In February we launched the Representing Your Academic Interests Report at our annual Academic Representation Conference at UCL East
We share a collective ambition for excellence in all aspects of student life and we believe that by working closely in partnership with UCL we can make progress to address student concerns and improve the experience of students now and in future years.
Shaban Chaudhary, Education Officer
Using extensive research from the National Student Survey, we co-developed 7 recommendations based on student feedback, and have been working to address these collectively. These include key strategic projects like delivering on the findings and recommendations from the Review of Personal Tutoring Arrangements, agreeing on new principles for Student Partnership Committees which promote co-creation, and revising feedback and assessment across programmes to ensure it is enhancing learning.
Our recommendations
| ThEME | Recommendation | Progress to date |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching | We recommend UCL continue to move forward with the Programme Excellence Project in partnership with students so that programme diets, modules, and assessments are more streamlined and equitable across UCL and to ensure students are supported in a fair and consistent manner to succeed. | This year every programme will review their programme using the new curriculum design principles to help ensure that programmes remain academically challenging and coherent for students. Programmes will consider student feedback and work with Academic Reps when they review and make any changes. |
| Learning Opportunities | Promote greater use of lecture capture facilities to ensure more recordings are available to students in a timely manner, including those in smaller cohorts. | In 2025, UCL will be introducing a new lecture capture system. This system will make it easier for academic staff to record lectures and edit and publish lecture content, helping ensure that recordings are available to students in a timely manner. |
| Assessment & Feedback | Programmes should offer a diverse range of assessment methods that are spread across the duration of the module with less bunching of assessments and more opportunities for formative feedback in between assessments to enhance learning. | Feedback and Assessment should be timely and enhance learning in line with the published principles. In 2025, programme leads will be asked to review and make changes to their assessment as part of the Programme Excellence Project. UCL have also brought in a new in-person digital examination service allowing for a mixture of different assessment tools to be implemented. |
| Academic Support | Deliver on the findings and recommendations from the Review of Personal Tutoring Arrangements. | We are piloting the implementation of the Personal Tutor Review recommendations in Departments across UCL. We’ll use this trial to set new standards around personal tutoring, helping tutors provide better support to students. |
| Organisation & Management | Improve scheduling to ensure student timetables are delivered in a timely manner which is inclusive of the needs of the learner and supports their attendance with learning activities. | Whilst we are limited by space on campus we will continue to work together and develop timetables based on the feedback from students. |
| Learning Resources | Ensure Moodle pages are reviewed to ensure they are organised, accessible and up to date. | We have undertaken a review to set new standards across the university for Moodle pages with a focus on promoting usability, accessibility and consistency. This project will be reviewed in the coming months. |
| Student Voice | Move forward with the implementation of the adoption of the principles for Student Partnership Committees and work with Academic Representatives to ensure these are consistently and effectively implemented across UCL. | We worked together to agree new principles for Student Partnership Committees which promote cocreation and supports richer student engagement. |
What next?
Earlier this year we published our annual Student Priorities for Education Report, an overview of feedback from our network of 2,000 Academic Representatives who sit on Departmental Committees with academic staff. The report provides a comprehensive digest of student feedback, providing rich insight into the student educational experience, and suggests steps that could be taken to make improvements based on current trends across UCL.
If you’d like to arrange a meeting with us to discuss how we can work more closely together please reach out to Colum Mackey, Head of Policy, Representation and Evaluation, c.mackey@ucl.ac.uk