Transcript Student Representatives at UCS An Introduction and Guide

Student Representatives at UCS:
A guide for students
UCS Quality Assurance and Enhancement team
These slides are accompanied by notes
exploring the content in greater depth
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Course Representatives …
• Normally one per cohort (year
group) for each course
• Elected by their peers
• Represent their peers
• Collaborate with their lecturers and
their course leader
• Supported by and work with the
UCS Union
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So, what does the
role involve?
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Summary of the role
• Regular liaison with your course leader
–
–
–
–
Maintain regular contact with your peers and your course leader
Communicate emerging issues to your course leader
Communicate responses and developments back to your peers
Contribute to course monitoring and improvement processes
• Course Committees
– Gather your peers’ views and concerns in preparation for meetings
– Attend and contribute to course committee meetings
– Feed back to your peers on course committee discussions and decisions
• UCS Union
– Attend and contribute to Union Council activities
and report back to the students on your course
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Tips for being
representative …
 It’s not just what you or your immediate
friends think – try to represent the
views of your whole cohort
 Respect majority and minority views –
try to communicate division as well as
unity of views
 Enable anonymous feedback
Providing feedback
• Raising issues from your cohort
• Expressing observations and thoughts on evidence you
see at course committees from a student perspective
• Commenting on progress with course team action plans
• Contributing to discussions and debates
Helpful feedback is …
Day-to-day representative activity
Work with your Course Leader and course team to …

Note emerging issues and student opinions, as and
when they become apparent (try to keep track of
interactions and their impact)

Feed back to fellow students

Enable opinions to be sought from students on
proposed changes, developments or enhancements
to your course

Contribute to course monitoring and enhancement
processes
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Course Committee
Your role on the course committee
• You are a full and equal member of the committee,
and your contributions will be respected and valued
• You will have full access to all the information that the
course committee considers
• You can contribute fully
without fear of reprisal
or negative consequences
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Preparation for Course Committees
• Look at the last meeting’s minutes and action plan
and identify any items that your fellow students may
wish to provide feedback on
• Explore reports or survey results you are provided
with, to identify any particular strengths or concerns
• Collate your fellow
students’ views and
concerns (perhaps by
asking for a slot at the start
or end of a teaching session)
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What if I can’t
attend a course
committee?
Provide written feedback to the
committee to ensure your cohort’s views
are presented (this can be shared
through your Course Leader, the Course
Administrator or the Committee Chair)
Seek to meet with the Course Leader after the meeting
to discuss the meeting and the feedback you provided
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UCS quality monitoring:
the RiME
process
• Risk-based
– Looking out for early indications that there may be
an issue that needs to be addressed
• Monitoring
– Maintaining a continuous watch to ensure that
standards on your course are maintained and that
your learning experience is of good quality
• Enhancement
– Looking for opportunities to improve provision
Monitoring activity
Evidence is
received
Course Team
considers
evidence,
draws
conclusions,
proposes
actions to
address
emergent
issues
Course
Committee
receive report
of course
team
Conclusions
and actions
considered
Action plan
agreed
Course Team
ensures
action plan is
implemente
d and
monitored
Course
Committee
receive report
of course
team
progress on
action plan
Effectiveness
of actions
considered
Action plan
agreed
NSS and UCS Student Survey thoughts …
Pay attention to:
– Number of respondents (response rate and count)
• Significance of results
– Comparative figures
• Previous year
• Within Department or Centre
• UCS and national figures
Part of
the
whole …
Support documentation
on MyUCS Student Voice area
Partnership
Higher education providers take deliberate steps to engage
all students, individually and collectively, as partners in the
assurance and enhancement of their educational experience.
UK Quality Code for Higher Education
Let us know how we can better facilitate this partnership working:
 By providing you with the information you need to fulfil your
representative roles
 By improving the means by which you and your fellow students are
able to contribute to the review and enhancement of UCS
 By helping UCS students feel a part of UCS, sharing our enthusiasm
for seeing it improve and its reputation grow
Further information
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Where can I go
for advice or
support?
UCS Union
Location: Ground floor, Library Building, UCS Ipswich
Tel: 01473 338155
Email: [email protected]
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