2013

Graeme Jeremy - LSR

Isle of Wight College

1/1/2013

Student Submission

Table of Contents

Preface ................................................................................................... 2

Method ................................................................................................... 3

Section 1: Introduction to the student representative body ............................ 3

Section 2: Recommendations from the college’s previous review ..................... 4

Section 3: The threshold standards of academic awards ................................ 4

1 Qualifications are allocated to the appropriate FHEQ level ......................... 5

2 The use of external examiners .............................................................. 5

3 Design, approval, monitoring and review of assessment strategies ............ 5

Section 4: The quality of students' learning opportunities ............................... 6

1 Professional standards for teaching and support of learning ...................... 6

2 Learning resources .............................................................................. 6

3 The contribution of students to quality assurance .................................... 7

4 The use of management information for quality and standards of student

learning opportunities ............................................................................ 8

5 Policies and procedures used to admit students ....................................... 8

6 The complaints and appeals procedures ................................................. 8

7 Careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) ................... 8

8 Learning opportunities and entitlements of disabled students .................... 9

9 Learning opportunities through work-based and placement learning ........... 9

10 The college charter ............................................................................ 9

Section 5: Information the college provides to students and applicants ........... 10

Section 6: Thematic element ..................................................................... 11

Section 7: Recommendations for improvement ............................................ 12

Preface I have been a student at the Isle of Wight College since 2008 and have studied

from GCSEs up to my current HND in Mechanical Engineering. My experience as

a student has been overall very good and the learning opportunities here have

allowed me to develop the key skills I needed to progress at every level. I can

say wholeheartedly that I have enjoyed every single day, well almost, and that

the staff that have taught me have been key to my success at every level.

I volunteered for the Lead Student Representative role not fully understanding

what was involved. I can say that I have thoroughly enjoyed performing the LSR

role and I have developed an in depth understanding of student’s opinions and

involvement in quality assurance across all HE subject areas of the Isle of Wight

College. The college has a small Higher Education provision of approx. 130

students that represent a small minority of the student population with the

remainder being in Further Education. The small class sizes across HE present

both advantages and challenges, and the college strives to address them in all

areas.

Due to the small class sizes, students often form close relationships with their

tutors and this leads to good communication and mutual understanding. While

this communication provides students with excellent academic support, the

mechanisms for allowing student involvement in quality assurance have proven

to be lacking. It is however the general view of the student body that praise be

given to the teaching and quality of lectures.

The gathering of student views for this SS has not been without its challenges,

work on the document didn’t start until January and a major obstacle has been

the lack of a formal student representative body within HE. This has meant that

collecting evidence from Student Reps (SRs) was not a viable option as there

was no way of communicating with them; my only option was Get Out And Talk

(GOAT) to students myself.

This process highlighted both good practices and areas that are in need of

improvement to my attention and has allowed me to feedback these to the

college. The college has acted quickly to issues raised and valued the feedback I

have given. I hope that the college can use this opportunity to improve formal

communications between SRs and staff, and enhance the student experience by

making the SR roles more fulfilling and meaningful.

The LSR and the SRs agree that this SS should be openly shared with the

college.

Graeme Jeremy

Lead Student Rep

Isle Of Wight College

2012-2013

Method The information for this Student Submission (SS) has been compiled by the Lead

Student Rep (LSR). The LSR was supported by the College Facilitator (CF), Maz

Stewart, and the Student Reps (SRs). The submission sections follow the

guidelines as set out in the Guidance for lead student representatives. Each

section has a corresponding set of recommendations that have been compiled in

section 8.

Various sources have been used to collect the information for these sections. The

First Impressions Survey (FIS), the Teaching and Learning Survey (TLS), the

National Student Survey (NSS), the Unistats Website (UW), the internal college

survey monkey, and feedback provided by GOATing students in almost every HE

class in the college.

GOATing was carried out by the LSR with each group comprising of members of

the same class. Over the course of three weeks 80% of HE students were

directly reached [Section 1]. Sessions lasted between 30 and 90 minutes and

the structure of each meeting followed the loose questions posed in the LSR

Information Leaflet [Appendix 1]. This loose structure ensured group discussions

covered a wide scope relevant to the review process and single issues didn’t

dominate the meetings.

Section 1: Introduction to the student representative

body The IW College is reliant on an informal student representative body within HE,

with SRs on most courses. There is little evidence of collaboration between SRs

on different courses and there is no provision for training or support to the SR

role. SRs are seldom elected as there is no set formal process to allow this to

happen, most SRs are volunteers and often recommended by tutors to the title.

There is limited evidence that SRs have any formal relationship with the college

as they seldom attend the program boards or any other form of student-staff

liaison meetings. An example of this is the lack of consistent representation of

HE students within Student Voice (SV) activities.

The SS has been written by the LSR. Endorsement of the SS by the student body

was achieved by seeking feedback on draft copies of the SS, these were

published on the college’s RCHE Moodle page, and via a digital publishing

platform [issuu.com], and feedback sought from the HE student body in general.

SRs were asked to gather feedback from their classmates and then email any

comments back to the LSR for consideration; the SS was updated where

necessary.

There exists a minority of students whose views were not expressed in the

GOATing: those not present at their class meeting (23 students), Yr1 PT FDA

childhood (4 students), and Yr1 PT HNC Computing and Software Development

(2 students). However students in other years from the same courses were

included. This was mostly due to the fact that some students were not present

on the day their class meeting was held. The following graph shows all the HE

courses, the total number of students enrolled across all year groups and the

number of students present at GOATing meetings.

Section 2: Recommendations from the college’s previous

review In the 2007 summative review there were four desirable recommendations

which were addressed, and are being addressed, by the college. To the best of

the student body’s knowledge, students were not actively engaged in addressing

these desirable recommendations and good practice.

Section 3: The threshold standards of academic awards Few students feel they have a great involvement in how the college sets,

monitors, and maintains its standards [Sections 1 & 2]. Although on some

courses students feel that tutors do a good job of feeding back their views into

this process, for example, yr3 FdA Business & Management [GOATing].

Where students have raised issues with staff relating to standards, the college

has acted promptly to seek feedback from students and work quickly towards a

mutually acceptable solution [discussion with students in engineering].

Recommendation: The student representative body to play a major role in this

function by ensuring adequate training for SRs and their involvement in

reviewing HE academic standards.

1 Qualifications are allocated to the appropriate FHEQ level

Students agree that they are finding assessments getting more challenging as

they progress through the levels [EE reports].

2 The use of external examiners

Most students are unaware of what an external examiners (EE) report is but

access to them would be granted if a student were to request it. However there

are few EE reports that are freely available to students. There is little to suggest

that students are given the opportunity to contribute in meetings where the

findings of EE reports are discussed.

Recommendation: EE reports to be made available to students by posting them

on their relevant VLE page or via a link on the student portal. SRs could be

invited to attend meetings where the EE reports are due to be discussed and

given the opportunity to provide input into the action plans.

3 Design, approval, monitoring and review of assessment

strategies

Most students will agree that their assessments are appropriate and that in

working towards them they achieve their learning outcomes. Assessments are

clearly defined to students and, in the vast majority of cases students have

appropriate opportunities for formative feedback. On a few courses there is

some delay in receiving summative feedback and this may be due to delays in

double marking between organisations on collaborative programs [GOATing].

While the majority of students fully understand the grading criteria and how

their final awards are calculated, a few groups of students have some degree of

uncertainty around this area [GOATing].

Students understand the college’s rules on plagiarism, processes for extensions,

and hand in dates for their assessments. Few examples were found of student

involvement in the design, approval, monitoring and review processes for

assessments. There is inconsistent use of end-of-module/programme

questionnaires but the college does consistently ensure that the vast majority of

students complete the first impressions and teaching and learning

questionnaires.

Section 4: The quality of students' learning opportunities

1 Professional standards for teaching and support of learning

The overwhelming majority of students feel that the staff teaching them are

appropriately and adequately qualified and trained. This is reflected in the

survey monkey results with 98% agreeing that lecturers possess a good level of

subject knowledge [survey monkey]. However students express concern in some

areas where effective delivery is dependant on a key member of staff, eg FdA

Early Childhood, Cert-Ed, and DTLLS.

Students give informal feedback on the quality of their lectures directly to staff,

but this feedback method often lacks formal effective feedback loop closure.

Students report that the content of lectures reflects current industry practice and

software [GOATing]. Engineering students access current industry software via

their employers.

Recommendation: SRs to participate in action planning resulting from and in

conjunction with consistent use of end-of-module/programme questionnaires.

2 Learning resources

Students agree that library staff are helpful and knowledgeable across most HE

courses. However students comment on the shortness of the loan periods, some

students were unaware they could renew via email. The college has an informal

procedure for the allocation of LRC learning resources; and students make

requests directly to LRC staff or via their learning adviser. However students on

the HND Computing and Software Development requested additional resources

and these have not been supplied. However 92% of students felt that they were

well supported [survey monkey].

Students on the FdA Business and Management consider that the LRC opening

times do not suit their course as it is delivered in the evenings. Students on the

Cert-Ed and DTLLS courses expressed discontent at the number of available

copies of relevant resources. Students on the FdA Early Childhood course agree

that the resources available on campus are limited and that most students use

the Chichester University e-bry or the Downside Learning Resource Centre run

by the council.

Students studying on the FdA Graphic Design gave very good feedback on the

quality and availability of resources available at the college. The Graphic Design

department has a local stock of resources relevant to the course, this could be

disseminated to other areas of the college. Students on both the Graphic Design

and the HNC/D Computing and Software Development courses use current

industry standard software as part of their studies. However HNC/D Engineering

students would like this practice extended to their department.

Recommendations:

SRs to be formally involved in the learning resource allocation procedure

providing feedback from students to the LRC staff in order to complete the

feedback loop.

HE students to be granted extended loan periods as they need a different

level of literature in their relevant program areas.

The good practice outlined above in Graphic Design to be disseminated across

other areas of HE where relevant resources could be held locally.

3 The contribution of students to quality assurance

All students are given the opportunity to express their views in the annual

teaching and learning survey and in the first impressions survey. Students are

also involved in giving feedback to the review of programs via focus groups

attended by representatives of the collaborative program providers. However the

results of these surveys and groups are not openly shared with students and

there is a lack of effective feedback loop to students on the findings of these

methods.

The majority of SR positions within HE are filled but there are few examples of

where SRs have received support or training in order to carry out their role. Few

SRs have attended meetings with staff such as program boards or student-staff

liaisons. The majority of SRs were unaware of the existence of such meetings

and therefore did not attend. It would be helpful if the college would provide a

list of these meetings, with explanations and dates, to SRs at the beginning of

the academic year. That way they could plan to gather feedback from their

classmates on relevant topics prior to the meetings and would therefore be

prepared with valuable and relevant feedback to attend these meetings. It

should be carefully considered that, in giving formal training and responsibilities

to the current SRs, without some form of incentive, the current high subscription

level of SR positions may fall.

Recommendations:

For the college to support SRs by providing a structured role and training.

The college to consider how best to incentivise students to undertake the

SR role with the aim of maintaining or improving the current number of

SRs.

For the college to carefully consider the organisation and timing of

meetings to support SR attendance.

The college to consider SR and LSR membership of panels where they can

provide meaningful input to the college’s quality assurance procedures.

4 The use of management information for quality and

standards of student learning opportunities

Students are not generally included in the discussion of management

information at the College. They are therefore unable to comment on where the

college discusses this data, or how it is used to enhance the provision.

5 Policies and procedures used to admit students

The admissions procedure for all of the HE courses, except one, are direct entry.

UCAS is used for the HND Business. Students are not involved in the

development of any of the college’s procedures including that for admissions, or

in the monitoring of data such as conversion statistics and alike.

There are mixed opinions amongst students about the induction programmes.

This could be due to the varied backgrounds and expectations of students.

6 The complaints and appeals procedures

Information about the complaints and appeals procedures are available in the

course handbooks. Students agree that staff are generally more than happy to

help and give advice where needed. None of the college’s surveys ask whether

students understand the complaints and appeals procedures. No comments were

raised about this during the student meetings, however when asked via survey

monkey if students had “reported a special need/concern and has this been

addressed and satisfactory outcome achieved” 27% of those who had, replied

“no” to this question [survey monkey]. Students are not involved in how the

college manages the complaints and appeals procedures, or in the monitoring of

the statistics.

7 Careers education, information, advice and guidance

(CEIAG)

The college has a member of staff who deals with careers guidance and this is

available to all students via appointment. Employability is embedded into the

curriculum of all subjects. The extent to which work placements or other

innovations are available to students varies from course to course. On some

courses work placements are a pre-requisite of enrolment, e.g. FdA’s in

Childhood & Business and Management. On the FdA Graphic Design in yr3 the

students participate in a ‘live client brief’. This would be welcomed by students

on other courses and years across HE.

The college collects data regarding whether students use careers information

provided by the college but not about the satisfaction. This produced data that

shows the college being below benchmark [TLS]. However many students will

not have used the careers guidance service as they are already employed.

8 Learning opportunities and entitlements of disabled

students

The college has policies and procedures in place for the support of disabled

students. Disabled students can access the disabled student allowance via

assessments carried out by the collaborating university. One student who is

wheelchair bound did express dissatisfaction with the accessibility of the college

campus in general, also specifically relating to fire doors and the incline of

access ramps [GOATing].

The college recently surveyed the campus accessibility with the engagement of a

disabled student [response to question raised during Student Voice meeting].

The college’s policies and procedures in this area are not consistently devised,

monitored and reviewed with student engagement.

Recommendation: For the college to continue to work closely with disabled

students to consider how and where the accessibility of the campus can be

improved.

9 Learning opportunities through work-based and placement

learning

The satisfaction of students who are able to go on work placements was difficult

to ascertain as the majority of students are already in work. For those students

not working there is inconsistent support in gaining work placements. Where

available, work placements are assessed in accordance with unit specifications.

The support process generally involves a mentor and the specific arrangements

vary across the different university courses.

Recommendation: For the college to consider consistently seeking course related

work placements for both current and prospective students (may attract new

students).

10 The college charter

The college has a document which sets out mutual expectations (College

Charter). To the best of my knowledge the document wasn’t developed in

consultation with the HE student body. It is posted on many notice boards across

the campus and on moodle.

It is unknown to students, to what extent the action points in the charter are

adhered to by students and the college.

Recommendation: For the college to make good use of SRs by including them in

meetings where statistics and action points relating to the college charter are

discussed.

Section 5: Information the college provides to students

and applicants The vast majority of students agree that the information the college provides

about its courses accurately describes them. A small minority of students stated

that they were unaware of the extent to which computers would be used during

their course, however they also said that they had been given sufficient

additional support in this area. 94% of students agreed that they were able to

access sufficient information, and 96% said they knew who to approach for

additional information [survey monkey].

The quality of the course information the college provides to its students varies

from course to course. For example, compare the topic plans from the FdAs

Early Childhood and Business & Management, the former is a clear plan for

delivery and assessment while the latter shows little more than the public

holidays [topic plans].

Students also commented that on occasions there were inaccurate hand-in dates

entered on assignment briefs. However students also said that, although this

was a frequent occurrence, where this had happened lecturers informed students

of the correct date at the time of hand-out.

The extent to which programme specifications accurately describe the learning

opportunities and outcomes of courses was not discussed as part of the student

meetings.

The college does not work with students in the consideration of the NSS as this

is the responsibility of the partner university. The analysis and dissemination of

the results is not openly discussed with students. The KIS information published

by the college via the website directly reflects the courses delivered at the

college in two cases (Graphic Design and Childhood). KIS information on two

other courses reflect the general experience at the partner universities (HND

Business, and FdA Business and Management). No KIS information is published

for the remaining HE courses (Computing and Software Development,

Engineering, Cert-Ed, or DTLLS).

Recommendations:

To disseminate the use of high quality of topic plans, as identified in Early

Childhood, across all courses.

For the college to improve the accuracy and availability of KIS information

across the HE provision.

Section 6: Thematic element The discussions with first year HE students highlighted some discrepancies in

experience and poor communication in reaching students with course start

dates. As a result of this confusion around start dates, some students

commenced their course late and missed Induction sessions. The confusion this

caused was acknowledged at the January SV meeting and the college has taken

action to ensure that all course information is sent to students six weeks before

the course commences, and staff are to prepare materials before they leave for

their summer break.

The First Impressions Survey revealed particularly high levels of dissatisfaction

from Engineering and Computing students, results were at or above benchmark

for only 5 and 2 of the 26 questions respectively. Computing students reported

they couldn’t do much work for the first five weeks of their programme due to

issues with enrolment, access to resources, and use of software across different

platforms (due to students using their own laptops). Survey data from students

on the Engineering programme was consistently disappointing and mirrored the

experiences of students in the previous year. Students reported confusion at the

beginning of the year with conflicting instructions from lecturers regarding

assessments and hand in dates.

The experiences of students on other HE courses are, with only minor

exceptions, very positive with levels of satisfaction above the college benchmark

in many areas. The majority of students said that they liked the methods of

teaching; used the materials available on Moodle; knew how they were to be

assessed and when assignments were due in; received useful and timely

feedback from their tutors; and most of all are happy with their course.

Note: Survey data for students on the DTLLS course was not available and their

views were therefore not included in this section. There were no new students

enrolled on the HND Business or Cert-Ed courses this academic year and

therefore, there are no views to include here.

Across the college the availability, clarity, and quality of student handbooks is an

area for improvement. More steps need to be taken to ensure that this

information is consistently up to date.

Retention and progression data was not available when requested and therefore

no indications of this could be included in this section. The way in which the

college collects this data makes it difficult to make comparisons with other

institutions on sites such as unistats. Improvements in the processes for

capturing and monitoring this data could give potential students the ability to

make direct comparisons with other institutions.

Section 7: Recommendations for improvement

The student representative body to play a major role in this function by

ensuring adequate training for SRs and their involvement in reviewing HE

academic standards.

EE reports to be made available to students by posting them on their

relevant VLE page or via a link on the student portal. SRs could be invited

to attend meetings where the EE reports are due to be discussed and

given the opportunity to provide input into the action plans.

SRs to participate in action planning resulting from and in conjunction with

consistent use of end-of-module/programme questionnaires.

SRs to be formally involved in the learning resource allocation procedure

providing feedback from students to the LRC staff in order to complete the

feedback loop.

HE students to be granted extended loan periods as they need a different

level of literature in their relevant program areas.

For the college to support SRs by providing a structured role and training.

The college to consider how best to incentivise students to undertake the

SR role with the aim of maintaining or improving the current number of

SRs.

For the college to carefully consider the organisation and timing of

meetings to support SR attendance.

The college to consider SR and LSR membership of panels where they can

provide meaningful input to the college’s quality assurance procedures.

For the college to continue to work closely with disabled students to

consider how and where the accessibility of the campus can be improved.

For the college to consider consistently seeking course related work

placements for both current and prospective students (may attract new

students).

For the college to make good use of SRs by including them in meetings

where statistics and action points relating to the college charter are

discussed.

To disseminate the use of high quality of topic plans, as identified in Early

Childhood, across all courses.

For the college to improve the accuracy and availability of KIS information

across the HE provision.

Appendix 1 Jan 2013

Dear all,

As your lead student rep, I have been appointed this year to assist in gathering student’s

views as the college goes through a review process by QAA. I am looking primarily for two

things; the first are volunteers to meet with the QAA review team who want to talk to

students directly (meeting dates below) please do contact me or your rep if you can attend

any of these meetings, the second is your help in compiling the student submission.

Student group meeting dates: Tuesday 9th April @ 18:00, and Wednesday 10th April @

12:00, and TBC during the week commencing 13th May. Please contact me if you can attend

any of these dates.

The Student Submission gives a way for students, through their reps, to give information to

QAA about matters they consider important and give an impression of what it is like to be a

student at The Isle Of Wight College. The Student Submission must have been shared with

and endorsed by the college students as a whole, it will be published on the Moodle page

(Higher Education>RCHE, key:RCHE) once ready for comments. In order to compile this

submission I need your views on a few key areas. These areas are briefly outlined below:

Standards

Is the feedback you receive timely and helpful?

Do you know about the granting of extensions?

Can you get access to external examiners' reports about your course?

Are you involved in the process of approval, monitoring and review of assessments?

Quality

Do you feel your teaching staff are appropriately and adequately qualified & trained?

Are students on your course involved in quality assurance processes?

Is training and support provided for student participation in quality assurance?

Were you satisfied with your induction to the course?

Are there opportunities for you to take part in work placements or other innovations?

Information

Were your course and learning resources accurately described to you?

Does the prospectus and college website provide all the info you need to succeed?

Think back to your first year, were you sufficiently supported academically & socially?

In your 1st year, was there enough info on services, facilities, support, & processes?

You can submit your views to your course rep, to me a2ruedas@hotmail.com, or directly to

QAA, you will find their contact details are overleaf. Thank you for your time and I look

forward to hearing your views in due course.

Kind regards,

Graeme Jeremy

Lead Student Rep

Survey Monkey

Re sp o nse

Pe rce nt

Re sp o nse

Co unt

98.0% 48

2.0% 1

49

0

HE Students Survey Jan 2013

sk ip p e d q ue stio n

Do yo u fe e l yo ur le c ture rs p o sse ss a g o o d le ve l o f sub je ct kno wle d g e ?

Answe r Op tio ns

Yes

No

a nswe re d q ue stio n

Response

Pe rcent

Response

Count

22.4% 11 73%

8.2% 4 27%

69.4% 34

49

0skipped question

No

If you have repo rted a specia l need /conce rn has this been add ressed and

sa tis facto ry outcome achieved?

answered question

Yes

HE Students Survey Jan 2013

N/A

Answer Op tions

Re sp o nse

Pe rce nt

Re sp o nse

Co unt

91.8% 45

8.2% 4

49

0

HE Students Survey Jan 2013

sk ip p e d q ue stio n

Do yo u fe e l we ll sup p o rte d o n yo ur p ro g ra mme o f s tud y?

Answe r Op tio ns

Yes

No

a nswe re d q ue stio n

Re sp o nse

Pe rce nt

Re sp o nse

Co unt

91.8% 45

8.2% 4

49

0

HE Students Survey Jan 2013

sk ip p e d q ue stio n

Do the Wo rk-b a se d /Live p ro je cts o n yo ur co urse e nha nce yo ur

p e rfo rma nce a t wo rk?

Answe r Op tio ns

Yes

No

a nswe re d q ue stio n

Re sp o nse

Pe rce nt

Re sp o nse

Co unt

95.9% 47

4.1% 2

49

0

HE Students Survey Jan 2013

sk ip p e d q ue stio n

Do yo u kno w who to a p p ro a ch if yo u re q uire a d d itio na l info rma tio n a b o ut

yo ur s tud ie s?

Answe r Op tio ns

Yes

No

a nswe re d q ue stio n

Re sp o nse

Pe rce nt

Re sp o nse

Co unt

93.9% 46

6.1% 3

49

0

HE Students Survey Jan 2013

sk ip p e d q ue stio n

We re yo u a b le to a cce ss suffic ie nt info rma tio n fro m so urce s such a s the

co lle g e we b site , o p e n e ve ning s, info rma tio n she e ts , tuto rs o r curre nt

Answe r Op tio ns

Yes

No

a nswe re d q ue stio n