Student attendance monitoring – Derby’s journey

Aims of this session

• Hear about Derby’s approach• Hear about the growth and development of

Derby’s systems• Share our experiences, barriers to success and

explore possible solutions

What are Derby’s aims?

• Students at the heart of what we do – we build in support

• We want to re-engage the student with the module and engage the student with the University – we get dialogue going

• Take away some of the administrative burden from academics whilst still giving them autonomy for notifications – academics trigger communication

What do we mean by student attendance monitoring?

Knowing and recording whether the student’s present at ‘taught’ sessions that are described as an essential part of the module

And if they’re not, showing that we’ve noticed!

Where we came from?

• Our evolution from 2004

• History and growth • Paper based form with academics• Time consuming and protracted• Hit and miss who bothered• Not recorded in a cohesive way

05/06 moving forward

• Retention strategy sees benefits of attendance monitoring for supporting students

• Started using Student Record System but not fully integrated

• Logging on different systems to keep track

• Still mostly paper based and long winded• Introduced texting and emailing – started

seeing opportunities for using technology

06/07 to now

• New SRS (Peoplesoft) opened up opportunities to develop more integrated system

• Quicker, better reporting• Introduce electronic capture of

attendance• Momentum starts to grow with

academic buy in

The contractExtract from Student Participation Policy‘… I undertake to participate fully in those activities which aredescribed in each module as essential and that I will inform the Module Leader if circumstances oblige me to miss any of these activities. I recognise that failure to participate adequately in these essential activities may lead to termination of my enrolment in the module(s) concerned or my programme of study I understand that I will be invited to explain my failure to participate before termination on the module(s) or programme

We are the ‘invite’ …

The basics

Student registered on module, but

not attending

Academic (module leader)

‘notices’ and notifies using either scanner

system or Peoplesoft

Notification comes through to Programme

Advisory Service

Student responds, academic notified of

response or signposting to

support services

Student back attending – everybody

happy

Student doesn’t respond – we contact module

leader, what next/follow up action?

Formal letter to

deregistration from module

(in small percentage of

cases)

Within 24 hours student is contacted by text and

email (made aware they must discuss absence with

module leader

Now

Directorate supportAttendance monitoring compulsoryChoice of systemsActivity recorded on monthly KPI and Benchmark

information across FacultiesSmall but perfectly formed team with attendance

notifications as their sole workloadDeveloping our warning systems

Academics are realising the benefits but …

Recognise this?

The systems – electronic attendance collection

• Cheap and cheerful• Uses bar code already on student ID card• Started as a small, academic led pilot• We’ve developed our own system• 250+ in regular, full-time use and phased roll out

of another 200 over 09/10 and 10/11

The menu

The time prompt

Modify data

Email notifications

Reporting out

The student record system

• Through Peoplesoft academic view ‘Faculty Centre’

• Notifications received from either system leads to:

text, email = response, back in class

no response = follow up letters

no response = deregistration with full implications outlined for student and others

worst case scenario = withdrawal from programme (but recorded in a timely way!)

UKBA?

• School of Technology has highest proportion of Overseas students: they all use scanners

• 10 expected contacts? Different for different students – % engagement across modules will be our warning trigger for checking in with the student, support first

• Reporting available to extrapolate overseas student attendance, developing ‘traffic lighting’ for % engagement with modules across a semester

Our model is …

• Academic instigated• Constant throughout teaching year• Choice of systems• Impartial• Transparent• Supportive• Encourages dialogue• Quick response time• High success rate

What’s been difficult

• http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=408470&c=1

• Complex module delivery• Ancient PCs• Scanners don’t work with Apple Mac• ‘Let me concentrate on those who are there’• ‘It’s not my job’• Inconsistency about how often to ‘report’ non-attendance• People still ‘doing it themselves’• Being seen as the ‘tidy up’ for student profiles• Changing landscape: UKBA, HEFCE funding

Successes

• I consider that without the sterling efforts of the Attendance Monitoring Team student engagement and, I argue, student attainment would be adversely affected. I always find this team responsive, professional and diligent in their endeavours to encourage student involvement. A shining example of teamwork and partnership! Assistant Subject Head, Criminology   

• “Thanks for being so "alright" about it all, would've thought you'd been some bloke in an office loving every minute of sending these letters out to get at the students, but you seem to understand the situation I'm in. I do appreciate the offer to speak to [tutor] though. Hopefully this will be the last I hear of the Attendance Monitoring Team and I would've bucked up my ideas in the university.” First year undergraduate student  

Stats: growth in confidence from academic staff

What we achieved

72.9%

14.6% 8.3% 4.2%

0

2000

4000

6000

Now Attending RegistrationChange

AttendanceDe-registration

Other

0809 Attendance Notifications (7286)

Success rate for ‘now attending’ notifications

Notifications per student (3291 students)

Summary

• Increased academic engagement• Directorate support• Improved non-completion rates (HEFCE and programme)• Improved accuracy of student record• Increased retention rate • Recording withdrawal in a timely way• Establishing that ‘attendance does matter’ with students• Students supported and strong links with support services• Traffic lighting for supportive intervention• Driving the system(s) forward into 10/11 and beyond

Student attendance monitoring – the Derby model

• Over to you …

Student attendance monitoring – the Derby model

• Bev Matthews, Programme Advisory Service Co-ordinator 01332 591919 b.j.matthews@derby.ac.uk

• Richard Tarplee, Student Liaison Officer01332 591659 r.g.tarplee@derby.ac.uk

www.derby.ac.uk/attendancewww.derby.ac.uk/attendance-monitoring