Academic support

1. I will campaign to focus the University on current students studies: a. More Undergraduate Learning spaces on campus: Before the opening of the new Harry Fairhurst I committed to opening up more study spaces for students. We succeeded in opening up all of the single study rooms in the library for undergraduate and postgraduate students to use as well as keeping the (now) Brian Blessed centre for quiet study open. b. Develop with the University strong access to study skills material. This year we ve supported the creation of a new maths support centre and at teaching committee next week I will be lobbying for it to be renewed next year. We ve also lobbied for the creation of a new central online skills hub to develop your academic skills, and next year this will continue to be populated with sklls on information literacy and transition skills for postgraduate students. c. Increasing your contact with your department wherever possible. This has mostly been carried through by course rep teams this year, although we ve supported them in pulling together student feedback and creating submissions to enact change in departments. 2. I will campaign to reveal hidden course costs The University has agreed to create an online module catalogue including a number of key pieces of information; as part of that we will have modular course costs, which will be able to be aggregated at a course level. In the shorter term we ll be producing alternative prospectus in the end of this term in which we ll ask students to estimate the yearly cost of their course. 3. I will continue to fight for a stronger, more effective and accountable supervision system: We have finally received a report on how the implementation of this policy will go; next week I ll be arguing that, as we argued when the policy was formed, it hasn t worked and some departments at least need to go back and look at it again. 4. Rejecting current proposals on Combined studies supervision Whilst we did argue against these they have been passed; quartering the supervision time

departments are required to give to combined students. 5. Identifying and responding to your study needs: For fullness I include this here, as it is in my original policy list from my campaign group, but this policy was clearly written whilst tired as it is exactly the same as policy 1b. 6. Online materials for every course: In departmental reviews I have argued for the development of online provisions and I have supported course reps in lobbying for online materials through the annual programme review process. 7. Informed choices giving you the information you need to choose between modules. Through a University working group I have lobbied for stronger information and advice for modules, coming up with a benchmark as university policy of the key information that departments must produce. We ve also developed new best practice through the piloting of module fairs and standardisation by the adoption of an online module catalogue for next year. In addition the process of making module choices should be made fairer over the next few years through the current development of software to allow students to rank choices by preference.