Completion Report

Project Summary:

Time with student users is often so restricted that this contact time is only available very late on in projects: typically for UAT periods when most of the development has been completed and the resources remaining are limited. In the past, some applications with both student and staff audiences will not have been seen by a single student until they go live.

This project was to improve student users engagement for student systems projects by providing funding for student's time and involving them in the workshop and UAT. 

For this propose, we have accessed the student in the existing student panel for Student System Operation. The student panel of student contains about 250 students with different characteristics/demographics.  

With the funding, we have carried out the following workshops with student from the student panel:

• Student self-service, Assessment and progression (8 students for 2 hours)
• Student funding (9 students for 2 hours)
• Post Graduate Research admin (6 students for 2 hours)
• Widening participation (10 students for 1 hours)

During these workshops, students have contributed to the projects by

• Feedback on designs/prototypes
• General feedback and suggestion on the business processes related to student users in these particular business areas
• Perform peer testing
• Idea and suggestions what they would like to change and to improve
• challenges/difficulties/issues with the current systems.

The feedbacks from the project teams were very positive. Here is one example of feedback from a project manager after the workshop with the student:

"Students were all very engaged and easy to talk to. They gave us really useful feedback on our wording that we have adjusted. They also suggested enhancements to the system which we have brought to the project team. Ultimately I wish we had engaged with them earlier, as we could have taken their needs into account more and implemented some of the suggested extra features in this phase. Was very easy to organise."

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 5 days

Staff Usage Actual: 5 days

Staff Usage Variance: 0%

Other Resource Estimate: 0 days

Other Resource Actual: 0 days

Other Resource Variance: 0%

Explanation for variance:

The staff usage was mainly for the project management, organising the workshop and student recruitment and reimbursing the student.  

Key Learning Points:

What went well: 

1. Using the student panel to access a large group of student, and recruit student quickly. 
2. Using Amazon Voucher to pay for student's time which has kept the student recruitment process simple and easy, and student can receive the voucher within days after they have completed the workshop.
3. Using a group of student to have various background and demographics and get different inputs. 
4. Supports from Student System Operation has taken away most of work related to student recruitment and leave the staff focusing on the workshop.

What did not going well:

1. Recruiting student during the holiday period was challenging as most UG student were not available. 
2. Despite the funding available, not all projects have utilised the opportunity to get the student involved. 

Key learning points:

1. Involving student requires additional work and need funding, but the overall benefits greatly outweigh the cost. 
2. The project team should engage the student users more often and have the funding available to do so.
3. The project team should plan the engagement earlier, and included the academic timetabling/holiday in the planning.

Outstanding issues:

N/A