Schools and the New Student Portal

Rachel Ashton – Acting Director of Resources

School of Education

Acceptors portal - the background• Response to the large attrition rate between enquirer

and student• Proposal in April 2010 by Paul Butler, James Cameron,

Annette Devine, Iain Gray and Clifton Kandler• A portal aimed at students who have accepted an offer of

a place and provide first hand experience of the University’s web-based services, systems and applications

• Various research undertaken – studies, focus groups• Rolled out in summer 2011• Live in February 2012

Benefits• Familiarisation with our technology for pre-arrival students• Significant impact on registration with early issue of id and password

• Can be available early on for those ‘acceptors’ early in the cycle• Easy transition from ‘acceptor’ to ‘student’ using the same

environment• Positive impact on induction and year-start with many students

already familiar with teaching and learning technologies• Engenders a sense of belonging to the institution which has positive

implications for retention• Students will have the facility to network via the portal groups

function.• Once registered, students will automatically be transferred to the

Student Portal using the same process within Banner.

How does it work?

• Uses the existing portal infrastructure

• Acceptors portal platform with generic university information

• Schools develop their own area

• Applicants are emailed log in details once they have accepted their place

Total invitations sent for 2013 intake so far

SCHOOLS TOTAL ACCEPTORS Architecture, Design & Constr. 294Business 1170Computing & Mathematical Sci. 702Education 588Engineering 319Greenwich Maritime Institute 16Health & Social Care 603Humanities & Social Sciences 754Medway School of Science 494Natural Resources Institute 105

Total Sent 5045

Getting started….

• Learn your way around Moodle• Research other Schools pages• Dedicate some resource !• Decide a structure - Department,

Programme etc.• What do you want to say? School

specific information

What would applicants like from the Acceptors portal?• Welcome from Deans• Reading lists – links to specific publications • Information on programmes and programme heads –

what are their specialities?• Facilities available – labs and speciality equipment in

areas of science and engineering• Updates on events and conferences• Support provided by School

• Student mentors/ buddy system

• Placements

• Ability to communicate with existing students and staff

• Achievements of past students

• Timetables!!!

• Associations and professional bodies associated with School

• School hierarchy

• Staff availability

• Programme information

What else?

• Don’t rewrite/recreate information, if it is elsewhere link to it

• Lift/adapt the ‘good stuff’ from other schools

• Useful contact of people that will answer! Maybe link to staff profiles.

• FAQ’s

• Feedback for improvement/request box

• School specific services

• Films – if you do not have any made consider doing some amateur films i.e. intro to your Programme Leader

• Brochures/booklets

• Links to social media sites and blogs

• Term dates

Interact with your acceptors

• Ask students to fill out their profile to make interaction more personal and interesting for all

• Use the News Forum to send messages to all Acceptors on your site

• Set up a Forum where students can post• Use images/video in posts to get students’

attention, enliven content, and stimulate discussion.

What works?

• Images/photos – hyperlink from them to make page more exciting

• Clear headings/sections

• Consistency- terminology, structure, fonts

• Using a variety of resource i.e. page, URL

• Drip feeding content

• Tell applicants and staff about it

What doesn’t?

• Broken links

• Headings that do not have content

• Empty topics (sections)

• Repetition of generic information

• Setting up forum/enquiry sections & forgetting about them

• Not monitoring activity

Discussion points

• Who’s responsibility is this within schools?

• Has there been enough support/training?

• Are students engaging?

• What else could we include?

• What is working?

• What isn’t working?