Guides to using barcode scanners in the Writing Cafe (Via S4 student system)

Created some new guides to using scanners in the Writing Cafe, so the Writing Mentors would know how to keep them charged, general care and how to use them appropriately. It is also helping us to understand how the cafe was being used by our students. We have been finding over the years that students are quite happy to produce their campus cards for scanning, especially if it helps us prove how popular the Writing cafe is as a resource for our students writing development!

S3 to S4 Salesforce - Upgrading to a new system for Writing Cafe-Tutorials-Workshops tracking

Had a very productive meeting today with Rupert Frankum (from TIS) today to discuss the possibility of taking our data collection from S3 into S4 in order to establish use of the Writing Cafe (and tutorials/workshops) in Learning Development. (In an earlier post, I mentioned about reducing administration for collecting date regarding Writing Cafe visits) S3 has worked really well, however, S4 has the opportunities to give a really excellent overview of student progression and use of facilities. Rupert showed me the ability to create bespoke dashboards that would allow all the data to be incorporated in S4, so there is no need to transfer anything out. This really could bring us closer to Big Data, in understanding where we can support students in the future.

S3 Student System and Writing Cafe attendance monitoring

Had some great conversations with Dr Paul Dowland (creator of the S3 system we use at Plymouth for student module/programme and teaching logging). I wanted to see how I could utilise barcode scanning of campus cards as a means to monitor access to the Writing Cafe and also potentially use it for Learning Development Tutorials and teaching sessions.  The use of the barcode scanners mean that no student data is collected, other than number and date. Keeping things quick easy safe and secure.  This will help Learning Development to establish how much the Cafe and related learning devleopment tutorials are impacting on student learning in the long run, as well as widening participation. This should also completely cut back on administration and improve working efficiencies -  Exciting times!

Co-Chair for LearnHigher

I am thrilled to announce that I have now taken on the position of Co-Chair for LearnHigher with Amanda Pocklington (University of Exeter). Really excellent working group and a lot of exciting ideas to implement. LearnHigher is part of the Association of Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE). To quote from the site

'Learnhigher is a network for promoting and facilitating the development and dissemination of high quality, peer-reviewed resources for learning development in the higher education sector. [Their] aim [is] to support the development of such resources as well as conduct and disseminate research into the use and effectiveness of learning development strategies and materials.' LearnHigher.ac.uk

Catch of the Day: Wrasse poster wins a prize at ALDinHE Conference Southampton!

Very chuffed to have won a poster prize (at the ALDinHE Conference) promoting the new Wrasse website. It took a fair amount of time to design and create. All the design work was done in PowerPoint 2010.

What is Wrasse? Well, it stands for: Writing for Assignments E-Library. Its purpose is to help students understand what good academic writing is within the context of their discipline. This resource is on-line, so there are no barriers to learning internationally!

Wrasse has seen various forms of development since 2002, so the concepts have been well established. The interface has recently been improved but lacked a new hosting space. Since I took on support of Wrasse in November 2014 (kindly offered by John Hilsdon & Joe Allison),there has been a considerable amount of time, conversations and meeting to finalise the hosting.  This included the website developers (Yello Studio, Exeter) and systems experts here at Plymouth. Having Wrasse finally up and running, and winning a poster prize  has been a wonderful surprise.

We are currently looking to build the essay and report database so students have a much larger resource in which to benefit. I will add that this is not just a resource for Plymouth University but also for anyone wishing to support academic writing. Wrasse also features on the LearnHigher resources website. If you are interested in what we do in Learning Development at Plymouth University, or just interested in discussing Wrasse, please visit our external site.