Do you run activities for QMUL students that could be formally recognised on their official transcript? Are you teaching students on a non-credit bearing module where they are gaining valuable skills both for their current study and their potential future career? Are your students doing things in their spare time which might be gaining them valuable skills which could potentially be recognised more formally? If the answer to any of these questions is YES then we are interested in hearing from you.
One of the four pillars of the recently announced ‘Going for Gold’ Strategy revolves around activities that focus on the development of student employability. Within that area sits a project which is seeking to recognise more student extracurricular activities on their ‘HEAR’ or Higher Education Achievement Record – the formal digital transcript all students now receive from the end of year one and onwards after they graduate.
Currently we recognise student prizes in section 6.1 “Additional information” but we know there is more activity out there that we currently don’t formally capture, from being a course rep to being a PASS mentor, doing a QMUL extra module or working as a student ambassador we know we can do better at capturing this information and sharing it with employers on the HEAR.
Obviously we can’t recognise every single thing students do while they are at QMUL but we certainly like to hear from you if you are involved in delivering or know about something that we haven’t already discovered. We are looking for activities that are verifiable by someone and so must have definable outcomes or criteria/milestones/achievements that students have to do for us to say ‘they have done it’.
You can read our draft eligibility criteria here.
If you think you may have something worth capturing then please fill in the google form here and we will get back to you shortly to find out more. If you have already got in touch with us, you do not need to do this again.
We need to hear from you before Friday 30th November 2018 or your activity would not be eligible for inclusion on the 2018/19 transcripts released next July.
The plan is for us to create an accessible directory of extracurricular activities which students can browse to see what kinds of activities may be possible here at QMUL.
We will also be further encouraging students to evidence their activities and their skills development by using our amazing e-portfolio – QMplus Hub. The project will be developing a self-study course showing students how to embed tools in the e-portfolio smartly to help them to be effective learners and could improve their employability. They will also receive recognition for doing the course.
Finally we are hoping to rapidly expand our repertoire of online CPD courses for all students and staff by attaining an institutional licence for LinkedIn Learning (formally Lynda.com). This resource consists of a large library of over 8000+ short courses in video format on a range of topics – IT, Business, etc. We are hoping to run a pilot in semester B 2018/19.
To find out more about any aspects of the project please get in touch with Brett Lucas or Trudy Mason.
