Using eLearning Tools to Support and Engage Record Numbers of Reps Rachel Pratt, Sophie McCallum, and Tanya Lubicz-Nawrocka EUSA Academic Representation

Setting the Scene Challenges we were facing: -Engaging Class Reps across the University’s Edinburgh-based campuses, and online distance learners -Understanding impact of those in the Class Rep role -Last year we trained a record number of 500 Class Reps in person, only a fraction of all Class Reps -Ever-increasing numbers of Class Reps…

Increasing Numbers of Class Reps 2,238 Class Reps (1,592 individuals who are often a Rep for more than one course or tutorial)

Online Class Rep Training -Hosted on Learn -Undergraduate- and Postgraduate- specific versions -Can be completed in own time and not in one sitting -Accessible and can be completed anywhere

Impact of Class Rep Online Training

What are Open Badges? -Flexible, free, digital accreditation -Full of information (metadata) -Open source – organisations and companies around the world use them!

What are EUSA’s Open Badges?

Benefits for Students:  Better understanding all aspects of the role  Reflecting on and documenting their work and successes  Sharing work and successes with other Reps and the students they represent (anonymised blog posts at n/your_schools/) n/your_schools/  Earning additional accreditation that could be displayed on LinkedIn Benefits of EUSA Open Badges Benefits for EUSA:  Fewer questions about the Class Rep role  Learning more about the local work of Reps in their School  Learning more about the impact of the Rep role on students’ personal and professional development  Sharing the work of Reps across the university  Providing a new form of recognition and reward for Reps

Quantitative Impact of EUSA Open Badges

‘The Class Rep experience has been an adventure, even through one semester. I have developed many new perspectives and with those perspectives have come new skills. The three skills I feel have been the most beneficial have been: encouraging participation, cross-cultural communication, and mediation.’ Qualitative Impact – Skill Development

‘I learned that giving optimism a chance is far better than aggressively trying to change an issue all by myself, moreover that this is not what leadership means.’ Qualitative Impact – Leadership

‘I am able to listen more assiduously to criticisms and liaise more effectively with members of staff, putting new procedures in place. Whilst no longer being afraid to challenge the status quo, I can nonetheless recognise that sensitivity and diplomacy are essential tools in change management.’ Qualitative Impact – Change Management

 EUSA’s Academic Representation team was the first in the University to experiment with having over 1,000 students in a single Learn area  Optimal functionality is below c. 500 users  Difficulties with bulk upload of new users when one UUN causes a problem, all following UUNs are not added  Information Services can help with bulk uploads  Surveys in Learn are anonymous, but they are helpful for ungraded reflections for intermediate training and the Edinburgh Award  Add a survey question to ask for students’ names Learning Points – Using ‘Learn’ at Scale

 EUSA’s Academic Representation team was the first in the University to pilot the use of Open Badges via Learn, in collaboration with Information Services  address in Learn must match in Mozilla Backpack because of identity theft issues, but this is problematic once students graduate  Somewhat tedious process of exporting badges to the Mozilla Backpack and then to LinkedIn  Some students had unknown and unresolved issues exporting some badges but not others – these tech problems are too complex for us to resolve ourselves and there aren’t too many resources to solve more difficult issues because badges are new Learning Points – Open Badges

Conclusions  Using eLearning tools have helped us upscale, train, and support record numbers of Reps in their role  Online training and Open Badges have helped us to have a strong positive quantitative and qualitative impact in engaging Reps  Importance of having essential material and training online and optional, in-person intermediate training and events

Questions? Comments? Thank you!