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Parallel Session 5

Thursday 30th (14:15-15:15)

5.1 Show-and-tell session (EFYE outcomes) , room W3.11

A tool for improvement – a database to help staff to evaluate and improve support and guidance for students

Pieterjan Bonne, Jara Van Wiele, Tine Wåst Nielsen, Xenia Mejer Mattsson, Therese Fitzgerald & Bairbre Fleming, SURFY project

Are you wondering how to better support students? So were we… And thanks to the Erasmus+ project Supporting UnderRepresented First-year Students – https://surfy-project.eu – we now have a database with good practices. In this session, we share this database as a tool to help you design and evaluate student support and guidance, both for the entire student community as targeted towards specific groups of students from under-represented groups or disadvantaged background.

The Scottish First Year Experience Network: Lessons from its first year of operation and themes of work.

Luke Millard, Jack Hogan & Alastair Irons, Abertay University, Scotland

This session will report on the work of the new Scottish First Year Experience Network (SFYEN) which is a new collaborative network aimed at enhancing the transition and engagement of students entering their first year of higher education across Scotland. The target areas (Mature, Direct Entry and International students) will be discussed as will the future of this engaging network of practitioners and students.

Building a National Community for Student Success in Higher Education

June Borge Doornich & Karoline Wik, Norwegian Competency Network for Student Success in Higher Education/ Nord University, Norway

How can one build a national community that invites students and staff to work together towards student success? The Norwegian Competence Network for Student Success shares experiences and best practices related to the physical, digital, psychosocial, organizational, and pedagogical learning environments for students in higher education. The goal of our work is to enable more students to succeed in higher education through increased completion rates, outcomes, well-being, and good mental health. We now share the story of our EFYE Team award-winning community.

5.2 Show-and-tell session, room W2.05

Community building as a key factor for social and academic integration in HE!?

Ute Steffl-Wais & Susanne Aigner, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

How can community building succeed in a huge HEI with 3.500 bachelor beginners? This is our challenge at WU Vienna. Our presentation includes the core pillars of our Starting@WU onboarding program, with support elements on different levels. We focus on the community-building aspects, such as proactive support groups right at the beginning and our enriching project groups with high social impact. Finally, we provide an outlook on intended improvements and further developments.

Integration to University Life: A Pilot Project of Extended Orientation in Sabancı University

Kaan Kabukçu, Sabancı University, Turkey

How we can attract students more to inform, present and meet with different parts of university? Do students even care about being involved or see the college as a step? Let’s check the Sabancı University example together!

Feeling home @Thomas More. Our onboarding program

Lieselotte Heymans, Thomas More University College, Belgium

In this show and tell we want to introduce our vision on community building at Thomas More. We will start with our way of working covering our broad basic support to our inclusive approach. In the workshop we focus on how community buidling is done at Thomas More and what we do specifically to optimize the student onboarding process. We will also explain some activities with the participants we normally do with students when we work on community building.

A Comprehensive Approach to Onboarding at KP’s Teacher Education Program

Øzkan Güleryüz & Michelle Mari Laage Sommer, University College Copenhagen KP, Denmark

How we built social and professional communities among students. We will illustrate how we work through social and professional initiatives and offerings to create cohesion within the education program. The focus will be on how we concretely build communities, so the students develop their social and professional competence. We welcome you to engage in dialogue about the ways we work to create closer bonds among the students and between the students and their education.

5.3 Presentation session, room W3.09

Research informed development of a learning analytics dashboard for student counselors using educational design research

Sabrina Govaerts, Yasmine Wauthier & Gert Vanthournout, AP University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Belgium

Monitoring your student population can potentially be a tool for community building. It can provide student counsellors with topics to address with the student population. It can help identify groups of students with similar strengths or challenges or provide at-risk students with likeminded souls. In this presentation we will discuss how we used educational design research to design a useful, accessible and user-friendly learning analytics dashboards for student councellors by involving them in the process.

Navigating the Edu-Jungle: Szeged’s Guide to Taming Higher Learning

Peter Szakal, University of Szeged, Hungary

Hungarian higher education is experiencing significant reforms affecting universities’ legal status, funding, and admission processes. With growing autonomy, universities can tailor their profiles, which is challenging for prospective students, parents, and educators to navigate. The University of Szeged emphasizes accommodating diverse needs and excellence, aiming to leverage regulatory flexibility to support applicants. It seeks to deliver a comprehensive, personalized educational experience, encompassing application assistance, counseling, preparatory programs, housing, and financial support.

5.4 Presentation session, room W3.10

The Impact of grit scores and interventions upon retention and progression – one year on: what have we learnt?

Sheryl Mansfield, Paul Rice, Ivelina Cramphorn & Kate Coulson, University of Northampton, England

This session will be of interest to academic and professional service staff who interact with first year students. We found that a 5 minute self-reported questionnaire which measures a non-cognitive trait of passion and perseverance for long term goals (grit score) can indicate the retention and progression of each participant (n= 424).

Obstacles in creating strong students communities during the first months of studies: Unveiling Student Perspectives through Anthropological User Journeys

Lea Bruun Hartvig Hougaard & Cecilie Vester, University College Copenhagen, Denmark

This presentation explores the user journey of new students during their initial months at University College Copenhagen. Based on the research methods observation and interviews, it covers themes including digital onboarding, initial physical interactions, and information acquisition.
Participants will gain insights into the primary pain points experienced by students pivotal for fostering stronger student communities, and how understanding student user journeys has directly influenced the framework for creating communities at this specific University College.

5.5 Workshop session, room W1.06

The high and lows of student life – how a well-being course can build a sense of community

Marie Brogaard & Line Ellemann-Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Inspired by a growing focus on well-being courses at international universities we have developed the course “Take control of your study life” for all our students.

The workshop’s ambition is to inspire to well-being courses and discuss pros / cons of mandatory well-being first-year seminars, and the potential to:

  • spark better beginnings and a feeling of community
  • facilitate sense of community for first-year students and students in general
  • support balanced student life