Communities of Practice: Update 鈥� Data and Insight

30 January 2019

果冻影院s Communities of Practice (CoPs) have continued to grow. We caught up with the Data and Insight CoP.

Photo of two people working together on a laptop in a park

A Community of Practice (CoP) at 果冻影院 unites staff working in similar areas and functions in order to help members develop professionally and improve their practices. They provide staff with opportunities to learn from each other by sharing knowledge and expertise, by working together on self-selected projects, and are supported by a Senior Sponsor who provides top-level recognition and strategic visibility.

Connecting colleagues

We now have eight different CoPs across 果冻影院 in areas such as Communication and Marketing, HR, Planning and Student Registry Support Services. Within these there are currently 40 ongoing community-led projects.

As of this year we have听over 1000 core and wider CoP members. Core members are active members who meet regularly and shape the boundaries, priorities and subsequent projects and activities delivered by the community. Wider members are staff who have a sense of professional alignment to the practice area, benefit from being involved in CoP activities like Lunch and Learn events and are interested in creating a more cohesive 果冻影院 culture.

One of the latest additions is the Data and Insight CoP, which brings together colleagues from across 果冻影院 to work on increasing our expertise in data and insight and raise the bar for effective data visualisation.听

Data and Insight Community of Practice

Currently led by Rebecca Allen, Head of Data and Insight (Education) in the Vice-Provost Education鈥檚 office and Martin Howells, Data and Insight Manager in the Planning Division, the community now has around 20 core members. They meet monthly to work on projects, share expertise and build the practice area together as well as give expert critique on each other鈥檚 work.

The community is currently working on two projects; one to produce a set of data visualisation best-practice principles, and the other to create a catalogue of available management information datasets across 果冻影院 (not including research data).听

The CoP also offers training and advice to wider community members and seeks to provide induction and support for new data analysts. Si Ning, a Research Data Analyst who recently joined 果冻影院鈥檚 Institute of Education and is one of the Community鈥檚 newer members, said:

鈥淚鈥檝e really enjoyed getting involved in the Data and Insight Community of Practice. I鈥檝e had the opportunity to learn about different data specialisations, speak with talented colleagues from a range of departments, and contribute to useful data-focused projects in 果冻影院.鈥�

The main benefits to being a member as a new joiner are getting quick access to the right people for advice and guidance, being able to access software and tools they might not get otherwise, being part of a wider network of data analysts and getting up to speed with projects such as the Data and Insight Project being run by the Planning Division.

The community plans to continue to improve the quality of data work at 果冻影院, and to work on further projects. The CoP will also seek to grow its numbers in the future. If you or a colleague does data or analytical work in your day-to-day role and would like to join a group of analysts to share expertise, build confidence and work on joint projects, please get in touch with Martin Howells or Rebecca Allen to join the D&I CoP.听

Upcoming Communities of Practice

The Access and Widening Participation CoP has recently been set-up and their launch event will be held on 3 April 2019. The next CoPs we are looking to set up are in the following areas:

Student Health and Wellbeing
Technicians
贵颈苍补苍肠别听
Estates
ISD
Research Support听

If you want to get involved and be part of any of these communities, please get in touch.听

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