like an update.

Acting Chief Executive
As both Robin and I are on annual leave for the period 29 September - 10 October inclusive, Philip Cullen will be acting Chief Executive during that time.

Christmas Break
A reminder that this year we break up on 12 December and all staff will be on leave except essential staff (those responsible for processing of results, recruiting students for 2009, as well as other services which are key to our business).

The following dates are critical, and work schedules must be planned to ensure that all results are processed before staff commence leave.
Friday 28th November: all Semester 2 results finalised for graduating students
Friday 11th December: all 2008 results to be processed

It is a requirement that staff with responsibilities for results for 2008 discharge those responsibilities before going on leave.

Leadership Team
Open Forum
A reminder that there is an opportunity for staff to attend Leadership Meetings on Monday mornings between 11.45 and 12.15 pm, to express your views, ask questions, discuss an idea. Let Jeanette know if you would like to do so.

2009 Calendar
Four staff development days are set aside for all staff; 5 February, 21/22 April and 8 October. Leadership Team are proposing three themes for this development which include:
-Assessment of Student Performance
- Learner Engagement
- Blended learning

We would very much like to hear staff ideas on the priorities/topics under each theme, or to propose other themes.There will be a meeting late in October/early November with Heads of Schools/Programmes to finalise the detail. Our Educational Development Centre will have responsibility for putting together the development programme. Please send your ideas to Maxine Alterio.

Video Conferencing Strategy
Leadership Team endorsed a broad strategy for video conferencing which was presented by Peter Brook. This will become part of our overall blended learning strategy, designed to both meet the needs of learners and to assist us in maintaining a competitive edge.

Work Environment Survey
Thanks to all those who have completed the survey to date. We are on par with results from last year and are leaving the survey open until Monday to provide a last opportunity for staff to complete if they have not already done so.

Long Service
Last week a dinner was held to acknowledge staff for their long service. It was a very successful evening enjoyed by all, and (I must mention), a first class (clean) joke from Jean Young.

Attached is a list of staff who have reached our various service milestones.

Events Calendar
A recent contribution to Polyears raised the issue of reinstating the Groupwise Events Calendar to hopefully alleviate any clashes. This is a good suggestion, and it would be wonderful if everyone would use this.

To have an Event posted in the Events Calendar, please send an Appointment to Events which will be accepted by an Administrator. It is to be noted that these Appointments will be accepted as a matter of course, even if there is a conflict. It is up to individuals to note what else is on and diary accordingly.

All staff have "read only" access to Events so please include as much information as possible in the Appointment.

If you have trouble viewing this Calendar (all staff have "read" access), please see your Administrator for assistance.

Congratulations
To Tom Bond, who has just returned from Canada where he was part of the Masters team which represented New Zealand at the Ultimate (Frisbee) World Championships in Vancouver. The Masters New Zealand team finished third and received a bronze medal.

Four for Five Scheme
A reminder about our Four for Five scheme - staff may enter an arrangement with the Polytechnic whereby you reduce your salary by 20% for four years, enabling you to take a year's leave on 80% pay in the fifth year. There is also a shorter version whereby salary is reduced for two years, followed by 6 months leave, again on 80% of pay. This is a great opportunity for those with "big plans" in their personal lives; or as a pre-retirement trial period!

There are two scheme start dates each year - the first day of the first pay period in January and in July. Applications should be lodged with your manager as soon as possible prior to the proposed start date of the scheme.

All applications must be with HR as follows:
Start Date early January - applications due in HR by 31 October
Start Date early July - applications due in HR by 30 April

Have a great weekend.
Cheers
Phil

**************************************

10 Years Service
Blair Allen - Art
Michael Austen – Student Health
Susan Ballard - Art
Rodney Browne - Art
Peter Cleverley - Art
Annetta Cowie - Business
Imogen Coxhead - Business
Deborah Davis - Midwifery
Colin Howes - Art
Anna James - AQU
Tracy Kennedy - Design
Cyndy McKenzie - Design
Julie Notman - Business
Jean Patterson - Midwifery
Lyn Plummer - Art
Phil Tait - Finance
Kevin Tansley - ABE
Kevin Tattersall – Occupational Therapy

15 Years Service
Margo Barton - Design
David Gillespie - Hospitality
Diane Halstead - Art
Bronwyn Hegarty - EDC
Susan McNamara - COT
Glenice Mayo - AQU
Bill Morrison - ABE
Merrolee Penman – Occupational Therapy
Sally Smith - COT

20 Years Service
Irenea Caskie - Finance
Trevor Cobby - ABE
Kevin Flaherty - Business
Ken Laraman – Academic Services
Pat Maguire - Design
Rani Moeke – Campus Environment
Terry Morris – Information Technology
Michael Perkins - ABE
Suzanne Thornton - Marketing
Carolyn Tregea – Customer Services
Jean Young – Customer Services

25 Years Service
Janice Henderson – Customer Services
Sue Thompson – Leadership Team

30 Years Service
Russell Jordan - ABE

35 Years Service
Peter Brook – Q4U
Les Hodges - ABE

**************************************************************

Update 18 September 2008

2008-09-18T14:37:00.002+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm on Friday 26 September. Matt Carter and Valerie Lees will go over the Salary Review process for those who would like to know how to go about this.

Leadership Team
We are trying a new approach to improve communications around Leadership Team meetings. A new folder "Leadership Team Public Folder" has been set up in J Shared so that all staff can easily access the agenda, papers and minutes relating to the open section of the meetings.

Fantastic Idea of the Month
This will be a regular competition to encourage ideas for improving Otago Polytechnic in some tangible and visible way. It needs to be an idea that is relatively easy to implement and does not cost an arm or a leg, and which in some way will make the Polytechnic a better place to work or learn, or which will enhance our reputation.

Each month there will be a small prize for the idea which is adopted for implementation. This month's prize is two tickets for the Cancer Society Variety Concert on Saturday 11 October, see below for Relay for Life. We will notify the winner the week before, so if you are entering the competition, be sure that you or someone you know will be able to benefit by the prize. Competition closes on 30 September. Your ideas will be published along with your name. Responses to Jeanette Corson jcorson@tekotago.ac.nz

Work Environment Survey
To date, 298 responses have been received and I am pleased to announce AQU as the winners of the dinner for the first area to have a 100% completion rate - and there are another couple of areas pretty close. Remember, there is a draw for all those areas who have a 100% completion rate. There are a number of work areas dangerously close to hitting the 60% completion rate and will only need one more person to respond. Unfortunately, there are still half a dozen work areas where we will not get reliable feedback about the immediate work environment because there are too few responses. Perhaps look at it from this point of view - those who have responded will, in effect have wasted their time in terms of influencing their immediate work area if there are insufficient responses for us to publish the results for that work area. Of course, all responses are valuable in terms of us getting a picture of the Polytechnic as a whole.

Studentsbeheard
A new e'mail feedback system for our students called "studentsbeheard" will soon be up and running. This will provide an avenue for students to provide feedback, ideas, complains etc directly to my office, anonymously if they wish.

Student Results and Funding
It has been brought to my attention that a significant number of staff believe that the Polytechnic's funding is in some way related to student results. This is not the case. Whilst it was mooted at a broad policy level, that this might be the case, such a policy has not been implemented by TEC and if it were to come in, it would not happen before the next 3 year funding cycle commencing in 2011.

Relay for Life
The Polytechnic has enrolled a team for the Cancer Society's Relay for Life, to be held 21/22 February 2009. Heather Cooper is the Team Leader, and we would really like the Polytechnic to get in behind this great event. We will be looking for ways to raise money for the cause as a collective effort and are also planning to make this a great social event. If you are interested in joining the team, having some fun and at the same time raising money for a very worthy cause, please email Heather Cooper hcooper@tekotago.ac.nz.

If you want to find out a little more about the event, take a look at the Cancer Society's website http://www.cancerotagosouth.org.nz/11.htm.

Question:
If you were to be caught in the act of doing a “Parsons” would you be
a) engaging in something extremely pleasant with a member of the IT department
b) swindling the local vicar
c) sitting a type of computer science exam question

Answer: You would be sitting a type of exam question. Congratulations to Dale Parsons who has been recognised by international researchers with a new assessment tool, the "Parsons Problem". The idea for it was taken from a learning tool created by Dale to help struggling students learn to program. While Dale is delighted that people are using her work, she did not expect the tool she had created to assist slow learners to be transformed into an assessment tool. She is now working with researchers from Canada and America to further develop the approach as both a learning and assessment tool.

Fun Committee
Twilight Bowls will be held on Friday 31 October at the Logan Park Bowling Club (just behind the Student Centre). More details will follow, but you do need to wear soft flat soled shoes. Don't worry if you have never rolled a bowl - come along and have some fun, food and drinks.

And don't forget to diary the Christmas party, to be held Friday 28 November!

Students meet Prime Minister
Students from IT and Communication Design who have been involved with projects at the Gasworks Museum, were invited to meet with the Prime Minister when she visited the Museum yesterday. More details here
http://computingforsustainability.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/steams-up-for-the-prime-minister/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/21218849@N03/2861475629/.

Great Work
by the Quality Improvement Team who ran another successful lunchtime session yesterday, showcasing some more of our talented teachers with case studies of good teaching and learning practices here at OP. Take a look at some of the reruns on the Enhancing Teaching and Learning page on Polybase https://webit.tekotago.ac.nz/polybase/polyint/polyintviewHP.cfm?intsiteid=15

Cheers
Phil

Update 12 September 2008

2008-09-12T11:20:00.002+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 today, 12 September. This is a slightly different session to the one advertised in last week's Update. The topic will still be Performance Review, but will focus on how to do this on-line. This will be facilitated by Brian Treanor and Valerie Lees.

Car parking - Rideshare/car pooling
The next stage of our planning for the new car park regime centres on car pooling. This is an important part of our sustainability initiative, because it actually reduces the number of cars being used each day. To help make car pooling more attractive we propose the following:

if two current parking permit holders agree to car pool, they will be allocated one car park at a cost of $320.00 (i.e. $160 each)
if three current parking permit holders agree to car pool, they will be allocated one car park at NIL cost.

Conditions:
- the car pooling arrangement must be a commitment for at least 12 months (exception - if one of the parties leaves the employment of the Polytechnic)
- car poolers may only use the space allocated.

If you are interested in a car pooling arrangement for 2009, please email Michelle Barron. All parties to the proposed arrangement must advise of their intent to take up this option.

Car poolers will not have to go into a ballot for an allocated space, and where possible will be given a choice of allocated space.

Work Environment Survey
The survey is open until the end of the term - ie 26 September, although it will remain open until the Monday of the next week - to catch those people who complete it over the weekend.

Remember that there will be draw for a staff dinner or lunch for the whole team, any team, which has a 100% participation rate. And as an extra incentive this year there will be an additional team lunch/dinner for the first work area to get 100% completion. And yes, that work area still goes into the draw!

To date, 262 people have responded to the survey. Schools/departments who are 60% or more completed are:
AQU
Cromwell
Customer Services
Finance
Foundation Learning
HR
Information Technology
Marketing, Communications and Customer Relations
Student Services
Vet Nursing
with the highest rates of response from AQU, HR, IT and Vet Nursing ( all between 70 and 75%).

For each of these work areas, we already have a response rate that will yield valid and helpful data. For other work areas, we will be left in the dark about what's working well and what needs improving.

So we would appreciate your feedback; and we would like to pay for those dinners!

Learner Engagement that Works!
Come along on Wednesday 17 September to G106 from 12.05 to 12.55 to hear and see some more case studies of good teaching and learning practices here at OP. Thanks to the Quality Improvement Team for identifying this next group of talented teachers for us to learn from.

Congratulations
To Charlotte McLachlan, Counsellor within Student Services, who was successfully accepted as a full member of the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists on Saturday 6 September.

CE Blog
A reminder about my personal blog http://thoughtsfromphil.blogspot.com/. Check it out and join in the discussion!

Have a great weekend.

Cheers
Phil

Update 5 September 2008

2008-09-05T14:46:00.003+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm on Friday 12 September. Topic: Getting the most from Performance Reviews, led by Matt Carter and Valerie Lees.

Parking Update
You will probably be thrilled to hear that the new parking regime will not now be implemented until the commencement of the 2009 academic year. There are two reasons for this, as follows. Firstly, the resignation of the Campus Environment Manager has left this team short staffed and it will be unreasonable to expect them to carry out all of the tasks needed to have the new parking regime operational this year. Secondly, there has been an unprecedented demand for pay and display machines (looks like every organisation has the same idea!) and we cannot expect to receive our pay and display machines until late October. This is not an appropriate time to implement a new parking regime. We will work quietly away to prepare for 2009, and expect that we will have dealt with all of the permit issues before the end of this year, ready for a February 1 start date.

Leadership Team
Programme Handbook
It was agreed that the programme handbook will no longer be printed and will be available on the Polytechnic's website from 2009 onwards.

Promotion Round - Associate Professors and Professors
I am pleased to announce our fourth promotions round for professorial positions. Up to two new associate professor or professor promotions may be made, in accordance with our policy (AP403). Applications are to be sent to Robin Day by Friday, 31 October. For further information about the professorial positions please refer to "Managing Your Career" on Polybase. For advice re the promotions process, contact Robin.

Evolver Innovation Project
Applications are currently being accepted for the first round of project selection for Otago Polytechnic's new evolver innovation project. This is an opportunity for staff/students/graduates to have their innovative ideas considered.

The closing date for applications is Monday 22 September 2008

External Evaluation and Review
An External Evaluation and Review (EER) was completed of our Self Assessment for the NZQA Quality Assurance Trial 25-27 August by a team of three ITPQuality Lead Auditors, John Harre, Judy Hellstom and Don Griffin and three NZQA Auditors, Margaret Morgan, Warren Lewthwaite and Kate Harker. The basis for the evaluation and review were the NZQA five key evaluative questions. The five questions are:
1.How well do programmes and activities match the needs of learners and stakeholders?
2.How well are learners guided and supported?
3.How effective is the teaching?
4.How well do learners achieve?
5. What is the value of the outcomes for key stakeholders?

The team evaluated eight schools/programmes (focus areas) that were included in our self assessment. They also added Student and Customer Services to their review which were rated against question five. Each School/programme was rated against the five key evaluation questions. The EER team also rated synthesis of focus area judgement of performance and focus area capability.

The EER concluded with an overall institutional rating for synthesis of capability - ours is high confidence; and synthesis of TEO performance, for which we received a rating of confident. A rider was added to the institutional performance ranking that this was 'confident' rather than 'highly confident' because of the limitations of the trial.

They will be listing examples of high performance in their report :
Strong evidence that students feel valued
Our connections with industry
Movement towards blended delivery models
High demand for graduates based on quality of programmes
Effectiveness of the Student Retention Officer appointment and role
Effectiveness of Organisational research officer appointment and role
The creation of a new and productive dynamic between Leadership Team and schools /programmes accomplished by the programme Review process
The identification /assessment of student barriers to success as an initial practice

Good News
SimPa
Sam Mann and Khyla Russell have been invited to visit Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi in Whakatane to show the Wananga more about SimPa and discuss possible future collaborations and networking with Whanau and Hapu from Ngati Awa and the Runanga.

Congratulations to
the following staff who have been promoted to Senior Lecturer following the August meeting of the Salary Review Committee :
- Wayne King, Cromwell
- Raewyn Lesa, Nursing
- Ruth Wilson-Salt, Nursing
- Tania Allan-Ross, Design

Central Otago first and second year professional cookery students Chloe Dunnachie, Rebecca Ewings and Elizabeth Payne, who have won double gold at the Nestle Toque d'Or, New Zealand's most prestigious student culinary and service competition, contested in Auckland on Monday.

Don't forget that I have started up my own blog which you can access by following this link http://thoughtsfromphil.blogspot.com/.

Cheers
Phil

Update 28 august 2008

2008-08-28T13:11:00.011+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held tomorrow, Friday 29 August, 12 - 1 pm in G204 (note change of venue). Topic: Q & A session.

Spring Breakfast
Don't forget that on Monday (1st Sept) Leadership Team will be cooking the annual spring breakfast in the F Block Staff Room. See you there from 7.30am.

Work Environment Survey
Do you want to have your say?
Do you want make a difference to Otago Polytechnic?
Do you want twenty minutes away from your regular duties?
The 2008 Work Environment Survey is here! It will take you about twenty minutes to complete. You do not have to finish it in one sitting - if you need to leave your computer please press the 'NEXT' button at the bottom of each page (it acts as a save button).

Remember your responses to the survey are anonymous and you cannot be identified.

Just click on the following links to get started.

Click or paste this link if you are accessing the survey within Otago Polytechnic
http://webit2.tekotago.ac.nz/StaffSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=401958L02p42G

Click or paste this link if you are accessing the survey away from Otago Polytechnic i.e. at home
http://polybase.tekotago.ac.nz/StaffSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=401958L02p42G

If you attempted to complete the draft WES survey can you please return to this final version and enter your responses.

Any questions please email surveys@tekotago.ac.nz

"Non-Research Funding Applications"
A "stocktake" is being conducted of any (non research) funding applications that staff have submitted to any funding organisations over the last 12 months (this includes e.g. Community Trust of Otago, Ako Aotearoa, HANZ etc).

This is the first step of a process to develop a system that will assist in finding funding opportunities, developing the quality of applications and providing assistance to staff who prepare applications; with the aim of improving success rates of applications from Otago Polytechnic.

The proposed steps are:
1. Stocktake
2. Evaluate who prepares applications, and how many
3. Consult with those already engaged
4. Set up a centralised 'find' function for funding searches
5. Set up a quick response team to evaluate opportunities
6. Provide help with expertise in writing and structure of applications

In order to progress this work, we need responses from everyone who has submitted a funding application, whether the outcome was successful or not.

Please complete the attached Stocktaking form, and return to Paula Petley paulap@tekotago.ac.nz by Friday 12 September.

Strategic Workshop: The Future for Development, Accreditation and Approval of Programmes at Otago Polytechnic
A reminder re the facilitated Strategic Workshop to be held in the Council Room on 3 September 1pm - 5pm, and 4 September 9am - 12 noon.

Anyone who has an interest in this area is encouraged to attend. Please let Academic Quality (Dirkie Nel, Anna James or Glenice Mayo) know so that they can ensure the venue is a suitable size.

Hangi in Cromwell
Take a look at the attached photos of the superb hangi which was prepared by the Central Otago Cookery Students and then shared amongst all students and staff last week. By all reports it was a great occasion with lots of good learning.

Enjoy your weekend.

Cheers
Phil

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
STOCKTAKE FOR NON-RESEARCH FUNDING

Today’s date:

Name:

Title:

School / Service Area:

Name of your project:

Brief description

Funding organisation/s applied to:
(E.g. Ministry of the Environment; Community Trust of Otago)

Date of application:

Amount applied for:
$

Was application successful?
YES

NO

Outcome yet to be advised

Amount obtained if different to that applied for:
$

Did you need assistance to write the application?
YES

NO

If YES, who did you use?
Where did you find out about this funding opportunity?

Have you applied previously to this fund?
YES

NO

Please list any funds you have applied to over the last 12 months, with amounts, outcome (successful, unsuccessful); project name and short description (continue on next page if required).

Update 22 August 2008

2008-08-22T08:25:00.003+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1 pm in G106 on Friday 29 August. Topic: Q & A session.

Parking Update
I have had a lot of correspondence over the proposed changes to car parking, most of it constructive and helpful. I would like to reassure staff:

- the new regime will not be implemented until we are confident we have done the best we can to meet the wide range of needs; and until everything is ready i.e. permits issued, signage up, monitoring arrangements in place.
- we are working on several important issues:- identifying "stacked parking" areas, which effectively expands the number of spaces available- arrangements for part-time staff- incentives for car pooling- securing some additional leased spaces.

Work Environment Survey
Yes - the time has come for this year's W.E.S., which will go live from Friday 20th August and close on September 19th. I do hope we have at least as good a participation rate this year as last year. The process will be the same as in the past, but full instructions will go out with the survey, which is the same as last year as far as content goes. However, I would like to make one large plea - when entering comments please take care both to be constructive and to ensure you do not identify yourself (unless, of course, you are happy to be identified). Remember, the survey is set up to be anonymous and we do edit our from the published report anything which obviously identifies an individual staff member, but what we cannot pick up on are identifiers which are easily recognised by your colleagues, but not by people who don't know you or work with you.

Also, for new staff in particular, please be assured that we cannot identify who says what - the system does not allow it. Nor will we publish results which identify someone by a process of elimination e.g. the only male staff member in a female work area. As with last year, for clarity, we will also send out a list of staff work areas for you to double check prior to indicating which area you work in.

As with last year we would like to encourage a high participation rate so will once again enter into a draw for a staff dinner or lunch for the whole team, any team, which has a 100% participation rate. And as an extra incentive this year there will be an additional team lunch/dinner for the first work area to get 100% completion. And yes, that work area still goes into the draw!

CE Blog
I have started up my own blog which you can access by following this link http://thoughtsfromphil.blogspot.com/. My purpose in setting up this blog is to share some personal perspectives on educational issues of the day and Polytechnic strategies and directions, and hopefully to spark some discussion and debate.

Strategic Workshop: The Future for Development, Accreditation and Approval of Programmes at Otago Polytechnic
A facilitated Strategic Workshop will be held in the Council Room on:
3 September 1pm - 5pm, and4 September 9am - 12 noon

to look at how Otago Polytechnic will develop, approve, maintain and review programme accreditation and approvals in the future. The attached scoping paper provides background information for the workshop - "From Blank Page to New and Better Ways" for Development, Accreditation and Approval of Programmes at Otago Polytechnic."

The facilitator will be Grace Sylvester, who was the Academic Director at MIT and is a currently member of the ITP Quality Board.

Appointments have already been sent to Leadership Team and Heads of School/Programme for this workshop. However, anyone who has an interest in this area is encouraged to attend. Please let Academic Quality (Dirkie Nel, Anna James or Glenice Mayo) know so that they can ensure the venue is a suitable size.

Leadership Team
Living Campus
A proposed staged development by area for the Forth Street campus has been endorsed, with detailed plans and costings to be submitted for consideration in the 2009 budget. This project is intended to develop as a showcase for our sustainability initiatives, and we look forward to significant staff, student and community participation in the developments. The first stage of development will be the area between B and D blocks, and will include a new whanau room.

Update on Building Projects
Work has started on both the Art Annex and the Student Centre Barista, with the Art Annex due to be completed early February 2009 in time for the start of the academic year and the Barista expected to open by mid October 2008.

The main Student Centre redevelopment timeline is as follows:
Tenders close mid September
Council approves re-development 2 October 2008
Works commence late October 2008
Completion due August 2009.
Apologies for any inconvenience that may occur during construction.

Zero printing to students in 2009
Last year the School of Social Services printed a whopping 670 pages per student. The School of Vet Nursing just topped this with 671 pages per student. These numbers are too high, and those departments are working to reduce their printing. Here is the awful truth: those two departments print far less than anyone else! In total we print more than 6,000,000 pages per year. Four and a half million of these are in the academic departments for an average of 1,387 pages per student. This number is way too high in financial and environmental terms. Five departments top a mind boggling 1900 sheets per student, the most being 2048 pages per student (the numbers here are expressed as b/w page equivalents).

Our annual paper use would make a stack 662 metres tall. That' is more than twice the height of Auckland's sky tower and only just shorter than Mt Cargill.

Over the next few months we will be working hard to understand what's behind this huge use of paper. We're working towards a goal of "Zero printing to students in 2009". We accept that some things do ask for paper - a complex diagram on a worksheet for example. But we are even more sure that other things can't be justified: one page per slide handouts of powerpoints; class lots of whole chapter printouts etc. This year Vet Nursing has moved to digitally distributing almost all material to students with great success.

What tips do you have for saving on printing and paper? What technical things could we do to reduce this printing? How do we prepare our students for this initiative? What messages does this high volume send to our students? Send thoughts and comments to the sustainability discussion group: otago-sustainability@googlegroups.com

Teaching Enhancement Team
The Team, consisting of Jane Venis, Jude Roddick, Annetta Cowie, Dale Parsons and Jennifer Hamlin (via Elluminate), met for the first time this morning. They are all excited by the possibilities offered working on secondment as staff developers. They have considerable expertise in teaching, learning, assessment and the use of technology. They are available to work with individuals and groups of lecturers. They are looking forward to a request for their services and are particularly interested in doing teaching observations with constructive feedback. Contact Catherine Lindsay at EDC if you wish to make an appointment with one of the Team.

Good News
ITPNZ Award
Otago Polytechnic has won the 2008 ITPNZ Global Role Award for Education for Sustainability. The award is for a practice that materially prepares New Zealanders to live and work in the wider world or supports the development of education in other countries. Thanks to Sam Mann and team who put this application together.

Category B Ethics Approval Accreditation
The School of Information Technology and the School of Nursing have both had their applications for accreditation for Category B ethics approvals approved by the Research Ethics Committee. Category B applications are for research that does not need Ethics Committee approval because it does not (for example) include work with vulnerable people or situations where there is a power issue. Both schools have demonstrated to the Committee that they have strong processes for making and recording Category B decisions. Having gained this accreditation, these schools no longer are required to submit annual reports to the Research Ethics Committee. Information on the accreditation process is included in the Guidelines on Ethical Practices in Research on the Research Office intranet. Both schools have indicated they are prepared to share their documentation to help other schools develop their own processes. Members of the Research Ethics Committee are currently visiting a number of schools to discuss the Category B process with them. Over time we expect that more schools will have clear processes to manage much of their research locally.

Sustainable Tourism Grants
The Central Otago team have won two grants of $88,000 each from the Sustainable Tourism Advisors in Regions funding from the Ministry of Tourism; one to provide training for business in Queenstown and the other in Central Otago during 2008-2011.

ICT Cluster Event
The Department of Information Technology recently brought together 80 students, staff and ICT industry members to consider a new proposal for IT Internships. Skills shortages in this area will be addressed with the support of 16 companies backing the internship proposal, which is to be managed through the DCC Business Development Unit. Attendees heard presentations from industry and from the Department of IT staff and there were ample opportunities for networking. Two students received informal offers of internships even before the model has been formally established and many other students were invited to submit samples of their work to local IT companies. One attendee reported "Thought that was overall a great event...(with) real Industry involvement. Students, CEO's, other Industry movers and shakers in the same room with tangible outcomes."

Have a great weekend.

Cheers
Phil

************************

Scoping Paper

“From Blank Page to New and Better Ways”
for Development, Accreditation and Approval of Programmes at Otago Polytechnic

The purpose of this scoping paper is to provide the basis for a facilitated strategic workshop to identify key drivers, core activities and processes to achieve streamlined accreditation and approval for programme development, maintenance and approval processes that
· do not compromise the current level of quality,
· enhance the quality of learning and student outcomes,
· invest in the capability of staff,
· encompass the new tertiary environment – high trust, high accountability as well as increased acceptance of work of staff involved and the implications,
· meet both internal and external legislative and policy requirements, and
· provide for each of the above in the most efficient way.

This opportunity has arisen following staff changes within the Academic Quality Unit and it is timely to critically reflect on current processes as well as encompassing the impact of future requirements under the new self-assessment and external evaluation and review regime, as well as the proposed academic harmonization project. The outcomes are likely to provide pathways for working differently and may indicate the need for different organizational unit/s.

To provide a way forward, the following sections contain proposals to
A outline the key drivers, internal and external, which underpin the current and any future process,
B identify alternative models for consideration,
C explore different approval process,
D identify the parameters for changes to programmes
E identify key questions to inform the strategic workshop process.

Section A Key Drivers
It is necessary to be aware of key drivers which need to be addressed in any proposed change. It in important to note that in interpreting these drivers, due regard must be paid to a process which achieves the necessary outcomes with the least input of time and resources.

1 OP Policy requirements - Policy AP101 Academic Board, Statutory Requirements identifies one of its statutory roles as “to establish and implement approval and accreditation procedures”.
What is the necessary evidence that Academic Board requires to ensure that the accreditation and approval process is robust?
2 Academic Quality Management Manual based on the ITPNZ Academic Quality Standards, in particular Standard 2: Development and Review of Qualifications and Educational Programmes, and Standard 9: Assessment and Moderation.

3 Gazetted Criteria and Requirements for Course Approval and Accreditation – ITPQuality (below degree level and NQF scopes, degree and related qualifications) and NZQA (postgraduate qualifications)
4 Proposed Self Assessment and External Evaluation and Review (SAEER) process –
a ITPNZ draft outcome indicators and enabling indicators – in particular Enabling Indicator 2 Programmes and Pathways.
b Expert Advisory Group for SAEER Key Questions – “How well do programmes and activities match the needs of learners and stakeholders?” and What are the valued outcomes for the key stakeholders including learners?”

5 Network of Provision and cross-disciplinary knowledge and skills including the development of multi-mode programme delivery as it relates to the ongoing management of programmes
· Across disciplines within the Polytechnic
· Across the ITP sector including TANZ
· Across organizations
· Across multiple campuses
· In partnerships with employers
· Through various aspects of multi-mode delivery

6 Key Questions at Otago Polytechnic
a to what extent do current processes compensate for a (perceived) lack of staff expertise in this area, and how would we design our processes if all staff were highly capable programme and course developers?
b to what extent should all staff be expected to know and understand the external approval processes? What would be required to provide the appropriate level of support mechanisms for external approval processes?

7 Other External Factors
· Tertiary Funding Guide – meeting TEC requirements for funding
· ITOs – involvement in accreditation and approval, moderation
· Industry and Professional expectations on accreditation and approval of programmes

Section B - Alternative Models
Alternative models are outlined – Building Blocks Approach, “Off the Shelf – Fill in the Gaps” Standardised Templates, Shared/Purchased Programme Documents, as well as the Status Quo. These are offered as discussion starters and it is hoped that they may lead to other possibilities during the workshop.

1 Building Blocks Approach

Programme Document, Appendices and Accreditation/Capability Document

Generic best practice text for each heading relevant for certificate, diploma, degree or postgraduate – the programme document is built up by taking the appropriate text and building into the final document. The programme document would be a minimum document supported by a capability document and an appendices document. (see below)

Programme Document content could include:

· Aim – programme specific
· Graduate profile – what can a graduate do? – programme specific but could be taken from generic text
· Programme Structure – how is the programme organized? how do courses link together? – generic model to be used and integrated with programme specific
· Certification – what does a student need to do to be awarded this qualification – generic text to be used
· Academic Regulations – generic text for each level - certificate/diploma, degree, postgraduate
· Course outlines – generic course outlines provided for a range of courses which are taught across a number of programmes, programme specific outlines needed, all outlines to include assessment detail
· Programme Schedule and Programme Data

Appendices would be School level Strategy Statements/Plans which align with OP strategic initiatives for all programmes delivered in that school. These would only be required if document required for external approval.
· Learning and Teaching Strategies School Plan including Treaty of Waitangi, Sustainable Practices, Internationalistation, core capabilities – signed off by Group Mgr/HoS/EDC?
· Assessment Strategies statement
· Stakeholder Engagement plan – including consultation with industry/profession – PEAC information, market survey reports,
· Staircasing diagrams for school – may be programme specific if more appropriate – these could be part of the Business Planning process

Accreditation/Capability Document
This would only produced if required for external approval ie new degrees and postgraduate programmes.
Content could include

· Philosophy and rationale for programme – or should this be in the programme document? (programme specific?)
· School/Group structure and organization (generic text)
· Staffing including any relevant policies and plans (school/programme specific)
· Research Plan (school specific/programme specific)
· Central Support Services (generic text)
· Facilities and Resources (mostly generic text)

Advantages
· Programme document would contain key information which teaching staff need
· Programme document would be smaller in size
· Consistent regulations
· Not reinventing information
· School plans would cover a number of programmes – less duplication
· Workbusting

Disadvantages
· Requires input of resource to get properly set up
· Could result in very fragmented programme development which may result in lack of ownership by school
· Keeping track of three documents and resulting document control

2 “Off the Shelf - Fill in the Gaps”- Standardised Templates

This model would involve the development of a number of standardized programme documents. One for certificates, one for diploma, one for degree and one for postgraduate programmes. They would have a set programme structure, set academic regulations, set certification, fill in the blanks course outlines, graduate profile, with aims and graduate profile being the only areas to be developed as programme specific.

Any variations would need to be supported with evidence from stakeholder consultation and be approved by Academic Board.

Appendices Document and Accreditation/Capability Document would only be created if external approval required and would be an “off the shelf model required only at degree level. Much the same as for model 1 above.

Advantages
· Programme document would be smaller in size
· Consistent regulations and structure would be known to all staff across the polytechnic
· Programme developers could focus more on the development of teaching and learning materials
· Not reinventing information which would result in workbusting for developers
· School plans would cover a number of programmes – less duplication. These plans would not be required unless degree or postgraduate development
· Fits with the Academic Harmonization focus
· Workbusting - less approval time for AAC

Disadvantages
· Requires input of resource to get properly set up
· May result in lack of ownership of programme

3 Shared/Purchased Programme Documents from other providers, including TANZ partners
The only approval documentation required would be that necessary to obtain external approval ie programme schedule and programme data. The generic academic regulations from models 1 or 2 above would apply for OP delivery where relevant.

Advantages
· No Programme document created
· Consistent regulations and structure would be known to all staff across the polytechnic
· Fits with academic harmonization focus

Disadvantages
· May result in lack of ownership of programme by staff delivering it
· Success of implementation at degree level relies heavily on quality of shared/purchased product – otherwise can involve much reworking
· Quality of programme document may result in extra work required for external approval purposes eg data gaps such as incomplete assessment information, NZSCED codes

4 Status Quo
Full programme document template created in partnership with Academic Quality Unit and including many sections which enable programme specific information to be included. OP strategic initiatives are also included to ensure that programme developers apply these strategic imperatives to each programme.

Advantages
· Flexibility in curriculum design
· Programme developers may receive training in curriculum design development
· Full ownership of programme by programme developers
· Shared text between programmes
· High quality documentation

Disadvantages
· Resource intensive
· Difficult to identify programme specific text/sections – time consuming through approval stages
· May be a lack of consistency between programmes at similar level

Section C – Different Approval Process

With more standardized processes, and different responsibilities within groups and schools, it would seem that the current Academic Approvals Committee process is too resource intensive and could be streamlined. Academic Board needs to be assured that the programme development phase meets internal academic quality requirements. If Models 1 or 2 were to be implemented, what would need to be checked for academic quality before going to Academic Board for final sign off.

Academic Approval Mentors
The proposed model for consideration would be that there was a group of academic mentors across the polytechnic (could be a role taken on by current AAC members). For a programme to get to Academic Board, then the Academic Leader or Academic Mentor from the developing school would need to sign off the programme quality (in terms of coherent structure, appropriate course outlines including assessment, appropriate references etc), using a short report, and would then engage two other Academic Mentors from same level as programme to check the quality and sign off the report for submission to Academic Board.

Academic Board would then receive a schedule of programmes for approval which would include the Academic Mentor report.

Variations to Standardised Documents – the report from Academic Mentors would be required to sign off any variation to the standardized documents within the short report.

At least one Academic Mentor could be identified in each school, it could be the Academic Leader or another person keenly interested in curriculum design and approval processes. Alternatively (or as well as) mentors could be those programme developers who have recent experience in programme development at the relevant level.

Advantages
· more focused scrutiny of programme documents
· every school across the polytechnic would be included in the approval process
· less time and number of people involved in long meetings
· focused reporting to Academic Board on quality of proposed programme with no extra time/workload for Academic Board members
· possibly more focused and rigorous debate on new programmes at Academic Board
· work busting – would no longer need an Academic Approvals Committee

Disadvantages
· may require more training for Academic Mentors
· tracking process required from development to Academic Board stage (not sure if this is a disadvantage or advantage?)

Section D – Parameters for Changes to Programmes

It would be interesting to consider putting parameters around how often a programme can be changed. The changes made to programmes currently fall into the following groups –
· New short courses
· Registered changes to NQF unit standards which may include changes to versions, level and/or credits
· Registered changes to national qualifications when these have been reviewed by Standard Setting Bodies (SSBs) such as adding, deleting and replacing unit standards or strands, changes to qualification level and credit
· Minor changes to entry criteria, assessment regulations, certification or other academic regulations.

Because these groups of changes are most often externally driven, it is difficult to make a two year rule. The current rule is that a programme can only change once in a year and it should be done for the year following the approval.

With standardized academic regulations for all programmes, then the minor changes to academic regulations would disappear, other than to the template. It could be that the templates are not to be changed for say, two years.

It is very difficult to identify any more effective or streamlined way of approving the Category B changes, other than to simplify the approval documentation. The Academic Board approval process is already very effective and efficient.

Recommendations for consideration
· Category B Changes - approval documentation to be reviewed to streamline processes
· No changes to programmes within a two year period
· Programmes only to be reviewed when industry/profession indicates there are issues of currency
· Categories of change at levels A and B to be revisited with a view to recategorising where relevant

Section E – Key Questions
Some of these questions have been used as the basis for previous sections of this document.

1 What is the purpose of the programme document?
To provide academic staff with key information regarding quality delivery of the programme. This includes aim and graduate profile, structure of programme, certification rules, academic regulations, course outlines.
To provide central services with key data
o Programme schedule provides course level, credit, hours, funding, classification, EFTS factors, NZSCED codes for entry into SMS (Jasper), for use by Finance, MIS,
o Programme data provides information for external funding application – TEC and then for external databases eg STEO, KiwiQuals, Whichcoursewhere, NZQA accredited provider lists
o Programme data provides details for entry into SMS (Jasper) for use in enrolments, results, certification and graduation
o Course outlines provide key assessment information for Jasper Assessment functionality
To provide evidence of internal quality of programme and that it meets internal compliance requirements for AAC scrutiny and Academic Board approval
To meet external quality requirements of ITPQ and NZQA (provides evidence of meeting the Gazetted Criteria)
Current template enables evidence of how strategic initiatives are being implemented within the programme eg Treaty of Waitangi, core capabilities, sustainable practices, internationalisation

2 What if programme documents could only be 6 pages long?What would be the impact of this on our processes?
a. If the programme document was the essential document for all lecturers, what would lecturers expect/need to find in that document?
b. What would the process be for considering exceptions? And what might those exceptions be?

3 What if the rule was “no programme documents can be changed more frequently than every two years”?
a. How would this change current practice?
b. How would this change what academics were authorized to do as a matter of professional judgement?

4 What if we did not have an Academic Approvals Committee?
a. How could this function be carried out differently?
b. Should the approval process be different for different levels of qualification?

5 What is the real change required to achieve the outcome – “a streamlined accreditation and approval for programme development, maintenance and approval processes”?
a. What are the barriers to achieving this?
b. Are there any risks?
c. How can we find a better way?

6 Starting with a blank piece of paper – what centralized support is required to implement a different model?
a. What are the essential links between internal and external approval processes?
b. What are the key core processes which are essential to underpin a robust process?

What next?

A facilitated one-day workshop is to be held in September to consider the above proposals, suggest alternatives and to have robust debate on the most efficient and effective processes to be used at Otago Polytechnic in the future to ensure the current level of quality is maintained and enhanced in the area of programme development, maintenance and review. An external facilitator, Grace Sylvester (previously Academic Director at MIT), has been approached to undertake this work.

Glenice Mayo
Manager
Academic Quality Unit

18 August 2008

Dates of Facilitated Workshop:

Wednesday 3 September 1pm – 5pm
Thursday 4 September 9am – 12 noon

Update 07/08/08

2008-08-06T10:48:00.006+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm on Friday 15 August. This will be a general question and answer session.

Parking
I have been getting plenty of enquiries about how the new parking regime will work - both through Polyears and by direct e'mail. Whilst I have replied to the individuals concerned it may be helpful at this stage to highlight and allay some of the concerns:

there will be provision for part-time staff - you will not have to pay a full licence to hunt fee
there will be provision for staff travelling between sites for work purposes
there will be provision for Polytechnic vehicles and reasonable provision for customer parking for our commercial/business operations
allocated spaces will be clearly marked as such
those with allocated spaces will be encouraged to let others use them if they are away, but allocated spaces cannot be sublet or used by people who do not work at OP
Remember, if you are interested in an allocated space you need to complete the attached expression of interest form and send it to Michelle by end of work on Friday 8th August. Don't forget to write your name on the form.

Enhancing Teaching and Learning at OP - celebrating our own good practices
Do come along this Friday (8th) to G106 from 12.05 to 12.55 to hear and see some more case studies of good teaching and learning practices here at OP. I am sure there will be some good ideas to be gleaned. Thanks to the Quality Improvement Team for identifying this next group of talented teachers for us to learn from.

Programme Performance Review Meetings
As you know we have been conducting in depth discussions with heads of school/programmes and programme managers about each of the programmes we offer at OP. The last of these is this Friday - ICT School. The discussions, a key part of our enhancing teaching and learning strategy, have been very productive, and certainly immensely helpful to Leadership Team. We have identified many, many examples of good practice and have gained an enhanced understanding of the issues facing each school and programme area. We have also identified priorities for development, both within the schools/programme areas and for OP at large.

We will be pulling together a summary of the key findings and outcomes of the process over the next couple of weeks, and this will be distributed to all staff.

Leadership Team
Open Forum
Don't forget there is an opportunity for staff to attend Leadership Meetings on Monday mornings between 11.45am and 12.15pm, to express your views, ask questions, discuss an idea. Let Jeanette know if you would like to do so.

Spring Breakfast
Note your diaries now for the annual Spring Breakfast which will be held in the Forth Street staff room on Monday 1 September. Once again, Leadership Team will be polishing up their culinary skills to cook breakfast for all staff, with food available from 7.30am.

Open Entry
Following a number of submissions about open entry programmes we have resolved to make some changes for 2009. These will be publicised in detail in a couple of weeks, but the key change is that we will be accepting applicants immediately on application only if they have an academic record that gives us confidence that they can succeed in the programme. Otherwise there will be a mandatory literacy assessment which must be completed before an application is accepted. Those who do not have an adequate level of literacy skill to cope with their chosen programme will not be accepted and will be offered a foundation studies programme.

We think this change will alleviate most of the concerns raised to date.

Fun Committee
Please note that the Outdoor Bowls planned for 12 September has been postponed until October, date to be confirmed.

Don't forget to diary Friday 28 November for the Xmas Party!

Cheers
Phil

*****************************************************************************

MEMORANDUM

To: All Staff
From: Phil Ker
Subject: Parking
Date: 30 July 2008

Thanks to all who provided feedback and sent in submissions with regard to foreshadowed changes in our parking policies – all of which has been carefully considered. Our new approach to parking will be as set out in this memo.

First, though, a recap of why changes are being made:

1. We will be losing some 40 Forth Street campus car park spaces during the construction phase for the Student Centre and the Art School. At least 30 of these spaces will be lost permanently, and we will not allocate current scarce resources to leasing replacements.
2. More staff will be vying for fewer spaces, following the relocation of Tennyson Street to Forth Street.
3. Our sustainability focus behoves us to discourage private car use and encourage more sustainable forms of transport.
4. The DCC’s stated intent to develop the campus precinct as a car free zone.
5. We will be providing better parking facilities for visitors, including prospective students.

Accordingly, for Polytechnic parking in Dunedin (not Central Otago), the following shall apply w.e.f. Monday October 13.

· All parking spaces owned or leased by Otago Polytechnic will be subject to parking fees.
· Three types of parking are under consideration: allocated spaces, pay and display, licence to hunt (i.e. a permit to park somewhere on Polytechnic grounds), with approximately one third of available spaces dedicated to each type. Final proportions will depend on staff preferences.Initially we are interested to know who is interested in purchasing an allocated space. These will be priced at $650 p.a. GST inclusive. This rate has been set significantly below market rates.

As a general guide allocated spaces will be those spaces which are not practical for pay and display or are not obvious to those seeking licence to hunt spaces.. Some “stacked” spaces will be available, at a lower cost per permit. Stacked spaces are allocated spaces where some of the spaces are blocked in by later arrivals. They will be available for groups of staff who are willing to accept and self manage this form of parking.Once we know the demand for allocated spaces and staff preferences re pay and display and “licence to hunt”, we will resolve on the proportion of pay and display and “licence to hunt” parking.

· Permits for allocated and licence to hunt parking must be paid for by deduction from salary each fortnight. Parking cannot commence until the deduction is loaded.
· The Polytechnic will be applying the revenue from car parking fees as follows:
- to pay for parking infrastructure - signage, monitoring and control
- to lease some additional car parks
- to provide better facilities for cyclists
- to maintain the parking areas.
· Staff are not expected to bring their own cars for work purposes. Polytechnic vehicles and/or buses/taxis will be provided for off-campus work. Reimbursements for use of own vehicles for work purposes will only be made if alternative Polytechnic arranged transport is not available or feasible.

Where to next?
If you are interested in purchasing parking at the Polytechnic, please complete the attached “Expression of Interest – Car Parking” form and return to Michelle Barron by Friday 8th August.

If you are not interested in purchasing an allocated space but still want to park at the Polytechnic, please indicate your preference for pay and display or licence to hunt parking – also on the attached form, and return to Michelle by 8th August.

N.B. Completing the “expression of interest” form for an allocated space is essential if you are to be considered for a space, but is not a guarantee of a space. If more staff wish to purchase allocated spaces than there are spaces available, a ballot will be held.
EXPRESSION OF INTEREST: CAR PARKING

Name:________________________________________________________
(Essential if you wish to purchase an allocated space)

· I would like to purchase an allocated car park space for $650 p.a., paid by fortnightly pay deduction of $25.00
(Allocated spaces will be available at Forth St campus, L Block, Tennyson St (until closure), Cumberland St and the Art School.)

Tick here if interested in an allocated space o

Choose preferred location:
Forth Street Campus o
L Block o
Art School o
Tennyson St o
Cumberland St o

OR

· I have a preference for:
(tick one)
Pay and display parking o
($3.00 per day; $1.00 per hour)
Licence to hunt parking o
($325.00 p.a.)

Please return this form to Michelle Barron by Friday 8th August. If you want to purchase an allocated space but do not return this form you will miss out. If there is more demand for allocated spaces than supply a ballot may be held.

Once spaces are allocated we will advise the balance of pay and display and licence to hunt parking.

UPDATE 30/07/08

2008-07-31T09:24:00.004+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum is tomorrow Friday - August 1 in G106 12.00pm - 1pm. Topic: Q & A.

Teaching Enhancement Team
I am pleased to advise that our new Teaching Enhancement Team will be "in business" this semester. This team of successful practitioners has been set up under our enhancing teaching and learning strategy to work with individual staff on capability building - course design, flexible delivery, classroom teaching, assessment. The team comprises Dale Parsons, Jennifer Hamlin, Jane Venis, Annetta Cowie with specific responsibility for Adult Education and Training Units and Jude Roddick. They are in effect on secondment part time to EDC to provide additional staff development support.

If you would like one of the team to work with you contact them directly or through EDC.

Parking
Leadership Team has resolved on our future approach to parking, given the impending significant shortfall of parking spaces and our view that continuing with the current "first in first serve" approach to parking is not appropriate in our changed circumstances.

In short, we will be moving to a user pay system for all parking owned/leased by the Polytechnic in Dunedin. The attached paper sets out the details, and invites those who are interested in paying for an allocated park to register their interest. It also invites others to indicate a preference for "pay and display" or "licence to hunt" parking options.

New permits will be issued in approximately a month, so if you bring a car to work please read the attachment carefully.

Branding
All staff are invited to the internal launch of our new brand on Tuesday 5th August 12.15pm in G106. This seminar will provide information and guidelines for the application of our new brand identity. Because this will mean significant changes for us all, I encourage you to attend this forum.

Student Feedback
A reminder to all academic staff that it is a requirement that student feedback on teaching is obtained each year. This is a key element of our commitment to quality. We have a very efficient and well supported on-line feedback service - through Stuart Terry. So far this year only 42% of staff have used the service. Please plan for this now.

Cheers
Phil

MEMORANDUM

To: All Staff
From: Phil Ker
Subject: Parking
Date: 30 July 2008

Thanks to all who provided feedback and sent in submissions with regard to foreshadowed changes in our parking policies – all of which has been carefully considered. Our new approach to parking will be as set out in this memo.

First, though, a recap of why changes are being made:

1. We will be losing some 40 Forth Street campus car park spaces during the construction phase for the Student Centre and the Art School. At least 30 of these spaces will be lost permanently, and we will not allocate current scarce resources to leasing replacements.
2. More staff will be vying for fewer spaces, following the relocation of Tennyson Street to Forth Street.
3. Our sustainability focus behoves us to discourage private car use and encourage more sustainable forms of transport.
4. The DCC’s stated intent to develop the campus precinct as a car free zone.
5. We will be providing better parking facilities for visitors, including prospective students.

Accordingly, for Polytechnic parking in Dunedin (not Central Otago), the following shall apply w.e.f. Monday October 13.

· All parking spaces owned or leased by Otago Polytechnic will be subject to parking fees.
· Three types of parking are under consideration: allocated spaces, pay and display, licence to hunt (i.e. a permit to park somewhere on Polytechnic grounds), with approximately one third of available spaces dedicated to each type. Final proportions will depend on staff preferences.Initially we are interested to know who is interested in purchasing an allocated space. These will be priced at $650 p.a. GST inclusive. This rate has been set significantly below market rates.

As a general guide allocated spaces will be those spaces which are not practical for pay and display or are not obvious to those seeking licence to hunt spaces.. Some “stacked” spaces will be available, at a lower cost per permit. Stacked spaces are allocated spaces where some of the spaces are blocked in by later arrivals. They will be available for groups of staff who are willing to accept and self manage this form of parking.Once we know the demand for allocated spaces and staff preferences re pay and display and “licence to hunt”, we will resolve on the proportion of pay and display and “licence to hunt” parking.

· Permits for allocated and licence to hunt parking must be paid for by deduction from salary each fortnight. Parking cannot commence until the deduction is loaded.
· The Polytechnic will be applying the revenue from car parking fees as follows:
- to pay for parking infrastructure - signage, monitoring and control
- to lease some additional car parks
- to provide better facilities for cyclists
- to maintain the parking areas.
· Staff are not expected to bring their own cars for work purposes. Polytechnic vehicles and/or buses/taxis will be provided for off-campus work. Reimbursements for use of own vehicles for work purposes will only be made if alternative Polytechnic arranged transport is not available or feasible.

Where to next?
If you are interested in purchasing parking at the Polytechnic, please complete the attached “Expression of Interest – Car Parking” form and return to Michelle Barron by Friday 8th August.

If you are not interested in purchasing an allocated space but still want to park at the Polytechnic, please indicate your preference for pay and display or licence to hunt parking – also on the attached form, and return to Michelle by 8th August.

N.B. Completing the “expression of interest” form for an allocated space is essential if you are to be considered for a space, but is not a guarantee of a space. If more staff wish to purchase allocated spaces than there are spaces available, a ballot will be held.

********************************************************************************
EXPRESSION OF INTEREST: CAR PARKING

Name:________________________________________________________
(Essential if you wish to purchase an allocated space)

· I would like to purchase an allocated car park space for $650 p.a., paid by fortnightly pay deduction of $25.00(Allocated spaces will be available at Forth St campus, L Block, Tennyson St (until closure), Cumberland St and the Art School.)

Tick here if interested in an allocated space o
Choose preferred location:
Forth Street Campus o
L Block o
Art School o
Tennyson St o
Cumberland St o

OR

· I have a preference for: (tick one)
Pay and display parking o
($3.00 per day; $1.00 per hour)
Licence to hunt parking o
($325.00 p.a.)

Please return this form to Michelle Barron by Friday 8th August. If you want to purchase an allocated space but do not return this form you will miss out. If there is more demand for allocated spaces than supply a ballot may be held.

Once spaces are allocated we will advise the balance of pay and display and licence to hunt parking.

Update 18 July 2008

2008-07-18T10:07:00.002+12:00

Congratulations
To Catering Lecturer Adrian Woodhouse, who has scooped two national teaching awards in the past two weeks.

Last week, Adrian was named the Hospitality Standards Institute of New Zealand "Hospitality Tutor of the Year" for 2008. He also claimed the Institute's Supreme Award for Excellence in Training and Innovation, the first time the supreme category has been won by an individual as opposed to an organisation.

HSI's Chief Executive Steve Hanrahan says the supreme award is a reflection of Otago Polytechnic's commitment to providing high-quality hospitality qualifications. "Passionate tutors like Adrian are vital for growing future talent in hospitality. They inspire students to achieve the exciting career prospects that this dynamic industry can offer."

On Wednesday night, he was one of nine tertiary educators, including three from Dunedin, to receive Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awards, worth $20,000 each, at a function held in the Beehive in Wellington.

Tertiary Education Minister Pete Hodgson, after presenting the awards, said it was a "real pleasure" to see recognition for excellence in tertiary teaching. "Between them, these 10 people influence the learning of thousands of students and their excellence is therefore hugely valuable for New Zealand." He praised the educators from his home town, saying their success reinforced Dunedin's reputation as "a wellspring of excellence in education". "It is great to see Dunedin punching above its weight, and to see Dunedinites represent almost a third of winners from all around the country . . ."

Well done Adrian, we're proud of you.

Condolences
We were saddened to hear of the death of Odette Callanan, after a long fight against cancer. Odette was a very popular and enthusiastic lecturer and well known and liked in the Polytechnic (particularly Art and Design). Her passion was for art and textiles and she has taught in all our design and creative programmes. She completed her MFA just a couple of years ago. Our thoughts are with family and friends at this time.

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 on Friday 1 August. Topic to be advised.

Sustainable Dunedin City - Annual Meeting
You are invited to attend the annual general meeting of Sustainable Dunedin City to be held at Otago Polytechnic in G201/203 on Wednesday 23 July at 7.00pm.

GroupWise Mailbox Clean up
Thanks to all those staff who have made the effort to tidy up their GroupWise mailboxes. We have already made some excellent gains, which has reduced the risk to the e-mail system. As a tip, don't forget to spend a moment or two examining your "Sent Items" for old messages that can be deleted.

I fully support this initiative to introduce sustainable practices into the way we use our e-mail system, and having a fixed quota is one excellent way to ensure we can live within our means.

Toku Haerenga Exhibition extended
Master of Fine Art student Rokahurihia Ngarimu-Cameron's exhibition "Toku Haerenga" in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery has been so successful, it has been extended to 13 August. If you have not already done so, do go along and take a look.

The exhibition will also run later in the year at the Canberra Art Gallery in Australia.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers
Phil

Update 4 July 2008

2008-07-04T14:07:00.003+12:00

Quiz Night
A reminder about the Quiz night tonight in the Forth Street staff room - drinks and nibbles from 4.30pm with the quiz starting at 6pm.

Hospitality Showcase and Southern Light Salon Culinaire
Support our hospitality students and staff as they host the Hospitality Showcase and Southern Light Salon Culinaire this weekend. This hospitality competition is largest event of its kind in the region and the Harbour Terrace Student Centre has been transformed for the event, thanks to the hard work of Southern Hospitality alongside Noelle, Tony, Dion and their teams from the School of Hospitality.

The showcase kicks off at 8.00am on Saturday with table-setting for juniors, barista skills for school students and the salad class in the hot kitchens. It culminates in the 'flair' cocktail-making competition at 2.30 on Sunday, the winner of which will win a trip to Berlin to represent New Zealand in the international competitions.

Winners!
Thanks to all those staff who have reduced their mailboxes dramatically by culling out all non essential messages. All those people whose mailbox size is less than 50% of their allocation have been entered into a draw for a dinner at a Dunedin Restaurant to the value of $150 and 4 additional draws of a bottle of Central Otago's finest Bannockburn Pinot Noir.

I am pleased to advise that the winners are:
Dinner - Sue Eden
Wine - Tania Chaney, James Sunderland, Steve Atkins and Peter Barton

Keep up the good work!

Leadership Team
A reminder that there is an opportunity for staff to attend Leadership Meetings on Monday mornings between 11.45 and 12.15 pm, to express your views, ask questions, discuss an idea. Let Jeanette know if you would like to do so.

Flexible Working Arrangements
As you may be aware, from 1 July 2008, the Government has introduced new laws around flexible working arrangements. Consultation is currently being sought on a new policy, MP439 which outlines Otago Polytechnic's continued commitment to flexible working. Otago Polytechnic's current practice already allows for flexible working conditions, with many of you taking advantage of these.

The new legislation creates, under the Employment Relations Act (ERA), the right for employees to apply for flexible working arrangements. Our policy outlines the procedure for those that request flexible working arrangements both as prescribed by the ERA and those not prescribed by the ERA.Please send any feedback on the policy to Chris Bain at Chrisb@tekotago.ac.nz .

If you wish to discuss options for flexible working yourself please contact your Head of School/Manager or Human Resources.

'What's Best?' Expo 2008
Otago Polytechnic is hosting the 'What's Best?' Expo on Saturday 12 July, showcasing sustainable products and services.

Exhibitors include sustainable products/services for homes & buildings e.g Hebel concrete, pellet fires, heat pumps, carpet, solar hot water, HRV systems, organic gardening, and more, as well as organisations with a sustainable or environmental focus.

There will also be a range of electric vehicles on display and emission testing will be available - thanks to the Automotive School.

Staff are invited to attend the opening function on Friday 11 July, in the Student's Centre, from 5 pm.

Bring your family and friends to visit the Expo on Saturday 12 July, from 9.30 am - 4 pm.

Pay and Employment Equity Review Survey
Thanks to all staff who completed the recent survey - we had a good number of responses.The survey is now closed and the first committee meeting to analyze data will be held later in July. We will continue to keep staff updated.

Good News
CAPL win nationwide contract
CAPL have begun work on a nationwide contract to work with secondary school teachers who have been disadvantaged in their salary progression because there was no degree programme available in their subject specialism, at the time they were training. The Ministry of Education has designed a level 7 Diploma for these teachers and CAPL will be working with teachers from around the country to help them prepare for their Assessment of Prior Learning towards this qualification. CAPL staff have moved into H119 to undertake this work.

Some new staff have joined the team for this contract; Piers Heaney, Facilitator, who has an extensive background in facilitation and working with adult learners and Claire Metcalfe, who is now sharing her time between Foundation Studies and CAPL as an administrator. Kate Vercoe is Project Manager.

Web Team branches out
A consultancy project recently completed by the Polytechnic's web team is the first milestone in a business plan that aims to commit up to 20% of their staff time and resources to revenue generating activity.The Team was tasked with creating a website for a Nelson art gallery and will now use that experience to develop templates and put processes in place to streamline the delivery of their services to other external clients.The income generated by charging out 20% of the team's time at market rates is equivalent to three or four staff salaries. This is a great benefit for the Polytechnic whilst also providing opportunities for the Web Team to develop additional skills.

Congratulations
to Glenice Mayo who recently passed her Lead Auditor's examination conducted by ACI Global on behalf of the NZ Organisation for Quality. They were so impressed that they have requested she be on their consultant's list. http://www.aciglobal.com.au/Consultants_Register.html

My Visits Overseas
Attached please find my report to Council about my recent visit to institutions in Canada and the USA; and a conference I attended in Scotland. I would be pleased to discuss or provide further information about anything of interest to staff.

I understand that snow is on the horizon, so keep warm this weekend.

Cheers
Phil

Update 19 June 2008

2008-06-19T10:48:00.001+12:00

Next Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm on Friday 4 July in G106. This will be a general question and answer session.

Pay and Employment Equity Survey
If you have not already done so, please take 10 minutes to complete the pay and employment equity survey which has been advertised over the past two weeks. Be assured that your response will remain completely anonymous.

If you are completing the survey from within the Polytechnic:
http://webit2.tekotago.ac.nz/StaffSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=6LM5m760813MG

If you are completing the survey from outside the Polytechnic i.e. home:
http://polybase.tekotago.ac.nz/StaffSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=6LM5m760813MG

I encourage you to participate in this important survey, which will be open until tomorrow, 20 June 2008.

Caught in the Act
Last Thursday's presentation Visualisation and Kinaesthetics: Five Great Strategies for teaching and learning held in G204 at midday was a superb representation of some of the innovative and engaging teaching and learning strategies being used by academic staff at Otago Polytechnic. The word must have been out prior to the session as this was the best attended lunch time session in recent years. There was also a video link to Cromwell bringing the total number attending to over 70. The session was organised and smoothly run by the Quality Improvement Team as part of their "Caught in the Act " initiative.

Steve Ellwood from Hospitality demonstrated his use of use video clips on I-pods and Utube for revision and assessment in Level 4 cookery. He attributed his development of innovative teaching to Heather Day and Leigh Blackall.
Kevin McClean, Fabrication and Welding, has had existing sets of slides scanned to digital format to illustrate power point presentations. An excellent and economic use of resources to create more engaging learner centered experiences.

Jane Venis, Programme Manager, engaged all present in how to move students in the Certificate in Creative Studies on from "I cant draw" in a drawing course. Her imaginary coffin to bury this message in and creative use of the easel to commence life drawing had some attendees wanting to sign up for a drawing course with her.

Judy Magee, Programme Manager, Certificate in Health, uses every day objects and collage to help the learning struggle many have with unseen concepts such as chemical and cellular components. Her presentation was further enhanced by showing some collages of the human cell created by students with the help of a limited range of magazines obtained from her hairdresser.

Clive Humphreys, Masters in Fine Arts Programme Manager exemplified reflective teaching at its best with his summary of the challenges of teaching the active and visual learner in the art/design context. His presentation also included his thinking about the role of teaching and supervision with post graduate students His use of the umbrella to tell a story re the outcomes of a student project was delightful.

Quiz Night
Being the 4th of July and Independence Day in the States, feel free to dress up to an American Theme for the Quiz night! Use your imagination - you might win a prize!

This year the Fun Committee have taken a careful look at the capacity for this type of function in the staff room to ensure we are adhering to our Health and Safety Advisor's advice. We can safely fit 18 teams of 6 and have 18 teams registered already, although some teams have less than 6 members. So, if you have not registered and would still like to take part in the Quiz night, email the Fun Committee funcommittee@tekotago.ac.nz and they will do their best to find you a place.

A reminder - drinks and finger food from 4.30pm, with the Quiz night starting at 6.00 pm.

Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund
Nine applications were received for grants from the Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund. The following applications have been successful, totaling $16,750 in grants. Some great ideas here:

Jeanette O'Fee "Multimedia glossary" $5000
Gary Patterson and David Bremer "Computer Maintenance course restructure for Prison CLC" $4950
Phil Morrison "Student business to recycle obsolete desktops for donation" $1800
Rachel Gillies, Susan Ballard and Pam McKinley "Software resource hub to free up staff time" $5000.

Fun Committee Calendar - Note your diaries!!
1 September - Spring Breakfast
12 September - Lawn Bowls28 November - Xmas Party

Congratulations
to Alex Kennedy lecturer, School of Art, on winning the Iain Brash Prize, which is awarded to the best submission from any Post Graduate student in Australia or New Zealand. This is an outstanding effort. The prize is named in honour of Iain Brash, marking his great contribution to the study of History at the University of Western Australia.
http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au/__data/page/147653/Kennedy.pdf

Good News

For the second year running one of our Fashion students, Year 3 student, Meg Gallagher - has won the Champion of Creative Wear section of the 21st Hong Kong Open International Invitation Fashion Contest, this time with her year 2 fashion design project. Meg wins a medal and a cash prize amongst other prizes. http://www.otagopolytechnic.ac.nz/about/news-events/win-for-fashion-student-in-hong-kong.html. Also see attached photos.
Dunedin company Powerhouse Wind's presentation of its small-scale wind turbine prototype was unveiled at Otago Polytechnic on Thursday. Check the link on our website http://www.otagopolytechnic.ac.nz/about/news-events.html.

Cheers
Robin

Update 09/06/08

2008-06-09T10:46:00.003+12:00

Next Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm on Friday 4 July in G106. This will be a general question and answer session.

Pay and Employment Equity Survey
We are conducting a pay and employment equity survey within Otago Polytechnic and wish to canvass your views. We are the first of 10 polytechnics to do this as a Department of Labour review of Pay and Equity in New Zealand.

Pay and employment equity aims to ensure that pay, conditions of work, access to the full range of jobs at all levels of the workplace, and experiences at work, are not affected by gender.

This survey is completely anonymous and will take approximately just 10 minutes of your time to complete. Its purpose is to assist an internal committee in understanding if gender affects employment at Otago Polytechnic. It will enable us to identify any areas that may need further investigation, as well as identifying and acknowledging where we are doing well.

If you are completing the survey from within the Polytechnic:
http://webit2.tekotago.ac.nz/StaffSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=6LM5m760813MG

If you are completing the survey from outside the Polytechnic i.e. home:
http://polybase.tekotago.ac.nz/StaffSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=6LM5m760813MG

I encourage you to participate in this important survey, which will be open until 20 June 2008.

Win a dinner for two!A reminder that the Staff Post Office is rapidly filling up all the remaining free disk space and that ISS will be running a competition during June, whereby at the end of the month, all those people whose mailbox size is less than 50% of their allocation will go in the draw for a dinner at a Dunedin Restaurant to the value of $150. There will also be 4 additional draws of a bottle of Central Otago's finest Bannockburn Pinot Noir. (NB: You are not eligible if you subsequently lodge a job request for ISS to recover accidently deleted emails, so be careful!) Also, please do not delete "official records". See attached "Guidelines on Official Records" from Ruth Millhouse.

Caught in the Act!
As advised last week, the Quality Improvement Team have "found" our first group of staff caught in the act of good teaching practice!

Visualisation and Kinaesthetics
Five Great Strategies

"Learning outside the classroom: use of I-pods for revision and assessment. Enhancing students' kinaesthetic and visual learning styles...." (Steve Ellwood)
"Old hats, new hats, teaching resources for tomorrow. How some existing resources may be ...."(Kevin McClean)
"I can't draw" - engaging learners in drawing. Challenging ideas of drawing "ability" in... (Jane Venis)
"How to help students with enormous challenges as they struggle with science - chemical symbols......to explain to students an unseen world. (Judy Magee)
"Personal summary of the challenges of teaching the active and visual learner in the art/design context including role of studio supervision ......." (Clive Humphreys)

Come along to hear about Learner Engagement that Works! Sharing great and innovative teaching and learning ideas!

When and where: Thursday 12 June, 12.10 pm in G204.

OP in the News
SHaC09
Two Polytechnic teams, one based in Central and one based in Dunedin have been accepted for SHaC09 and we wish them well in participating in what will be a high-profile and hotly contested challenge. Staff, students and members of the community are encouraged to take an active role in the project. Further details are to follow. Congratulations are also due to SHaC09 Co-ordinator Tim Bishop and Alistair Regan and D'Arcy Dalzell who initiated the national challenge at Otago Polytechnic with Ministry for the Environment Funding. Nine teams have been accepted to take part and the diversity of the proposals will make for some really interesting outcomes. (See attached media pack which outlines the challengers nicely.)

Wikieducator
Note that Otago Polytechnic is the 'Featured Institution' on the wikieducator platform.

You might also be interested in taking a look at the following links - find out what some of our teaching staff are doing and some of the rationale behind this.
http://wikieducator.org/Otago_Polytechnic:_An_IP_policy_for_the_times
http://wikieducator.org/Otago_Polytechnic:WikiEducator_helps_advance_open_learning_at_the_Polytechnic

OP in the Community
Certificate in Human Services
Congratulations to the students of the Certificate in Human Services, and their supervising staff, who were recently challenged to improve the resources of local charities in an effort to raise awareness and gain an understanding of the plight of social services agencies in the community. A donation to Youthline was warmly received by Daniel Larson, Programme Manager for Youthline Otago; and Ruth Molloy, Funding Co-ordinator for Women's Refuge was thrilled to accept a collection of toys which will be used to support their work with the child victims of domestic abuse. "Students were challenged to run a committee, raise funds and make a contribution to charity. Our industry is focussed on social justice and this kind of hands-on project contributes to the sustainability of our community groups" said Susie Baron-Sinclair, co-coordinator of the Certificate programme. "These students are just beginning their programme and the successful completion of their community-based assignment was a credit to the determination of the group."

Students prepare gluten-free feast
Last week was Coeliac Awareness Week, and to celebrate, students of the Otago Polytechnic Cooking course are preparing a gluten-free feast for local people with the condition - check out http://www.ch9.co.nz/content/coeliac-awareness-week

Surplus Staffing Reviews
It is with considerable regret I advise you that I have had to initiate surplus staffing reviews in two areas of the Polytechnic: the School of Applied Business and the Automotive programme area. Unfortunately both areas have suffered a significant fall in enrolments this year, going against an otherwise very positive trend.

I regret also that many of you had to read this news in the ODT, but I respect the right of staff to communicate in this way.

Please give your support to staff in the two areas during this difficult period.

Thanks
to those involved with the preparation of the Polytechnic's Annual Report. Council, at last week's meeting, praised the presentation of the Annual Report particularly the graphics and design. Special thanks to Julie Waldron, who had significant input into this aspect of the report. Well done to all - we appreciate the incredible amount of work involved.

Quiz Night
I hope you are getting your teams together for the Quiz night to be held in the Forth Street staff room on 4 July. As this event has grown in popularity, the night will be streamlined in various ways to accommodate the increasing numbers. This year Brian Treanor will be Quizmaster, so it promises to once again be a good night, with food and drink provided from 4.30pm and the Quiz night commencing at 6.00pm (note earlier start time).

Register your team (up to 6 people), with name at funcommittee@tekotago.ac.nz by Friday June 27.

Congratulations
to Carolyn McIntosh, Merena Ropata-Hanning and David McQuillan, who have been promoted to Senior Lecturer.

We are absolutely delighted to congratulate Dr Sally Pairman who was recognised in the Queen's Birthday honours list for her services to women's health. Sally was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM). She has been involved in Midwifery for over 20 years and during that time contributed to changes in New Zealand that led to recognition of Midwifery as a profession in its own right and that led to the law change in 1990 allowing women to choose a midwife for support during their pregnancy and childbirth. She was instrumental in establishing the first Bachelor of Midwifery in 1992, followed by establishment of the postgraduate programmes at Otago Polytechnic. Sally has contributed enormous energy to the profession of Midwifery and been instrumental in successfully bringing about change. She is currently Chair of the Midwifery Council of New Zealand - and of course our Head of School! Sally is in Glasgow this week presenting at the International Congress of Midwives. Congratulations will be in order on her return!

At last week's meeting, Council also passed on their congratulations to Sally. This is certainly something for us all to be proud of!

Off Campus
I will be off campus for three week (9-27 June inclusive), visiting Thompson Rivers University in Canada, reestablishing our relationship with South Puget Sound Community College in the United States and attending the Postsecondary International Network (PIN) Conference in Scotland. During my absence Robin Day will be Acting CEO.

Cheers
Phil

Update 30 May 2008

2008-06-05T12:52:00.002+12:00

Staff Forum
The next forum is scheduled for Friday 6th June at 12.00pm in G106. Lots on the go at the moment, so this will be a general Q&A session.

YES - Caught in the Act!
Yes, the Quality Improvement Team have "found" our first group of staff caught in the act of good teaching practice!

Come along to hear about Learner Engagement that Works! Sharing great and innovative teaching and learning ideas! When and where: Thursday 12 June, 12.10 pm in G204.

Leadership Team
Web Redevelopment
Great progress is being made on the Polytechnic's website with the following update provided by ISS:

All research expertise now linked to website

Staff profiles able to be published

Web enquiries now go straight into Jasper

Applications now on-line

Working on Student Portal; have created one page for anything a student needs to be accessing

Working with BRR on rebranding

Student information - working on portal where students can review results, financial information etc

Reviewing Blackboard interface

Investigating being able to deliver blogs and wikis internally and externally where relevant

Setting up consultancy site

Have started intranet redevelopment

Good News Stories
Innovative Solutions from the School of Veterinary Nursing
Congratulations to Jeanette O'Fee and the School of Veterinary Nursing team who have committed themselves to developing sustainable workload management solutions over the past year with exemplary results.

HR Connects with Business - Consultancy Success
And congratulations to the HR Team, and John Llewellyn in particular for the very real runs on the board towards revenue diversification. This is an excellent example of what our revenue diversification is all about.

Win a dinner for two!
As you will be aware, the Staff Post Office is rapidly filling up all the remaining free disk space - this is why your email is incredibly slow at peak times of the day. You can be part of the solution to this by having a good cleanout and deleting non essential messages. As an incentive to do this, ISS will be running a competition during June, whereby at the end of the month, all those people whose mailbox size is less than 50% of their allocation will go in the draw for a dinner at a Dunedin Restaurant to the value of $150. There will also be 4 additional draws of a bottle of Central Otago's finest Bannockburn Pinot Noir. (NB: You are not eligible if you subsequently lodge a job request for ISS to recover accidently deleted emails, so be careful!) Also, please do not delete "official records".

Pay and Employment Equity Review Survey
Pay and employment equity aims to ensure that pay, conditions of work, access to the full range of jobs at all levels of the workplace, and experiences at work, are not affected by gender. An Otago Polytechnic committee is currently undertaking an internal review of pay and employment equity, as part of the Government's five year plan of action, which aims to reduce the pay gap and ensure equitable employment conditions.

The purpose of this survey is to assist the committee in understanding if gender affects employment at Otago Polytechnic. It will enable us to identify any areas that may need further investigation, as well as identifying and acknowledging where we are doing well.

All staff will be emailed a survey link within the next two weeks and we would appreciate you taking the time to complete it. The results from this survey will be used by the committee in their investigations and result in the development of a response plan to address any areas requiring improvement.

Coke Careers Expo
Thanks to all schools who actively participated at the recent Coke Careers Expo. Liaison staff were extremely appreciative of the way in which staff who attended did a great job of representing their areas, making their job much easier - in fact, a pleasure! By all accounts this was the busiest expo of its kind in Dunedin for a number of years. Feedback to me from members of the public was that the OP presence was "fantastic".

Congratulations
to Rachel Kaspers, ChildCare Centre, who has graduated from the University of Otago with a Postgraduate Diploma in Child Advocacy with Distinction.

And last but not least - have a relaxing long weekend.

Cheers
Phil

Update 21 May 2008

2008-05-21T09:48:00.006+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held this Friday 23 May in G106. Topic for discussion will be Workload Management (see below) and will be led by Leadership Team members; Matt Carter, Sue Thompson, Philip Cullen, Mike Waddell and Mike Collins. This is relevant for all staff, both general and academic.

Leadership Team
Workload Management
As you are all aware we signalled earlier in the year our commitment to tackling the workload issue, with a view to:

taking the pressure off staff where workloads are agreed to be at unmanageable levels
freeing time and resources to enable us to do justice to our other Polytechnic priorities
to achieving a more satisfying workplace

Attached is a paper developed by Leadership Team setting out how we are viewing the workload issue and what we are proposing to do about it. Four initiatives are proposed:

Where appropriate, change work practices to eliminate unnecessary work, to focus on priority work and to improve organisational systems and processes
Develop capability to manage workload more effectively
Build on our current processes for work-life balance
Make explicit the benefits of working at Otago Polytechnic

We look forward to feedback on these proposals, and to a concerted effort from everyone to make a difference. Yes, we may well invest a little more effort to bring about the positive changes we need.

2009 Staff Calendar
Please find attached the draft 2009 Staff Calendar, which provides key information to assist staff with leave planning, and which signals some critical dates re:

institute-wide staff development days
mandatory leave periods
mandatory work weeks within the semester breaks
final date for assessment results to be processed/entered

This calendar will be merged with the full academic calendar once it is finalised, following consideration of any feedback.

It is acknowledged that some staff may already have agreed leave for February 2009 as part of their current leave plan. This leave will be honoured nothwithstanding that it might fall in a mandatory work week.

Please send feedback on this calendar to Matt Carter by Friday 30th May.

Processing of Assessment Results
You will be aware that we will be moving to the progressive recording of student assessment results in Jasper, with full effect from the commencement of the 2009 academic year.

Significant consultation has been undertaken by the MIS team, and several schools have piloted proposed new processes. Feedback on the pilots has been positive and we now have the confidence to proceed with full implementation. A fixed term appointment has been approved to support the set up phase for the whole Polytechnic, and we will be working to get as many programmes as possible on the system this year.

There will be significant benefits from this development:

students will benefit from being able to track their own progress on-line
monitoring of student progress will be enhanced, enabling more timely interventions for "at risk" students, thereby improving our ability to secure better success rates
workload overall will be reduced by streamlining the whole record keeping process

Final dates to have assessments marked and results recorded
The final dates for having student results marked and recorded in Jasper for 2008 are:

Friday 11th July: all Semester 1 results to be processed
Friday 28th November: all Semester 2 results entered for graduating students
Friday 11th December: all Semester 2 results to be processed

These dates are critical dates, and work schedules must be planned to ensure they are met.

Revenue Diversification Breakthrough for Occupational Therapy
Congratulations to Jackie Herkt, her OT team and the service areas supporting the bid - successfully tendering for training and examination services for a major organisation. OT will have a multi year contract worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars - all based on core OT expertise.

I find this hugely encouraging for our revenue diversification strategy. We have a fantastic expertise in you, our staff, and we need the confidence to back ourselves in developing new revenue streams - just like OT have.

Student Centre and School of Art Projects
Drawings for the above projects can be viewed in the Forth Street staff room and at the School of Art. Don't forget to send any feedback on the latest drawings to Philip Cullen.

Carparking
Don't forget to email Michelle Barron by Friday 23rd May any feedback that you may have regarding the attached consultation paper on carparking. Thanks to those who have already replied.

Congratulations
To the following staff who graduated with a Certificate in Te Ara Reo Maori recently (through the Te Wananga o Aotearoa):

Michelle Barron
Janet Black
Jocelyn Broughton
Pleasance Hansen
Linda Kinniburgh
Andrew Last
Helen Lindsay

And also to Jo Wakelin, lecturer in Horticulture, Cromwell, who has had her work acknowledged in the Te Kakano Aotearoa Trust Annual Report.

Cheers
Phil

Update 5 May 2008

2008-05-05T21:19:00.001+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 on Friday 9 May. Topic: Campus developments, parking.

ACC Workplace Safety Management Tertiary Accreditation
We have received formal notification from ACC that Otago Polytechnic achieved tertiary (the highest level!) accreditation under the Workplace Safety Management Programme following the audit in Mid March. This accreditation is valid for 2 years and is a significant milestone for us as a good employer and provider of excellent tertiary education.

Congratulations and thanks to all our Health and Safety reps, Pauline Mumm, Barbara McDonald and all of you involved in achieving this.

Branding Update
The tertiary open day to be held tomorrow will see the commencement of our brand being profiled in the public arena. The introduction coincides with the launch of the 2009 prospectus that has been developed in a new format which is built around the new brand architecture.

As I am sure many will appreciate, a lot of work goes into the production of such a document, and we are grateful for the support that we have received from schools and the marketing team, to meet the tertiary open day deadline for the prospectus.

With the prospectus complete, work is continuing with the application of the brand to all our promotional and communications material which ranges from letterhead to signage on external buildings and everything in between. It is planned that the majority of work will be complete and ready for organisational use in early July.

We will also undertake several workshops with schools re the application of the brand and the use of the template system that is being developed.

Naturally we will have a celebration once the we are in a position to go fully live with the brand to ensure that we are noticed in the market place!

Closure of the Student Centre
Last Friday was a great celebration of the funding we have received for the Student Centre redevelopment and the new wing for the Art School.

However, as the saying goes - every silver lining has a cloud! (Did I get that right?) Unfortunately we are not going to be able to manage the Student Centre rebuild/refurbishment without closing all of the lounge and kitchen areas - from about August 1st until May/June 2009.
The good news is that we have a pretty good plan for temporary lounges and a temporary food service - one which we are refining with all those directly involved and with OPSA. Note - OPSA staff and the Student Health Centre will remain open throughout the project.

On the downside, the developments we are undertaking will have a significant impact on the availability of on-campus car parking. A separate consultation paper on options for the future will be released later this week.

Four for Five Employment
Would you like to take 6 months or 1 year paid off work to relax and refresh...? A reminder about OP's leave with pay scheme!

What is Four for Five Employment?

"Four for Five" is a way of providing for six month or year long periods away from the Polytechnic at regular intervals throughout permanent employment. The options are:
2 years of work (on 80% of your salary) then taking 6 months paid off on 80% of your salary; or
4 years of work (on 80% of your salary) then taking 1 year paid off on 80% of your salary

Who can participate in the Four for Five Scheme?

Basically, any permanent staff member who is employed greater than 0.6 of an FTE and has applied and been accepted into the scheme.

How do I get into the Scheme?

Make application in writing to your HOS/HOP or Manager. Applications for deductions beginning early July 2008 close on Friday 9 May 2008 - so get in quick if you are considering this option!

For further information, please see the Four for Five Employment Options policy - http://webit.tekotago.ac.nz/polybase2/general/management/mp438.00 four for five employment options.doc
or contact the HR Department on humanresources@tekotago.ac.nz !

Digital Information Literacy Project
If you would like to expand your skills (low, medium or high) in digital information so you can work and study smarter, an exciting opportunity is available. You are invited to join a Ministry of Education funded action research (Digital Information Literacy (DIL) project at Otago Polytechnic.

Digital information literacy relates to how you access, interpret and create digital information. Researchers in the project will work with you to identify and explore your digital information literacy needs and help you experiment with solutions. You choose what you want to do depending on your skill level, and the researchers facilitate a process, using strategies and tools which are easily accessible, to help you reach your goals. People from all areas are sought and places are limited.

A small payment will be made in recognition of your contribution, and this will be aligned to your goals and what you achieve.

What next?
Please contact:
Bronwyn Hegarty, project manager and research coordinator.Educational Development Centre, H100, Otago Polytechnic.
Ph: 479 3600 or ext 8360 - Email: bronwynh@tekotago.ac.nzOR Merrolee Penman, lead researcher.Ph: 479 6043 or ext 8323 - Email: merrolee@tekotago.ac.nz

Congratulations
to Dave Bremer who has been promoted to Principal Lecturer.

17 April 2008

2008-04-18T13:14:00.002+12:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 between 12 and 1 pm on Friday 9 May. Topic to be advised.

Leadership Team
Open Forum
Don't forget there is an opportunity for staff to attend Leadership Meetings on Monday mornings between 11.45 and 12.15 pm, to express your views, ask questions, discuss an idea. Let Jeanette know if you would like to do so.

Breaking News - lecturers caught in the act of great teaching practice!
Actually, we haven't apprehended anyone officially yet, but are very keen to do so.

I know we have some best kept secrets out there - individuals and teams using particularly effective approaches to teaching and facilitating student learning, including assessment. Let's tell these stories, and especially those which are really breathing life into the teaching and learning values we have embraced for OP.

If you have strategies you are particularly proud of and which are really effective or have come across such strategies being used by your colleagues, please let us know; contact Glenice Mayo who is convening our new quality improvement team. The primary role for the team is to identify and/or to validate good practice in teaching and learning at OP, to affirm good practice and to assist with dissemination of that good practice. Membership is:
Academic Quality Unit - Glenice Mayo (Facilitator)
Educational Development Team - Terry Marler
Institutional Research Officer - Stuart Terry
Internal Academic Auditor - Ken Laraman
Professorial Group representative - Leoni Schmidt
Group representatives:
Marc Doesburg (Health and Community)
Lesley Gill (Business and Sport)
Jeanette O'Fee (Regions and Natural Resources)
Dale Parsons (Creative)

Staff Industry Leave - Business Links
There is funding still available for staff industry leave - please get your applications in (see attached info and application form).

Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund
The initial application round for this fund is complete, and 4 lecturers have been successful in securing grants from the fund. They are:
Tony Heptinstall and colleagues in the School of Hospitality for "Improving flexibility of cookery courses delivery for chefs by using iPods"
David McQuillan in the School of Social Services for "Evaluation of Flexible Learning Development - Massage Therapy"
Marc Doesburg in Foundation Learning and Doug Rodgers in the Maths team for "Numeracy: visual resources to support foundation maths principles"and
Lesley Gill in the School of Applied Business for "Training in Emotional Intelligence testing"

In total these grants add up to $18,900, just under 40% of the available fund.

So - be in for the next round, but please consult with EDC about the criteria. See Terry Marler's report attached to this Update, which gives tips and advises the next closing date.

Our Treaty Partnership in Action
The School of Hospitality has taken huge steps to build staff capability around the Treaty, and to this end have undertaken significant staff development, including a noha marae at Otakou - benefitting significantly from the expertise of local runaka members. In return, members of the team gave of their time to cater for a wedding at the Marae. This act of reciprocity has made an outstanding contribution to our treaty relationships.

Well done, and thank you Noelle, Dion, Julie, Steve and Adrian.

Good News
Launch of Rural Nursing Textbook
The first New Zealand text on Rural Nursing, has been launched by Associate Minister of Health, Damian O'Conner at Rural General practice network conference in Christchurch recently. The idea was developed and supported by a Rural Innovative grant, for Jean Ross, Lecturer in the School of Nursing, to produce and edit this book. Nine of the 17 chapters were written by our Masters of Nursing graduates, which included one staff member, Raeleen Thompson. The foreword was written by Alison Dixon.

Congratulations to

Karen Blackwood from OT who recently won the New Zealand Triathlon Championships for her age in Wellington and will be competing in the World championships in Vancouver, Canada in June this year.
The OP mixed netball team - Janine, Mike, Ange, Tom, Jono (all IT), Nicki (Student Health), Cath George (ex Hospitality), who won the Grade 3 netball final at the Edgar Centre last night.
Dale Parsons, who has been voted in as Academic Staff representative on Council for a further 4 year term.

Cheers
Phil

8 April 2008

2008-04-08T09:37:00.007+12:00

STOP WORK MEETING
No, nothing sinister about this one...you are all invited to stop work at 3.30pm on Friday 11 April to join your colleagues in the Forth Street staff room for some drinks and fingerfood.

Cromwell staff - you will be doing the same thing the following week on Thursday 17th!

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held 12 - 1pm in G106 on Friday 11 April. This will be a general question and answer session.

Enhancing Teaching and Learning at Otago Polytechnic
Many thanks to those of you who have taken the time to familiarise yourself with our strategy to enhance teaching and learning at OP - and especially those who have asked questions, provided feedback and attended staff forums. And those who have signed up to the blog - which is easy to do http://enhancingteachingandlearning.blogspot.com/

Last week we circulated the implementation framework. I am pleased to report the following actions thus far:

A new quality improvement team is now being established, coordinated by Glenice Mayo. The team will be charged with helping to identify and disseminate good practice. The full team will be advised once the representatives from each academic group are chosen.
The "Enhancing Teaching and Learning at OP" blog has been set up (see above)
Planning is underway for professional development for HoS/HoPs and programme managers to help prepare the way for a more active role in developing teaching.
A process is underway to identify a team of "top teachers" to augment the EDC team, and with a particular focus on helping individual teachers and teams of teachers to develop and improve their practice.

Worldskills
Otago Polytechnic are hosting the regional competition for Worldskills on 7th June. This competition involves various skills including Engineering, Welding, Carpentry, Automotive, PC Network and Support, Landscape Design and Restaurant and Cookery.

Good News
We have been fortunate to obtain the following grants:

$1,500,000 (GST inclusive) for further design initiatives involving the launch of new businesses arising from our design programmes.
$270,921 (GST inclusive) for Midwifery programme development in partnership with CPIT.

Congratulations to:

Peter Brook who has been appointed as Strategy Manager - Flexible Delivery. Peter will play a key role in leading the implementation of the Polytechnic's strategy for flexible learning
Kirsty Murrell McMillan, Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing, who has been elected Chair of the NZ Rural General Practice Network. The Rural network has changed its constitution to include rural nursing colleagues, and Kirsty is the first nurse to hold this position in this organisation.
Jean Ross, Principal Lecturer in the School of Nursing
Jean Ross and Pat Farry were awarded the prestigious award of the Peter Snow Memorial Award for Excellence and an extraordinary contribution to rural Nursing and rural health.
This award was developed in recognition of Dr Peter Snow a long term and well respected General Practitioner from Tapanui who died two years ago. He was most well known for his research around Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Tapanui Flu) and was a well recognized researcher, innovator in rural health. The aim of the award is to encourage research and to enable recognition of excellence and contribution to rural health. Jean was recognised in particular for her contribution to rural nursing.
Kate Timms, Lecturer in the Treaty Education Training Unit
Kate entered the Otago Regional 8-Ball Pool Tournament on Saturday and Sunday, and came second in the competition, with the winner being the current New Zealand 8-Ball representative. Kate plans to enter the South Island championships next month and is currently ranked 8th in New Zealand.

Thanks
To all those involved with the recent working bee. If you haven't already noticed some of the changes around the campus, take a look at some of the photos below.

Cheers
Phil

27 March 2008

2008-03-30T20:00:00.005+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm this Friday 28 March. This forum will take another look at the Refocus on Teaching and Learning Strategy.

Enhancing Teaching and Learning at OP
We have opened a new blog under the banner "Enhancing Teaching and Learning at Otago Polytechnic". The link to this blog is http://enhancingteachingandlearning.blogspot.com/. I would like to encourage you all to sign up and to at least keep an eye on the resources posted and discussion that takes place. Better still - participate in the discussion, or post your own examples of good practice.

I am hopeful that this blog will be an important medium by which we can share the many examples of good practice happening at the Polytechnic.

Leadership Team
Participation in Trial of NZQA's new Quality Assurance System
Otago Polytechnic is one of four ITPs participating in the trial of the new evaluative quality assurance system in 2008. Mike Collins, Alistair Regan and Sue Thompson attended a training workshop in Wellington last week. Martin Grinsted, a lead auditor for ITP Quality, has been appointed to work with us as our evaluative coach as we prepare for self assessment of some aspects of our evaluative processes by July 2008.

The self assessment will be focussing on our existing evaluative tools such as Annual Programme Evaluation Review, Course Evaluations, First Impressions Survey and Programme Satisfaction Survey. We will also be doing an in depth review of the results and graduation process. The self assessment is followed by an external review plus an external evaluation of the trial. Participation in the trial provides Otago Polytechnic with the opportunity to help shape the new quality assurance system.

Information on the tertiary reforms and the trial can be found on the following websites:

TEC:
http://www.tec.govt.nz/
NZQA
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/for-providers/tertiary/index.html

More detailed information will be available after Easter.

Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund
Please note that in light of the Easter break, we have extended the date for applications for this fund the first round of to 31 March. Talk to Terry Marler if you have an idea you would like to pursue.

Sustainable Futures Breakfast
Thanks to those who attended the breakfast recently with Dr Morgan Williams - the first in a series of visitors to assist in building the capacity of the institution to delivery education for sustainability.

The Polytechnic signed an MoU with the Swedish based organisation The Natural Step. Dr Williams is the NZ Chairman. The MoU is attached and can be seen on Polybase.
Dr Williams also delivered a workshop in the city which 10 staff attended. His presentation notes can be seen on the Sustainable Futures page on the Polytechnic's website.

Good News
A contract has been signed to deliver Creative studies classes at the Prison for Corrections. This will start the prisoners down a qualification pathway. Congratulations to Jane Venis and her team for their flexible approach to this project.

Working Bee
A reminder re the Leadership Team Working Bee which was rescheduled for Saturday 29 March. If you are able to help (for part or all of the day) and have not already put your name down, please let Simon Noble know asap.

Congratulations
To Bernie Thijssen, Maree Steel, and Roger Southby, who have been promoted to Senior Lecturers.

Fun Committee
A correction to the Xmas party date - this should have read Friday 28 November.

Cheers
Phil

14 March 2008

2008-03-14T09:07:00.002+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm on Friday 28 March. This forum will take another look at the Refocus on Teaching and Learning Strategy, and also an emergent workload strategy.

Leadership Team
Logo Signoff
Over the last few weeks the proposed new logo has undergone a series of refinements, including colour exploration. These had been narrowed down over the last month to two colour directions; (1) green base with blue spiral (koru derivative) and (2) blue base with green spiral.

Leadership Team agreed to adopt option (2) for the following reasons:

The base colour blue is considered a trusted colour and represents knowledge, integrity and seriousness. (www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html)
It provides Otago Polytechnic with a link to the history of the organisation, while at the same time connects to the waters of the coast and Central Otago
Blue allows the text to stand out, where as the green base does not
Green has the potential to be a trendy colour that goes in and out of fashion where blue is considered stable over time
The green spiral provides a link to nature and symbolises growth, freshness and safety and yet is secure in a blue base

The new logo stems from forms such as the Koru, Fractals, Ammonite, the Nautilus Shell, and wave formations to reflect elements such as:

Growth, renewal and potential ability
Technology enabled
Innovative
A focus on partnership and collaboration
Supporting Maori students to fulfil their educational aspirations
Reflects career pathways.

- all elements that connect back to our brand values.

The first use of the logo will be the 2009 prospectus which is planned for distribution during the first week of May 2008. It will then be applied to all other communication media once the existing supplies have been exhausted. The next step in the process is to develop a set of templates to which the logo will be applied, to ensure that the design is balanced with the application it is being used for i.e. stationary, envelopes, certificate, degrees, business cards etc. Work has commenced on this and it is expected that the project will be complete by mid July. Now that the logo is settled we will also be able to commence the long overdue upgrade of our signage. This will be done progressively over the next 18 months.

Check out the logo on the Marketing site on Polybase https://webit.tekotago.ac.nz/departments/index.cfm?dept=MBD

Telecommunications Review
Following a review of telecommunications, a number of recommendations were agreed in an endeavor to reduce costs in this area. These were related to a reduction in cell phone use including options around personal use, use of data cards, reduced Telecom phonebook listings, tighter controls around approval of accounts and a reduction in direct dials. Further information, including guidelines and criteria will be available soon.

Anniversary Day
You may be aware that Otago Anniversary Day officially falls on 23 March this year, which also happens to be Easter Sunday. As Easter Sunday is not actually a public holiday (Good Friday and Easter Monday are) and Otago Anniversary day is one of the holidays that must be observed on the day it falls ,we will pay all public holiday entitlements where required for Sunday 23 March - although that affects very few of our staff.

Otago Anniversary day is one of the public holidays that does not have its observance moved in situations like this. However, Otago Polytechnic will observe an alternative holiday for Otago Anniversary day on Wednesday 26 March (following easter and the customary education day on Tuesday). We have confirmed our intention to observe Otago Anniversary Day in this way with both TIASA and ASTE. While we are not required to do this we do wish to ensure that our staff get the benefit where there are grey areas such as this. Enjoy your bonus day off!

Protected Disclosure Policy
A reminder that Otago Polytechnic has a policy for Protected Disclosures of Serious Wrongdoing (whistleblowing) MP442.02. This policy complies with the Protected Disclosures Act 2000 and aims to protect employees who in accordance with the Act make disclosures of information about serious wrongdoing in or by an organisation, and outlines the procedures for making, receiving, dealing with and investigating information about serious wrongdoing in or by Otago Polytechnic. Otago Polytechnic strives to be fair and transparent in all we do, and if concerns are held we advise the person to refer to this policy which is available under policies on Polybase.

Working Bee
A reminder that Leadership Team will be having a working bee on Saturday, 29th March to tackle a host of maintenance and cleanup issues. If you previously indicated that you were able to assist, we will keep your name of our list, unless you are now otherwise committed. For anyone else that would like to join us, please let Jeanette Corson know. Any time you can spare, whether it be for an hour or two, or the whole day, would be much appreciated. We are planning for a barbecue and a few drinks at the end of the day; and will feed anyone who is around at lunchtime.

So what will we be doing?
The original plan included some painting, gardening and rubbish removal - with a particular focus on the Student Centre.

Hot Cross Bunnies
The HR Team will be hosting a morning tea on Tuesday 18 March at 10.00am in the F Block staffroom to celebrate Easter.

Fun Committee
Note these dates in your diary:
4 July Quiz Night
12 September - Lawn Bowls
28 November Xmas Party

Cheers
Phil

CEO's Update 7 March 2008

2008-03-12T13:57:00.004+13:00

Staff Forum
The next staff forum will be held in G106 12 - 1pm on Friday and will be a further discussion around our Teaching and Learning strategy (see documents attached).

Visit by Dr Morgan Williams
Breakfast - Friday 14th March
A reminder about the staff breakfast meeting on Friday 14th March from 7.45-9.00 am with guest speaker, Dr Morgan Williams, former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in 2007 - who will address the topic "Being Strategic about Sustainable Development".
Dr Williams will speak from approximately 8.15-8.25 am. Venue will be confirmed once we know numbers.
Please RSVP to Michelle Barron for catering and venue purposes. All welcome.

Staff Development
One of our staff development priorities this year is education for sustainability. I would like to encourage staff to attend a workshop led by Dr Williams on Friday morning 9 - 11am at the Chamber of Commerce. This is open to all staff - academic and general, and as usual, there will be no cost. Dr Williams will discuss sustainable development, providing case studies of success. In addition to staff, our leading contractors and suppliers have also been invited to attend.
Please register with Steve Henry as soon as possible as numbers are limited.

Leadership Team

A reminder that there is an opportunity for staff to attend Leadership Meetings on Monday mornings between 11.45 and 12.15 pm, to express your views, ask questions, discuss an idea. Let Jeanette know if you would like to do so.

Once again, thanks to Jean Young for taking advantage of this forum to bring to our attention significant matters around student refunds and providing the opportunity for a timely remedy.

NZ Association for Environmental Education Conference
The conference website now has presentations, papers and information from the recent conference held at St Margaret's College in Dunedin. The information will be available at this address until 1st May 2008.

Teaching and Learning
A reminder - we do have the new teaching and learning innovation fund - refer to the attached documents.

Cheers
Phil