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University of Brighton Students Union
Minutes of the Course Representative Meeting held at 10 am on £rd July 2009 at Steam House.
Present:
Sam Forster (Chair) (SF), Joel Andrews (JA), Jodie Howie (JH), Bobby Lambkin-Williams (BLJ), Anthony Lewis (AL), Katrina Mayo (KM), Naz Harrison (NH), Emily-Ann Nash (EAN), Nicola Trelawny (Secretary) (NT), Guri Hazel (GH)..
Apologies
James Macdonald, Stan Stanier.
Corrections from minutes of 5th June
The course representatives group is a committee not a working group.
NT was absent from the meeting of 5th June.
Action points from the meeting of 5th June.
Dates of School and Course Board meetings to be established for the next academic year.
AP Dates to be obtained by 1st September, KM.
009.3. Social events
AL explained that the Learning and Teaching conference which is run be the CLT is the opportunity for the academic community to discuss ideas and share good practice, it occurs during the summer vacation as this is when academics and other staff are available. The committee agree that course reps and the course rep committee would be able to provide valuable input in to this.
009.4 Rewards
It was agreed MBR would look at the cost of 1, 000 pre-loaded/ sponsored memory sticks for course reps.
AP. SF to chase up MBR and handover this role to EAN if necessary, EAN to report back to the next meeting.
009.5 Support.
JH to write up training sessions.
AP.KM, AL and EAN to assist JH.
Wimba has been purchased and needs to be installed.
EAN needs to chase this up with MBR and ensure that the committee is aware of its installation.
The Course Rep Handbook needs to be updated and placed on line.
KM, AL ,JA and EAN will have this completed by 9th September 2009.
Heads of School Survey
KM reported she had replies form 12 of 17 Heads of Schools and summarised her findings.
• There was some discussion on how many reps are allocated to each course.
• It was noted that some courses have deputy course reps.
• AL advised it is the role of the Course-Rep Committee to assist in developing strong guidelines and suggestions as part of the feedback.
• Policy needs to come from officers.
• We need to create expectations and put forward recommendations.
• We need to provide options.
KM reported that it appears to be beneficial when a member of staff is responsible for course reps.
KM reported that records of change are usually recoded in Course Board minutes and placed on student Central, Some schools also produce posters or send emails directly to students. There is no overall way of communicating changes in course/schools to individual students. Individual schools should work out what is most appropriate to them but minutes from school boards should be available within five working days on student central.
KM reported there needs to be clarity about the role of course reps, staff, students and reps need to be clear about this.
A leaflet about what you can expect which would contain information about academic support from the Union and the course-rep system and will be produced and distributed to students and staff. It would be useful if this could be distributed to all students at their first lecture of the academic year.
AP KM, Al and EAN will produce this.
AP AL will investigate the cost of this and feedback to the next meeting.
AP SF will forward useful information to EAN.
Course-rep Survey
Had been discussed at previous meeting.
Accrediting the Course-rep System.
KM has researched what schemes are available at other Universities. The systems in place in Brighton PDP and CPD do not provide accreditation for Course Reps, the Burgess Report which currently informs best practice recommends accreditation of non-academic work in HEI’s.
Informal discussions with staff in the University suggest that they would like to support such a scheme including developing a method of accreditation.
A Discussion followed and it was agreed that accreditation would add value to the University of Brighton degree it would enhance the student experience. It would be valuable to begin developing the Brighton award, it is important that this links in to the Universities corporate plan and that the Coure-rep committee look towards setting up a separate working group to explore this.
AP end of August to feedback on this and to keep SDC informed of any progress. ( I do not have a named person for this).
JH reported that a scheme was being considered at Chelsea School.
AP JH to have a discussion with Chelsea school and will report back to the next meeting.
AOB
AL suggested a report is produced and made available in November which recognises the course-reps achievements. The report would include information on a school by school basis, report/comments from the Vice Chancellor, feedback raised, feedback that resulted in resolution and reflections from course-reps.
Sf gave particular thanks to all involved in the course-rep committee.
The date of the next meeting has not yet been agreed but suggested that it takes place during the first week of August.
As a separate document contact details of all members of the committee.
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