‘‘ U
The goal was to create a place where students could find answers to any question about student life.
CL’s Student Centre opened to students on 18 February, shortly after Valentine’s Day. As with many large-
scale library projects, the Student Centre was a labour of love, and so the course of the project did not always run smoothly... This piece is a reflection on some of the challenges with developing a new service model.
Engaging students from the start The Student Centre project was an opportunity to work with students as full members and partners, in line with the vision of UCL’s Education Strategy to create cultures of student engagement and leadership. From 2015 until the project completion, Sabbatical Officers have been members of the Student Centre Project Board, which was chaired by Prof Anthony Smith (Vice-Provost, Education & Student Affairs) as project sponsor. One of the initial challenges with the student representation on Student Centre sub-committees was that, given the one-year term of Sabbatical Officers, and the many pressures of the role, there was little incentive to contribute to a project which would only come to fruition three to four years (and officers) later. We were fortunate that the students did take the opportunity to contribute seriously, and the levels of interest and engagement naturally rose as the project came closer to realisation.
A place to find answers
One of the unique aspects of the Student Centre is that it brings together a range of student services which were previously dispersed. The goal was to create a place where students could find answers to any question about student life. To help plan and coordinate this work, we established a Working Group looking at the Service Model for the building, which has brought together Student & Registry Services, Library Services, ISD, Estates, Culture, Finance, the UCL Chaplain
March 2019
and the Students’ Union. The Working Group is led by Library Services and will continue to oversee the operation of the services within the building. One of the challenges there was the departure of long-standing members of staff in some areas. New members had to be inducted at UCL and into the group, inter-departmental relationships had to be re-built and some verbal agreements had to be re-negotiated. Thankfully, with goodwill and common sense, the service leads in different departments managed to find compromise solutions. This included some quick-thinking to relocate some staffed information points.
Enquiry system
In tandem with opening this new building, we were due to launch an enquiry system to enable students to submit an enquiry quickly and easily, if they couldn’t find an answer in the online self-help section. Students would then be able to track their enquiry and know exactly which team was dealing with it. Predictably, the system was delayed beyond the building’s opening date. In terms of mitigating against the impact of the system delay, the teams were trained to manage with the different IT systems, so whilst the delay means that not everything is as seamless as it will be, the improvement can be phased in over time. Some of the recruitment to the teams in the building has also been delayed, so the staffing complement is gradually building up to full capacity over the weeks following opening.
The scale of seamless
The biggest challenge we faced in the development of the new Student Centre was probably the sheer scale of UCL and bringing together the variety of UCL’s service and facility providers under one roof, where we will all be working together to create a seamless experience for students. As mentioned above, we established structured working groups
Ben Meunier (
benjamin.meunier@
ucl.ac.uk) is Director of Operations at UCL Library Services.
to ensure that formal communication mechanisms are in place and have complemented that with many more informal meetings and discussions to join up what we will be doing.
The key really has been to look at the prize, which is to give UCL students an outstanding experience in this amazing building in a central location of the campus. Everyone involved in the project (regardless of whether they work in roles which interact directly with students or not) can see how much of a transformation this is, in terms of what it will mean for students on campus. The size of the building, with 1,000 new study spaces, and its location, at the heart of the campus, make this UCL’s flagship space for students.
But the most exciting transformation is happening behind the scenes in terms of how we are trying to work, so that each team is thinking about their services from the student perspective, and looking at how to improve the way in which we support students and address any enquiries. IP
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 39
UCL Students
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