Guidance Materials
Introduction
As every institution and the context in which it operates is unique, it is not possible to offer a simple guide on how to respond to emergent technologies. Instead, rational decisions about how to respond can only be made through consideration and discussion within institutions.
The following exercises are designed to provide a framework for these discussions and to highlight areas where change may be needed. We recommend that your institution use these as part of a wider set of activities across all subsystems of the IRET 5Rs model to identify and develop a coherent response to emergent technologies. These tasks alone are not sufficient to produce an appropriate set of responses, rather they are simply a device to encourage you to start the conversations that we hope will inform and improve future institutional responses.
They are intended to be used with a group of institutional managers and professionals, but could be extended to include other categories of staff and students. You may wish to do this in joint session or to collate results from sessions with different groups.
Emergent technologies are by definition new and require changes to established processes and working practices. In our experience, discussions about them can provoke passionate arguments for and against their use. While open and frank discussions are neccesary, these need to be facilitated carefully, giving all parties sufficient opportunity for input.
Activity: Traffic lighting
This exercise uses a simple ‘traffic lighting’ technique to analyse the nature of your institution’s response to emergent technologies using the IRET 5Rs framework. This is a structured task designed as an entry point to discussions about emergent technologies.
Download the Traffic Lighting activity
Activity: Open Discussion using the 5Rs framework
This task uses the IRET 5Rs model as the basis for an open discussion regarding emergent technologies at your institution. This activity is less structured and may require more active facilitation, but creates the opportunity for a broader discussion.
Download the IRET 5Rs discussion activity
Activity: Scenarios
This task uses scenarios relating to emergent technologies as a device to consider how your institution might respond to the challenges they present. The scenarios are based on projects funded by the JISC IRET programme and the issues raised through wider consultation. This activity is intended to be more pragmatic than theoretical in considering how you would respond to given emergent technologies.
Download the Scenarios activity
Activity: Debates
This exercise presents a range of motions for debate on how institutions respond to emergent technologies.
Activity: Agenda Setting
This exercise is intended to help collate the results from separate workshop activities and prioritise them to inform an agenda for improvement in how the institution responds to emergent technologies.