Background
The BBC is a UK public corporation which employs some 24000 people in 43 countries. Its reputation for the integrity and impartiality of its coverage has made it the world’s most respected broadcaster. Traditionally best known for its television and radio programmes, the BBC was an early and successful adopter of new Internet-based media and has an innovative and well-established website. In 2007/8 the website attracted weekly users averaging over 33 million globally.
This case study describes how blogs are used in the learning and development of the BBC’s employees, particularly those employed in delivering and supporting broadcast journalism.
The place and nature of blogs
Nick Shackleton-Jones is Manager, Online and Informal Learning at the BBC. It is his view that the delivery of training and learning is increasingly challenged by changes in the operating environment. Traditional purely top-down models are simply no longer appropriate. These models have often been linked with major change initiatives and based on a one to many instructors to learners approach to delivery. He sees modern training practice as a pyramid: traditional courses and e-learning at the top; rapid development programmes initiated by the training department in the middle; informal learning methods and peer-group learning at the bottom. This bottom area is growing and includes blogs and wikis and other forms of reference-ware.
Vocabulary and terminology in Web 2.0 applications is still developing, but Nick Shackleton-Jones defines a blog in the following terms. A blog is essentially an online diary which offers a narrative and commentary from a personal perspective. There is a facility which allows readers to add notes and comments. A blog, in Nick Shackleton-Jones’ view, can have multi-authorship or single authorship, but it is essential that it has authenticity. It must carry an honest and open expression of the author’s or authors’ personal opinions; this is what makes it different from corporate sites which express a formal or official view.
Blogs at the BBC
Vast numbers of BBC staff produce a blog and internal surveys suggest that one-third of all intranet users read at least one of the internal blogs on a regular basis.
These blogs are diverse in nature. Their development has been encouraged and the ‘traditional’ or ‘orthodox’ blogs tend to offer readers insight on issues of editorial broadcasting, technical issues or organisational change issues. No limits on scope are imposed, and contributions of any form are encouraged; all contributors must identify themselves so ‘anonymous asides’ are not possible.
A particular popular blog is the one produced by Richard Sambrook, Director of Global News at the BBC. This is an illustration of a widely-respected thought leader in the corporation getting a message across on current topics immediately in an accessible format. Richard Sambrook started his blog in 2004 when he was appointed to his current role as a means of communicating and sharing ideas with the news staff across all locations. He sets out to write something two or three times a week and concentrates particularly on presenting ideas that demonstrate the Internet is changing broadcast journalism. He is able to insert links to other sites and encourage people to look outside the organisation for ideas. In his view this offers educational value in what can sometimes be an inward-looking institution.
There are occasions when the needs of confidentiality and discretion must prevail: “as a senior manager you only put up what you feel you should put up on the web”. Overall, he is confident of the value of the medium. His blog attracts about 2,500 unique users a month (these figures were higher when the blog was first introduced and it had some novelty value). It also attracts a small and knowledgeable cohort of regular contributors to discussions, and he frequently receives positive informal feedback from junior colleagues. He has found it a valuable delivery channel for ideas.
Another way to use blogs to facilitate learning is a daily blog produced by the College of Journalism, which was established in 2005 as a co-ordinated learning service offering and developing a wide range of courses and modules. The College of Journalism blog is a multi-author blog, updated daily, and offers a ‘drip-feed and insights of interesting thinking’ which is of value to broadcast journalists as they are developing their careers.
A third approach, and this is a recent development, is what has been called the Creativity Network. This is the most sophisticated technically, is multi-author and contains facilities where contributors can draw others’ attention to interesting developments, offer links to relevant sites and – most importantly – upload their own clips or contributions.
The above are all internal blogs – access is restricted to BBC staff. In addition, on their public website, the BBC has placed a number of blogs where members of their staff offer a perspective on events over and above the comments that can be obtained through listening to broadcasts. A particular popular blog of this type is ‘The Editors’ which contains daily updates and comments on major news stories and how they are treated. For example, the output editor on BBC News at Six offered comments on the balance between the coverage of the Olympics and other stories when the games are in progress.
Managing the process
It is evident, from discussions with Nick Shackleton-Jones, that blogs at the BBC have become part of the informal learning offering from BBC Training and Development. There are no signs of major constraints with the technology; there are no difficulties surrounding ease of access or organisational restrictions on openness.
To date the training and learning professionals have played a facilitative rather than a directive role – encouraging the development of blogs and acting as a catalyst. According to Nick Shackleton-Jones it is essential that a well-understood infrastructure is in place to encourage individuals to bring forward their ideas. The Creativity Network, which is the most ambitious and technically challenging initiative to date, was the result of collaboration between the online team and the creativity team, for example.
While the continued development of blogs seems inevitable, and their functionality will be enhanced, there are some questions and challenges on their importance and use. The BBC is an increasingly ‘technically-savvy’ organisation and staff at all levels are comfortable with communicating using different channels. Furthermore journalistic integrity and honesty is strongly valued within the corporation and this tends to mean that blogs are generally trusted.
Finally, it will always be difficult to assess the value of blogs in the learning process. Traditional evaluation practice is based on top-down interventions, not the bottom-up or the peer-to-peer networks that are emerging. Nevertheless the production and dissemination of blogs involve time and resources at many levels and this must produce appropriate benefits. Measuring these benefits is a challenge that many organisations will face as they strive to incorporate informal learning into their productive activity.