Dear all,

I have a question, but first must thank you all (whilst also offering sincere sympathy for all parties in the recent debate) for a great discussion list to which I am glad I subscribe. I'm also a member of the Learning Development in Higher Education Network (LDHEN) Jiscmail (so please forgive my cross-posting for those who subscribe to both). I find them extremely valuable networks - for the brave!

My first post here:

(Perhaps for my sins) I am hopefully about to become a listowner for a student list. Having discussed it with my colleagues, read the Jiscmail smallprint and approached my institution's online and social media policy advisor, I would like to test out my ideas on you if I may.

I work for a central academic skills study support team (to use problematic language for the sake of ease, ironically). I would like to set up a Jiscmail list as an informal, safe-but-challenging(!) space for students to talk about learning and study in order to conscientise processes and feel part of a community in which they can exchange ideas and support. Since the majority of students come to us with concerns about writing (which are largely in fact concerns related to critical thinking, in my view) I thought that EATAW members might have some valuable comments to make on this apparently simple project which I think could be fraught with pitfalls! I'm really interested in online peer support for writing, and would hope that this could play a part in facilitating that. A Jiscmail is just one of the media I'm considering for it, and is I think the simplest and easiest which I hope should allow for emergence and self-organisation (as well as potential chaos and complexity!). Key questions that arise thus far are:


1. What would its focus be? (I'm thinking if calling it either 'Talking of learning...'  or 'Talking of writing...')

2. Who would the target group be? (I'm thinking all students at my institution as per our other face to face and online services and resources, to be invited ideally as soon as a place has been secured so as to aid transition by starting community-building straight away; there could of course be a case for doing this at programme, school or discipline level, and/or for spreading it nationally and further...)

3. As a discussion list especially for students, how appropriate/valuable would it be to open it to staff too? (All can benefit for their learning and teaching, and segregation might have more disadvantages than advantages.)

4. How would it get going? (Apart from inviting people to sign up, I expect I'd need to post to begin discussions until people got confident; perhaps I'd post study resources, guidelines, links, news, events, and/or 'teaser' questions, e.g. 'what's the difference between opinion and critical analysis in academic writing?')

5. How could this endeavour nurture existing good practice (e.g. students supporting each other, engagement with assessment criteria and feedback), inform best practice (e.g. by promoting development of writing by offering opportunities for people to explore and develop analytic, proofreading and other skills) and avoid supporting poor practice (e.g. collusion, plagiarism etc.)?

6. To what extent is the listowner/team/institution responsible for members' posts and their impacts on other subscribers, and what precautions should be taken? (Tailored guidelines can obviously be sent out to new subscribers, and perhaps posted as and when a need arises.)

7. How can students be supported to feel a sense of ownership and responsibilty for, plus engagement in, such a staff initiative?

So the biggest tensions seem to be on the intervention/direction-caretaking-light touch continuum.

I realise that 'try it and see' might be the only answer to some of these for some people. I would welcome relevant and constructive thoughts, experiences and research pointers from you all. I know of projects like SWORD but could not find anything similar on Jisc's list of lists. Does anyone know anything else like it?

Thanks in advance.

Eloïse

Eloïse Sentito

Learning Development with Plymouth University

www.learningdevelopment.plymouth.ac.uk