‘E-Help!’ – Learner Support in Higher Education Development and implementation of a support website for students in a School of Art and Design Jonathan Rhodes MA & Onkar Dhailwal MA

Centre for Learner Development (CLD), The School of Art & Design (SAD) The University of Wolverhampton

CLD Statistics (SAD) 2005/ students supported (before AD1007) 2006/ students supported (first year of AD1007) 2007/ students supported

CLD Statistics (SAD) 94 per cent pass progression rate for individuals that attended at least one session in the Centre for Learner Development. 64 per cent rate for students who have not received support.

Broadband connection Statistics Approximately 60 per cent of UK homes have access to a broadband connection (Ofcom 2009) 94 per cent of students in the School of Art & Design (SAD) use broadband in their home. Marshall et al. (2009 p.417)

Genesis of Project Idea After consultation with fellow CLD staff members and the L&T Coordinator in SAD, the need for a CLD online resource has been highlighted. Many issues and queries could be successfully resolved by students accessing this resource and it would provide a platform for aggregating learner support content needed by students throughout the school. If issues are successfully dealt with at an early stage and the student overcomes difficulties they have a higher likelihood of progressing in their course of study, impacting on retention.

Liz Norton The Student Enabling Centre (SEC) Consideration when designing a website for students with dyslexia and other learning challenges. Colour choices - pale yellows and blues Text - left justified Font – Sans Serif Formatting – lower case Images preferred over text

Tom Hicks Harrison Learning Centre, School of Art & Design Harvard Referencing Plagiarism Study Skills Advisors Assist Tom Hicks own Support web pages

Jean Dyson & Dr Jane Cooksey Centre for Learner Development (CLD), The School of Art & Design (SAD) Welcome Page Time Management Student to student mentoring One to one academic Support Dyslexia and special educational needs support

Project Justification Currently students have to visit the CLD office for specific leaflets, handouts and advice regarding time-management, dyslexia, essay planning, disability issues, etc. A website would provide answers to many of these questions, accessible any time. It’s not restricted to traditional office hours or geographically limited - for distance learners. It will provide support to students during busy periods when staff are struggling to assist large numbers of students

Design and Construction Initial build using Dreamweaver/Photoshop/Illustrator software. Final elements using Dreamweaver/Photoshop/Illustrator/Flash. On completion the site would be hosted on the University of Wolverhampton’s, School of Art & Design page, accessible via a link in one of the navigation bars or quick links menus.

Conclusion 8 of the proposed 30 weeks to work on the project still outstanding leaving project uncompleted at present date. All content and Flash development of a working version of the site complete just the final construction of the site required. Hopefully this could be done in the near future – depending on financial and time considerations.

Conclusion Hopefully benefits of the site recognized, leading to further support and release to student body. Possibilities to expand across into other schools in the University and further into the higher education landscape. Institutions need to meet the demands of a consumer aware, technologically compliant student body. Online support needs to be available to those students that would benefit from it’s existence Site could be developed as a mobile browser friendly web page or app –for operating systems such as Apple, Android.

References Marshall, L., Austin, M & Hale, P. (2009) ‘Enhanced podcasts for enhanced learning’ in Houghton, N. (ed.) Enhancing Curricula: Using research and enquiry to inform student learning in the disciplines. Proceedings of 4th cltad conference, April 2008, New York, USA. London: cltad, pp OFCOM - Office of Communications (2009) Ofcom Access and Inclusion Digital communications for all [Online] March 2009 [last accessed: 29th April 2009] Available from:

Contact: Jonathan Rhodes / Onkar Dhaliwal /