HSS030 Pilot Recommendations Report

HSS030 Pilot Recommendations Report

Summary

Lack of student engagement

The student engagement with the pilot was very low during both semesters. In semester 1, the launch of the pilot was delayed and only happened in week 8, leaving little time in semester 1 to engage. Renewed direct communication with the student reps at the start of semester 2, did not attract more engagement from the reps. Later in semester 2, the pandemic introduced many changes to the ways of teaching and learning which significantly changed the background of this project.

As a result, usage data was too low to support any meaningful analysis. The need for supporting communication and feedback via student reps remains. Lessons should be learned from this project if additional efforts are to be made in this area, around how to best to communicate and engage with student reps in the current challenging and fast moving environment.

What went well

1. Set up of early meetings and  draft documents before Semester 1. Our excellent student intern completed a very thorough job of preparing as much as was possible in advance. This included ;  submitting  a draft DPIA, completed reviewed pilot survey instructions for MS Teams and Learn, all other communication required for the pilot  and distributed all documents to board.
2. Selection of programmes to span across Colleges, UG & PG, online & on campus.
3. The Students' Association Handover Document has been completed by the students with some useful feedback in them. This will be fed in to see where  student communication can go  in the future. However the survey  did not indicate if the student was on one of the selected programmes in the pilot. The pilot achieved some useful information from the modified existing survey, but it could not tell if the student had participated in the pilot.
4. Both the Project Sponsor and Students' Association felt the Pilot had served it's purpose, but now with a new way of working we will move forward for 2020/21 .

What did not work

1. Slow start delayed selection of pilot programmes
2. Communication and engagement with the Student Reps (due to staff changes in the Students’ Association and strikes) were prevented due to the late appointment of Reps. This prevented early engagement with Reps to take on the pilot. This has been resolved for future, and these Reps will be in-place earlier on in the semester.
3. Tools Demonstrations had zero attendances from student reps
4. Impact from external factor such as strike and pandemic which significantly change the way teaching was delivered.  
5. The Students' Association Handover Document had been completed by the students with some useful feedback in them. This will be fed in to see where  student communication can go  in the future. However the survey  does not indicate if the student was on one of the selected programmes in the pilot. 

Result Findings from Pilot survey

There  have been over 650 student responses to the survey before  6th August. Of the 650 replies 505 were from Undergraduates and 145 are from Post Graduates. However the Post Graduate survey remains open until 22nd August

The Programme Reps : 

• Have requested more training 
• Less discussion boards 
• More face to face 
• Happy with the number of tools  

Core Platform discussions for 2020/21 to be carried out through a choice of 

• Learn 
• Teams
• Collaborate 
• Media Hopper    
• Email 

Recommendations (Conclusions)

The need remains and needs to be addressed. A new approach should be taken using the lessons learned in this project and adapted to the post covid “new” normal ways of teaching and learning.

The proposed new approach would see a pilot where:

• the programme reps can decide how they want to work and select the method(s) to use for communication. They will be allow to select Learn or Teams rather then being assigned a tool to use.
• More tools could be offered too; including Email, Teams, Learn and Social Media. Social Media should have less emphasis, but could help with building a  community
• Pilot scale should fit the existing support available for Learn and Teams. There will be a limit in the number of programmes able to take part in the pilot.
• A more formal and structured communication plan, possibly with the Project or additional stakeholders, supporting  Students' Association.