Academic Support Online: introducing a new resource base

  • Alex Lumley: Associate Dean, Academic Support
  • Graham Barton: UAL Academic Support Coordinator
  • Jess Crilly: Head of Resources and Systems, Libraries & Academic Support Services
  • Chris Follows: Project manager for UAL Academic Support Online site build
  • Lukas Becker: UAL Academic Support Administrator

This Poster session starts at 12:40 in the Upper Street Gallery. Back to Poster Sessions

Brief description of session and activities

Academic Support Online is a key enhancement feature signalled in the Strategy for Academic Support 2013-16. It will be a searchable dynamic resource that reflects and expands our academic support offers to students across the University, providing an identifiable single access point to a carefully curated range of innovative support materials that underpin learning and achievement in and across our subjects.   Spearheaded by the UAL AS team, the resource is now in the process of agile and collaborative development, involving Librarians, Language tutors, College AS and CLTAD colleagues, subject-based tutors with adaptable content to share, and students.  

Students will find embedded animations, presentations, infographics, discussions, relevant UAL resource links e.g. to Commonplace and SEE, plus selected external resources. Students will be able to navigate across content types and aspects via tagging, and link to face-to-face support events. The resource is being designed to enable interactivity, so as we go forwards students can, for example, undertake exercises and review content.   Our face-to-face provision of academic support is primary and this resource will help link students into offers of one-to-one and group activities. But the reality of students’ needs - the complexity of jobs, travel, dependants, not to mention shyness, last minute uncertainties or just missing out - is close to 24/7. To support learning in today’s contexts, online resources offer the flexibility needed and expected.     We will display guidance to the site and demonstrate it, explain its features, the processes for developing and transforming content, and invite contributions.

This new resource must offer a great user-experience to all students (and staff) appreciating not only our exceptional diversity but also our typically heightened visual criticality and rhizomatic learning tendencies. So most importantly we are seeking feedback, answering questions, gathering further ideas, offers of content (hopefully) and suggestions for development.

Will students be involved in the session? If so how?

Yes. Students involved in testing site content, structure and design will be invited to be part of the session, interacting with delegates to discuss the resource development and help us gather feedback.

What will participants take away from the session?

  • Awareness of Academic Support Online, how it works and how to access it; knowledge of what aspects are available and ready for use by students;  
  • Knowledge of the scope of the resource, what aspects need further inputs, ways to contribute or provide contacts with other staff or students who could.  
  • Handouts: policy information about attribution, licensing and content curation; simple guide explaining the resource content and structure, and the process for contribution; info about the UAL Academic Support offer as a whole.