1. Welcoming international students to York Katy Mann Learning Enhancement Team University of York Wayne Britcliffe E-Learning Development Team University of York

2. Context  20% of York UG/ PG student body are international students from over 100 countries  York inducts 1500 new international students each October  International students are clustered in certain dept’s: Management, Education, Psychology, Economics –York offers a 3 day orientation consisting of talks from support services

3. Drivers for the VLE site  Dept’s requested support in strengthening their academic skill support for international students  International student barometer( survey) identified welcome as weak  International students known to have additional issues in transition, namely information overload, double culture shock academic and pastoral, staggered arrival times, one international co-ordinator.  Need to engage with popular social technologies

4. Existing VLE sites supporting pre-arrival (Int ss)  Southampton University has a large set of resources  UCL, Sunderland and a few others have learning objects held in the VLE for incoming students  York has had a Biology specific ‘Welcome’ site for 2 years (Set Chong)

5. Unique features of York’s Welcome site for Int ss  Blog is student run via ambassador scheme  Students co-deliver workshops with support staff following up from welcome through first term  Explicit coverage of academic culture (socratic tradition/ transparency)  Video of key support staff and lecturers  Materials are particular to York-not generic  Co-developed/ run by students  Academic integrity and referencing emphasis  Safe-assign drop boxes for ss in safe space

6. Content of the site

7. Example of blog entry

8. Example of video content

9. Tracking site usage

10. Evaluation  Focus groups  Survey  Evaluation sheets  Usage stats  1:1 interviews  Debrief with students/ambassadors

11. Site hit rates  571 unique users 4800 hits 63% Post Grads 37% Under Grads

12. Academic Integrity  91 accessed academic integrity area  30 formatively submitted work through Safe Assignment

13. When did they access materials?

14. What was most popular? Content Area HitsHitsPercentage Welcome183024.34% University life138818.46% Academic vocabulary92412.29% Seminars85511.37% Skills76410.16% Independent learning7469.92% Academic Integrity5767.66% Help1662.21% Quiz1361.81% Video1121.49%

15. VLE ‘how to’ guides  17 students accessed how to use –students very savvy on VLE

16. Next  Full evaluation with dept’s / reps  Discipline specific adaptations  Further video / skills content added  Technology results from ‘integrity week’  VLE / ASO training for dept’s on transition possibilities  Echo 360 lectures  Camtasia modules  Guest log-ins if anyone wants

17. Questions