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In mid-October I attended the JISC Student Experience Experts Group meeting. This is normally a face to face event which takes place in Birmingham, but obviously due to Covid-19, this time it took place online via Zoom.

The first part of the event shared the findings from the JISC 2020 Student Digital Experience Insights surveys. A key concern was the very low percentage of students who were informed about how their data was being used at their institution. This is something that clearly needs to be addressed for students but I would argue that it also needs to be addressed for staff.

The second session discussed some research that JISC is currently undertaking on teaching during a pandemic. The research was conducted by Lawrie Phipps (Senior Research Lead at JISC) and Dr Donna Lanclos (an American anthropologist and researcher). They discussed some of the findings and implications from conversations with lecturers and leaders, based in higher education institutions. Unsurprisingly many of the issues and concerns are not new, but little evidence was given about how these issues are being tackled (although this may emerge from the data once their work is published). Topics raised included:

Device and internet access

Many lower income students rely on their institution to provide PC access, free internet access and a quiet space to work, therefore the importance of these 'basics' should not be underestimated, especially in the current climate.

Recording online lectures

The availability of recorded learning opportunities (lectures and seminars in this case) is very important to students not least because device availability, internet access and a quiet place to work can impact their ability to engage synchronously in online learning opportunities. Additionally many students have caring and/or work commitments which means they may not be able to attend at specified (and likely different) times. I know some staff have concerns about intellectual property rights with regard to recorded lecture content, but the benefit to the students of these resources must necessitate a discussion about this (which should be linked to the discussions about data use mentioned above).

The prevalance of passive learning

Concern was raised about how much online learning is staff-led rather than student-led. Students are largely passive in the pandemic online learning process and this was felt by many to be a retrograde step (although not an unexpected one due largely to the speed that teaching has had to be transferred online). Respondents felt that online students were deemed lower in priority than traditional face to face students and therefore there was less concern about what online teachers were teaching when compared to those delivering traditional face to face sessions. Additionally it was felt that more practice-based questions needed to be made available for online learners but it was recognised that this was not an insignificant task in the current climate. Attendees were pointed to the work of Jesse Stommel (his hybrid pedagogy articles) as a good place to start.

Social connectivity

Social connectivity for both staff and students is another concern for respondents as well as the lack of opportunities to develop online trust. Again this is linked to passive learning as discussed above but in short if you are not engaged in the learning process you will not invest in it and therefore you will not develop trust in your lecturers or peers.

Pastoral workload

It was recognised that the amount of pastoral work that staff have had to undertake since the pandemic has increased exponentially. Again this is partly linked to the social connectivity issue but also to the prevalence of passive learning. If students are not engaging in the learning process they will expect everything to be teacher-led and this includes pastoral support.

The next session challenged the temptation in higher education institutions to rely on just their learning technology platforms and tools to gather information about how their students are learning during the pandemic. Chris Thomson from JISC delivered this session and argued that there needs to be a balance between data and narrative to gain a complete picture that accurately reflects current online learning realities.

The final section of the day looked at member stories with PechaKucha presentations from:

• University of Northampton (Developing interactive simulations for Early Years students)
• Glasgow Caledonian University (Tailored and personalised asynchronous teaching tool without duplication of effort)
• University of Wolverhampton (Co-created interactive courseware)