Redesigning the SORA workflow on Portico

The Current Student team is redesigning the SoRA on Portico workflow: we understand that many steps in the current process are time-consuming and manual.

After consulting staff from faculties, departments and the SSWS team to understand the current process and pain points, we have started to redesign the SoRA on Portico workflow. We have reviewed our initial designs with our SoRA on Portico Faculty Champions and colleagues from SSWS and Education Services and are now starting initial system development. We will continue to involve our SoRA on Portico Faculty Champions and SSWS and Education Services colleagues throughout the development process.

We plan to launch the new SoRA on Portico workflow in September 2025 and will continue to capture feedback and enhance the workflow post-launch.

A key design principle is to standardise and automate the SoRA adjustments offered to students where possible and in line with their disability / condition. This will enable staff to redirect time spent on SoRA administration towards provision of tailored support to our students with more complex needs. To achieve this, we are currently mapping assessment types to standardised adjustments. However, we recognise that there will be some outlier assessments where standardised adjustments will not be appropriate. From May, we will invite Faculties / Departments to review the assessment/standardised adjustments mapping and flag the assessments where different adjustments are required. This will be done via a task on Portico and will be open from May – mid-July.

Our SoRA on Portico improvement work feeds into the Beyond the SORA Development programme, led by Denise Long and Zak Liddell to improve the overall SORA experience for all. This programme seeks to find new technical solutions, create new policies, and establish new processes to make SoRAs more inclusive and accessible for students; enabling them to fulfil their academic potential regardless of the challenges they face.

Contact details for further information: Currentstudent@ucl.ac.uk