Nick Daniels joined us this week on secondment from the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences for 9 months. He’s going to help us increase the level of service we offer while we commit to longer term collaborations with business units focussing on incremental improvements to their web presences.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen an increase in business units interested in collaborating with us on an ongoing basis rather than have us work on a specific short-term project.

Student Systems, IS Helpline and Human Resources are all working with us on programmes of improvement of periods ranging from 6 to 12 months. These arrangements are:

• more collaborative (so colleagues in these teams are developing their skills while working with us)
• solve problems better (because we work together to establish what needs to be done, including research to evidence decisions)
• saving time and cost (as recruitment & staff management overheads are covered by us).

Our most recent collaboration with Human Resources has necessitated us growing the team to meet our commitments. Enter Nick Daniels.

We’ve known Nick for almost the whole time he’s been at the University, through the Web Publishers Community. His contribution to PPLS has seen an increase in the provision of online learning and the transition of their website from something they hosted themselves to the EdWeb service.

I was particularly impressed by the approach Nick took to the development of the new school website; the way that he ensured users were involved throughout and how stakeholders in the business were engaged.

Nick is a great addition to our team, and brings a new perspective having been one of our customers.

I believe this secondment is a win-win situation:

• Business units like HR get a much better level of expertise from us than if they’d recruited a short term position themselves
• We get fresh skills and a greater capacity to support the university
• Nick gets a professional development opportunity that also benefits his school on his return.

I hope we can create more opportunities like this in future.

I’d also like to acknowledge the support of colleagues in the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences who have enabled this secondment to happen.

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