No 6337
Wednesday 12 February 2014
Vol cxliv No 20
pp. 363–369
13 February, Thursday. Lent Term divides.
22 February, Saturday. Congregation of the Regent House at 2 p.m.
4 March, Tuesday. Discussion at 2 p.m. in the Senate-House. End of third quarter of Lent Term.
The Vice-Chancellor gives notice that the Discussion announced for Tuesday, 18 February 2014 will not take place as there are no Reports ready for discussion.
The Registrary has received the accounts of the Colleges for the year 2012–13. The accounts are available to view on the individual College websites as follows:
1. In March 2011, prompted by the recommendations of working groups established to consider University-wide cost savings, the Council published a Report proposing a number of changes to printed materials published by the University, which were subsequently approved by Grace 1 of 19 May 2011 (Reporter, 2010–11; 6217, p. 598; 6227, p. 896). Principal among those changes were proposals to publish the Reporter in an online-only format and for the Reporter to cease to carry certain notices and other items, including the Special issues for the Lecture List, Student Numbers, and the College Accounts.
2. In October 2012, following a year of the Reporter’s operation in its modified form, the Registrary commissioned a review of the online Reporter conducted by Professor David Ibbetson, Faculty of Law, and invited comments from members of the University (Reporter, 6281, 2012–13, p. 43). Principal University committees and relevant bodies (including the Councils of the Schools, Faculty Boards, the Colleges’ Committee, the Senior Tutors’ Committee, the Graduate Tutors’ Committee, the Bursars’ Committee, and the Student Unions) were also invited to make submissions. The review would also take account of the remarks made during the Discussion held on 22 March 2011 (Reporter, 6220, 2010–11, p. 676).
3. Professor Ibbetson’s report is annexed to this Notice. The Registrary’s response to the recommendations made in the report and the comments is set out below.
4. The Registrary is grateful to Professor Ibbetson for the time he has taken to consider the issues and to discuss these with individual members of the University.
One of the main points considered by the review was the impact of moving to online-only distribution of the Reporter. Around half of those who commented on this change were in favour and half were not. Some of the respondents who expressed reservations about this change suggested that the visibility of the Reporter had been diminished by the move to online-only distribution. This was coupled in some cases with a concern that people were now less engaged with the University’s governance processes. Whilst individuals will make up their own minds on whether to read the Reporter or otherwise participate in those processes, there is a need to ensure that the Reporter’s existence and role is publicized and to raise awareness of the University’s governance processes generally.
Further thought will be given to ways to engage with new and existing members of the University community, for example, by investigating whether any further information can usefully be included in induction materials for new members of staff, and sending new members of the Regent House information on the role of the Regent House.
This recommendation endorses the Registrary’s own view that the email alert ought to be revised so that recipients can see what the issue contains from the email, without having to click on a link which takes them to the Reporter website.
Information on the University’s governance process will be provided to members of the Collegiate University on the new Council website, due to go live in 2014. It is hoped that the launch of online ballots of the Regent House will also encourage greater participation in those votes.
Colleges, Departments, and Faculties will be encouraged to print out copies of the Reporter for placing in common rooms.
Further thought will also be given to ways to engage with members of staff and of the Regent House, particularly those who are new to the Collegiate University, following up on the suggestions made by Professor Ibbetson.
The search engine used on the Reporter website is the same as the search engine used on the cam and admin websites. Work is underway to provide an improved search facility for use across the University’s websites. The Registrary’s Office will ensure that its pages have appropriate metadata to facilitate searches.
It is hoped that improvements to the search facility, as noted above, will improve the searchability of the online content.
It is suggested that the comments that have been made about archiving are primarily concerns about ensuring ready access to that content, rather than the use of the Reporter specifically as a vehicle for their publication. It is important that this information is accessible and properly archived, and advice and support will be provided to information owners to ensure the availability of these important documents and data now and in the future. Links to the information owners’ content are, and will continue to be, provided on the Reporter website.
These points were raised during the Discussion of the Report in 2011. Informal policies are in place. However, it would be helpful to publish these formally.
1. In Michaelmas Term 2012 I was asked by the Registrary to investigate the working of the online-only distribution of the University Reporter.
2. A notice was published in the Reporter and on the staff and students webpage (http://www.cam.ac.uk/staffstudents, since updated) inviting comments from members of the University, and Colleges, Schools, Faculties, Departments, and the principal University committees were consulted. This report is based on the comments in the 33 responses received.
3. It is recognized that some of the points raised below have resource implications. These are beyond the remit of the present report, but will have to be taken into account by the University Council in determining what changes, if any, should be made to the current arrangements.
4. The primary function of the Reporter is to serve as a channel of communication between the central University bodies and the members of the University. Its secondary function is to serve as a record of University business. The report deals with these two functions, then turns to matters relating to content.
5. Responses from Senior Tutors, Bursars, and School and Faculty administrators suggest that communication is functioning well at this level.
6. That said, there is clear evidence from the responses received that the online-only Reporter is not functioning wholly effectively as a channel of communication with ordinary members of the University. A number of very senior academics admitted, with slight embarrassment, that they no longer looked at the Reporter as assiduously as they had done when they had access to a paper copy, and that they consequently felt that they were not fully carrying out their responsibilities as members of the democratic University. Other respondents noted that they no longer read the Reporter as they had done when a printed copy was easily available. Others repeated a general view that the Reporter was not now read as much as it had been. And one retired member of the University, representative of those who do not habitually sit at a computer screen, noted that he no longer had any practicable way of keeping in touch with what was happening.
7. It would be regrettable if the move to online-only distribution were allowed to lead to a degradation of the democratic governance of the University. It is one of our most valuable features that those who study and work here are able to take some responsibility for decisions which are taken. This is important not merely for those individuals who choose to take an interest, so that it could be said that they only had themselves to blame if they did not take the trouble to discover what was going on; it is important for the University as a whole that it is not just a small group of individuals, perhaps with particular interests to pursue, who follow University business. Whilst individuals will make their own decision on whether to read the Reporter, we need to ensure that its existence is publicized and raise awareness of its role in the University’s governance process.
8. The Colleges’ Committee has suggested each College should take responsibility for printing off at least one copy of the Reporter from the pdf which is available online, to be placed in Senior Common Rooms. This already occurs in some Colleges. I recommend that the practice should be generalized, and that Bursars be asked to oversee this. Consideration should be given to the adoption of the same practice by Faculty and Departmental administrators where this is felt appropriate.
9. A substantial number of members of the University currently receive online alerts informing them that a new edition of the Reporter has been published; indeed, more email alerts are sent than copies of the Reporter were formerly printed. However, receipt of an alert does not necessarily lead to reading the text. It used to be a common practice to skim the contents page of the Reporter to see if there was anything there that one wanted to read, or felt that one ought to read; this is less easily done today, when it is necessary to follow the link to get to the contents page. I recommend that the email alert should include the contents page of the Reporter in the body of its text.
10. Those members of the University who were familiar with the Reporter in its printed version are, of course, aware of its existence. Newer members of the University may not be, and might not think to look if there was an organ of communication between central University bodies and ordinary members of the University. I recommend that the attention of new members of staff should be drawn to the existence of the Reporter, by Colleges, Departments, or Faculties as appropriate. Consideration should be given to setting up the system of Reporter email alerts in such a way that it is something from which one has to opt out rather than something to which one has to opt in, if this is practicable.
11. The second function of the Reporter is to constitute an accessible record of University business, or more accurately of the University business that is communicated through the Reporter.
12. It is to be hoped that the online version of the Reporter will constitute such a record, and steps should be taken to ensure that it is preserved in a digital form which remains readable despite changes in technology. However, the paper copy must be retained as a back-up, and be easily available to those wishing to refer to it. The University Library should continue to receive copies as now, on acid-free paper to ensure longevity.
13. The existence of both a paper version and an online version carries a risk that there may be divergences between them. It is in the nature of printed texts that they be fixed, whereas electronic texts are essentially impermanent. It is important that we continue to recognize that the Reporter is a fixed text which is delivered electronically, and that corrections made after initial publication are acknowledged as such in the online Reporter.
14. Those who manage and use archives stress that they are only as useful as their indexes. The search facility at present available for the online Reporter is very useful, but it shares all the drawbacks of such word-searching techniques and it seems clear that the way in which search results are reported could be better. I recommend that attention be given to the improvement of the online search facility. Alongside this, a consolidated table of contents is produced annually; but inevitably this does not always enable one to find what one wants efficiently. If resources permit, consideration should be given to the production of an annual index in the traditional form, which should be available both online and in print.
15. The Reporter website distinguishes between current issues of the Reporter (i.e. those from the current year) and archived issues (those from previous years). One respondent believed that the transfer from the current to the archived category might involve a change in the url. I understand that this is no longer the case; but care must be taken to ensure that the url of any issue remains constant through time, so that links in other documents to information published in the Reporter do not require continuous monitoring and updating.
16. Respondents expressed little concern about the content of the weekly issues of the Reporter. The one point of significance, which was raised by the Colleges’ Committee, was that some Annual Reports of University bodies once appeared in the Reporter but are no longer published in the Reporter in full; instead a link is included to the location of the Annual Report on the website of the University body in question. These Reports are clearly matters affecting the University as a whole, and I recommend that consideration be given to the way in which a permanent and accessible record of these Annual Reports may be kept.
17. Apart from this, I recommend that matters continue as at present, recognizing that there will be gradual change over time as there has been in the past.
18. Some matters which would once have appeared in Special Numbers no longer do so, but appear simply as links. This is not wholly satisfactory from an archival point of view, since the links can rapidly become redundant. The first three links on the Special Numbers website for 2011–12, for example, do not now give the relevant information for 2011–12, but only that for 2012–13. Consideration has to be given to whether the material which formerly appeared in Special Numbers should once again reappear there, at least in the archived version.
19. Most important of these is the Lecture List. Several respondents made the point that this is an important matter of historical record, while recognizing that it will probably never be absolutely accurate. I agree entirely, and am happy to learn that the General Board’s Education Committee has encouraged CARET to give further thought to its production of the online lecture list as an archive for the historical record. I recommend that this be done, and that the lecture list so produced be included as a Special Number in the archived version of the Reporter and as a permanent link on the Reporter website.
20. The Colleges’ Committee has suggested that the publication of the Student Numbers Special Issue of the Reporter be reinstated. I agree that this is an important part of the historical record, and recommend that it should be included as a Special Number in the archived version of the Reporter and as a permanent link on the Reporter website.