Following up on Caroline's email last week, this is to outline our pilot
project at Kent: an 'exam results help-line'. We are still very much in the
planning stages, with a view to piloting this in the summer of 2005.

The project builds on one particularly successful aspect of our student
retention VALUE Programme: help by phone or email for all participating
students with poor exam results. On our Canterbury campus, we have succeeded
in contacting 100% of these students - wherever in the world they happen to
be over the summer - and have found that this has a significant impact on
the retention of these students. Consequently, we are extending this
activity outside the VALUE Programme as a pilot project. The key (proposed)
characteristics will be:
1. The project will be a partnership between the Unit for the Enhancement of
Learning and Teaching (UELT), and those academic departments committing to
participation (commitment = there will be a member of academic staff
available to advise students between results and re-sits).
2. The project aims to advise Stage 1 (first year) students about the
implications of their results; provide support with revision and exam
strategies for re-sits; refer to academic staff (acting as advocates if
appropriate) to explore alternatives (change of programme, re-entry to Stage
1 etc); refer to specialist support where needed (Counselling, Careers,
educational guidance etc)
3. Within participating departments, students will be contacted prior to
exams to encourage them to (a) update their university record of
address/contact details and (b) provide, if they wish, further temporary
summer contact details
4. A team of advisers will use a telephone 'hot-line' to contact as many
students as possible, following up by telephone and email as appropriate.

That's the plan! We'll see how it goes.

In addition, the Student Learning Advisory Service (which I coordinate) is
available to all University of Kent students over the summer, with resources
and advice to support their studies. In practice we don't publicise this as
we're not a big enough team to sustain a full schedule of events outside of
term-time, but some students do use the Service over the vacation. During
term-time there is considerable take-up and our experience echoes that of
Sheffield Hallam. I'll be contacting Cal for feedback on her pre-resit
provision which has some similarities with what we are proposing.  For more
about our Student Learning Advisory Service, visit
http://www.kent.ac.uk/learning/

All the best

Jan
Dr Jan Sellers
Coordinator, Student Learning Advisory Service
Unit for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching
University of Kent
Canterbury CT2 7NQ
Telephone: 01227-827124 or 824016
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ruth Brown" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 11:40 AM
Subject: Thank you for your responses


> I am attaching the collated responses that I received from you concerning
> assessment matters. Some of you expressed interest, so I thought that you
> would like to see the whole.  When I have had responses from the other
> people I have contacted, I will ask John Hilsdon to upload the final
> document to the site.
>
> Many thanks for your support.
>
> Ruth
>
>
> Ruth Brown
>
> Academic Developer
> Learning & Teaching Enhancement Unit
> London South Bank University
> Technopark 2B27
>
> 020 7185 7804
>
> [log in to unmask]
>