RM Drill Hall April 2018

1. Partnerships to Develop
Partnerships:
Supporting
Collaborative Provision
Presentation by
Ian
Collins
Irene Barranco
Garcia

2. Why us?
• Our roles seem to be different from other library staff supporting
collaborative provision.
• We identified a mutual interest in the way we approach our roles.
• Our roles are largely about communication and getting things to
happen.

3. What are collaborative
provision partnerships?
‘Collaborative provision denotes educational provision leading to an
award of an awarding provider delivered and/or supported and/or
assessed through an arrangement with a partner organisation (UK or
international)’ – Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
What are our library focuses within this?
• collections/access to online resources
• academic skills to succeed and inevitably the broader ‘student
experience’.

4. Context: UWE Bristol
• Around 7k students - 20% of total students.
• Aspiration is for 10k by 2020.
• Traditional Faculty Librarian/team approach to faculty engagement.
• Partnerships run as closely as possible to other programmes
(approval and management)
• Are partnerships the exception or business as usual?

5. Partnerships
Librarian
Partner
Librarian
Faculty
Library
Subject
Teams
How it was imagined…

6. Partnerships
Librarian
Academic
staff
Partner
academic
staff
Partnership
lead
Partner lead
Faculty
Librarians
Partner
Librarian
Partnerships
team/s
Partner
student
support
teams
Partnership
committees
How it is…

7. Learning
• Partnerships are everyone’s business -whether they know this or
not.
• Significant variance between programmes/partners/faculties.
• People are important and the right people are paramount
(same old) questions arose:
• Who do I need to work with to have impact? (right person)
• What am I trying to achieve? (right message)
• How to go about this? (right way to communicate)

8. Partnerships
Librarian
Faculty
Partner
Library
Subject
Liaison
Teams

9. Context: Greenwich
• Around 12k students are Partner Students - 50% of
total students.
• In the past: Traditional Partnership Librarian to
support students at Partner Institutions. Librarian
would support students directly with access issues.
She wasn’t involved in decision making and would find
out about Partnership when students made contact
asking for help.
• Currently: Library Services needs to countersign
Request for Programme/Partnership. We are keep in
the loop from the very beginning. This allow us to
raise concerns about access to resources.

10. Funding Mode
• Franchised
• University rolls out programme and
content.
• Students in our HESA returns
therefore out students so they can
access resources
• QA
• Partner keeps funding, the
University only act as Quality
Assurance Agent
• Partner deliver their own content
and programmes.
• Hybrid: Franchise - QA
• Partner keeps funding.
• University rolls out content and
programmes.
• Students belong to the partner but
the University owns the programme

11. My role at the University of
Greenwich
1. Adviser, Raising awareness of issues regarding resources according
to funding model
2. What are the key strengths of the role: COMMUNICATION Inward,
Outward, upward, downward:
Communication with Library Colleagues
Communication with Senior Management in Departments
developing partnerships
Communication with academic colleagues/link tutors to help
them support students
Communication with Library Staff at Partner Colleges: Best allies
since they have understanding of resources, terms and
conditions and access issues for authorised users.

12. Strategy:
oTRANSPARENCY
oCONSISTENCY

13. Collaborations
Manager
University
Faculty
Senior Staff
Faculty
Academic
Staff
Partner
Senior Staff
Partner
Academic
Staff
Partner
Library Staff
Partner
Students

14. Learning
• Accepting complexity and working with(in) this.
• Developing effective communication and clarity of message.
• Seeing partner librarian helping develop developing institutional
understanding.
• Importance of relationship management.

15. Next Steps for us
1. Research
2. Our role:
i. What remit do you have within your institution
ii. What are the key qualities in the role:
̶ Communication
̶ Strategic Thinking
̶ Negotiation skills
iii. What staff development it is needed in your role outside the
traditional Librarian Skills/Knowledge