Learning the tools through peers, colleagues and public video rather than through provision

This record is assigned to the micro level because the decision that produces it rests with the learner. It is neither scheduled nor certified, and it occurs because a person judges that they need to know something and identifies a means of learning it.

The channels are distributed by role in a manner that bears on the equity reading of this report. Administrators and support staff describe direct assistance from peers and internal knowledge-sharing sessions, which are informal but institutionally situated, in that the colleague consulted is a colleague at the same university. Teachers describe the same, and the report notes that those citing extensive formal training also cite informal support, which is the basis on which it characterises informal learning as a complement rather than a substitute. Students describe a different pattern. Their most common channels are public video and social media, which lie outside the institution altogether, and the report records that these play a considerably larger role for students than for teachers.

The difference does not appear to be a matter of preference. The second round found that students reported less access to formal training than staff and relied more heavily on peer collaboration and online resources, with no significant change over time. Where provision is unequal, informal learning fills the gap, and it does so with material the institution neither selects nor verifies. The record therefore constitutes a practice and a finding simultaneously.

Reported in the third round through a content analysis of the open answers on training and support, and corroborated by the second round, which measured the difference in access to formal training between students and staff.