Rep Drive

imperialcollegeunion.org

Rep Drive

Rep Driveimperialcollegeunion.org/representation

ContentsIntroduction 3

The Rector speaks 5

Accessing Rep Drive 6

On a Mac 6

On a PC 6

Creating a VPN Connection 7

Representative Details 8

Undergraduate 8

Postgraduate 8

Staff Details 9

Mailing Lists 10

Representatives 10

Campuses 11

SSC & Meeting Papers 12

Representation Targets 13

Storage for Reps 14

Publicity Materials 14

Representation Library 15

Policies 15

Briefings 15

Reports 15

Templates & Guides 16

Future Plans 17

© Imperial College UnionVersion 0.5 - 14 March 2012

Rep Drive

imperialcollegeunion.org/representation

Introduction

What is Rep Drive?

Rep Drive is a suite of online resources for supporting and simplifying the work of student representatives.

It comes as a mountable drive on the Union server that certain representatives can access from any location.

Who and what is Rep Drive for?

Rep Drive is for all reps of Departmental level and above - UG & PG Departmental Representatives, Academic Affairs Officers, Academic & Welfare Officers, Faculty Union Presidents, and Sabbatical Officers.

It contains datasets, mailing lists, how-to guides and templates for representatives, assisting them in tasks such as consulting with their students, contacting the representatives in their department, and keeping up with Imperial College Union and national developments in the field of higher education.

It also allows the Representation Team in Imperial College Union to oversee the College-wide representation system, and is a platform for future development of online resources for representatives.

We want our representatives to use the resources in Rep Drive to help them

Jason ParmarDeputy President (Education)E: [email protected]: 020 7594 8060, extension: 45646

Andrew KeenanRepresentation Coordinator E: [email protected]: 020 7594 8060, extension: 45387


carry out their duties while taking the administrative burden away from them - automating the simple tasks and offering storage, advice and access to the work of representatives in other parts of the system.

For example, a Dep Rep could use a template email and the mailing list of reps in his/her department to arrange a Departmental Representation Meeting in a matter of seconds - and then upload the resulting minutes for all reps to access, while using a template email to contact all students in the department about the agenda of the upcoming Staff-Student Committee.

A representative could also use the Rep Drive library to read up on the latest sector news on tuition fees, and read Imperial College Union’s policy, in order to communicate the relevant parts to their students - and lobby us in the other direction.

What’s next?

I see Rep Drive as the first step in building a whole new online service for student representatives, to help them as Imperial College Union helps Clubs, Societies & Projects officers. We will keep you up to date on new additions and resources available on Rep Drive - if you have any suggestions for new features, let me know!

Introduction cont...

Further enquiries

If you are looking for help with Rep Drive, have any questions, or have any suggestions for new content or features, please contact the Representation Coordinator, Andrew Keenan by emailing [email protected].

Thanks, and now go explore Rep Drive!

Jason ParmarDeputy President (Education)

Rep Drive


The Rector speaks

College values its representatives

Sir Keith O’Nions, Rector of Imperial College, wanted to send a message to student representatives thanking them for their role. This is what he said:

Dear all,

Student representatives play an essential role in maintaining and improving

the student experience here at Imperial. As a student rep, you are a

conduit between the students and staff, helping to keep us informed of

your fellow students’ views, concerns and suggestions. All your hard work

so far is greatly valued by me and my by colleagues across the College.

I hope you enjoy the experience; there is much to be gained from taking

on this position of responsibility – both now, in supporting the community

during your studies here, and in the future, thanks to the skills you will

develop during your tenure.

I would like to extend my thanks to each one of you for volunteering your

time to represent the student body.

Best wishes,

Keith


Accessing Rep Drive

If you are not already on the College network, you will need to create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection to College. An explanation can be found on Page 6.

On a Mac

Open Finder, and press Apple-K. Type or paste in this address:

cifs://icfs12.cc.ic.ac.uk/union/membership services/representation/rep drive

Log in with your College username and password.

On a PC

Rightclick on My Computer, select Map Network Drive, (or open the Start bar and select Run) and type or paste in this address:

//icfs12/union/membership services/representation/rep drive

Rep Drive


Accessing Rep Drive cont...

Accessing the College network via VPN

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection allows College staff & students to connect to College services behind the network firewall from a remote location. It is a secure network connection that is layered on top of a public network, such as the Internet, and can be used on PC, Mac and Linux operating systems.

Important note: when connected to the College VPN service, all of your network traffic, including any recreational use, will be routed via the College network. Your use of your device must be compliant with College’s Conditions of Use of IT Facilities while you are connected to the VPN service.

Full instructions on how to connect via VPN can be found by visiting College’s ICT website, www.imperial.ac.uk/ict, and clicking on Remote and mobile access under the Networks section.


Representative Details

Available details

Rep Drive contains two spreadsheets of representative details: one for undergraduate reps, and one for postgraduate reps. These are contained in the folder Rep Information.

Both spreadsheets contains fields that enable representatives to create mailmerges simply, if required - first name, department and email address. However, the majority of required mailing lists are available elsewhere in Rep Drive, and are explained on Page 10 of this guide.

Undergraduate representatives

The spreadsheet of undergraduate representatives, UG Reps 2011-12, has a contents page with links to the tabbed sheets.

The tabs, along the bottom of the spreadsheet, correspond to the ‘levels’ of the undergraduate representation system, including Faculty Union officers.

The categories are as follows:

Faculty Union PresidentsAcademic Affairs Officers (AAOs)Departmental RepresentativesYear RepresentativesWelfare Officers

The purpose of this spreadsheet is to

enable representatives to quickly identify the rep for a specific department or year - not to generate mailings regularly. For that, see the section on mailing lists.

Postgraduate representatives

The spreadsheet of postgraduate representatives, PG Reps 2011-12, has a contents page with links to the tabbed sheets.

The tabs, along the bottom of the spreadsheet, correspond to the ‘levels’ of the postgraduate representation system, including Graduate Students’ Association officers. Representatives for taught courses and those for research students are on separate sheets. MRes, MA, MEd and CAS student representatives are grouped with representatives for MSc courses.


Graduate Students’ Association officersAcademic & Welfare OfficersDepartmental RepresentativesTaught Course RepresentativesResearch Postgraduate Representatives

The purpose of this spreadsheet is to enable representatives to quickly identify the rep for a specific course or research group - not to generate mailings regularly. For that, see the section on mailing lists.

Rep Drive


Available details

Rep Drive contains a spreadsheet of contact details for key College staff, contained in the folder Staff Information. There is also a copy of College’s annual Departmental Contacts publication.

Key College staff

The spreadsheet of College staff information, College Staff 2011-12, has a contents page with links to the tabbed sheets. It contains details of staff involved in undergraduate teaching, postgraduate teaching, and research.


Heads of DepartmentDirectors of Undergraduate StudiesDirectors of Postgraduate StudiesSenior Tutor (Undergraduate)Postgraduate TutorUndergraduate AdministratorsPostgraduate AdministratorsMaster’s Course Staff ContactsOther Key Contacts

The purpose of this spreadsheet is to allow representatives to quickly identify relevant staff contacts for various purposes. It should not be used for mass-mailing a particular category of staff. For that, please contact the Deputy President (Education) who will help you contact multiple staff in an effective way.

The Departmental Contacts publication allows you to look up the key contacts for an entire department at a time. It is for internal use only, and should not be distributed outside of the representation system.

Spotted a mistake? tell us!If you spot a mistake in any Rep Drive document, please do not edit it yourself - let us know and we will edit it immediately. This is to ensure that the information is correct, and to alert us to when a staff member or representative leaves their position.

Staff Details


Available lists

Rep Drive contains a spreadsheet of purpose-made mailing lists of student representatives and campuses in various categories, contained in the Rep Mailing Lists folder.

The spreadsheet of mailing lists, Rep Mailing Lists 2011-12, has a contents page with links to the tabbed sheets.


Rep-only listsCampus all-student lists

Representative lists

The lists of student representatives are Exchange distribution lists, rather than the Mailman lists commonly used in previous years. They are named in a standard format:

icu-reps-<studymode>-<faculty>

where the available study modes are ug,

Mailing Lists

Don’t be a spammerThe mailing lists are strictly for representational use, and are to be used sparingly. Do not send too many emails, and never send any non-representational material - or the recipients will stop opening future emails.

pgr, and pgt, and faculties are hum, bus, eng, physsci, lifesci, and med.

Lists for departmental representatives and undergraduate year representatives, by faculty, are also available, in the format:

icu-reps-ug-<faculty>-<level>

where the available faculties are med, eng and sci, and the levels are dep and year.To find these lists, either type the name of the list into the address book while on Outlook, or search the Address Book.

You can see the members of the list by clicking the ‘plus’ sign to the left of the name in the To: field. This will allow you to remove individual recipients from an email.

The lists are nested, meaning larger lists are collections of smaller lists.

Rep Drive


Campus lists

In the same file, there is a tabbed sheet of campus-specific mailing lists. These are for sending emails to all students at these campuses, not only representatives.

These are Mailman lists, and may be password-protected. If you require a password, please contact Andrew Keenan, Representation Coordinator, at [email protected]

Available lists include:

Hammersmith (Undergraduates) Erasmus & Year in Industry (UG)

Hammersmith (Postgraduates)Chelsea & WestminsterSt Mary’sCharing CrossRoyal Brompton

Mailing Lists cont...

Northwick ParkSilwoodErasmus & Year in Industry (PG)

Institute of Clinical ScienceDepartment of Medicine PGTDepartment of Medicine PGRSchool of Public Health PGTSchool of Public Health PGRSurgery & Cancer PGTSurgery & Cancer PGRNational Heart & Lung Institute PGTNational Heart & Lung Institute PGR

These lists are for the use of the Imperial College School of Medicine Students’ Union representatives, as well as Graduate Students’ Association representatives.

Do not edit any of these lists yourself, and use sparingly.


SSC & Meeting Papers

Storage for meeting papers

Imperial College Union, through representation, plays a central role in College’s Quality Assurance, the process through which College and national higher education bodies verify and improve the quality of learning and teaching.

Staff-student committees (SSCs) are a long-standing part of the representation system. In recent years, Imperial College Union has sought to develop SSCs and maximise their positive impact, through representative training, the creation of SSC guidelines, and the creation of postgraduate SSCs.

A new initiative is the publication of an SSC Summary each term, which ‘health-checks’ each department’s UG, PGT and PGR SSC coverage. This requires us to gather the minutes of all SSCs in College - thought to number over 100.

Rep Drive aims to simplify this by

providing online storage, categorised by UG, PG, year and department. This can be found in the SSC, Meeting & Forum Papers folder.

All Departmental Representatives are asked to deposit the agendas, minutes and papers of their SSCs, as well as any other representation-related meeting they have held, in this folder.

This is to give representation staff and Sabbatical Officers oversight of all SSCs in College, and to enable Departmental Representatives and other reps to easily store, share and access documents from one place.

We hope to build up a library of SSC papers through several years - allowing us to track major goals, such as feedback and improving the personal tutor system, over long periods of time.

one version of the truthPlease store all meeting papers in this folder, and nowhere else. This will help us consult minutes without bothering reps, prevent proliferation of copies, and allow reps to check papers from previous years without tracking down their predecessors.

Rep Drive


Representative Targets

Setting goals, and keeping to them

Every representative runs for a reason - whether it’s something they want to fix in their department, to work on a topic that is important to them, or to introduce something completely new.

It can then be hard to keep a project or goal in mind when coursework and meetings begin to mount up - so to help cut through these distractions and focus the mind of representatives, we are introducing a new model for helping reps stick to their manifesto points.

Called SMART goals, explained below, these are short, specific summaries of each aim. In the folder Rep Targets, we list these publicly for reps to see and judge their progress.

Ultimately, we hope to build up a large library of reps wins of any size or impact, in order to identify the best new ideas and methods and spread them

SMART?Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time limited.

For great SMART goals, add a date, a number, and keep it to 140 characters or less.

throughout the rep system.

We will get in touch with new reps soon after their election and help them turn their aims into SMART goals. Please keep your list up to date, and move completed ones to Rep Accomplishments - and tell the world about your success!

Non-SMART goal:

“I’ll make feedback better”

SMART goal:

“I’ll get the Department to set a deadline of two weeks for feedback to be returned, by the first of March”


Storage for Reps

Store all your rep-related files

As well as the SSC, Meeting & Forum Papers folder, there is the Rep Storage folder. This is for you to use as you see fit - to transfer files from one rep to another, to make something available to representatives in general, to store files to access from another location.

Feel free to use this as you wish - as long as it’s related to representation!

Publicity materials

Help us communicate with students

We will regularly need help from representatives in the promotion of various campaigns - such as the National Student Survey, SOLE or Rep Week.

We will store any publicity in the Representation Publicity folder. If we need your help in distributing publicity - such as putting up a poster or two - we will let you know in advance.

Rep Drive


Representation Library

Reading material and Union policies

The Representation Library folder contains three types of resources that reps may find useful - briefings, policies, and publications.

Briefings

Imperial College Union’s Sabbatical Officers and staff members regularly produce briefings on important topics, such as postgraduate accommodation or tuition fees.

These are not Imperial College Union policy, but are pieces of research which help various student officers quickly understand an issue, and make decisions about how to approach it. The briefings aim to be built upon objective data rather than anecdote.

The small but growing library of briefings can be found in the Representation Briefings folder.

Policies

Bodies such as Union Council regularly

formulate the official policy of Imperial College Union on a particular topic or question. Examples include immigration legislation or tuition fees, or local issues such as College’s disciplinary policy or drinking in Imperial College Union bars.

The library of representation-relevant policies can be found in the Representation Policies folder.

Publications

To help us formulate policy or write a briefing, Sabbatical Officers and staff draw upon the research of external organisations - such as think tanks, trade unions, or lobbying groups. We also read official Government publications and consultations, and respond on behalf of Imperial College students.

A number of the most interesting and relevant publications are available in the Representation Publications folder - including some publications written by Imperial College Union itself.

read anything good lately?If you spot anything interesting about representation, let us know. Also, if there’s something you don’t have time to read and want summarised - just ask.


Templates & Guides

Simplifying & automating things for you

To make the life of a rep easier, we are providing templates and guides for the repeating tasks - such as surveys, emails to cohorts, asking for feedback, writing SSC agendas, and more.

These can be found in the Representation Templates folder. Feel free to change and adapt the templates when you use them - if you think you have a particular good one, upload it to the folder and let us know.

Available templates and guides include:

Upcoming SSC MeetingSSC Agenda TopicsQuestion for cohortWriting SMART GoalsSurveying StudentsResearching an Issue

If you have any template requests, let us know and we’ll create one for everyone to use.

Please don’t delete any templates or edit the version on Rep Drive.

Rep Drive


Developing Rep Drive

Rep Drive is intended to be the first step towards building a fully-fledged online ‘dashboard’ for student representatives of all levels.

We hope it proves useful, and that it frees up representatives from the administrivia of their role so they can spend more of their working time on their research or course. We believe that

Help us expand rep driveIf you have an idea for a new Rep Drive feature - absolutely anything that would help you in your role as a rep - let us know, and we’ll add it to the plans.

Future Plans

services like Rep Drive are not offered by most other students’ unions, so we are in new territory here, and are very keen to develop the idea of online representative support.

If you have any ideas, comments, suggestions or criticism, please get in touch.

yoursabbaticals

imperialcollegeunion.org/sabbs

Your Sabbaticals are elected each year by you the students. They take a year out of their studies and work full-time for the Union as its most senior Officers. Your Sabbatical Officers shape the services and voice of the Union and represent you. To see what your Sabbaticals are doing for you look at our Your Sabbaticals website. Here you can meet each one of them, learn what they do and see what their objectives and campaigns are for the year. They will be blogging regularly about all aspects of the Union, the College and how they have been improving both for you!

If you have any questions or feedback on the Union, your Sabbaticals are always available. You can email them or come to the Union Reception, floor 2M and ask for them.

Scott HeathPresident

[email protected]

Michael FosterDeputy President

(Finance & Services)[email protected]

Nicolas MassieDeputy President

(Welfare)[email protected]

Jason ParmarDeputy President

(Education)[email protected]

Monya ZardDeputy President

(Clubs & Societies)[email protected]

Imperial College UnionBeit QuadranglePrince Consort RoadLondon SW7 2BB

Tel: 020 7594 8060Fax: 020 7594 8065Email: [email protected]: @icunionimperialcollegeunion.org

Rep Drive

Documents

Transcript of Rep Drive