Now that we’ve completed our consultation with HE stakeholders, it’s time to ask what you are doing to enhance the student digital experience. There are no prizes but we’ll make sure everyone gets a mention here on the digital student blog, and some will be selected for a full write-up and promotion by Jisc as examples of good practice for the HE sector.
We need ideas at all levels, from small-scale projects to institution-wide changes. They don’t need to have been fully evaluated to be useful. You just need to be confident that you have supported students to make better use of digital technologies, or that you have met (exceeded?) students’ expectations of their digital experience. You might be a member of staff (academic or professional), a head of service, a strategic leader or a student change agent. Individuals and institutions will only be identified with your permission – but please make sure you’ve asked everyone involved before you get in touch.
We’re looking for examples under any of our challenge areas (see below), or covering several. Please use these as a guide only – so long as you have an interesting story to tell about the student digital experience, we want to hear from you! Just email helen.beetham@gmail.com with the subject Digital Student and a brief outline (2-3 lines) of what you have done.
1. Prepare and support students to study successfully with digital technologies
How do you prepare students for the digital elements of their university experience and for their use of digital technologies on course? How are you using digital media to support arriving students? What ongoing provision is there for students to become more capable users of digital technology?
2. Deliver a robust, flexible digital environment
How well do your systems and networks meet students’ rising expectations of connectivity? How do you deliver safe, robust systems while meeting the needs of different subject areas, different campuses, different student groups? Are you committed to providing an ‘open’, ‘flexible’ or ‘borderless’ student experience and if so how do you manage the conflicting demands on your digital environment?
3. Deliver a relevant digital curriculum
What support do curriculum teams have to adapt their teaching and assessment practice? How do you ensure that the content of courses is kept up to date? What entitlement do students have (if any) to develop digital skills and use relevant digital tools in the curriculum?
4. Develop coherent policies for Bring Your Own (BYOD)
Do you have a policy you would be happy to share with us (perhaps with some elements redacted)? Do you have evidence that ‘Bring Your Own’ is changing the student experience or student expectations? How are you working to redress the digital divide which ‘bring your own’ may enhance? How are IT services leading and responding to the BYO agenda?
5. Engage in dialogue with students about their digital experience and empower them to develop their own digital environment
How do you collect evidence from students about their digital experience and expectations? How is this information used to make things better? How are students involved in designing the digital environment? Do you have any student change agent or student partnership projects that you would like to share with us?
6. Take a strategic, whole-institution approach to developing the student digital experience
Do you have an institutional (or large-scale e.g. faculty) strategy or initiative you can tell us about? Is someone at your institution identified as responsible for the student digital experience and what different does that make? How are you working to bring different stakeholders together to improve the student digital experience?
Remember all you have to do is email helen.beetham@gmail.com with the subject Digital Student and a brief outline (2-3 lines) of what you have done.
Participating overall should not take more than half an hour of your time. Thank you!