This year we established the infrastructure – and the Community of Practice informed enhancements to our work. Through Inclusive Curriculum, academic members of staff have undertaken small EDI projects, and MDXSU was awarded funding for its black experience research project. The 2020/21 Annual Learning & Teaching Conference was themed around Inclusive Curriculum, and looked at approaches to EDI, celebrated best practice and introduced the EDI framework and toolkit.
PERSONAL TUTORS
Personal tutoring is key to students’ academic success and wellbeing, and underpins retention. With the rise of blended and online learning, it can help students feel they belong and help them navigate challenges.
We are adopting an enhanced approach to our existing personal tutoring scheme, with pilots running on 11 programmes. The Middlesex tutorial curriculum – scheduled interactions, group tutorials and associated resources that mirror the student lifecycle – has been developed in the light of feedback, and highlights curricular and co-curricular opportunities.
Finally, we have designed a Personal Tutor Masterclass Programme, which is due to be piloted in autumn 2021 and go live at the start of 2022.
DIGITAL BUDDIES: STUDENT IT SUPPORT FOR ONLINE LEARNING
A smooth, fast move to online teaching was essential this year – and was enabled by the new Digital Buddies scheme, where nearly 70 paid students or recent graduates gave teaching staff the technical support to make this happen.
The Digital Buddies arranged and managed the technical aspects of online teaching on various platforms. This allowed academics to focus on providing an excellent teaching experience, while the buddies gained skills and a source of income.
The buddies received comprehensive training from the Centre of Academic Practice Enhancement and Student Learning Assistant team. The scheme supported more than 120 modules, delivered over 1,500 hours of support and led to the buddies finding employment within and outside the University.
A STRONGER STUDENT VOICE
How students raise issues and give feedback was improved, after a package of enhancements was provided to Student Voice Leaders (SVLs), who are elected to represent their peers on their course, and to the Programme Voice Groups (PVGs), where SVLs meet academic and professional services staff. Improvements include allowing SVLs to continue in post for more than one year, an SVL code of conduct and guidance on collating feedback, and training and guidance for staff around online PVGs. These led to a 50% increase in the number of SVLs attending the groups in 2020 compared to 2019. In addition, 93% of PVGs considered enhancement plans compared with 78% in 2019.
In response to feedback, we developed an action tracker to respond to students on University-wide issues. In addition, more professional services, including Finance and MDXworks, provided reports on University-wide issues.
Our National Student Survey, Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey and Postgraduate Research Experience Survey data dashboards were enhanced to provide the University with more in-depth analysis of demographics and trends, and we added questions about experiences during the pandemic. This gave staff more interactive, detailed data.
We ran a popular, lively campaign to encourage students to take part in the National Student Survey 2021. Promoting the survey was not required by the Office for Students this year but our learners needed to know they could take part. To encourage participation, we donated to one of three student-chosen charities when they responded, and reported on how much had been raised and the kind of work it would support. In a year when we were unable to access students in as many ways as before the pandemic, the campaign – which was planned and delivered with MDXSU – resulted in a survey response rate of 68%, in line with the national sector average response rate of 69%.
The University started using EvaSys for course surveys. Staff had direct access to results and could respond to students, closing the feedback loop. Pre-arrival surveys were completed by more than 1,700 students. Anonymous responses were used by Departments to tailor support and align teaching and learning with needs. A survey for students on Apprenticeships was launched in May 2021. Finally, we started to consult on developing a more holistic approach to student feedback.
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Financial Statements 2020/21
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