Reviewing my Personal Development Plan

If you've been a reader of this blog for a while, you may remember (if you have a really good memory) a post I wrote back in October 2011, two years ago. It was the final post I wrote as part of the 23 Things course (the reason, in fact, that this blog exists in the first place). In that Oct 2011 post, I talked about a Personal Development Plan (PDP) I had put together, and how and when I hoped to achieve the goals on that PDP.

Then, in December 2011 I wrote a brief update post, stating that I hadn't yet achieved any of those goals - but that according to my timescale, I wasn't yet due to, so that was OK.

A lot has happened since then. Not least of which is the fact that I spent from Aug 2012- Sept 2013 on maternity leave, and didn't really think about work all that much during that period. However, now I've been back at work for a month or two, and I'm starting to think about this sort of thing again. So I've gone back and had a look at that original PDP...

... and was relatively happily surprised. Sure, there are some actions I've totally failed to complete, but others that I've actually completed, and even moved on from a little. Here they are, in order, with how far I've progressed:

1) Prepare a staff development hour session for library staff on open access and the repository using Prezi. Due to complete by Jan 2012.

The preparation for this was actually completed on target, in Jan 2012. However the actual sessions were delivered between Jan and March 2012. I did also write a blog post specifically about this at the time, just after I ran the first session. Things have moved on a little since I created that Prezi, and I suspect I will be creating something similar, but updated, in the not too distant future.

2) Keep my cpd23 blog up-to-date. Review Feb 2012.

I've had partial success here. I was doing relatively well with this up until July 2012, usually managing to post at least once a month, and often more than this. Then I went on maternity leave and the blog died something of a death, there being no posts between August 2012 and Sept 2013. In some ways I feel I have a valid excuse for this (and certainly didn't have enough work-related things to talk about), but now I'm back I'd like to keep the blog going!

3) To engage more with Twitter. Review Feb 2012.

Nope. Utterly failed here. Again, I was doing OK up until July 2012 (although I was posting more like once a month than once a week, which is what I had specified). Since then, I've tweeted once. Apparently that was 117 days and it wasn't even work related. I do still read Twitter posts, so perhaps I need to make more of an effort with this one.

4) Engage more with the LISNPN site. Review Mar 2012.

Sorry, failed again. I haven't actually looked at the LISNPN site in a very long time. This was clearly one of those 'seemed like a good idea at the time' actions which I was, in all honesty, probably never going to do. Perhaps one action to remove, I'm afraid.

5) Create a screencast of uploading an item to the repository using Jing. Due April 2012.

Yes! Something I've done! [And even blogged about a little - although I've just discovered it's still appearing as a draft... I'll update it to make it clear when it was written, then post it after this post and link to it!] Back to the issue at hand: Although the screencast wasn't completed until Aug 2012, and I didn't actually use Jing for it. I used Camtasia as that's the software we have at work, and it does offer a little more functionality than Jing. (Having said that, I did help another collleague use Jing for their screencast).

My colleague and I put together a screencast of uploading an item to the repository back in August 2012. To be fair, this then had to be updated by my colleague after I went on maternity leave becasue we updated the way the UWE Research Repository looks. His work, and the result, can be seen on the UWE Library YouTube channel. But I did show him how to use Camtasia! And we have actually just completed a shorter, one-minute, Quick Deposit guide. When that appears on the YouTube channel I'll probably blog about it...

6) Become a CILIP Mentor. Due May 2012.

Again, achieved. Although very late - and still in its very early stages. I made the decision not to become a mentor before I went on maternity leave, not knowing how much time or effort I'd be able to put in during the year. Looking back, I wish I had become a mentor at the time - it would have been a great way to keep in touch with the profession whilst being away from the workplace, and to give something useful back to people who needed a bit of my time. But then, seeing into the future is tough.

However, I have now sent off the form to CILIP (as of last week), officially stating I want to be a mentor. Whilst this means I don't, as yet, have any official mentees, I do have an informal arrangement in place with a colleague who is studying for their MSc. I've been helping out for a while now, since (I think) early in 2012. And I'm really enjoying being able to help - and hopefully the mentee is gaining something from this relationship too!

7) Use Zotero to store and organise my references. Due June 2012.

Nope. Not even looked at Zotero. I had intended to use this to add any references that might be useful to any Revalidation I chose to do, so it's not actually been much of an issue yet. I haven't read anything that might be valid to Revalidation... and as the criteria are changing now anyway, who knows if I'll need this or not? I have a suspicion it might still be useful though, especially as I'm currently reading Managing Research Data (edited by Graham Pryor), and have a few other books and articles on my reading list...

So, all in all, 4 of 7 actions completed or partially completed. And another one or two which I definitely want to work on. My next action, should, I suspect, be to go away and update my PDP. I can already think of a few additions: Learn more about the new Chartership regulations (I'll need to know these if I'm mentoring Chartership candidates); Register for Revalidation (when I know what the new regulations are, I'm allowed and have done enough CPD hours).

I suspect there'll be an update in the (hopefully not too distant) future...

Staff development hour on Open Access

Open Access SDH Session on Prezi

At the end of the 23 Things for Professional Development course, I put together a Personal Development Plan (PDP) based on some of the things I'd learnt during the course and had decided I'd like to learn a bit more about. One of the actions was to prepare a staff development hour session for library staff on open access and the repository using Prezi.

Well, today I delivered that session - so I'm pleased to say I've completed one of the goals I set myself! I devised the session with a colleague, and we used a mix of methods to deliver the session. This included some standard PowerPoint slides for basic repository info, a Prezi to show the process researchers go through when writing research (with some great Open Access videos embedded into it), and some quiz sections which we used Turning Point for (a voting system software the uni has), to try and make the whole thing a little more interactive.

It was all a pretty steep learning curve - this was my first "proper" Prezi. Also, although I'd used Turning Point before, this was the first time I'd used it to design the questions and see the process through from beginning to end. However, I was pretty excited about running the session because it was using new techniques (well, new to me), and I was interested to see if people would enjoy it. It was also great that it was a training session for library staff, so there were plenty of friendly faces. That helped a lot when I was being experimental.

I'm happy to say that the overall result was a pretty positive one. Although there was a slight technical hitch with the Prezi initially (it froze and wouldn't load), turning the PC off and back on again fixed that pretty quickly. Plus, it gave people a chance to feel a bit more relaxed and ask some initial questions.

After the session, the feedback indicated that the people who attended really enjoyed the mix of interactivity and talking, and felt that they learnt a lot about what open access was. In fact, the only negative comments were that people would have liked to learn more! Unfortunately, there's only so much you can fit into an hour long session. One other great outcome was that a colleague working on managing research data asked if she could use my research process diagram (the one that appears in the Prezi) for her work. So not only did the whole experience help me learn how to use Prezi and make for a more interesting staff development session, it also directly helped a colleague with her work.

We're booked in to run the session twice more at two different campuses, and I hope my other colleagues are as enthusiastic about, and enjoy the session as much as, my colleagues today.

If you're interested in what I put together, you can view the Prezi part of the presentation above. You might also learn a bit about the research process and how open access can help with it!

Catching up

It's been a while since I posted on this blog, and I've been feeling a little guilty about it. I know it was one of the actions on my PDP that I put together as part of Thing 23 for the cpd23 course, so I had a look at the PDP to see how far I had got with the other actions...

I was relieved, and a little bit surprised, to find that things aren't as bad as I thought! Whilst I haven't completed any of the actions, I hadn't planned to by the end of the year. I must have been having one of those rare moments of realism I get occasionally when writing the PDP.

One of the actions that I am working towards is preparing part of a library staff development hour on open access using Prezi. Another action is to create a screencast for an e-learning object.

Once I've delivered the staff develoment hour session I'll put a link to the Prezi on the blog, but at the moment it may well still need some tweaks before the session itself.

Although I won't be using Jing to create the screencast, it should use similar skills and get me started on the right track to create future screencasts.

I'm doing less well with keeping this blog up-to-date, and using Twitter more. Whilst I'm pretty good at reading tweets and taking away useful bits of info (often things I wouldn't have known otherwise), I'm totally rubbish at tweeting myself. I also tend to only up-date this blog when I have something specific to say - which I guess is OK, I just wish I had specific things to say a little more often! I'll try to be a little prolific in the New Year.

On an unrelated bright side, I've now had the results of the Information and Management Leadership Level 3 course confirmed by an external examiner, and I passed. I'm feeling quite smug that I got 100% on one of the three essays...

23 Things for Professional Development: Thing #23

So, the final Thing. Just reflecting on the course generally, I'm really glad I joined in and gave it a go - some Things took a lot longer than I antipicated, but almost all were useful - I learnt a lot about things I knew nothing about, and a lot more about things I knew a little about. It was also great to learn about those Things that I knew I wanted to investigate, but had never quite got around to doing (reference manager tools and screen capture are two that spring to mind).

I've had a go at putting together a Personal Development Plan (PDP), and I have to say that it almost wrote itself. We use PDPs in our appraisal process anyway, and I'm pretty familiar with them after having to create one for my Chartership portfolio. But having gone through each of the Things, I was pretty clear on where the gaps in my knowledge were, and how I'd like to use some of the Things I had learnt to achieve specific goals. All that remained was to put in some time scales to force me to actually follow through with those actions!

The actions on my PDP vary from very definite actions with an obvious end-goal (prepare a staff development hour session for library staff on open access and the repository using Prezi), to things that do have something to measure their success rate but are more on-going (keep this blog up-to-date), to things that are specific but I have given myself a longer period of time to do (I'm keen to become a mentor for others wanting to charter, but know this needs organisation and training). I plan to complete the 7 goals on my PDP between Jan and June 2012, so I'll be back to blog about them once I succeed! Along with some other blog posts as well, I hope (that would be goal 2 then)...

And finally, my 6-word story: Jumped in, learnt loads, shared loads.

My first attempt at a Prezi

I've had a go at putting together a Prezi. It's not work related in any sense, but it was definitely a good way to practice. I wanted to create a Prezi to show our journey looking at model gorillas in Bristol over the summer, to add to an online newsletter I write. I think it's OK - it does suffer a little from the seasickness element, but then, this is a first go! It's at http://prezi.com/6zzc-_phzbo1/gorillas-in-bristol-summer-2011/ if you want to take a look.

23 Things for Professional Development: Thing #17

It's been a while since I've had a chance to look at any of CPD23 Things past Thing 16, as I've been on holiday followed by returning to a very busy start of term at the end of September. I'm going to make an effort to do the remaining Things in the next week or so though. I'm starting with Thing 17 - Prezi and Slideshare.

Before this Thing, I hadn't ever used Prezi before. I'd heard of it, but didn't really fully understand it. Having just had a play with it, I definitely think it's something I could use. I really like the idea, and I found it simple and intuitve to use (well, at least when exploring the basics). I'm keen to try and create something with it properly, but feel that I would need to do a fair amount of planning first. I've definitely got some ideas I'd like to try out when things calm down a little though...

My favourite idea is to use a Prezi as part of a staff development hour session I'll be running early next term. I'll be trying to explain to library staff the process academics go through when trying to get research published. In Prezi, I could use a large picture or chart to show the complete life cycle of a piece of research (e.g. from inception - writing - trying to get it published - getting peer reviewed - publishing - adding it to open access). Zooming in on each of these areas would give more explanation about the associated issues and pitfalls, and how each area relates to open access and the repository.

Another thing I am thinking of trying is adapting my current PowerPoint slides explaining the repository to academics. In Prezi I could group each element together, rather than having a selection of 3 or 4 slides. E.g. all the "FAQs" could be one section, "what is open access and why is it good?" another section. I could easily incorporate videos into this section on the benefits of open access.

So, on to SlideShare. This I have used, but only to look at presentations that other people have pointed me towards. I've never really searched it, or considered adding any of my own presentations to it. However, I can definitely see how some of my presentations and slides on open access could be useful to other people trying to promote the benefits of open access - or even as a way of selling open access to others. Having a quick search for open access presentations on SlideShare, I can also definitely see how it would be useful if I was looking for ideas or inspiration for future presentations, and may well use it more for this in the future - when I need some new ideas for something!