Enhancing the PGR Student Experience
There are many different digital tools at QUB that can be used to enhance the PGR experience online. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution that is likely to work across the university and further discussions are encouraged at School & Faculty level to agree how best to support your PGR students in a considered way.
Finding the right fit
When researching the right tool for the provision PG support within a school or faculty, it is important to consider the following:
- Email is the official communication method at Queen’s.
- Qsis allows for the recording of formal meetings (eg. APRs), the submission of ‘intention to submit’, and mandatory training requirements.
- Staff can create PGR modules within Qsis.
- Note that Canvas does not populate student activity records in QSIS, no future plans to.
- Turnitin is currently required to verify academic integrity of PGR submissions
- Further discussions are required regrarding student access and interpretation of institutional regulations.
- Consider signposting / utilising PGR-specific resources that already exist, such as content produced by The Graduate School, for example.
- It is important to minimise content duplication, consider version control of documents and avoid students having conflicting information.
- In general, consider how resource creation impacts:
- Holistic student experience and demand
- Teaching, learning and assessment methods
- Resources required to develop and maintain output.
- When considering Canvas to enhance PGR Experience:
- Staff should be familiar with Canvas Minimum Standards for taught modules (CED) – these could be tailored and applied to PGR modules
- Canvas functionality is limited when facilitating interactive, collaborative and/or synchronous activity.
Solutions Showcase
The following tools and practices are currently used in different Schools and demonstrate possible solutions for the provision of PGR student support across Canvas, SharePoint, and MS365 tools.
Canvas - (MDBS School-Wide PGR Courses) The School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences (MDBS) provide Canvas modules to support PGR students. SharePoint – (School of Nursing & Midwifery Student Hub) The SNAM Student Hub is a student-led initiative for hosting and sharing information with students. The hub emphasises accessibility, a culture of content creation, sustainability, scalability, inclusivity and representation. Microsoft 365 tools – (The Graduate School) The Graduate School has made use of the functionality of Microsoft 365 tools to provide support for PG students. Canvas ‘Free for Teachers’ was originally deployed, but lacked insisutional support and integrations such as QSIS for course provisioning, Turnitin, and Blackboard Ally accessibility tools. To meet their requirements, the Graduate School decided to create new ‘Class Team’ in MS Teams. Within this, a Class Notebook is organised into 3 parts: Student Notebooks; a Content Library; and a Collaboration Space. Note: No technical barriers were identified to any of the solution that are demonstrated above.
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