Gearing up for Transitions Conference Jenni Murray & Alan Wise University of Edinburgh This lightning talk will offer a brief insight into a staff conference which was introduced in 2013. Jenni will overview the conference and how it has developed over the past 4 years and also outline some of the impact measurements we have undertaken. Alan Wise is a 3rd year Maths student who will talk about his involvement in the event and what he gained from his participation. Enhancement Themes conference, Thursday 9 June 2016 John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh

Background info 2013 & 2014 – Gearing up for Induction Conference 2015 & 2016 – Gearing up for Transitions Conference The event was originally focussed on ‘Gearing up for Induction’ since our team is the Pre arrival and Induction Team. It was set up to try to generate a University wide discussion around what we mean by good induction practice. With each year the event has gained traction and has attracted increasing numbers of attendees. In 2015 it was broadened to cover Gearing up for Transitions (in, through and out) rather than just focussing on the ‘in’ stage. This came about due to the University’s engagement with the current Enhancement Theme. Again, there was a need and a desire to facilitate a university wide discussion around the theme. As a large University (12,000 staff) with a very devolved structure we needed to find ways to pull more people into the conversation and to keep the conversations going over the life of the Theme and beyond. From the outset the event aimed to engage staff at all levels and in a broad range of roles and also our Students’ Association (SA) Staff and more recently the broader student body beyond the SA.

Modelling Good Practice Diverse programme Event App Student involvement Feedback and enhancements The team who put on the ‘Gearing Up’ event have tried to use it to model good practice and have done so by trying to ensure it has a diverse and engaging programme that continues to evolve each year. We have done this by introducing new approaches (such as an Event App) and by ensuring that the student voice has been central to the event. Student input has increased each year and this has been informed by both our desire to ensure that staff hear directly from students and from the positive feedback that has indicated just how useful staff have found this aspect of the event to be. So what does the event look like? The following pictures will hopefully offer some insight into the format of the event and then we will move on to look at the impact the event has had both on a student presenter and on staff attendees.

Bringing people together From the first year we were keen that the event was as much about encouraging various internal conversations and networking as about key information being presented. Although the venue of the event has changed 3 times we have tried to encourage these conversations and cross-networking by ensuring the programme allows various opportunities for networking and discussion across departments. In the early years we allocated seating based on mixed staff groups to ensure that Schools, support services and administrative functions were encouraged to mix and share their perspectives with one another. This was especially important to us in the Induction Team for those first two years as we knew from student feedback that they wanted more opportunities to network and socialise at their School level during Welcome Week and we wanted to model this through our own events for staff.

Guidebook App Models what we use with our students in Welcome Week – gives staff the opportunity to use the App in a conference setting and see how it works for new students. We keep in aspects like the shopping and top tips sections in order that staff can become familiar with the App. The App details all aspects of the conference, including presenter bio’s and makes it easier to manage the packed programme. Lightening talks were introduced in 2015 (an idea we copied from another conference we attended in the States), and have been replicated here today!

Posters: Staff and student involvement The conference offers staff and students the opportunity to participate in a number of different ways. The picture here shows a staff member and student volunteer talking to attendees about their PPLS scheme to assist new students to their School. Students were invited to talk about their experience and this helps them gain experience of networking and allows them to see how their volunteer work is impacting upon the University and the Student Experience. Posters: Staff and student involvement

Bring and Brag Stalls This picture shows one of the items that was on display in our ‘Bring and Brag’ area. In addition to the standard poster boards we introduced the bring and brag concept as we had seen it work well at an American conference. It gives attendees the chance to engage directly with a resources that another School/service area has used in some way to work with students on transitions. The example shown here is a toolkit that was produced to help students going aboard to study to gain more from the experience – it gives them a ‘third space’ through which to reflect on their experience.

Student Art Exhibition: It’s a Jungle In 2015 we were able to include a small art exhibition as part of the conference. The ‘It’s a Jungle’ exhibition focussed on student representations of various transitions. The large canvas above being one of the pieces of work produced – it shows the things that can get lost while someone is in transition. This exhibition contributed to the event in two ways. Firstly it presented a real example of how an academic school within the University (ECA) were assisting their students to transition - under the Design Agency Project senior graphic design students work with junior students to run an agency – each taking on different roles with differing levels of responsibilities. Since one of the groups opted to put on an exhibition looking at Transitions this fitted perfectly with our conference theme, and provided our attendees with another lens through which to engage with this theme and conference matter. Student Art Exhibition: It’s a Jungle

As mentioned already, the input of current students has become a central aspect of the event. In the initial years we had a few students input, mainly engaged SA reps. A few of the presenters for the breakout sessions also included students in their presentations. In 2014 we introduced a student panel aspect to the day. This was very popular with the attendees. They loved hearing form real students about their various experiences – good and bad. In 2016 we decided that based on feedback we would replace the keynote speaker with a panel of students and that we would then have two further panels spread throughout the day. We ended up with ‘in, ‘through’ and ‘out’ panels. With the out panel including some alumni who had recently graduated. We are also happy to say that the number of students as co-presenters for breakout sessions has increased. This year we had 10 student presenters, in addition to the 11 panellists. I will hand over to Alan, a current student and a presenter for this year’s conference shortly.

Measuring Impact Partly as a result of our work being set up initially as a temporary 3 year project we felt it was essential that we measured the impact of our various activities (including this conference) on the staff we worked with. As a result from the outset we had ensured that we collected quite detailed feedback from our conference attendees. As already mentioned this enabled us to enhance and adapt the conference each year. The following few slides offer some insight into what impact the conference has had.

Stepping up to honours, Career planning in all years”. The first chart shows that 48% of this years attendees had attended a previous Gearing Up conference. We were pleased to see that attendees are returning and also that we are attracting new attendees each year. This also acts as a driver to ensure we keep the event fresh and engaging. I do think that for our 2017 conference that will be an interesting challenge as it may be we now need to more radically adapt the format to ensure that its stays fresh and sparks new ideas. The 2nd chart shows that 78% of those who had attended previously said they had actually implemented enhancements as a result of attending. We are pleased with this – it indicated that the event is having a real impact and that attendees have been inspired and enabled to try new things in relation to supporting various student transitions. The examples given were broad and varied – just one of the responses is shown above but this is representative of the scope of the enhancements attendees claimed had come from or at least been partly inspired by attendance at Gearing Up. This detailed feedback also gives us a rich source of data that we can then use to approach future speakers for the conference and to find new colleagues across the University to work with. “we've implemented pre-arrival questionnaires, Direct-entry to year 2 support, Stepping up to honours, Career planning in all years”.

Measuring Impact In addition to being keen to know whether attendees took action as a result of attending (or planned to) we also asked whether they now felt better informed about the Enhancement Theme and how the University was engaging with it. The 2015 conference was the launch of the theme – and it clearly helped to raise awareness around our University. By 2016 more people were engaging with the theme anyway but still a good number of people said the  conference helped broaden their understanding. As I have already mentioned a central aspect of our annual event has become the student panel sessions. The attendee feedback tells us that these are one of the most enjoyed aspect of the day and we strongly believe that putting students at the centre of the event has helped staff to focus on the key messages coming from the event overall and in particular from our student speakers. I would now like to hand over to Alan Wise one of our Maths students at the university. Alan will talk briefly about his input in the conference.

Alan Wise – UoE Student and ‘Gearing Up’ Conference Presenter Reflections on: How I got involved What I talked about – key messages I wanted to put across to the attendees What I've gained from the experience

Any questions? Induction@ed.ac.uk Gearing Up resources: http://edin.ac/27TIlNg