What does a UCL education of the future look like?

UCL staff and students have only 21 more days to give their views on the university’s Education Strategy for the next five years. More than 250 staff and students have already given their views.

Professor Smith, who oversees the student experience, gave a short presentation on the strategy and set it in context of the government’s recent green paper. He emphasised UCL’s commitment to students and staff working together.

Professor Smith said the Teaching Excellence Framework, which is the government’s proposed way of measuring teaching quality, was “vague” with “no clear link between teaching quality and the proposals for measuring institutional success. The main driver behind them is not to reward staff but to give employers and students information for comparison”.

UCL’s Education Strategy, on the other hand, had “students at its heart”.  “It is not about following the sector so much as leading it with initiatives such as the Connected Curriculum resonating in the sector through the world,” he said. He said there was a need to align our ideas with the sector as a whole, and the government’s plans, as we work towards bringing research and teaching together meaningfully.

One member of staff at the Town Hall meeting suggested that UCL needed to make sure our learning resources and digital infrastructure supported staff better.

Professor Smith and Dr Fiona Strawbridge (Head of E-learning Environments) said UCL needed to look at creating a failure reporting system and that it was currently difficult to predict failures.

Professor Smith said half of the upcoming five-year spend would go on fixing our basic digital infrastructure. He said: “We agree that the basics have to be right, from Wi-Fi to IT support.”

One UCL student asked how UCL was communicating our focus on the student experience to students.

Professor Smith said: “One way is through the ‘core course’, which is currently in development – our hope is that this will be an easy-to-navigate online portal and one-stop information source. Another is to ensure we utilise local communications, which are always more successful, in conjunction with relevant channels such as social media and myUCL. The key is different ways, multiple times, in clear and non- ‘edu-speak’. I would also emphasise partnership working, such as with Student Academic Representatives and personal tutors to ensure we speak to as many students as possible."

Staff and students from across UCL are encouraged to share their thoughts on what a UCL education means to them and what we should work towards over the next five years.

For full details, you can view the draft strategy, and a one page infographic, here. Professor Smith also explained some of the key changes since the last consultation, which are fully outlined here.

Students have been consulted on the Strategy through a number of ways including a recent UCL future of education hackathon and two pop-up consultations in the South Cloisters while colleagues in the Office of the Vice-Provost for Education and Student Affairs have given talks at various faculty and department meetings.