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Course Rep Handbook 2015/2016 All the important information for Course Reps in one place!
Contents Foreword from Habiba Amjad Academic Vice President ................................................ 3 The Students’ Union ................................................................................................................. 3 Full-Time Executive Officers ................................................................................................ 4 Your Role as a Course Rep ..................................................................................................... 5 What does my role involve? ............................................................................................... 5 How do I fit into the Student Voice? ................................................................................. 5 What meetings will I attend?.............................................................................................. 6 Benefits of being a Course Rep ............................................................................................. 8 Enhancing the Student Experience .................................................................................. 8 Transferrable Skills and Training .......................................................................................... 8 Volunteering Hours .............................................................................................................. 8 Methods to Collect Student Opinion .................................................................................... 8 Issues Course Reps might face .............................................................................................. 9 Issues you should take on as a rep .................................................................................... 9 Issues you shouldn’t take on as a rep ............................................................................... 9 Signposting to the correct service ...................................................................................... 10 Closing the Feedback Loop ................................................................................................ 11 Student Voice Academy Awards ....................................................................................... 11 Student Voice Certificate ............................................................................................. 12 Course Rep of the Month.............................................................................................. 12 Course Rep of the Year ................................................................................................. 13 Support in your role ............................................................................................................... 13 Drop In Sessions............................................................................................................... 13 Useful Contacts .............................................................................................................. 13 Additional Information .......................................................................................................... 16 Accessing your class list from WOLF ................................................................................ 16
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Foreword from Habiba Amjad Academic Vice President Hello! I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on becoming a Course Rep and to welcome you to the Students’ Union and the Student Voice. I look forward to working with you over the academic year and to making changes together as a collective. Your role over the coming year is going to be an extremely important one, allowing your fellow students to have a voice and for the opinions in your faculty to be heard and acted upon. The main role of a Course Rep is to collate important information and issues of the students that are on your course and feeding them into various meetings. In this role you will work closely with University staff, Students’ Union staff and your Faculty Rep in order to resolve these matters. This opportunity allows you to gain an invaluable amount of experience and gives you an insight to how the University works and deals with students. It will be a great addition to your CV and enhances you to make you more employable. By being a Course Rep, you will develop the University experience for all those on your course as well as yourself. I hope you have an amazing year! If you ever need to get in touch you can contact me on VPAcademic@wlv.ac.uk or come and see me at City Students’ Union for a chat or even just to introduce yourself. Habiba Academic Vice President
The Students’ Union Your Students' Union is professionally run by students, for students. We are here so you can get the most out of your time at University. We represent you, help you take part in societies and student-led events, provide opportunities for paid and voluntary work and offer independent advice on anything related to being a student. The aims of the Students’ Union are:
To enhance the Student Voice across the University, To maximise the Student Experience for all, To promote and support Student Success.
You can find the student’s union in 2 locations:
The MD Building at City Campus o 01902 322021 The WS Building at Walsall Campus o 01902 322035
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Full-Time Executive Officers The Students’ Union is run by the full-time executive officers who are elected every year by students to represent your views. The four full-time officers are supported by 9 part-time officers. Your full-time officers are:
From left to right: Kulmiye Tifow Your Student Experience Vice President The full-time Officer with overall responsibility for Societies, Volunteering, Events & Activities. Habiba Amjad Your Academic Vice-President The full time Officer responsible for leading the Student Voice, representing students’ academic needs to the University and the Executive. The full time Officer responsible for the support of Course Reps, Faculty Reps and supporting Faculty Councils. Afftar Ali Your Welfare Vice-President The full time Officer with overall responsibility for the areas of Welfare, Community, Diversity, Environment & Ethics. Provides support to equal opportunity and liberation groups and reps.
5 Yaz Aboubakar Your President of the Students’ Union. The full time Officer with overall responsibility for communication, democracy, finance and governance. Ensures that the Vice Chancellor is aware of local issues affecting students.
Your Role as a Course Rep Course Reps are an integral part of the Student Voice at University of Wolverhampton. They provide a key link between students, staff, the University and the Students’ Union.
What does my role involve? As a Course Rep, you have the opportunity to improve the student experience of all the students around you in your class, as well as all the students in years to come. The primary role of Course Reps is to improve the academic experience of the students on their course, which can be achieved by:
Identify student academic issues and needs on your course
Feedback outcomes or updates to students
Commend good practice within your faculty
Gather evidence to support your case
Attend SU course rep training, along with additional opportunuties
Maintain professional relationships with relevant University staff
Attend and participate in all relevant meetings, ensuring to represent the voice of students on your course.
Signpost students to a relevant service
Maintain confidentialilty when required
How do I fit into the Student Voice? The Student Voice is a partnership between the Students’ Union and the University to ensure students’ views are heard at all levels in academic life. Student representation should take place at every level of the University’s structure. To ensure that it does, we have Course Representatives, Faculty Representatives, Part-time and Full-time officers.
6 Below is a diagram of how the Student Voice system works:
The information gathered from students gradually gets passed on to the relevant meeting; whether that is a Students’ Union or University meeting. Although, as a Course Rep, you will not attend every meeting, either a Faculty Rep or Full-Time Officer will. This ensures that information continues to be passed on where relevant.
What meetings will I attend? As mentioned above, the feedback received at each level of the Student Voice structure will get passed on to the relevant meeting. The University meeting structure looks like this:
7 Course Reps are only expected to attend the two meetings highlighted in green, which are: Course Committees (also known as staff-student committee, or staffstudent liaison) and Faculty Council (also known as faculty council or faculty forum). Remember that during these meetings you are representing the views of all students on your course. If you are asked for a ‘student’s opinion’ on anything, it is ok to go away and collect this feedback first. Ensure that any of your own opinions are emphasised as yours and not as ‘all students’. The diagram below outlines who attends each meeting and what issues are raised there.
The Students’ Union also holds Union Council every 6 weeks. This is attended by all Full-time Officers, Faculty Reps and Liberation Reps. This is where Students’ Union policy is discussed and Officers and Reps are held to account. As a Course Rep, you don’t have voting rights during Council, but you can act as an observer and make comments and suggestions during the meeting. You are also able to submit motions if there is anything you would like to see implemented within SU policy.
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Benefits of being a Course Rep Enhancing the Student Experience The most important thing you will get out a being a course rep is that you have the opportunity to positively impact on all the students on your course. You have the opportunity to make the learning experience better for your peers and for future students. This is by:
Developing your course and modules: Tackle any student issues on your course related to learning and teaching. Take control of the content of your course, think of new ways that lecturers can engage with students, etc. Increase your course, faculty and University’s reputation: By improving the teaching and learning, student satisfaction, and student engagement on your course, in your faculty, and at your University, will also increase our Quality Assurance Assessments scores, National Student Survey results, etc.
Transferrable Skills and Training As well as this, being a course rep provides you with many extra benefits; you can develop personally and professionally. This may be through learning new skills, networking with University staff or additional training. Some of the skills you will develop are:
Communication Problem Solving Negotiation Active listening …..and many more!
Volunteering Hours You can acquire volunteering hours for you work as a course rep. You can log any hours you volunteer in the role with Volunteer Central at http://www.wolvesunion.org/volunteercentral/. This could include any time spent in Faculty meetings or preparing for faculty meetings. Feel free to contact Volunteer Central for more information.
Emailing volunteering@wlv.ac.uk, Phoning 01902 322900 Or visiting the Volunteer central centre in the MD Building Concourse.
Methods to Collect Student Opinion As a Course Rep you will be representing the voice of your fellow students, and to do this you will need to gather student feedback. Often students’ will come to you, but if you want to collect opinions on particular aspects of the student experience, or need to amass more evidence, you need to find ways to get student opinions back to you.
9 There are many different ways you can collect the opinions of your fellow students. Not every method may work for you and your peers, so it’s a good idea to experiment with different methods and maybe ask your peers what they would prefer! Some ideas include:
Social media – start your own Facebook group, utilise existing course groups or faculty groups, etc. Emails – you can request a full list of all the students’ you represent from your course administrator, which you may use responsibly. Keep emails professional, short and sweet, which will make your fellow peers more likely to respond to you. Alternatively, you can find a list of students on your course via WOLF. It is outlined at the end of this document how you can do that. Surveys – make use of various survey websites such as survey monkey or google doc forms. Alternatively, you could do a paper version if you class has a common room and social area. WOLF Topics – your course administrator will able to give you access to a WOLF topic Drop in’s – organise a time where students can drop in and speak to you Lecture Shouts – ask permission for your lecturer first! It can be a quick and easy way of gathering feedback or just introducing yourself to the class.
Issues Course Reps might face There are many different issues that students may approach you with. You need to know which ones you can deal with and which ones need to be referred onto someone else.
Issues you should take on as a rep As course reps, you are expected to deal with issues through meetings, talking with staff, and by liaising with the students’ union. Some of the issues you should take on as a rep include:
Course & module content, Resources, Deadlines, Timetabling, Feedback & assessments.
Issues you shouldn’t take on as a rep However, many students will not know what issues you can and cannot take on. Some students may approach you with issues that you aren’t able to help them with, you will need to refer students on to different departments who are qualified to deal with these. Issues may include:
Personal academia, Welfare, Financial,
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Housing , Very serious issues, Issues that affect more than just students on your course.
Although you may not be able to help with every student issue, it is ok to be supportive of the student or offer to signpost them on to a service which is more suited to deal with their question or issue.
Signposting to the correct service For the issues that you can’t deal with, there are several services that you can refer the students to. It is important you understand the role of each of these services to best advise the student. But don’t worry, if you send them to the wrong place the service can refer to the correct place.
Faculty Reps and Elected Officers
If you feel an issue is quite serious, could affect more than just the students on your course or are having difficulties resolving it, it is worth raising it to the Faculty Rep or Academic Vice President; they will be able to help you dealing with the issue. Their details can be found in the key contact section at the end of the handbook.
Advice and Support Centre
The members of staff at the ASC are trained, qualified and insured advisors; they offer advice in the following remits- financial, housing and Academic. It is a confidential service and independent from the University. The Advice and Support Centre is primarily located in the MD Building City Campus, however appointments can be made for them to come to Walsall campus. They also hold drop-in’s at Walsall and Telford campus through the semester. You can contact the Advice and Support Centre by: o Website: http://www.wolvesunion.org/adviceandsupport/ o Email: advice.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk o Phone: 01902 322041
Counselling
Counselling can help students who have emotional or psychological difficulties regarding things such as anxiety, stress, depression, lack of motivation, relationship problems, and bereavement. The Counselling Service also offers confidence workshops throughout the year. The Counselling Service can be located in the ML Building City Campus and also offer services at other campuses. You can contact Counselling Service by:
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Website: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/study-here/student-support/counselling/ Email: CounsellingService@wlv.ac.uk Phone: 01902 322572
Student Enabling Centre
The Student Enabling Centre offer advice and study related support for students with practical and sensory disabilities, specific learning difficulties e.g. dyslexia & dyspraxia and some medical problems. The Student Enabling Centre can be located in the MI Building City Campus. You can contact the Student Enabling Centre by: o Email: sec@wlv.ac.uk o Phone: 01902 321074
Study Skills Advisors
Study Skills Advisors can offer support and guidance with referencing and research, structure of written work, writing essays, reports, dissertations, theses, exams and other assignments and improving grammar and sentence structure. Study Skills Advisors can be found in the Harrison Learning Centre City Campus. You can contact the Study Skills Advisors by: o Website: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/lib/skills_for_learning.aspx o Email: skills@wlv.ac.uk o Phone: 01902 322385
Closing the Feedback Loop So you have had a massive victory in a meeting, having a massive impact on the students you represent. Wouldn’t it be great if they can celebrate with you? This is closing the feedback loop – making sure you keep students’ informed in what’s happening. This is a great motivational tool for students, it shows that not only is their feedback being listened to, but it is being acted on. Communicating these victories is easy as well; it can be an email, a post in a Facebook group, or a quick shout-out at the end of a lecture. If there is something you are particularly proud of, share it with the SU and we can publish it in the monthly Student Voice newsletter! It’s also important to let students’ know why something isn’t happening. If a student makes a suggestion, and it is not possible, make sure you tell them so that they know why it wasn’t possible.
Student Voice Academy Awards Here at the Students’ Union, we want to acknowledge and appreciate all the effort and commitment to your role. Both Course Reps and Faculty Reps have the
12 opportunity to gain an award through the Student Voice Academy. You can gain a Bronze, Silver or Gold Level certificate. Student Voice Certificate You will gain points for certain activities related to your role as a course rep. The Bronze Award will require you to gain 50 points. The Silver Award will require you to gain 110 points. The Gold Award will require you to gain 180 points. However, the bronze award is required in order to move on to the silver and gold awards i.e. you must complete the course rep training and attend/send apologies to one faculty council in order to gain bronze before you move onto silver and gold. The table below shows how you can collect the points: Activity Attend Course Rep training/completing online training Attendance/Apologies to one faculty council BRONZE AWARDED AT 50 Attendance/Apologies to a course committee Attendance/Apologies to an additional faculty council Attendance of faculty rep drop in Evidence of communication with faculty rep Additional Training attended Evidence of gathering student opinions on your course Evidence of dissemination of information from faculty reps/key points from meetings Logging your hours with volunteer central Observer at Union Council Course rep of the month winner Course rep of the Year - Shortlisted Course Rep of the Year - Winner Completion of Course Rep Feedback form SILVER AT 110 GOLD AT 180
Points Awarded 40 10 10 (20 max.) 10 5 (10 max.) 5 (10 max.) 5 (max. 20) 15 15 10 5 (max. 10) 20 20 30 20
Course Rep of the Month Every month you will be sent a Student Voice Newsletter, attached to this newsletter will be a link to complete the ‘Course Rep of the Month’ form. You can complete the form online and submit it electronically. We will use the information on these forms to pick a ‘Course Rep of the Month’. The form will ask you what meetings you have attended, any training you have attended and for a short update on anything else you have been doing.
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Course Rep of the Year Every year the Students’ Union hosts the ‘Students’ Union Teaching Awards’. At these awards, we not only recognise the exceptional teaching that goes on at the University, but also the hard work of all our Student Reps. One award category is ‘Course Rep of the Year’. We recognise nominations for this award from anyone inside of the University – students, lecturers, other course reps, faculty reps, or course leaders – anyone who can vouch for your good work. These nominations, along with any of your course rep of the month submissions, will go to a judging panel to decide the winner.
Support in your role Drop In Sessions The Student Engagement team will hold course rep drop in’s at City and Walsall Campus in the Students’ Union. You can pop in and chat about any issue you are unsure about resolving, help filling in your course rep of the month nomination or even just to say hi! The drop-in times are: City Campus – Students’ Union – Monday 12pm-1pm City Campus – Students’ Union – Wednesday 12pm – 1pm Walsall Campus – Students’ Union – Tuesday 12pm-1pm Walsall Campus – Students’ Union – Friday 2pm – 3pm All sessions will commence from 2nd November 2015. You are more than welcome to drop in and talk to a member of staff at any time, but there will also be someone available at these designated times. Useful Contacts There are several people you can contact when you are in a jam. Of course, you can also always pop-in to the Students’ Union and find us. Yaz Aboubakar Habiba Amjad
Afftar Ali
Your elected full-time officers President@wlv.ac.uk President Academic Vice President Welfare Vice President
VPAcademic@wlv.ac.uk
VPWelfare@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322045 01902 322029
01902 322117
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Student Experience Vice President
VPExperience@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322047
Your elected part-time officers City Campus citycampusofficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk Officer Volunteering volunteeringofficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk Officer International internationalstudentsofficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk Officer Environmental environmentalofficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk Officer Accommodati Accommodationofficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk on Officer Rebecca Walsall Walsallcampusofficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk Baker Campus Officer Stewart Mature/PartMaturePTSPOfficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk Boyd time/Student Parents Officer Gurjit Rai Postgraduate Postgraduatestudentofficer.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk Officer Your elected faculty reps Nishalini FSE – Science FSEsciencerep@wlv.ac.uk Ravindran Rep Laxman FSE – FSEpgrep@wlv.ac.uk Majithia Postgraduate Rep Adam Riglar FOA – FOAperformingartrep@wlv.ac.uk Performing Arts Rep Melissa FoA – Arts FOArep@wlv.ac.uk Canning Rep Rosie FoA – FOAhumanitiesrep@wlv.ac.uk Tkaczuk Humanities and Media Rep Mary-Therese FEHW – FEHWwalsallrep@wlv.ac.uk Barrett Health and Wellbeing Walsall Gemma FEHW – FEHWcityrep@wlv.ac.uk Gessey Health and Wellbeing City Samantha FEHW – FEHWeducationrep@wlv.ac.uk Jones Education Rep Theresa FEHW FEHWpgrep@wlv.ac.uk Summerfield Postgraduate Shazab Islam Anastasia Vryza Hassan Farooqui Adam Khan Amy Evans
15 Michaela Tologova Dzestina Dovidauskait e Gokhan Tourkkanli Andrew Quinn
FOSS – Law Rep FoSS – Leisure Rep
FOSSlawrep@wlv.ac.uk
FOSS – postgraduate Rep FOSS – Social Science Rep
FOSSpgrep@wlv.ac.uk
SU Reception Sophie Fenner
Dave Anson
Student Voice and Democracy Officer Student Engagement Manager – Student Voice
FOSSleisurerep@wlv.ac.uk
A.D.Quinn@wlv.ac.uk Students’ Union Staff info.wolvesunion@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322021 (City)
Sophie.Fenner@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322035 (Walsall) 01902 322023
Dave.Anson2@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322030
University Staff M.Skinner@wlv.ac.uk
Mary Skinner Alexandra Hackett
FoA Graduate Intern FoA Graduate Intern
Vicky ScottGarrett Aaron Armstrong Craddock Jagdev Singh Sarai
FoA Student Advisor (Walsall) FEHW Graduate Intern
Vicky.scott-garrett@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322795
A.ArmstrongCraddock2@wlv.ac.uk
01902 328895
FEHW Graduate Intern FEHW Student Advisor (City) FEHW Student Advisor (City) FEHW Student Advisor (Walsall) FEHW Student Advisor (Walsall) FSE Graduate Intern
Jagdev.Singh@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322728
Simon.rose2@wlv.ac.uk
01902 518809
m.kaur13@wlv.ac.uk
01902 323584
Grace.Deakin2@wlv.ac.uk
01902 5188930
GemmaThompson@wlv.ac.uk
01902 518882
G.Ozonuwe@wlv.ac.uk
01902 321435
Simon Rose Manny Kaur Grace Deakin Gemma Thompson Gift Ozonuwe
A.Hackett2@wlv.ac.uk
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FSE Graduate Intern FoSS Graduate Intern FoSS Graduate Intern FoSS Graduate Intern
D.Rhind-Tutt2@wlv.ac.uk
01902 321345
hira@wlv.ac.uk
01902 323876
H.Dudley2@wlv.ac.uk
01902 322484
s.spruce@wlv.ac.uk
01902 323677
FoSS Student Advisor
L.Choudhury@wlv.ac.uk
01902 323758
Additional Information Accessing your class list from WOLF Alternatively you can access student emails via WOLF:
Log in to WOLF Click on a core module – this is a module that all the students on your course are registered to (usually contextual modules) On the left hand side, there is a toolbar. Click on topic tools. The left hand toolbar will then change and include a folder called ‘My Class’ When you click on that, it will bring up all the students and lecturers on that module. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click select all – before sending the email, remove any staff/admin (unless you don’t mind them being included). They can be easily identified as they have an I.D number starting with ‘in’ or ‘ex’ and have the position admin in the right hand side. Once selected, press ‘contact selected’ at the bottom of the page. It will then come up with a page for you to write your message. Before writing your message, make sure that you press ‘Send a copy of the message to myself’ as it will not go into your sent items. When you are done, press send.
17 Notice that the message will be sent with the module code and name and whatever is typed as the subject will come after that information.
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