How can we capture the student voice in a time of Coronavirus?

Presenters:
Professor Jackie Labbe, De Montfort University;
Professor Guy Daly, Coventry University;
Brian Green, University of Strathclyde;
John Atherton, Explorance

The unprecedented time we are all experiencing around Covid-19 has led to huge challenges for the Higher Education sector. The fundamental shift to online teaching has raised serious questions around how the student voice can be captured effectively (for module evaluation and beyond), especially given the reliance on traditional approaches. In response, we have pulled together an expert panel to allow anyone with an interest in student voice, student satisfaction and student engagement to hear from leading HE professionals who are grappling with this challenge. Attendees will have the opportunity to pose questions, and share best practice, in an interactive session.

Topics covered include:

• Quality assurance – ensuring that online teaching is delivering value and providing evidence that students themselves are receiving a fulfilling education, making insight available as quickly as possible if this is not proving to be the case
• Student retention – ensuring the student voice continues to be captured, and responded to, so existing students don’t leave the system (essentially minimising the threat of students not returning due to poor satisfaction)
• Student recruitment – ensuring that existing students are generally happy with their institution’s response during this difficult period, specifically that their concerns around courses/modules are listened to, and minimising the threat of students posting negative comments on influential online forums which could hamper future student recruitment/income 
• Time and capacity  – ensuring that tried and tested technology is in place to capture the student voice, therefore enabling academic and professional teams to focus on critical priorities (and not least getting to grips with online teaching)
• Longer term planning – ensuring that contingency planning around module evaluation feedback is in place for the future, working with institutions to understand what needs to be put in place for the next future crisis