Sharing Higher Education Data - SHED project

Project Identifier: SHED LTIG project University of Nottingham Version: 1 Contact: Kirstie Coolin, CIePD, University of Nottingham Date: 30

th June 2012

Page 1 of 32 Document title: JISC Final Report Template Last updated : Feb 2011 - v11.0

JISC Final Report

Project Information

Project Identifier To be completed by JISC

Project Title Sharing Higher Education Data (SHED)

Project Hashtag #shedproject

Start Date 1st June 2011 End Date 30th June 2012 (extension agreed with Programme Manager)

Lead Institution University of Nottingham

Project Director Dr. Wyn Morgan

Project Manager Kirstie Coolin

Contact email [email protected]

Partner Institutions Derby College

Project Web URL http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed

Programme Name Phase 3 Learning and Teaching Innovation Grant

Programme Manager Ruth Drysdale

Document Information

Author(s) Primary author - Kirstie Coolin

Contributions from Mike Leam, Mark Hodgkinson and Richard Bell

Project Role(s) Project Manager

Date 30th June 2012 Filename SHED Final Report – 1.0 Nottingham.doc

URL http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/

Access This report is for general dissemination

Document History

Version Date Comments

0.1 20/6/12 Draft for comments

0.2 22/6/12 Incorporate comments from Derby College

0.3 29/6/12 Incorporate comments from Mike Leam

1.0 30/6/12 Final as submitted

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/


th June 2012

Document title: JISC Final Report Template Last updated : Feb 2011 – v11.0

Page 2 of 32

Table of Contents

............................................................................................................................................ 1

1 HEADLINES ............................................................................................................................................... 3

2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................ 3

3 PROJECT SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................. 4

4 MAIN BODY OF REPORT ........................................................................................................................... 5

4.1 PROJECT OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES ................................................................................................................ 5 4.2 HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT ACHIEVING YOUR OUTPUTS / OUTCOMES? ...................................................................... 6 4.3 WHAT DID YOU LEARN? .............................................................................................................................. 10 4.4 IMMEDIATE IMPACT ................................................................................................................................... 14 4.5 FUTURE IMPACT ........................................................................................................................................ 15

5 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................................ 16

6 RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................................. 17

7 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE ............................................................................................................ 18

8 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................... 19

9 APPENDICES (OPTIONAL) ....................................................................................................................... 20


th June 2012


Page 3 of 32

1 Headlines

SHED explored the practicalities of a ‘student-employer’ matching service which would enhance employability learning and serve practical requirements, such as, employers accessing university resources, students finding opportunities in the workplace and institutions learning more about the marketplace. The project consisted of:-

Focus groups with small businesses, students and academics

Requirements analysis and the ‘to-be’ vision

Pilot and demonstrator tools

Key questions and points considered within the report are outlined below:-

How can students and employers be motivated to use new tools for employability?

Where do student, employer and institutional requirements meet, and what would this look like in terms of processes and tools?

Can we use existing institutional learning technology to promote student-led employability learning?

How do Further Education requirements differ from Higher Education?

How can institutions open their doors for employers in new ways to present opportunities for students to interact directly?

Can employer engagement be streamlined?

Can business analysis techniques be introduced into learning contexts?

2 Acknowledgements

The SHED project was funded under the JISC Learning and Teaching Innovation Grant Phase 6 programme and ran from May 2011 for one year. It was led by the University of Nottingham’s CIePD in partnership with Derby College. In particular we would like to thank the following for their input into the project: From the University of Nottingham

Staff from the CIePD, Research and Learning Resources, Information Services

Professor Tom Cross, Associate Professor and Deputy Head of Department, Faculty of Engineering

Steve Upcraft, Business Engagement and Innovation Services and Ingenuity

Andy Beggan, Head of Learning Technologies Section

Wyn Morgan, Director of Teaching and Learning

Caroline Williams, Director of Research and Learning Resources

Focus group students from the Faculty of Engineering


th June 2012


Page 4 of 32

From Derby College

Mark Hodgkinson, HE/International Manager

Richard Bell, Professional Construction Lecturer and Employer Engagement

Steve Ford, Learning Technologist

Students undertaking the Foundation Degree in Professional Construction Businesses

Jonathan English, Skeleton Productions

Darren Gent Progenitor Solutions

Chris Penfold, Design Cognition Other

Leo Lyons, EAT-PDP Project, University of Kent

3 Project Summary

3.1 The SHED project was initially scoped building upon findings from previous JISC-funded projects. In particular, those which emerged from the CIePD SAMSON project (funded through JISC’s Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning programme), outcomes from the Lifelong Learning Networks in the East Midlands and conversations with local employers. It was also devised against the context of the HE White Paper ‘Students at the heart of the System’ which concluded that:

“The relationship between universities and colleges, students and employers is crucial to ensuring that students experience the higher education they want while studying and leave their course equipped to embark on a rewarding career”(BIS, 2011, p45).

3.2 Set also against the background of rising fees, emphasis on student employability and a desire for increased engagement with employers, the project aimed to prototype new methods of student-employer interaction and develop an architecture that incorporated the individual requirements of student, employer and institution whilst providing a mutually satisfactory ‘meeting point’ or ‘introductory service’ which intersected these differing requirements. Initially, these were summarised as:-

Developing professionalism; the student need to integrate professional learning, specifically awareness of the marketplace and sector-specific employment opportunities, into their learning

Finding opportunities to enhance employability; improve the accessibility of students to SMEs and vice versa to support e.g. finding placements or employment

Employer (SME) engagement; providing an online space which SMEs would see value in using

Building intelligence; better understanding for institutions and students of the skills needs of the local labour market

3.3 The aim was to demonstrate a sustainable and low-cost model that would be transferable to other institutions or whole regions which would simplify student, employer and institutional relationship building.


th June 2012


Page 5 of 32

Figure 1: diagram depicting anticipated benefits

4 Main Body of Report

4.1 Project Outputs and Outcomes

Output / Outcome Type (e.g. report, publication,

software, knowledge built)

Brief Description and URLs (where applicable) http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/documents.shtml

Architecture model Mind map diagram based on user requirements analyses

Blog http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eortfolio/shed/

Pilots Within report

Pilots and associated materials

Employer questionnaire and Student workshop activity used for requirements gathering and discussion

Balsamic mock ups Wireframe mock-up used for discussion with employers

Detailed requirements analysis

All requirements gathered from interviews and focus groups. Some are out of scope, but will be considered in the recommendations for future development

Dissemination Flyer Information flyer aimed at stakeholders with an interest in the project

Briefing paper for students A targeted paper produced early on in the project to gain interest from students

Briefing paper for employers

A targeted paper produced early on in the project to gain interest from SMEs

Derby College pilot paper ‘Harmonising Student Learning and Employers Needs’ – a paper written by Richard Bell of Derby College setting forward options for providing; employer engagement, employability skills and career development for employed and non-employed Higher Education Students within Professional Construction at Derby College.

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/documents.shtml

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eortfolio/shed/

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/balsamic-shed-talking-point.pdf


th June 2012


Page 6 of 32

4.2 How did you go about achieving your outputs / outcomes?

4.2.1 Aims and Objectives SHED sought to investigate how innovative technology and use of institutional and student-generated information could help students to integrate professional learning into their University/College experience and support them to take more responsibility for their own learning, through incentivising pro-active behaviours in skill development and employer engagement. The project bid envisaged a technical architecture to facilitate this, illustrated and described below:

Figure 2: initial vision of how such an architecture would work

Student and employer submit profile information.

The student builds up information about themselves and their skills, interests and goals within their ePortfolio

The employer submits a profile using a gateway page. This would include information about their particular interests in working with students and the institution.

The employer searches for specific skills which would return an anonymous list of student matches where they could request further information

The student receives notification and decides whether to open up their contact details to the employer

Other sources of institutional information could be added into the employer search, such as curriculum or research data (potentially this could surface relevant participating students through back-end use of curriculum and student IDs)

Anonymous trends would be gathered via user-generated content and search tracking


th June 2012


Page 7 of 32

4.2.2 Methodology The project sought to assess the feasibility and user-appetite for the architecture through a series of interviews and focus groups and investigation into the availability and readiness of other institutional data and systems. For end users, the most important (if unstated) question is “what is in it for me?” Why would a student or employer use a new system or website if there were no obvious and direct benefits for them? Therefore, this was the focus for the requirements analyses. The list below describes how users were engaged:-

Briefing papers were developed for SMEs1 and students2.

The project was promoted at the Ingenuity Breakfast event on 12th July 20113.

An early draft of information to capture from employers and workflow was developed (Appendix C).

A wireframe ‘straw man’4 was developed to promote discussion.

Questionnaires were created for students and SMEs (Appendices A and B).

Focus groups were held with students5 from the University of Nottingham and Derby College.

Requirements gathering interviews with three SMEs6 were held.

A seminar, ‘Technology for Employability’ was held at the University of Nottingham on 25th May 2012, mainly attended by academics and the Careers and Employability Service and including a presentation from Jeanne Booth of the Good Work Guide social enterprise on ‘Engaging Employers’.

From these activities, a detailed mind map diagram7 and Requirements Catalogue8 were produced to support the prototype development. These outputs, plus the wider discussions generated extended beyond the scope of SHED, however, they have been captured and will be discussed below in section 7. 4.2.3 Pilots The intention was to run a pilot alongside the prototype development focussing on the professional learning of students. The University and Derby College had the Mahara ePortfolio system already installed so an early decision was made by the project group to assess the suitability of Mahara for storing searchable employability data and allowing flexible access and search. For the immediate purposes of the project, using the Resumé sections (see Appendix D) seemed a reasonable starting point. As a tool currently installed and also (during the course of the project) being implemented more widely across the University it would provide an existing vehicle for hosting employability information and a space in which to promote professional learning amongst students. Furthermore, as an open source tool there is the potential to directly search its databases and add in functionality enabling users to release data directly. Derby College ran their first College Mahara pilot with 3 students undertaking the Professional Construction Foundation Degree. It was important that the pilot fit with their existing priorities where impact would be made in the short term. A detailed project

1 SME briefing paper - http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Employer%20Briefing%20Paper%20-%20SHED%20-

%20draft%201%20KC.pdf 2 Student briefing paper - http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Student%20Briefing%20Paper%20-%20SHED%20-

%20draft%201%20KC.pdf 3 http://www.ingenuitygateway.com/News/News/Page-2

4 Wireframe ‘straw man’ http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/balsamic-shed-talking-point.pdf

5 Summary blog post available at http://uilaplep01.nottingham.ac.uk/mahara/view/artefact.php?artefact=14270&view=1336

6 Summary blog post available at http://uilaplep01.nottingham.ac.uk/mahara/view/artefact.php?artefact=14269&view=1336

7 Mind Map diagram http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/SHED%20mind%20map.jpeg

8 Requirements Analysis http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/SHED%20Requirements%20Catalogue%20v1.pdf

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Employer%20Briefing%20Paper%20-%20SHED%20-%20draft%201%20KC.pdf

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Employer%20Briefing%20Paper%20-%20SHED%20-%20draft%201%20KC.pdf

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Student%20Briefing%20Paper%20-%20SHED%20-%20draft%201%20KC.pdf

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Student%20Briefing%20Paper%20-%20SHED%20-%20draft%201%20KC.pdf

http://www.ingenuitygateway.com/News/News/Page-2

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/balsamic-shed-talking-point.pdf

http://uilaplep01.nottingham.ac.uk/mahara/view/artefact.php?artefact=14270&view=1336


http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/SHED%20mind%20map.jpeg

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/SHED%20Requirements%20Catalogue%20v1.pdf


th June 2012


Page 8 of 32

summary9 was written by Richard Bell (Professional Construction Foundation Degree) prior to the pilot who identified a gap in embedded employability learning for students undertaking part-time HE courses.

“Within Professional Construction, employer engagement and employability skills have been refined and developed within a specific frame work for full-time level 3 learners, and has proved to be a great success with employers and students alike providing students with internships, industry mentors and specific enrichment activities. This in turn has highlighted the lack of these activities and concepts within the HE portfolio/offering, and it is against this background that the professional construction team have sought to develop a framework and process that meets the needs of HE students in this respect.” (Harmonising Student Learning and Employers/Industry needs, Richard Bell)

These courses contain a mixture of employed and non-employed students so the aim of this pilot was to develop processes around matching non-employed students with employers and to develop student learning to meet the needs of industry as well as career planning, career development and promotion for employed students within their existing organisations. Buy-in from one company in particular was sought early on as co-operation from their line managers and HR departments was crucial to gain acceptance of the pilot for the CPD context. The company are also keen to ensure that promising employees are not ‘missed’ through ensuring their evidence is retained over time. This helps the company, employee and college to match up their experiences at work with course requirements from the college and to see the progression of their employees and evidence to support their investment in training. A detailed summary of student activity and recommendations arising for the pilot is documented on the SHED blog10. 4.2.4 Demonstrator Following the requirements gathering, a demonstrator was produced. This sought to illustrate requirements from the different stakeholders and demonstrate the workflow and interaction between students and employers, with an emphasis on employer requirements. The design of the demonstrator reflects the comprehensive and detailed requirements11 gathered from local SMEs. Requirements were rigorously prioritised using the standard MoSCoW method to identify the higher priority requirements for implementation. The demonstrator was developed as an ASP.NET web application using Visual Studio and was written in C#. It was implemented using an N-tier architectural design, comprising an ASP.NET web-application running on a web-server, a MySQL database and a CSS-managed presentation layer. ‘Proof-of-concept’ functionality demonstrates how an Employer would use the system as shown in the screenshots included in Appendix G. Employers register on the system and in doing so, record their company details as well as registering their preferences as to the types of engagement with the University that they are interested in. This data can be subsequently amended as and when required. The core use case illustrated by the demonstrator is that the Employer searches for a student who meets their (various) requirements. This has been designed as a ‘hybrid’ search approach and as such supports a

9 Derby College pilot summary https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OdUcIEsLKDlFPjBXo7OQKFT-t-g3Nc_AW0rvuj-

t5Pg/edit?pli=1#heading=h.2dtsn27luc4g 10

Derby College SHED pilot blog - http://uilaplep01.nottingham.ac.uk/mahara/view/artefact.php?artefact=14395&view=1336 11

Requirements Catalogue - http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/SHED%20Requirements%20Catalogue%20v1.pdf

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OdUcIEsLKDlFPjBXo7OQKFT-t-g3Nc_AW0rvuj-t5Pg/edit?pli=1#heading=h.2dtsn27luc4g

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OdUcIEsLKDlFPjBXo7OQKFT-t-g3Nc_AW0rvuj-t5Pg/edit?pli=1#heading=h.2dtsn27luc4g


http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/SHED%20Requirements%20Catalogue%20v1.pdf


th June 2012


Page 9 of 32

combination of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ searching. This allows the Employer to either request to search across all data sources simultaneously (bottom up) or to first select a specific category within which they wish to search (top-down). This is similar in principle to the search mechanisms implemented on the BBC and Amazon web-sites and is arguably emerging as a standard for good practice on commercial web-sites. Specifically, the following use cases are supported by the demonstrator in the form of category searches:-

Employer searches across all data sources

Employer searches for a Student for a Placement

Employer searches for a Student for a Project

Employer searches for a Student for Research Work

Employer searches for a Student on this particular course

Employer searches for a Student with these Goals These category searches relate to, and rely on, corresponding data being entered into Mahara by students wishing to market themselves to Employers. The illustrative implementation shown by the demonstrator could be significantly enhanced and improved by the development of a Mahara Employability plug-in (see section 7) which would enable the information searched for by Employers to be captured in a more structured and granular way. Note that in order to meet the requirement (identified during requirements elicitation workshops) that students retain control of their own data, search results are presented to the employer in an anonymised format, as illustrated in the screenshots in the Appendix G. The Employer then submits a request for permission to view the student’s portfolio which must be accepted by the student before the Employer can view any further information about the student. This reflects the ‘circle of trust’ principles put forward by the EU FP7 TAS3 project. 4.2.5 How the project changed SHED was a consultative project. Requirements were gathered as described in paragraph 4.2.2 and subsequent findings impacted on the direction of the project. Staff changes meant also that the technical work was started later than envisioned, so there was a weighting on defining methods and processes to inform the technical work and recommendations for further development. As a part of the Learning and Teaching Innovation programme, the project sought to identify and trial innovation in:-

1. Incorporating professional learning into student activity 2. Student engagement with employers 3. Integrated workflow around permissions and policies.

4.2.6 Initially, it was envisioned that findings from the TAS312 EU project on auditing data flow and assigning user-specified policies to the data would be used. The TAS3 technology developed for this was in the event rather complex and developmental, requiring significant skills in Unix and C for implementation which were not available for the project, and which also would have been surplus to SHED requirements. However, core TAS3 concepts of personal data and ownership have influenced the development of the project and its recommendations.

12

http://tas3.eu/

http://tas3.eu/


th June 2012


Page 10 of 32

4.2.7 In the event, the demonstrator sought to implement permissions and data release by allowing users (students specifically) to retain control over their personal data through the ePortfolio and workflow (as identified in Appendix C) operating via use of database table flags to enable interaction and iterative release of data between student and employer. An anonymous search criterion is harvestable for storage in a database for future querying and business intelligence. If this approach were implemented for a large number of users, then a solution would have to consider the storage and analysis of a large and growing dataset. 4.2.8 Navigating the data SHED highlighted the different types of institutional data and issues around their release and access.

Student-generated data

Curriculum information

Student record data

Other institutional data of interest to employers There is a challenge is to find the pathways through the masses of institutional data and actually to determine what could be useful and how it could be presented. There is slow and ongoing work to be done in the sector more widely to develop information streams available via web services and to review data protection requirements. As with all projects undertaken with JISC, interoperability and standardisation of data/processes is key. Nottingham is undertaking an XCRI-CAP project with JISC’s Course Data programme13, although results services from this have not been available within the SHED timeframe. A separate Curriculum Mapping project is also running – however, the timings of all of these activities have not intersected in a useful way within the project timeframe. 4.2.9 The original idea for SHED was an innovative one. The project examined the ‘as-is’ and designed the ‘to-be’ processes and functions to enable direct contact between the student and employer, bypassing potential administrative hold-ups. The solution draws lessons from the business world, such as recruitment practices and online matching services, and examines how these might be suitably applied to HE. Applying iterative interaction between student and employer, whether for seeking a placement or receiving feedback on project work, strengthens the relationship and provides a ‘virtuous circle’, further developing student learning about their professionalism and reinforcing the students employability in the eyes of the employer. For Derby College, SHED saw the first use of Mahara within the College and in particular, enabled the College to innovate in their management of student’s professional learning, using it as a platform for peer development, career reflection and learning from employer input. Students gather information that is related to employer requirements and from that learn how their knowledge appears for an employer. This is not only learning for them, but for their peers and the College in understanding what sort of information is of interest to their employer contacts and how students should be advised to fine tune their employability information to improve their career prospects.

4.3 What did you learn?

4.3.1 As discussed in section 4.2.2, the project team engaged with students, employers and academics throughout the project to inform development and to evaluate our assumptions.

13

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/coursedata.aspx

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/coursedata.aspx


th June 2012


Page 11 of 32

These engagement activities proved extremely useful and informative not only for SHED, but to inform other projects and activities including the concurrent CIePD JISC-funded ESCAPES14 and Ingenuity KnowledgeHub15 projects, the University’s own fledgling Mahara implementation and new practice in promoting student employability for Derby College. Below are summaries of the key messages extracted from interviews and focus groups. 4.3.2 Employers

“Many businesses are keen to access universities’ specialist knowledge and are unaware of the R&D capacity available within the student body. For non-engaged companies, particularly SMEs, navigating through the maze of diverse education institutions and courses to find the right skill or contact can be problematic.” (SHED project proposal 2011)

Discussions with employers centred on a set of questions (Appendix A) but in actuality developed into broad and rich discussions about how and why they interact with the University. 3 SMEs were interviewed in depth, and the employer view was sought at Derby College on engaging with their employee’s learning.

SME engagement with Universities is more inconsistent than that of large blue chip companies. At Nottingham, we are fortunate to have a strong and growing community of SMEs through the Ingenuity network16 and its regular programme of business-focussed events. This provides an accessible way for SMEs to engage, network and find contacts. Once initial contact with the University has been made, they are put in touch with the areas they express interest in. This is a huge job to perform manually - so a system which could surface relevant information from different departments would be very much desired, particularly as University information is notoriously hard to find due to its distribution across different academic schools and departments.

Knowledge transfer in a broad sense was identified as a top area of interest which, from the SME viewpoint, could largely be labelled as; expertise, events and research.

Students and knowledge transfer As well as an interest in University research, the employers were interested in student placements, internships, projects and employment. Small businesses are often on the cusp of growth and innovation, and a good student placement or project can be invaluable at this time. However, in taking on a placement, the business has to be sure that the benefits for them (as well as the student) are clear.

In summary, the SMEs interviewed viewed the following as desirable:-

A single ‘front door’ to the University - and a 'hook' for engagement

Bite size pieces of information, easily accessible via the web, mobile app or email digest

University events available in one place and filterable

Ability to find students for discrete pieces of work (paid or otherwise)

Access to research and innovation headline information (filtered by interest)

More university engagement with social media for easier personal networking and identifying key contacts

14

www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/escapes 15

www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/knowledgehub 16

http://www.ingenuitygateway.com/

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/escapes

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/knowledgehub

http://www.ingenuitygateway.com/


th June 2012


Page 12 of 32

An online community where students, academics and employers can share ideas and make connections

4.3.3 Students

“..students will expect a clear return on their investment, including enhanced employability at graduation. Institutions need to seek out creative and cost-effective methods to maximise their students’ employability and enhance meaningful engagement with employers.” (SHED project proposal 2011) “We come to University and assume that employability is getting the degree but are starting to learn that it’s the degree plus other stuff” (student participant in workshop)

In order to identify the motivating factors for students to create and share information about themselves, workshops were held with Nottingham and Derby students. The former were invited to answer questions (Appendix B) and to discuss their own views on their employability as well as the project aims with the team, whereas the latter group were interviewed more informally with their lecturer. The University student discussion is summarised below and the Derby student discussion is summarised in section 4.3.4 within a wider discussion in a Further Education context.

The Nottingham students were a self-selecting and motivated group, all sharing a concern with finding good employment beyond their studies. They were aware of what constitutes employability, describing these skills as being interpersonal, resourcefulness, ‘knowing who to ask’ and managing projects. Work experience and placements are viewed as vital in helping them to realise their long term career goals.

Some interesting points and assumptions raised by the students were:-

Course, Skills and Interests

Coursework and team projects are more useful forms of assessment than exams in developing transferable skills.

Module choice is influenced by the reputation of the lecturer, general interest and is generally not considered of interest to the employer.

For some, there is a worry about module choice being too specific and closing down options. For others, specialising early represents a clear idea of future career choice.

Currently, information about employer demand can be found through the careers centres, employer talks and websites.

The importance of extra-curricular activities to gain new skills (student societies etc.) is recognised, however, for engineering students with full timetables, time is an issue.

Accessing businesses

The smaller the company, the more specific the skills required.

Summer placements are sought after - these are student-sourced and not a part of the course.

There is less awareness of engineering SMEs when applying for placements.

It is easy to find the household names, but opportunities are competitive. Access to smaller companies is key.

The first job on graduating is seen as a kick-start to a career.


th June 2012


Page 13 of 32

The engineering job website Gradcracker17 was cited as a good place to find employers, as is engineering magazines, careers fairs and Google.

Personal networking with employers is a good way to find opportunities as is word of mouth from other students or family.

There is an interest in current employer demand, research and growth areas.

The students were asked what ideally they would like:-

Clearly presented information via the web (such as Grad cracker).

A university provided, comprehensive and easily accessible list of companies, tagged and searchable by sector, wage bracket, job description and company information (including social responsibility, employee benefits and information about former placements) with the ability to store 'favourite' companies.

Somewhere to browse available placements which the University has secured.

Up to date links to the company application procedures.

Information about company project areas.

Company presentations do not clash with lectures, e.g. breakfast meetings for networking opportunities would be preferable.

Careers fairs with smaller companies represented.

Employment opportunities advertised with a salary specified - not just labelled 'competitive'.

Feedback from employers, and support with interpretation, if unsuccessful.

4.3.4 An FE perspective SHED presented Derby College with an opportunity to respond to its more immediate needs in trialling new approaches to promote career development and professional understanding within the level 4 HE in FE programme. This is discussed fully in ‘E-portfolios – Harmonising Student Learning and Employers/Industry Needs’18 (Richard Bell 2012). A focus group (report available in the project blog19) with the students and lecturer from the Foundation Degree in Professional Construction revealed a pragmatic interpretation of the use and purpose of the ePortfolio and their motivation for recording professional development, namely, finding a job and career progression. The group understand the value in learning how better promote, market and differentiate themselves to potential employers through sharing employability data with employers. The pilot has raised issues for Derby College, one of which is company IPR (Intellectual Property Rights). Whilst on the course, students are made aware of what it is appropriate to upload and to share – this is a part of their professional learning. Introducing an agreed code of conduct before using the system is one way to alleviate these issues.

17

http://www.gradcracker.com/ 18

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Harmonizing%20Student%20Learning%20and%20Employers%20Needs%20-%20Derby%20College.pdf 19

www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/

http://www.gradcracker.com/

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Harmonizing%20Student%20Learning%20and%20Employers%20Needs%20-%20Derby%20College.pdf

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/docs/Harmonizing%20Student%20Learning%20and%20Employers%20Needs%20-%20Derby%20College.pdf

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/


th June 2012


Page 14 of 32

Continuing engagement with employers is time consuming for college and employers, the latter not always wanting a constant update on learner and work experience progress. Any way this can be made easier is desirable, hence the commitment from the HE Manager to grow and embed the work into other HE in FE programmes. However, as with other new e-learning activities, continued success can depend on the commitment of individuals. This is recognised by the HE Manager who will continue to promote the work (see section 5, conclusions) within the College. 4.3.5 Other learning points Academic staff at the University (engaged primarily through the Technology for Employability event on 25th May 2012) emphasised the diversity of students, from those very strategic and motivated students to those less engaged with their own professional development. Students at Nottingham have many opportunities to undertake activities to support their employability, often embedded into their course (collaborative project work for instance), some accessing placements and internships, student union and societies and the Nottingham Advantage Award20 to name a few. All Graduates need to be able to articulate their employability skills and present themselves to employers, and in addition, recognise that the majority of employers will be SMEs. Furthermore, a presentation at this event from Jeanne Booth on ‘engaging employers’ stated that the top 100 large corporates provide around 30,000 vacancies annually whereas there are approximately 350,000 graduates (Wilson Review21 paragraph 6.4). The project brought together a diverse steering team, with representation from business engagement, learning technology, curriculum, technical and management, and for one meeting, an international perspective from the University’s Malaysia Campus colleagues via video link. There were benefits to having a diverse range of perspectives and individual priorities which helped to define the strategic aims and direction of the project; however, this can sometimes lead to ‘scope creep’. SHED uncovered many interesting, highly relevant learning, outlined further in section 6’s recommendations for further work. Although the project was to trial and test innovation, for which a year-long timeframe is appropriate, in order to take aspects of the innovation and try to embed them can be difficult to achieve in this timeframe. With embedding comes stakeholder commitment which removes the high-risk elements of undertaking new practice.

4.4 Immediate Impact

4.4.1 SHED has uncovered new ideas and approaches to student-employer relationships within the University. The most significant and immediate impact for the University was that the evidence arising from employer discussions and the overarching vision behind SHED enabled a new piece of innovative work to be scoped and evidenced to build more fully on the SME motivation for accessing and engaging with University resources. The result was the JISC BCE Access to Resources project, Ingenuity KnowledgeHub22. The project joins Business Engagement Innovation Services with Community Partnerships, the University of Derby, Social Enterprise the Good Work Guide and SME In A Fishbowl and is building a new online community for small businesses whilst utilising semantic technology for surfacing University information (see Appendix H). The long term view is that student employability information would form a part of the University resource that employers are interested in.

20

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/careers/students/advantageaward/ 21

http://www.wilsonreview.co.uk/review/graduate-recruitment/ 22

www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/knowledgehub

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/careers/students/advantageaward/

http://www.wilsonreview.co.uk/review/graduate-recruitment/

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/knowledgehub


th June 2012


Page 15 of 32

4.4.2 Dissemination Strategic University dissemination occurred through the project Board, containing the Director of Research and Learning Resources, the Director of Teaching and Learning and the Director of the Careers and Employability Service. Project dissemination materials were produced and made available at a range of events and conferences, including; ALT-C 2011, EPIC 2011, Technology for Employability (project event), Assessment in a Digital Age (University event), AGCAS 2011, JISC events and ad hoc meetings with colleagues from other institutions. Further dissemination will occur at the Greenwich Employer Engagement in a Digital Age, EPIC 2012 and ALT-C 2012 conferences. 4.4.3 Participants in the project The Deputy Faculty Head of Engineering at Nottingham has championed the project throughout and furthermore will be supporting any spin-off activities with a particular emphasis on teaching and learning. Learning from SHED has cross-fertilised with the Nottingham’s ePortfolio Implementation project the CIePD’s JISC-funded ESCAPES project, particularly in relation to student placement learning, evidencing professional skills and student motivation to use these tools. The project team remain in contact with the SMEs engaged with during the project which has seeded a new University/employer relationship. The demonstrator also provides a catalyst and talking point for the departments involved and to introduce new ideas and ways of working. 4.4.4 Derby College have started to embed the benefits of their pilot within the Foundation Degree programme, although the current uncertainties for FE may put this at risk. However, SHED has provided the College as a whole with their first opportunity to use and assess Mahara. Students on the pilot have developed an understanding of what material they should be collecting and how to record and present themselves. This forms part of a ‘professional mind-set’ being developed through participation in the pilot. The company has responded positively to the concepts of being able to view shared student data with interest emerging primarily from one or two of the employer mentors. They see benefits in being able to keep an overview of their employee activity whilst they undertake rotational placement within the company (technical training occurs in at least 3 areas of the company) and to be able to view their evidence. 4.4.5 The students are populating their ePortfolios (see Appendix E) with enthusiasm and regular meetings have been arranged by their lecturer over the summer recess. Professionalism via reflective and self-directed learning continues to be promoted, a valuable skill which the CIOB Professional Body is keen to promote. The employer mentor remains positive and is planning to brief other workplace mentors following an evaluation with his existing trainees. Informal conversations with a construction employer HR representative have revealed an interest in ‘career development’ ePortfolios. From a practical curriculum assessment point, the lecturer is using more typed feedback which is reinforced with one-to-one meetings. This has meant greater time being spent on assessments/assignments that may be used within the student’s e-portfolios.

4.5 Future Impact

4.5.1 The SHED project represents the skeleton framework for student-employer matching and interaction. Its constituent parts require further robust and embedded construction through iterative and targeted change. The Ingenuity KnowledgeHub project presents an opportunity to do this for Nottingham, and the Mahara pilot for Derby. At some stage, the


th June 2012


Page 16 of 32

parts need to meet and this is where meaningful interaction will take place. The team are considering how to develop further work as outlined in section 7 to strengthen the framework – referred to by a member of the steering team as ‘son of SHED’. The framework and concepts are designed to be flexible and adaptable for development beyond the project. 4.5.2 Future impact of SHED will be realised through Nottingham’s Ingenuity KnowledgeHub and ePortfolio implementation projects (described in section 4.4) and Derby’s continuing work with level 4 HE students and their employers. A wider group of College staff see the benefit of the level 4 students sharing elements of their information with level 3 students, demonstrating to them techniques and exemplars for employability early on in their learning. Overall, the value is seen in being able to understand what employers want to see and what they are interested in. Students understanding how to ‘sell themselves’ in the employment market and to present another channel for them to differentiate themselves from other candidates. 4.5.3 Support for job-seeking The intention within Derby College is to carry on the basic concepts trialled with other full and part-time HE in FE courses to support students in finding jobs – although, this may be subject to the uncertain FE funding situation. Where the employer mentor defines what they want to see, this may determine how students who are not currently in employment structure and present their information, giving a greater understanding of what employers want to see more generally. Employer interaction with the employee’s ePortfolio will enable all students to fine tune their shared information thus providing a valuable insight into employer requirements, helping inform the whole cohort, not just those in work. 4.5.4 However, would employers be interested in viewing a student’s ePortfoio showcase page? For the Derby students, this provides another channel for students to use to promote and market themselves to potential employers. Having the supporting information, incorporating personal and professional achievements, differentiates the candidate to employers (see Appendix E). Participants recognise the value in being able to quickly pull together customised ‘views’ for different applications based on existing personal content. Their showcase can be used to supplement/enhance the paper application where existing processes restrict the application format. Once a link is provided within an email, it is also easier to be passed on within the company or through personal networks. Building in tracking as to who has accessed the shared information and how many times is desirable, and can be done through some bespoke reporting either via Mahara or through the SHED architecture and could potentially be as simple as a read receipt or hit counter, or providing stats back to the user via Google Analytics. This is an important part of assessing how effective the channel is.

5 Conclusions

5.1 Employability for students and employers is a practical concern. Course and career

learning as well as the practicalities of finding placements, internships and work do not exist

in isolation. Students need to know what employers are looking for and how to access them

as well as being able to analyse, recognise the value of, assess and showcase their

employability and subject-related skills to employers. This typically might integrate with more

traditional Personal Development Planning (PDP) activities, but essentially needs to form an

embedded and valued part of student learning. The HEA state:


th June 2012


Page 17 of 32

“Employability can be enhanced through personal development planning, but

success will depend upon the extent to which students see a ‘pay-off’ for the effort

that they put in.” 23(Embedding employability into the curriculum, HEA)

For students, the ‘pay off’ may constitute short term interaction with employers for seeking

work or work-experience which also provides real-world learning about the sectors they are

interested in.

5.2 For employers, involvement with Institutional systems needs to present them with

immediate and tangible benefits; for instance, finding a project or placement student faster, a

confidential way to source short-term talent or the ability to focus on applicants from an

appropriate area. Any system or interface needs to be easy to deal with and actually useful.

5.3 Introducing new systems or processes, communicating with users and building up numbers is time-consuming. Where systems exist and are already being used then building upon these is a sensible option, for instance, the current ePortfolio or a well-used business network. 5.4 Institutional tools enable students to develop professional habits of reflection and self-awareness in a secure environment. Students use social networking tools. Professional networking tools such as LinkedIn offering showcasing and CV functions are important also in presenting employers and learning about the marketplace, thus arguably form part of employability learning as well as learning about how best to use these tools for career progression.

6 Recommendations

6.1 General recommendations and recommendations for the wider community

Meaningful employability and professional learning practices ought to be embedded into day to day student use of learning technologies and tools

Consider how a continuation of the above practices could be offered to Alumni (see Kent’s EAT-PDP24 project) in a cost effective way to maintain engagement and offer a useful service.

Students would benefit from a form of access to the university employer contacts.

Make it easier for students to develop their own relationships with employers.

Review PDP practices alongside practical employability concerns for students.

Promote institutional ePortfolio use for direct student benefit (e.g. a marketing tool for students to match themselves to employers).

Cement the understanding of employability skills and what they mean for the institution, track and present marketplace intelligence to inform institutional employability practice.

Continued effort on employer engagement.

‘Build it and they will come’ does not generally work. Remove barriers to systems and processes, for instance, for employers, consider using LinkedIn login criteria for access to systems.

23

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/id460_embedding_employability_into_the_curriculum_338.pdf 24

http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/eatpdp/2012/04/17/developing-the-student-catalogue/

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/id460_embedding_employability_into_the_curriculum_338.pdf

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/id460_embedding_employability_into_the_curriculum_338.pdf



th June 2012


Page 18 of 32

Develop a clear understanding of what useful institutional information is held which is of interest to employers.

Use more communication and networking tools to support career learning.

Work towards standardising institutional datasets to aid discovery. 6.2 Recommendations for JISC

Further funding work to develop and embed employability tools (section 7).

Join BCE and eLearning programme outcomes.

Develop a future eLearning theme around developing employability.

While new approaches have been identified, a longer project would be beneficial to support further change and embedding.

Further work to promote institutional open data and put in place the institutional infrastructure.

Promote benefits of why investment in the above is important, specifically aimed at non-technical audiences (XCRI-CAP being a good example).

FEIs in particular are operating in an increasingly uncertain world. It is important JISC recognise this and offer more contextual support for responding to immediate needs.

Both partners would welcome dissemination through JISC publication or the On Air radio programme. Case studies helps to promote esteem within the institution and help to embed new practice.

7 Implications for the future

7.1 The SHED project has enabled the two institutions to investigate and trial parts of a student-employer matching service. The issues arising are useful for project partners as well as the wider HE and FE community. Documentation, in particular the requirements catalogue25 and mind map provide materials to build upon. These will be accessible from the CIePD website indefinitely. 7.2 Where next? The team unearthed other possibilities arising from the SHED project work which largely emerged from requirements gathering. These are suggested developments which could promote the employability of students in a low cost and student-focussed way:- 7.3 Employability tools There is the potential to develop a range of tools which could be plugged into an existing/used eLearning system, such as an ePortfolio through use of widgets, plugins or other module technology. These further ideas turn the SHED architecture around, placing students in the position of ‘actor’ rather than ‘resource’. Possible tools may include:-

a) Access to University-engaged employers (CRM headline information/business from the Ingenuity KnowledgeHub community)

b) A place to view employer opportunities (e.g. unfinished projects, placement offers etc.)

c) Tagging and storing ‘favourite’ employers d) An enhanced and structured employability profile e) Tool to find and collaborate with fellow-students to pool resources for responding to

employer project needs for placements/internships or work.

25




th June 2012


Page 19 of 32

f) Social media connections – e.g. drawing information from ePortfolio status updates into Facebook, rather than vice versa (which seems to be the norm at present)

g) Development and release of richer evidence for job seeking (see Note) For further information on requirements gathered to inform the above, refer to Appendix F. Note: The team consulted with Leo Lyons of the University of Kent EAT-PDP 26project which is developing a ‘Student Catalogue’. On completion of the project a Mahara plug-in will be available that enagles Google Search Appliance searching of alumni ‘pages’ built specifically to expose to potential employers.

7.4 Continued work on institutional web services and data standardisation To underpin the flow and access to information both internally and externally, institutions must continue to build on initiatives such as XCRI-CAP and Open Data to provide the data structures necessary for realising fit for purpose services in the long term. For instance, development of a web service and open data directory would enable data to be re-used and shared either internally or externally according to as yet unpredicted user requirements.

Centralisation of approach (particularly when supplying services) Unified approach to data and information - use of RSS, data standards and web

services plus common tagging to enable aggregating and search across different data sets

7.5 Potential for Collaboration A future impact envisaged at the time of writing the bid was a long-term regional service allowing employers to connect with students and resource from different institutions depending on their interest. Employers are interested in resources and knowledge of a particular type regardless of the institution. Regional Development Agencies would possibly have provided a central point for such a service, but in their absence, there would either be reliance on individual institutions to collaborate or for students to opt-in to share data outside of the institution. In theory, this could present a valuable resource for students to market their knowledge and specialisms to interested employers.

8 References

Direct references are presented inline. The following present either foundations of evidence to underpin the project or work referenced or developed during the project.

EAT PDP University of Kent http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/eatpdp/2012/04/17/developing-the-student-catalogue/

Ingenuity KnowledgeHub http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/knowledgehub/

EU FP7 Tas3 http://tas3.eu

University of Greenwich GWizards http://www.cms.gre.ac.uk/enterprise/gwizards/

SAMSON and ESCAPES projects http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/

JISC LLLWFD projects http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/workforcedev.aspx

JISC FSD programme/Infonet http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/flexible-service-delivery/programme

26



http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/knowledgehub/

http://tas3.eu/

http://www.cms.gre.ac.uk/enterprise/gwizards/

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/workforcedev.aspx

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/flexible-service-delivery/programme



th June 2012


Page 20 of 32

JISC BCE Programme http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce.aspx

Grant, S. (2009) Electronic Portfolios: Personal information, personal development and personal values. Chandos. ISBN: 9781843344018

http://www.graduatesyorkshire.co.uk/internships

http://www.milkround.com/

http://www.grb.uk.com/

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce/stream4.aspx

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/collaborative-tools/context-tools

9 Appendices (optional)

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce.aspx

http://www.graduatesyorkshire.co.uk/internships

http://www.milkround.com/

http://www.grb.uk.com/

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce/stream4.aspx

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/collaborative-tools/context-tools


th June 2012


Page 21 of 32

Appendix A – Interview questions for employers


th June 2012


Page 22 of 32

Appendix B – Student focus group activity worksheet

SHED Workshop Activity

Name______________________________________ Year______________________________________

Course_____________________________________

Please answer the following questions on your own and then discuss with your neighbours. We will revisit the Activity following the

presentation.

A: Your course, skills and interests

1. How is employability a concern for you?

2. Do you know what career you want?

3. What influences your module choices?

4. How might you find out about employer demand for particular skills

(including ‘transferable’ skills)?


th June 2012


Page 23 of 32

B: Accessing businesses

5. What might your reasons for wanting to interact with an employer be? E.g.

placements, networking, internships, employment, other

6. How would you go about finding and contacting employers?

7. How do you think the University could/should help you to access employers?

8. What information about you and your course do you think employers might

be interested in?

C: In an ideal world… 9. If there were a system which allowed you and an employer to find out about

each other in a secure way, what would it look like?

10.What sort of information would you want from employers?

11.What might the issues about accessing this information be?

Please revisit your answers after you have heard the presentation and note any further thoughts/changes


th June 2012


Page 24 of 32

Appendix C - Process for employer search and workflow

Action Enhancement or process

Student populates their profile, and resume information (including goals, achievements and interests) They will be directed to e.g. fill in ‘interested in’ e.g. placement, research project, general opportunities etc.

New button added to Mahara ‘make searchable for Employer Portal (beta)’ <new db table save userid/artefactid/date> <new table access log userid/artefactid/employerid/datestamp>

Student clicks button to make their data available anonymously

New record within shed access

Employer registers on portal and fills in profile. Can edit profile at any time.

Create user credentials. Record

id (auto)

?Vat number? Check

name*

location* (from google map to record lat/long ideally? Investigate tying in with google places?)

A bit about the company*

sector* (from SIC list?) (future potential to access other sources of data)

Interest keywords* – separate by comma for building keyword/tag cloud through usage)

Interested in* (offering placement/student for internship/providing employment/research?? / other - specify)

Market Research questions

Have you contact with the University before? Detail?

Are there areas you would like to pursue (drop down list from BEIS/other)

Employer logs in. Sees search results based on their registration details (interest keywords, interested in)

Query available data, return anonymous information.

Employer refines search Interest keywords Interested in (note, does not change registration information) Update access log, save new data in ‘event log’

Employer expresses interest in a student “ we have n matches on the search term X” Click to view” Pull through available artefacts. Button for employer ‘do you want to contact this


th June 2012


Page 25 of 32

student? If so, an email will be sent to the student who will be able then to view your profile and initiate contact’ If yes:

Student receives email confirming that there had been interest in your profile. Email contains a link to the employer profile

Student clicks link – accesses employer profile. Button ‘share your profile with this employer’ (protected URL?)


th June 2012


Page 26 of 32

Appendix D – Mahara Resumé section


th June 2012


Page 27 of 32

Appendix E – Derby College pilots (screenshots) Below is a screenshot from a Derby College pilot participant’s ePortfolio. He has shared this with his employers and it includes a mixture of personal achievements, scanned news clippings, qualifications, technical certificates and training reviews.


th June 2012


Page 28 of 32

Appendix F – Requirements for Employability tools _________________________________________________________________________________

(1) Employer Search Functionality (Plug-in will allow Students will record information to be searched on)

F1.01 - Employer searches for a student to match their requirements Employer searches for a student with specific skills and competencies to match their requirements F2.06 - Student records Employability Evidence Students record their skills, competencies, employment experience and accomplishments to their personal portfolio enable them to demonstrate evidence of employability _________________________________________________________________________________ F1.01.06 - Employer searches for a student with particular goals Employer searches for a student with goals and aspirations that match what the Employer is offering (goals, type of work/duration of work/geographical area/working hours etc) F2.05 - Student records employment goals Students record their aspirations e.g. their goals, geographical areas/sectors/roles/working hours they’re interested in working in to enable to Employers to search and locate them according to their preferences _________________________________________________________________________________

(2) Student Search Functionality (Plug-in will provide interface for student to perform search) F1.04.01 - Employer records skills and competencies required Employer records the high-level skills and competencies required for their organisation (as opposed to for a specific vacancy). The employer would effectively define an high-level job description at the organisation level which the students could then search against and compare with their profile F2.02.02 - Student searches for Employer Competencies Student searches for qualities and competencies required within a specific organization _________________________________________________________________________________ F1.04.03 - Employer records their company details Employer records their company name, location and optionally their address and post code, telephone number, email address, web page, vacancies URL, Company Number, VAT number and Sector (SIC Code) F1.04.04 - Employer records their company profile information Employer can (optionally) record information about their company, its culture, size and their interests that is relevant to the University and it’s students e.g. a synopsis and keywords F1.04.05 - Employer records what types of opportunities they offer Employer records whether they are interested in offering Placements, Internships, Permanent jobs, Research opportunities F1.04.07 - Employer records what areas of the curriculum map to their business Employer records what areas of the curriculum map to their business and are therefore of interest to them in terms of engagement, student recruitment etc F1.04.02 - Employer records a list of unfinished projects


th June 2012


Page 29 of 32

Employer records a list of outstanding projects that they need to complete so that the university can potentially engage with them and provide resources/consultancy to complete them F2.02.01 - Student searches for prospective Employer Student searches for an employer who is looking for a student with their skills/competencies and matches their interests and personal requirements. Search could include Sector, Keywords relating to skills/competencies/interests, Region/Geographical area, Salary Offered. Progenitor Solutions suggested using Amazon-style suggestions to try and help fill hard-to-fill vacancies


th June 2012


Page 30 of 32

Appendix G – Demonstrator screenshots

G1 - Design of home page interface for demonstrator purposes

G2 – Capture employer information 1

G3 – Capture employer interests (to aid search and matching)


th June 2012


Page 31 of 32

G4 – Employer search

G5 – Anonymised search results

G6 – Submit request to student – introductory email sent (Note: in principle, this alert could be received as a text message or Mahara activity alert).


th June 2012


Page 32 of 32

Appendix H – Prototype for Ingenuity KnowledgeHub employer interface

This is a screenshot developed by Zabisco for the JISC-funded CIePD project, Ingenuity KnowledgeHub. While not a part of the SHED project, it illustrates the evolution of ideas and embedding of employer requirements into further activity. The two elements being developed for Ingenuity KnowledgeHub are the ‘Fishbowl’ and ‘Semantic Search’ (developed by the University of Derby’s DISYS). These represent a combination of a useful employer community tool and a presentation of useful University resources. These elements sit within the University of Nottingham’s Ingenuity Network website, a successful SME engagement tool. In the long term, student profiles could form an area for search by employers.