FAQs
FAQs
Collaborating with students can bring fresh perspectives, richer insights, and real impact—but it's important to approach these partnerships with care and clarity. This section answers common questions about when collaboration is (or isn’t) appropriate, what benefits and challenges to expect, and how to support students effectively throughout.
If you need any further information which is not covered on this page, please reach out to us via our feedback form and let us know what we may be missing!
There are many situation and project types where collaborating or co-creating with students is valuable, but there are situations where this may not be appropriate.
Here are some examples of areas where you may want to consider alternative routes:
- Projects focused on sensitive topics- such as wellbeing concerns of students, or dealing with confidential student data are unlikely to be appropriate for collaboration
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Marking and grading- it involves grading or evaluating their peers in formal assessment and can be inappropriate for several reasons, particularly when it comes to fairness, reliability, and professionalism
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Timelines- effective student collaboration takes time to build and may require significant support and skills development. Both students and staff will have other deadlines and workload that may disrupt effective collaboration. Further, some Terms may entail a heavier workload than others (Term 2 can often be a pinch point), therefore, before considering a student collaboration project, it is important to think about how this will fit in with both student and staff workload. Typically, projects that involve tight timelines may not be appropriate for student collaboration
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Vague project briefs- some students may work well with idea generation around a theme, and skills in this area will vary according to student and level. However, for many students, a clear project brief is required to ensure that students clearly understand what is expected of them and the timelines for project delivery
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Skills needs- some projects lend themselves well to student skill sets, and others can be effective in building student skills “on the job”, however there may be some skills that a student would need significant pre-training to achieve, therefore it’s important to match the skill set of the students to the requirements of the project, without the expectation that students will upskill themselves
There are a lot of details in our Why and When to use section. A general guide is thinking about if the project directly impacts on students, e.g. a product or service they use then student collaboration will be key to creating a better, more accurate provisioning for the project.
There are a lot of benefits, not just for students but for all involved in the project. Often there are unintended benefits you could not foresee that are revealed as a result of the collaboration process. Collaborating with students offers a rich and often fulfilling opportunity to check back in with those with whom we interface or who are strongly impacted by our work.
Check out our benefits section, under our 'why and when to use' section!
Before considering a collaborative project, it’s important to be mindful of potential challenges and how you will mitigate them.
Who they are working with
For instance, it is quite common to collaborate with students within our own departments, however difficulties may arise where staff are also teaching the students they are working with. Also, if staff are in a specific support role (e.g. personal Tutor, Senior Tutor, DSEP) as well as a collaborative role, the student may feel uncomfortable in raising unrelated wellbeing or academic issues.
MITIGATION: In this case, it is important to address these potential concerns up front with the student, to set boundaries about the different settings (e.g. collaborative work vs teaching spaces) and to signpost other staff members who will be able to support the student as needs arise, if they are uncomfortable discussing with the staff collaborator.
A good space to do this is as early as possible, through the job role/description when sharing the role, so that students can understand this from the start and use this to decide if they are comfortable applying for the position.
Power Dynamics
It is also important to be mindful of the unequal power dynamics inherent in student-staff collaboration. While staff may view the collaboration as being equal, there are factors that implicitly or explicitly may mean that students have less power in the collaboration. Factors that may give students more or less power include:
- Working with staff who also teach/support them- this may include their lecturers, personal tutors, or supervisors
- Working with senior members of staff- students may view power dynamics differently when working with professional services, assistant/associate professors, professors
- Income level- collaborative projects may be an important source of income for students
- Student level (UG, PG, year of study etc)
- Protected characteristics (e.g. race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment etc)
MITIGATION: To address the power imbalance, it is important to be transparent about expectations and awareness of the differences in power. A useful initial task for collaboration projects is to develop and discuss positionality statements at the start of the project and reflect on how positionality may affect the collaboration and project outcomes as a whole.
A good place to do this is as part of the project context meeting that we recommend as part of their induction.
Beyond the initial task, you will either need to work with fellow staff and stakeholders on the project to remove/re-distribute some of the power dynamics in order to support students (we always recommend this approach)
Or you will need to guide and educate students in how to navigate the systems, to best get what they may need out of it (this may mean compromise on their part)
Previous teamwork and project experience may also contribute to successful collaboration. Those with less experience may be more passive in their approach, deferring to the lead, which in many cases will be the staff member involved. This can mean that projects end up being more staff-led where students are more consultants rather than collaborators. Where a group of students are working together, there may also be issues, as groupwork skills they have learned from their course may not have been fully embedded yet.
MITIGATION: In this case, clear expectation setting of the roles of each member of the team is essential, as well as establishing a clear standard method of communication. For meetings, having clear agendas and minutes, with actions for each team member, can be beneficial to scaffold appropriate ways of working and communication.
A good place to do this is in the introductory meeting that we recommend as part of their induction.
Structures & Policies
Where projects are Higher Education (HE) focused, such as pedagogical practice or student experience-focused, there may also be differences in levels of understanding about structures, policies and processes within HE between staff and students, which can contribute to conflicts in approach.
For instance, students may have strong views about an area of practice (e.g. release of exam timetables), but staff may have a background and understanding of the complexity of the issue (e.g. number of processes/teams involved, procedures and timelines involved to make changes).
MITIGATION: Communicate these carefully- remembering that if unaddressed, it could be perceived as dismissive by students. Explain what you can, share what you're able and invite questions- where things are confidential, explain this clearly and focus on the things students can affect/get involved in. Help them be part of the solution, or give them an alternative outlet for any constructive thoughts they may have.
A good time to address this is in the project context meeting we recommend as part of their induction.
We also address some common frustrations in our Working effectively with students FAQs!
The key differences here are the level of involvement of students and the leadership of the project.
Collaborating with students will involve co-creation and should be student-led, whereas projects that involve hearing from students will likely be staff-led, with student consultation. Such projects will likely be designed and developed by staff, and while students may be consulted with during different stages of the project, decisions will ultimately be made by the staff leads and are often decided with little two-way exchanges or discussions.
A good rule of thumb: hearing from students involves one-way communication from students to staff, with less of an exchange. Collaborating with tends to be more of a conversation/back-and-forth between staff and students to come to a shared decision or compromise that meets all needs.
Depending on your project, you may need to factor in time for skills development, effective support and scaffolding.
Students may have had limited experience of teamwork, therefore, spending some time at the start of the project discussing good group dynamics, role allocation and expectation management can be helpful. Students will also have competing demands for their time, and their academic work needs to take priority, so ensure that this is explicitly discussed is important, so that any project-related work can fit in with coursework.
A good time to do this in their introductory meeting we recommend as part of their induction:
Be aware also that the dynamics of co-creation projects may shift over the student life-cycle
- First years may be more passive, as they have limited experience of collaborative work, so it may not be appropriate to ask them to lead focus groups for instance
- Final year students may be more time-limited, so this may affect how much they can contribute to the project
It’s also worth bearing in mind how your project timeline fits with the wider academic year, as students may be unavailable during the vacation periods. Therefore, it’s important to match project roles to the level skillset and availability of the students you are working with.
It is best to do this when designing the job and addressing this when setting up the advert. You can see these considerations and more in our setting up the role guidance:
Consider these 4 Cs to support effect collaboration with students:
- Compassion- Collaborating with students can create impactful work, and have a great impact on their CV’s, and fostering a compassionate and supportive environment will help students to share their ideas, think creatively and enhance collaboration
- Communication- Establishing agreed-upon modes of communication and structure for meetings can help students to understand what is expected of them in the project. Encouraging discussion of deadlines and how project work will fit with studies is also vital to avoid miscommunication about expectations.
- Clear plans- Expectations for what the project will achieve are essential so co-creating a planned timeline for activities and stages of the project is a useful first step in collaborating with students.
- Continuing professional development (CPD)- Collaboration projects are a great way for students to strengthen their CV’s, so where possible build in opportunities for further professional skills development, and reflect with the students on the skills that they have developed from the project.
Collaboration opportunities, that focus on the co-creation/co-design and empower sections of the student engagement framework, allow many different students to get involved. This is especially helpful for those who would not necessarily put themselves forward for Students' Union roles, which can be more representative, less specific to your context or needs, and in some cases have much higher time requirements.
We always advocate working within existing structures, such as the Students Union, where appropriate and possible! However, collaborating with students allows someone to become embedded within your work/team and allows you to get first-hand experience from them- you get access to their time and expertise concerning your context only. The Students Union roles will often come with different demands on their time and may not be able to focus soley on your project, but may be able to support or guide.
You can check out the:
Students brought into your team, or involved in other areas of collaboration should always be paid for their contributions and time. Consider the level of responsibility and needs, however usually with students who are collaborating with you there is an element of leadership and ownership, and their level of involvement tends to mean it qill require a higher rate of pay.
You can see more guidance on our recompensing students section:
Collaborating with students, and student-staff partnerships tend to come from individual Departmental or project budgets. You may want to include the cost for students in any funding bids that you apply for within your project.
As mentioned above, students should be compensated for their time and work- especially if they are expected to perform tasks as staff.
If you are not able to remunerate your students, then we recommend searching for alternative routes for student voice (some ideas can be seen in our other sections).