Countdown to Final Report!

How fast the past month has gone in, preparing the Draft final report and collating various forms of data for our evaluation. Had some initial confusion over the content requirement for the final report and the case study, however this was clarified by RMSAS, so thank you!
It was agreed that due to the diverse nature of the projects within Group 5, we would provide separate presentations at the event in York on 26th March, however we did feel by the end of our presentations that we did have common findings after all!
The final face to face meeting in York was a great opportunity for the projects to come together and it was interesting to see how all the others had progressed. It was a pleasure to meet everyone and finally put names to faces before it all comes to a close.
I think everyone will be looking forward to a well earned Easter Break before we return to work on the final reports.

Progress Report

Once again our Steering Group meeting on February 18th was productive. Further feedback on pilots was presented - positive reports from participating tutors have indicated that student engagement has improved with those who have received the pilot Tutor Welcome Call.
Automated emails from the Mentoring Team have indicated that this is decreasing the administrative burden. Further discussion on the 3rd pilot - Steering Group in agreement that this needs to be re-visited and a new process mapping workshop has been arranged for 3rd March due to the complexity of this particular pilot.
Telephone calls with other SLRM Project Managers (Group 5) have now taken place to discuss collaborative presentation for March 26th. ICS will contact both Hertfordshire and Birmingham week beginning 1st March to determine how they are progressing with reports and to look at any potential common findings!!
RMSAS call went well on the 19th - Sharon provided further clarification on report content requirements.
The main focus now is to collate as much data as possible for final reports - focus groups with Mentoring Team, telephone interviews with participating Students and reports from our Academic Tutors to begin with......

Where does the time go?....

It is hard to believe that we are now in February..countdown to final report it fast approaching.
The good news is we have had positive feedback on the launch of our Tutor Welcome Pilot and there appears to be positive interest in the launch of UEL's Student Support Services with our distance learning students. One lesson learnt so far is under estimating the amount of time other parties/departments need to commit to the project in addition to their everyday duties and responsibilities.
Our next steering group meeting will go ahead on February 18th.
Looking forward to the face to face group meeting on March 26th. Intend to contact the other members of Group 5 this week to exchange findings on our individual projects so far and to discuss our approach to the collaborative presentation.

Conference Calls Update

Steering group conference call carried out prior to RMSAS call. Group discussed progress with the pilots and various actions to be taken for final preparations. Susan provided feedback to group on Service Design Event in Derby. Attendance was beneficial and following the event, our process maps will now be revised to reflect the advice provided.
Project Update call with Sharon (RMSAS) took place on Wednesday 13th January. Again, provided update on progress, Service Design Event and discussed dates for delivery of draft and final reports.
2 out of 3 pilots up and running and statistics are showing positive interest already in Student Support Services.
Next Steering Group meeting scheduled for February 18th with Final Project Update call with Sharon confirmed for February 19th…..

New Year Update

With only 4 months of the CABLE project left, we have been progressing with the development and implementation of the three pilots, themed around Student Support Services, the Tutor Welcome Contact and Online Registration. Through these pilots, we hope to ensure on-campus and distance learners have similar experiences (i.e. both have access to employability support and health and wellbeing advice) and improve administrative processes to enhance the student experience. We are tracking student-uptake at different stages of the student lifecycle to assess when interventions are most beneficial to students.

We have also been preparing for the final stages of the project, including evaluation and final reporting to JISC.