Transformation
The UCISA Transformation Award celebrates groundbreaking digital innovation that has transformed and delivered for the institution and beyond. Contributing to improved processes, better student and staff experiences, management of risk and control of costs. Enabling your institution to make exceptional progress in daily activities.
Anglia Ruskin University – End to End Assessment Project
ARU had manually administered a non-integrated assessment system for over a decade – supporting student submissions, assessment, and feedback practices across the whole institution. Through this experience, the affordances that technology enhanced assessment could deliver were recognised. However, these were offset against the significant administrative burden and stress of manually maintaining such a mission critical solution, and the sub-optimal user experiences which were a result of the disconnection between different university systems. After engaging with Jisc’s Electronic Management of Assessment Project, ARU sought to leverage the integration opportunities that were presented by its new Learning Management System (LMS), Canvas, by embarking on an assessment focussed digital transformation project
ARU’s End to End Assessment Project integrated its Student Records System (SITS Tribal) – with Canvas. This involved making material changes to both systems, creating new tools and processes, and support for the cultural evolution needed as part of the transformation. The project delivered meaningful improvements for students, offering an automated, integrated and consistent experience for their assessments; gave academics direct control of their assessments, and tools that enhanced their assessment experience; and transformed the administrative burden that we once had. The automated solution has programmatically managed assessment processes that could have taken nearly 100,000 administrative hours if undertaken manually.
Queen’s University Belfast – Queen’s Portal
The development of a strategic engagement platform that will form the foundation for improved processes and an enhanced student and staff experience is a key priority of the Digital Transformation Programme at Queen’s University Belfast. Informed by service design workshops, the Digital Transformation Team embarked on the ambitious endeavour to reimagine interactions with students and staff, adopting an agile and low-code approach to allow flexibility and scalability while ensuring the resulting Queen’s Portal had the potential to address the needs of the diverse University community. During 2023 the Portal was launched as the platform for engaging with applicants to process Clearing and admissions support enquiries and with current students for applications and approvals for mitigations and adjustments for assessments.
During the Admissions period, over 1600 enquiries were submitted via the new portal resulting in almost 600 offers being made to applicants. To date, over 3000 requests for adjustments and mitigations for assessments have been made by students due to a range of issues such as illness, bereavement and personal difficulties. In the longer term, it is anticipated that this data will allow the University to gain greater insights into issues that impact applicants and students’ performance during assessment and identify areas which may benefit from targeted support and early interventions. The project has also had a positive external impact having been showcased to other universities at the UCISA conference in November and it was highly commended in the 2023 Belfast Telegraph IT Awards.
University of Aberdeen - Science Teaching Hub
The University of Aberdeen Science Teaching Hub is a unique and inspiring facility for the next generation of scientists to be trained in numerous, socially important STEM subjects. Delivering this world-class science teaching laboratory has transformed science-based teaching and learning through digital innovation and building design.
The Science Teaching Hub is a key exemplar of digital transformation, enhancing the student experience through the use pedagogically led digital technologies across multiple disciplines. This was achieved by working in partnership across challenging boundaries of academic, professional services and world leading technology providers.
In 2022 the University of Aberdeen opened its £35 million Science Teaching Hub transforming science-based teaching and learning through the delivery of a technology rich, world-class science teaching laboratories.
The 73,194 sq ft facility provides digitally enabled teaching and laboratory space over three floors and a central atrium which has inspired collaboration between the chemistry, medical sciences, biological sciences, and geosciences students who study there.
The building, shortlisted for the Education Building or Project of the year Scottish Design Awards, was officially opened by renowned scientist and broadcaster Professor Chris Jackson in Summer 2022.
Professor Jackson said: “The application of science to solve some of the most pressing global challenges has never been more vital, as we seek to reduce poverty, grow economies, and protect natural systems. To this end, it has been an honour to open the University of Aberdeen Science Teaching Hub, a unique, inspiring facility that will allow the next generation of scientists to be trained in numerous, socially important STEM subjects.”
And the winner was......
Anglia Ruskin University for their End to End Assessment Programme
University of Aberdeen were also awarded a highly commended for their Science Teaching Hub
