Case Study Jo Ives, Deputy Director World of Work Careers Centre

Liverpool and LJMU

10 th largest university in UK students in Liverpool, 4500 overseas 66% study full-time 55% female 2/3 students from disadvantaged or low income families 45% from Merseyside £300+ m income generation for Liverpool

Aim of the HEAR Designed to encourage a more sophisticated approach to recording student achievement. It acknowledges the full range of opportunities that higher education institutions in the UK offer their students. Allows students to showcase their achievements to employers and postgraduate tutors. It can also be used to help students develop during their time in higher education. HEAR represents the UK’s student-centred and quality- focused higher education culture

LJMU Development Team (developing protocols) Academic Enhancement Registry Employability and careers Student Union Criteria: Evidence based and be able to be verified, open on an equal basis to all students

Aim at LJMU Use the HEAR to maximise employability claims of students in preparation for graduation and transition in employment or further study.. to provide a richer picture of graduate achievement

LJMU Student information on HEAR The HEAR has two main functions: 1.It is a formal exit document, issued to help enhance your employability by providing you with a fuller record of your achievements. 2.It is also a formative document, available for you to make use of from early on in your studies. At LJMU, this will take the form of an Online Progress Report available to view via Blackboard. As a developing record of your achievements, this Progress Report should help you in recognising and communicating your skills and experiences, as well as identifying gaps in your skills and knowledge which you can then focus on during the remainder of your studies.

Focus on Section 6 Debate and discussion on how to best use this section to support on in-house provision and to maximise the potential of this section for our students.

Faculty and curriculum based, managed and assessed World of Work Careers Centre managed, and employer verified

Graduate Skills To help all of our students enhance their employment prospects by providing at least a minimum level of achievement in 8 graduate level skills, which are valued by employers eg Numerical Reasoning – which may not have been present in all programmes, eg Fine Art or History because of subject base, however other programmes eg Mathematics and Engineering will go much further than required

Eight key ‘transferable’ skills that would be expected from all graduates are …... analysing & solving problems team working & interpersonal skills verbal communication written communication personal planning & organising initiative numerical reasoning Information literacy & ICT

Graduate Skills We have developed Skill Descriptors Underpinning skill criteria for all 8 skills Guidance on how skills may be addressed in the curriculum

How it works All undergraduate degree programmes include opportunities for students to gain evidence of achievement of each criteria Advice on the development of the skill (taught) Opportunities to practice the skill (practised) and Feedback on the students’ development of the skill (assessed)

Terminology for Graduate Skills Taught Students receive some input either as direct teaching or reference to resources with the intention of raising skill levels Practised Students are given an opportunity to use the skill Assessed Students are given feedback on their skill level

World of Work Skills Certificate Designed, developed and delivered and ongoing in conjunction with national and international employers – to respond to their needs. Based on employer identified higher level employability skills and attributes Self Awareness Organisational Awareness and Making Things Happen

Formative stages Summative stage Embedded in all undergraduate programmes across the University 5,000 students annually Many programmes voluntarily embedding these 3,000 students engaging annually Voluntary for student 500+ and rising World of Work Skills Certificate Process

Section 6 content Additional Information… Bronze, Silver, Gold - these are formative stages and not separately certificated so the HEAR is the only institutional recognition for this achievement. Internal statement marking processes are all interlinked via SIS to update student achievement on the process/record outcome Final certificate stage, students also receive an additional intuitional/employer endorsed certificate as well as HEAR recognition.

Section 6 content As the World of Work Programme is available to all students and verified we already had a ready made solution for inclusion in Section 6. Our debate was about what else could we include? Awards? Placements/volunteering/internships?

Awards We then realised we had many and varied ‘individual’ awards across programmes and facilities – but these were not institutional awards – usually personal benefactors or society awards so not suitable to include in HEAR Prompted the University to recognise this ‘gap’ and develop new university Academic Excellence Awards

University Academic Excellence Awards Awarded to an individual with the highest marks in all academic modules on the undergraduate programme Awarded to individual with highest mark in the overall degree programme University wide, open to all students and verifiable

Placements/internships Erasmus placements would be eligible Also university funds a number of undergraduate internships that are competitive and open to all level 5 students over the summer (level 5 /level 6) Not including the WBL placements via programmes, differ in length, learning outcomes etc. and are included in transcript

Ongoing debate Recognition of extra curricula activity and link to the university vision “To be recognised as a modern Civic University delivering solutions to the challenges of the 21 st Century”

Developing Civic Award Aimed at recognising individual achievement Student Reps – LSUnion Student volunteering schemes Individual student volunteering Course Reps Possible for 2015 working with Student Union

Formative use of HEAR? Students We were perhaps fortunate in having World of Work in advance of the HEAR developments but it does support this work and provides for all students with a means of recognising their progress through the skills certificate if they do not complete whole process – before the HEAR we did not have this mechanism We actively promote this to students

Students Recognising outstanding academic achievement across all programmes – is now in place We are moving to recognise other contributions individual students make in their academic and study programme and within the community

Formative use of HEAR Institution Recognised we had some areas for development, and HEAR was a catalyst to develop these Academic Excellence Awards Ongoing – with development of Civic Awards

For the Future To get greater use as formative tool we need to continue to develop and recognise via the HEAR student achievements also communicate the use/value of the HEAR via personal tutor system and other media We also have World of Work as recognition/certification of skills /personal development so need to ‘balance’ what each offers to students and not duplicate or devalue