CONTENTS
The Newsletter of the Academic Engagement Hub at BG
Introduction to ‘Engage!’ Key Contacts BG Global: India Student Recruitment and Admissions News Library and Student Support Update ‘How Was It For You Online?’ Spotlight on... Dates for Diaries
January 2012 Issue
1
Welcome to the First Issue of ‘Engage!’ I hope that you will enjoy reading issue 1 of Engage! - the newsletter of the Academic Engagement Hub at BG, which we hope to publish two or three times a year. Inside you will find information and articles relating to a wide range of Hub activity: international work, student recruitment and admissions, library services, student support and learning advice, and e-learning. Turn to the back page for ‘Spotlight on…’ which we hope will become a regular feature. Engage! is designed to raise the profile of the Academic Engagement Hub across BG by showcasing some of the activities we are responsible for and get involved in. If there is anything here that you would like to find out more about, please get in touch with me or with any of the key contacts listed below. With best wishes, Claire Taylor
Key Contacts Claire Taylor Dean of Students and Academic Engagement claire.taylor@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583778 John Sharp Head of Research and Doctoral Studies john.sharp@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583771 Phil Davis Head of Student Support phil.davis@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583602 Claudia Capancioni International Manager claudia.capancioni@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583740 Emma Sansby Head of Library Services emma.sansby@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583793
Karen Richardson Head of Student Recruitment and Admissions karen.richardson@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583712 Lorraine Russell Head of Quality Assurance and Student Data lorraine.russell@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583904 David Barber Head of e-Learning david.barber@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583791 Rachael Burnett PA to the Dean of Students and Academic Engagement rachael.burnett@bishopg.ac.uk - 01522 583921
BG Global: India International
Claudia Capancioni In December 2011 the Hub launched BG Global: India with a series of brief presentations delivered by Claire Taylor and Claudia Capancioni. After the unanimous approval of SLT we are ready to begin our international exchange programme that will touch the lives of staff and students here at BG and in Tirunelveli, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Claire and Claudia visited institutions and schools last October (17-20 October 2011) when they went to the diocese of Tirunelveli, Southern India, for the first time. BG Global: India is built on the links between Bishop Grosseteste University College and Higher Education Institutions and Schools within the Diocese of Tirunelveli, Southern India. It develops the experience provided by a project initiated by BG governor Mike Jacob at Lincoln Minster School, called ‘Project India’. BG Global: India aims to grow mutually beneficial and sustainable links between us and St John’s College in Palayamkottai, and HE institutions located in the same diocese, such as St John’s College of Education, Sarah Tucker College, Sarah Tucker Teacher Training Institute, and schools: CSI Matriculation School, Bishop Sargent School for the Mentally Retarded, Askwith School for the Visually Handicapped and Florence Swainson School for the Deaf. Initially the project will promote short visits to Tirunelveli (around 2 weeks) by BG staff and undergraduate students and reciprocal visits to BG. We hope the first BG students’ visit will happen in September 2012 and in the longer term, we aim to fulfil the potential for many more.
For more information about BG Global: India (and other International projects) please contact Claudia Capancioni (claudia.capancioni@bishopg.ac.uk)
Student Recruitment Karen Richardson
Student Recruitment and Admissions
Sky’s the limit for Pilot Scheme We have learnt from Aimhigher that an early intervention gives a good grounding for aspiration raising activities and is valued by schools. To ensure we don’t miss out now Aimhigher is no more, our First Steps 2 Study programme (Y9 –Y11) has received an overwhelming response, with 12 schools signed up (our original pilot target was 5). This complements our already successful Next Steps for Study (NS4S) programme which has been running since 2007 and is designed for Y12 - Y13, the figures for this speak for themselves: 38% of students felt that NS4S had an impact on them progressing to HE and 61% feel NS4S helped prepare them for what to expect at university Debate Session (at Step 2) 91% found this session useful (with 37% of those identifying it as very useful) Time management (at Step 2) 93% found the session useful (with 55% of those identifying it as very useful) Critical thinking (at Step 2) 92% found the session useful (with 42% of those identifying it as very useful) Student finance (at Step 4) 80% found the session useful (with 51% of those identifying it as very useful) Presentation skills (at Step 4) 90% found this session useful (with 39% of those identifying it as very useful)
Admissions More hit than ‘miss’ in Admissions Over the past 6 months, Admissions has developed and streamlined its activities with technology at the forefront, from CRB processing to the new admissions webpages and facebook pages to name but a few. We are customer focussed, both internally and externally and are embracing technologies to provide the best service to all stakeholders.
www.bishopg.ac.uk/admissions To assist applicants so everything is at their finger tips, these pages hold everything an applicant needs to know. The beauty of this is that it can be adapted and rolled out so Academic Co-ordinators can use this instead of a mailing during the course of the academic year. If you are interested in adapting this for your purpose, please let Karen Richardson know on x3712.
BGAdmissions Facebook page We have implemented this facebook page so we can informally use this site as a marketing tool. We anticipate putting good luck wishes on there for up and coming interview days, announcements for key dates on UCAS and GTTR and anything else that crops up. Please ‘like’ us if you get the opportunity and make a comment or use it as a tool of communication.
Thank you! New Department, new approach……. Looking back over the last 6 months, success has been strongly on the agenda with clearing and enrolment being at the forefront! Like Graduation this is a good example where, cross-hubs, staff have pulled out all the stops to make clearing and enrolment a success – thank you!
Library and Student Support
Library Extension Update! Emma Sansby
In the library we’ve been surprised how fast the new Library and Student Support (and now Learning Advice!) building is taking shape. First there were the big steel columns and beams that provided the building with its skeleton, then there was the pouring of the concrete floor slab, then the ‘SFS’ metal frame which gave the structure its shape, then the layer of orange and silver insulation (which feels just like oasis – the green stuff used in flower arranging!) which hopefully will keep us toasty this time next year, and then finally the outer layer of brickwork, which, at the time of writing in November 2011, is nearly complete. All documented on an (almost) weekly basis on our Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/bishopglibrary . Work will of course continue throughout the winter months, and we hope to move into the new part of the building just after Easter 2012. During the 2012 summer term the contractors will be knocking the existing library around a bit, and finally they’ll use the 2012 summer vacation to install new carpets, new lighting, and giving everywhere a fresh coat of paint, ready to have both the old and new parts of the building open for the start of September 2012.
Throughout the project, monthly site meetings are taking place between the architect, the contractors, and BG staff, and lots and lots of preparation work is going on in the library (planning new rooms layouts, starting on and planning for stock moves, clearing out cupboards to make sure we only have to move what we actually need, having minor panic attacks about the task ahead, and so on). During a site visit by the library team at the beginning of November everyone commented how much bigger the building looked from the inside and I think we all got even more excited (we were already pretty excited!) about the benefits it will bring. Students have also said how much they are looking forward to using the new building, which is great to hear.
Student Support Phil Davis The last month has seen some exciting developments within the new build from the point of view of Student Support and Learning Advice. Student Support will occupy the ground floor of the building with a suite of office space and interview rooms affording a much higher degree of confidentiality and security. The reception area will provide a gateway not only to Student Support’s services, but those throughout the building, and it is envisaged the area will become an important signposting point for the campus as a whole. You will already be aware that Student Support and Learning Advice have been aligned as a ‘department’ under the same line management structure. This is now reflected in the new build with the creation of a first floor study suite which will provide appropriate office space for Learning Advice (and Dyslexia Support) with a flexible study area which students can use, and which will also be used to deliver group sessions. The creation of the new offices for Student Support and Learning Advice also presents an ideal opportunity to consider re-branding these services as we take them forward with bespoke facilities which will enhance service provision. Something else to consider alongside the array of furnishings and fittings! We are all very excited at the prospect of moving into a brand new central location – and ready for the challenges as well: feedback from other HEIs which have upgraded their facilities indicates demand for our services will increase as a result.
‘How Was It For You Online?’ David Barber
v Today is the 30th November. The Today Programme has inspected the liver of the body politic and declared the future officially rotten. Across the nation people have awoken to find themselves in a state of industrial-action induced crisis while in Lincolnshire we struggle heroically to notice the difference. Undaunted, we in BG took our first steps into the world of online module evaluation. I can almost hear you splutter in surprise. I imagine the common room awash with spurts of coughed up coffee. Please evacuate the building safely as you make for the hills. They sat there slightly agitated, a class of nearly fifty Early Childhood Studies students; some of them clutching smart-phones and laptops, others looking slightly sheepish having omitted to read or recall the e-mail requesting them to do so. I entered like Father Christmas on a sick day, boxes under my arm, a distinct lack of elves and an aura of forced optimism. Ben and I had spent the last two days fiddling with mobile devices, he editing the root directory of the Archos devices to allow a common, easy to use setup to be applied, I creating desktop shortcuts to support an easy to follow workflow that was designed to circumvent the most predictable technical issues. Paramount among our concerns was getting the devices to connect to the wireless network’s authentication page, which is not as easy as one would think. The failsafe routine for the i-pod goes like this: turn it on, open the browser, close any open windows, close the browser, open the browser again, open a new window, try any search in the Google toolbar and ... hey presto, you are up and running in only 7 simple steps. Stimulating and improving as this process was, we felt it suffered from being completely ridiculous so shortcuts were added to the home-screen that shortened the process to: tap the wi-fi shortcut and if it does not work close the browser and try again. Armed with a Powerpoint slide, a sense of righteous authority and the aforementioned spirit of blind optimism, I distributed the devices to those who needed them, approximately half the devices that I had brought and perhaps 40% of the class. We did discover that Blackberries cannot connect to Blackboard, so a useful lesson was learned there. What is more, the assumption that people would prefer to use their own technology was proven right. However, although more than half of the group had a smart-phone, only a small proportion of them had configured their equipment to work with our wireless network, so we were required to spend some time entering the wireless network key. Students had started to arrive from about twenty minutes before the session, so we were able to use this time to ‘get connected’, but, the initial distribution and set up of the devices occupied us for the first ten minutes of the timetabled time. Once connected, the Powerpoint slide guided the students to access Blackboard, navigate to the surveys site and initiate the Early Childhood Studies survey. About two thirds of the group were then able to proceed without further assistance, but a number needed help at this stage as the Bristol Online Survey page caused some devices to stall. Having overcome this issue, everything went smoothly, but overall it took the best part of an hour to complete. Dear reader, I picture you with a tear in your eye, moved by the selfless effort involved in this endeavour. In addition to my efforts, credit must be given to Angela, who had addressed the class on the importance of these surveys and on the solemn responsibility that it conferred upon them. Alison had also stood firm, a figure of authority, the steady rock amid the crashing waves of puzzlement and
confusion. Let us not forget the students themselves who, after looking at the devices I gave them as though I had handed over a pound of raw bacon, had also applied themselves to the exercise with gusto. Was it worth it you ask? Well let us assess the outcome. First of all, it must be said that the results can be processed and published with an absolute minimum of administration. The system will produce the data instantly, in almost exactly the same format that we currently present it after an arduous process of sorting, recording and manual consolidation. In addition to this the data can be very easily stored and can be combined with or compared to the results of other surveys with a similarly minimum level of effort and administration. The survey also remains available to any absent students for another 30 days and we will now explore a number of ways of incentivising them to engage.
However, what did the students think: 16. Which of the following statements is closest to your opinion? I enjoyed the online questionnaire and would prefer it to a paper survey: It was harder than a paper survey, but worth doing if it makes the results easier to use: I would prefer a paper survey and think that the problems of working online outweigh the benefits:
68.8%
22
21.9%
7
9.4%
3
17. really really really the last question. 17a. Doing the survey online encouraged me to think about my responses and to provide written answers. Strongly agree: 11.4%
4
65.7%
23
17.1%
6
5.7%
2
Agree:
Disagree:
Strongly disagree:
The online approach does appear to have had the result of increasing the number of students who provide written responses when asked to do so. It may turn out that those students who were accustomed to write at some length are discouraged from being quite so forthcoming. Typing is slower going after all. If this does turn out to be the case we will need to decide whether we value a more balanced set of short responses above the more detailed opinions of a smaller group of students. Looking forward, all level 4 SCEI modules will be evaluated in this way this year.
Spotlight on... Dr Claire Taylor Dean of Students and Academic Engagement, Hub Lead I’m married to Adam and have two fantastic daughters – Rachel (18), studying Geography and International development at Sussex University and Alice (15), at Lincoln Minster School studying for GCSEs. I live in Lincoln, play violin with local chamber orchestra Pro Musica and am an active member of Lincoln Baptist Church. I’ve been at BG for 10 years and started off as a tutor working with teacher training students. Since then I’ve held a variety of roles including Programme Leader and Head of Learning and Teaching. Before joining BG I was a local primary school headteacher. Favourite book: It used to be Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, but I recently read An Equal Music by Vikram Seth which I thought was fab. A great book for musicians. Favourite food: chicken pasta with lots of black pepper, pesto and olives, and a big green salad. Accompanied by red wine of course. ipod playlist: eclectic – I’m just as likely to be listening to a Beethoven piano concerto as to the Chemical Brothers, Fleet Foxes, Kasabian, or Christian musicians such as Matt Redman. Favourite place: The Lake District – Adam and I try and escape up there a few times a year. Yes, we are serious fell walkers and we can use a map and compass (well…Adam can)! Recent discovery: Twitter…I think I am hooked! Check out @DrClaireTaylor.
Dates for Your Diary CEDaR Conferences 2012: Spring - 29th March Summer - 10th July Autumn - (unconfirmed)*
Open Days 2012: Sunday - 11th March Sunday - 10th June Sunday 7th October * Please check the Bulletin regularly for updates on dates and times for Open Days and Conferences.