Category: Students

Students, Teaching and Learning

OfS Blended learning review

Gold Leaf

This summer the Office for Students [OfS] commissioned a review of blended learning aimed at supporting the English HE sector’s understanding of how blended learning approaches might relate to the OfS’s Conditions B2 and B3, both of which concern the quality of education provided in any manner or form by or on behalf of a provider. The review, which has just been published, is aimed at all stakeholders and focuses on blended learning approaches by six English HE providers, concentrating on four broad subject areas: humanities; medicine and allied health; natural sciences and engineering; and the performing arts.

A review panel was appointed by the OfS to conduct desk-based research, collect survey data and interview academic staff and students about each provider. Here are its main findings:

  • There was an “emergency pivot” or switch by English universities to online delivery at the start of the coronavirus pandemic [a diplomatic way of saying that institutions that had not relied much on online learning previously scrambled to piece together remote learning programmes]. The approach to blended learning is now “emergent” [i.e., more measured, but still developing] as providers consider their long-term teaching strategies.
  • In the academic year 2022-2023 – the current one – there will be greater opportunity to develop an appropriate range of learning techniques.
  • The rationale for blended learning approaches has often not been made clear to students.
  • Many students value the flexibility of “asynchronous online lectures”, which enables them to review and re-watch material at their own speed; but many also appreciate on-campus lectures which support peer learning, separate home and study environments, encourage their motivation to learn and help them to engage with challenging course content.
  • During the lockdowns, students felt isolated when studying online and identified a long-term “negative impact” on the academic community and lack of peer network support.
  • Integrating the online and on-campus learning timetable was a challenge for students and sometimes led to course overload.
  • The review panel identified examples of high-quality blended approaches and innovations by both instructors and supplies that ably supported students’ learning, but there were also “pockets” of poor online teaching practice and poor online learning resources.
  • The panel therefore took the view that the balance of face-to-face, online and blended learning is not the key determinant of teaching quality. High quality (or poor quality) teaching can take place across all modes of delivery.

Some key recommendations of the report are:

  • The procurement and delivery of new learning technology systems represents large and complex programmes for university IT departments operating in a rapidly-changing environment. Therefore providers should have in place the necessary project management and delivery expertise to ensure the maintenance of high standards and the observance of interoperability and accessibility requirements.
  • Using more learning technology will require increased numbers of professional staff with expertise in learning technology at universities; they must be able to work closely with senior leaders and course teams.
  • Understanding of the institutional and individual responsibilities of technical and teaching staff to ensure that learning materials are accessible was found to be “patchy”. The word “accessible” is often used to replace “digital” or “available”, rather than aligned with web accessibility standards [the latter is an issue that the HE community has worked hard to highlight and improve in recent years, an initiative that started well before the pandemic]. More work is needed to ensure that all staff in universities are aware of the policy context, regulations, standards and ethics concerning the use of technology, including equality, inclusion, universal design, “accessibility” in the sense it is used in the HE environment, copyright and data use.

These findings and recommendations may seem obvious to the seasoned HE-watcher and academic publisher. However, despite its rather anodyne language, the report makes some very useful suggestions, which can be of great help both to those established academic publishers already developing online learning solutions and new entrants to the market. Of particular help to the latter are the many sections in the report which describe correct approaches and protocols when working with universities. More generally, there is advice to all stakeholders to get their ducks in a row, to work closely together and to make appropriate investments in people as well as technology. Between the lines, there is also a warning to academics to treat suppliers as equals and to commit to working on products and solutions together.

From this writer’s perspective, the most controversial suggestion is that all modes of delivery of teaching are equal. Whilst not in itself contentious, the statement should be internalised alongside the carefully-articulated view that for students face-to-face teaching is important. In other words, if “quality” HE teaching is to be achieved – the goal of the review – a horses-for-courses approach must be taken. It’s not just a question of catering to different learning styles, but also accepting that a variety of teaching modes is needed to fulfil the whole range of learning experiences and needs.

For the full report, see https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/dc1c3c84-269a-4c40-8f87-15bfae0fcced/blended-learning-review-panel-report.pdf

[written by Linda Bennett]

Students

Student Angst – Five questions for today’s students

Gold Leaf

As this year’s successful A Level students prepare for university and second- and third-year undergraduates get ready to return, they have much to contend with that disturbed previous student cohorts either less or not at all. Here are 5 questions they need to address.

1. What is normal?

Most of us can remember the excitement of our first term at university – making lots of friends, attending parties, optimistically joining more societies than we would ever have time to keep up with. Some of us had second-year mentors to guide us through the bewildering if exciting maze of new opportunities. However, this year’s second- and third-year students have spent much of their time at university either incarcerated, or severely restricted by, Covid rules. If they have enjoyed a social life or belonged to societies, activity has mostly been by Zoom or Teams. Some have spent nearly all their time in dull halls of residence rooms staring at computer screens or the four dingy walls; others have gone home to their parents and worked from there. Either way, they have missed out on the huge people-interactive benefits that university life used to offer; and while the second-years may manage still to get a taste of it, for most third-years it is too late – they will have to buckle down now and work for their exams. Freshers must therefore carve out their own paths and create their own ‘normal’. On the plus side, perhaps they will come up with a better work-life balance than previous generations achieved.

2. How much face-to-face tuition is fair and reasonable?

This question began as a small dot on the horizon long before Covid reared its head. The so-called ‘massification of education’, accompanied by government caps on fees and escalating pressures on academic time, caused most UK universities to begin to experiment with online learning soon after the beginning of this century. It has much to recommend it: it makes study more feasible for part-time and mature students and distance learners; it benefits those new to a topic or slower learners with more opportunities to practise or revise; if used imaginatively – i.e., ‘blended’ with more traditional lectures and tutorials – it can free up academic time to engage students in discussion and debate, leaving more pedestrian ‘fact teaching’ to the technology. However, Covid not only accelerated the use of online learning solutions but for a time caused traditional teaching to be replaced almost entirely by them. Certain UK universities are reluctant to return to previous methods and are openly cutting back on students’ academic contact hours. How much academic-led tuition should students expect for the fees that they pay? Yet more to the point, how much do they need to become well-rounded adults who can contribute original thinking to future jobs instead of being mere fact-retention robots?

3. Should I expect the university to provide all the learning resources that I need?

This question is probably not uppermost in freshers’ minds as they depart for university, but it’s likely to loom much larger as their undergraduate careers progress. Individual universities’ approach to resource provision differs widely. Some make no commitment to ensuring that students have access to basic resources such as textbooks, therefore tacitly expecting them to pay for their own, as students were always expected to do in pre-tuition-fee times; others make ‘free’ textbook provision a selling feature in their prospectuses.  The current trend is to move away from textbooks altogether and replace them with a mixture of other types of resource, including monographs, lecturer-designed content [sometimes OERs, or Open Education Resources], online learning solutions and other web-sourced materials. Students at universities that take this approach can reasonably assume they will be able to obtain the essential resources they need without any additional financial outlay on their part. However, academic library budgets are now being squeezed quite dramatically, meaning that librarians have to find ways of fulfilling everyone’s needs and save money at the same time. Most have been operating ‘e-first’ policies for years, which means they will source an electronic copy over a print one when both are available. Electronic copies allow more students to us the same resource simultaneously. provided that the library has also paid for multi-user access; but some librarians are now saying this is unaffordable, while others say they will no longer acquire backlist monographs electronically if the library already has a copy in print. Consequently, although in theory all the resources the student needs are supplied by the university, in practice availability is restricted. A further pitfall for students is that the less prescriptive the resource lists academics prepare, the more likely students are to conduct Google searches for relevant content and some of the material they find will not be authentic. (It is an increasing part of the librarian’s role to train students how to identify content they can trust.)

4. How do I afford it all?

This is, of course, a question that most students – and their parents – need to be able to answer before they enrol. Currently university fees are capped at £9,250 a year in England (£4,625 for part-time students) and the cost of living for full-time students with no dependents estimated to be between £350 and £550 per month, depending on the university and its location. Most students qualify for help, primarily in the form of a low-interest government loan. This will normally take many years to pay back – many loans will never be repaid because the student’s subsequent employment does not reach the repayment start threshold. There is no easy answer to the affordability question. A more relevant consideration may be that fees can only rise – and universities are now lobbying for ‘realistic’ rises in fees to allow them to meet their costs, some stating that £25,000 a year would be necessary to enable standards to be maintained. If delayed, university education can only become less affordable than it is now.

5. Is it worth it?

That depends …. There is more than one reason for studying for a degree. Most undergraduates, however, embark upon a degree course primarily to get the type of job that would otherwise be unavailable to them. If this aim is not achieved, then patently it has not been worth it. Even if the student is successful, has he or she received value for money; and how should this be assessed? Are degrees being ‘devalued’? Some institutions now award almost all students a First or a 2/1. Does a degree course teach the student to be a competent member of the workforce? Would the student be better off working for a more vocational qualification – e.g., an apprenticeship? And, to turn the argument around, as a society are we in danger of losing sight of the value of scholarship and learning for learning’s sake?

Higher Education is at a crossroads. Rapid changes are under way. We hope to explore some of the implications of this in future articles.

This article was written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf. It was first published on the Bookbrunch Website on 12 September 2022.

Conferences, Covid-19, General, Students, Sustainability

Belated New Year’s Greetings!

Gold Leaf

Happy 2022 from Gold Leaf!  We apologise for not having sent our new year’s greetings sooner.

We are not offering excuses for being so tardy, but if we were, we could claim that we have been waiting to get more of a grip on the lie of the land as the new year swings into gear (apologies for the mixed metaphors!).  What do we think 2022 will bring to academic publishing?

Here are a few predictions, some questions and some personal hopes.

Predictions

  • Covid and ways of working. Despite all the ifs and buts, the travelling a few steps forwards in 2021 only to fall many paces back and all the prophecies of the soothsayers of doom, we think 2022 will see a return to a greater semblance of ‘normality’ than we have ‘enjoyed’ since the first lockdown in early spring 2020. This is likely to mean more travelling and more face-to-face meetings for all of us. However, we predict that the virtual meeting is now part of the ecology of academic publishing and is here to stay, though hopefully in lower and less enforced doses.
  • Sustainability. The last point leads directly to something that is hardly a prediction: the need to keep on developing strategies that deliver environmental sustainability. The concept of sustainability has firmly stamped its mark on publishing as much as every other industry. It’s a huge subject, but specifics for us are likely to include more targeted travel; paying greater attention to expenditure on energy; using only FSC paper and other sustainable raw materials; deploying local suppliers wherever possible; and continuing to innovate by developing user-friendly electronic products (though comparisons made between the carbon footprint of these and more traditional products may sometimes yield disappointing results).
  • Open Access. Another huge subject. Burning issues include the anticipation and fulfilment of research funders’ next moves; greater commitment to OA for books and how to achieve a sustainable business model to make it work; and how to publish ‘non-book content’ in fully OA journals.

Some questions

  • Events. What will happen to book fairs, conferences and other mass industry gatherings? We think these will probably survive, but in a less flashy (and lucrative for the organisers) way. Pre-2020, book fairs increasingly turned into events to deliver large numbers of eclectic, expensive seminars. It was the tail wagging the dog. Should book fairs become truer to their original raison d’être, i.e., used primarily to facilitate meetings between people from different parts of the industry and different countries for the discussion of business and closing of deals? Some of this can be done remotely – the fairs are likely to be smaller than in the past – and some of it can’t. Likewise, should conferences be shorter, fewer in number and more co-ordinated: should they be be organised for specific groups of people to share and explore information about genuine topics of interest, not hi-jacked by exhibitions to showcase materials, spawn costly dinners that cause the organisers to eke out the programme for an extra superfluous day, etc.?
  • Undergraduates. Have the experiences of the last two years, combined with the continuing withdrawal of government support for non-STEM subjects and fluctuations in the job market, disillusioned young people to the point where they no longer want to commit the time and expense to gaining a degree? Will those undergraduate courses that survive change completely in nature and become almost solely vocational? And are government measures to make universities more accountable and their teaching achievements more measurable truly aiding the quality of higher education delivery or stifling it?
  • Partnerships. Post-OA, post-‘transformative agreements’, post accelerated delivery of completely online or hybrid courses, what kinds of partnership do publishers need to forge with universities and what are the barriers to success? Where do we draw the line between ‘them’ and ‘us’?

Some personal hopes

  • Meetings. At Gold Leaf, we very much hope to be able to meet all our clients and the many friends who support us during 2022. We celebrated our 20th birthday in 2021. It was necessarily a low-key affair. We hope to be able to celebrate person-to-person with all of you during the course of this year.
  • Success, happiness and above all health for all our readers. It’s a big wish – we’ll need to be in the Good Fairy’s good books to achieve it. But we do mean it most sincerely. We hope this year will be the best ever yet for you, both personally and professionally. No one will be more excited to hear of your successes and more genuinely pleased than we shall.

Please keep in touch with us and let us know how things are going!

Warmest best wishes,

Annika and Linda

Academic Publishing, Students, Teaching and Learning, Universities

The 2021 – 2022 Academic Year: Covid, academia, academic publishing and Gold Leaf’s birthday!

Gold Leaf

Covid is still with us, along with many restrictions and quasi-restrictions, even though this summer has in some ways appeared to be more “normal”, at least in the UK, than last. “Freedom Day” happened, although it was a bit of a damp squib – essentially, it consisted of the government telling us that it is now up to us to behave responsibly. Masks, social distancing and not gathering in large groups are no longer legally enforceable, but we have been warned that reckless behaviour might cause the numbers of infection and deaths to climb so rapidly that the government might have to impose another lockdown (despite the fact that formerly it was adamant that it wouldn’t). Shops, pubs and theatres have opened again, but have been encouraged to impose their own safeguarding rules; travelling abroad has been possible, but less so than last year, achievable only if you are prepared to jump through the many paperwork hoops created by almost all countries, including our own; are fully vaccinated; and prepared to spend quite hefty sums on lateral flow and PCR tests. So, a mixed picture, but perhaps with some light at the end of the tunnel.

And so we have reached the autumn and the start of a new university year. What will be significant about this academic year? What will distinguish it from its predecessors?

A key point that jumps out is that many students who had planned to begin their studies this year have now decided to defer. In certain subjects, at certain universities – e.g., Medicine – they have been offered a hefty financial incentive to do so.

Also in the news recently was that some British universities, including some from the Russell Group, have chartered planes to enable overseas students to travel to the UK without problems – in effect, creating a sort of “academic corridor” akin to the holiday corridors of summer 2020.

Most UK students who are planning to start or continue their courses this year have been told that while there will be more face-to-face teaching than last year, online learning will remain an important component of their tertiary education. Some seem to be dismayed or indignant about this, while others appear philosophical or even pleased. Parents, on the whole, are more vociferous in their disapproval. They perceive online delivery of lectures to be a substandard form of teaching, a “cheat” which does not merit full payment of the now-hefty tuition fees.

Finally, this year’s new cohorts of UK students have not had the traditional A level exams to arrive at their grades. Instead, these have been awarded largely on teacher recommendation. It has been controversial. Were the grades artificially inflated by over-indulgent teachers (or, in some instances, owing to the demands of pushy parents)? Or did the greater reliance on coursework and teacher judgment produce fairer results?

These four issues together are likely to produce a very different kind of student experience from that of pre-Covid years (last year cannot be counted as a comparator – it was hopefully a one-off!). Taken together, the first two issues are perhaps the most sensitive.  Is it truly the case, as some educational commentators have asserted, that UK universities are keener on giving precious places to overseas rather than home students because they bring more money? Substantiating such a claim would require a great deal of granular course-by-course, university-by-university analysis. More broadly, it does suggest that, for whatever reason – lack of reliable digital infrastructure in overseas countries, unwillingness of overseas students to miss out on the physical experience of studying in the UK, the limited appeal that online lecture consumption has so far succeeded in achieving – universities are still far from being able to deliver a satisfactory online learning experience. This is reinforced by the lukewarm reception with which announcements that some teaching will remain online has been greeted.  It overlooks the fact that if some UK students are admitted to British universities this autumn without the level of competence required to cope with first year work, online foundation / revision courses could offer them their best chance of getting up to scratch.

Publishers have a role to play here, as well as academics. It has long been recognised that technology could be put to much more creative use to deliver a better teaching and learning experience; at the same time, the development of such technology requires time and money – both in increasingly short supply to both academics and tertiary institutions – as well as a profound understanding of the mechanics, dynamics and legal issues attendant upon successful, compelling dissemination of content. Some enterprising publishers – not necessarily the ones that typically spring to mind as inspirational innovators – are already exploring ways of working with academia to develop exciting new kinds of content for undergraduates and attractive ways of delivering it. Gold Leaf hopes to publish occasional blog posts devoted to this topic.

We’re delighted to be able to continue to bring you news and insights in what promises to be a very interesting academic year. It’s also our twentieth birthday year, so there will be posts that celebrate this, too.

Officially, Gold Leaf was “born” on 1st September 2001. We’d like to thank all our clients, past and present and those about to work with us, for your support and we look forward to continuing to work with you. Let’s raise a glass to the next twenty years!

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Mental Health, Students, Universities

Supporting student mental health at Nottingham Trent University

Gold Leaf

Paul Dodsley and Leah Wareham together form the hub of the student support service at Nottingham Trent University, where 30,000 students are studying at any one time.  Paul describes the service as “prevention-led” – its aim is to take hold of opportunities to support students before they slip into difficulties, rather than afterwards.  It has been running for about fifteen years and addresses a range of issues – sexual health, drug and alcohol, nutrition – but mental health awareness takes up approximately 70% of Paul’s time and all of Leah’s.

How can two people make a difference to such a large body of students?  Paul and Leah have been extremely innovative in their approach and established an impressive variety of ways to enable them to punch far above their weight. Firstly, the service partners with specialist organisations to make its resources go further – the NHS, for example, and Student Minds. Some of these partner organisations themselves deliver services on the campus.  Secondly, training is a big part of what Paul and Leah do.  They train academics to recognise signs of distress in students and how to help; they train the student Mental Health Champions – other students who help in a myriad of ways – and offer Student Minds – Look Out For your Mates workshops to all students, which awards students with a nationally recognised certificate and, it is hoped, gives them essential life skills.  

Leah’s specific role is to focus on communication and innovative ways of delivering the message about the types of support available. She says she tries to be as creative as possible.  At the start of the first lockdown she posted “top tips” for preserving a healthy mental outlook on the Student Support Instagram. From these have progressed Instagram “takeovers” which talk about mental health and how the service can help; and also adaptation of formerly in-person activities to allow them to take place online, such as Time to Talk – a big virtual event which included input from many of the partner services involved. She has also organised virtual events of all kinds.  Some are designed to work as occupational therapy – tie-dye tutorials on Instagram, for example, and cookery videos; life-drawing classes and yoga.

Leah (along with Zoe Mallett from the NTSU) is responsible for recruiting and training the Champions.  There were only two when she joined the university staff less than three years ago, having just graduated in Photography; now around 400 have signed up.  She says that the peer support they provide is invaluable: “It is really effective for students to get support from other students.” Some of the ways in which they deliver are “quite funky”.  Many of them are very engaged and themselves think of all sorts of ways of contributing – for example, by creating podcasts.  Some are gaining work experience.  Together with Paul and Leah, their aim is to improve attitude to self-care:  Paul mentioned each person having “a kitbag of support”.  All the work they do is completely voluntary – though Paul says their commitment is so great that he would like to be able to find a way to pay them.

Asked what kinds of advice and support students need, and whether he feels they are more dependent than students used to be in the past, Paul is supportive of the present student generation.  He says the level of support that is now available is brilliant when compared with, say, twenty years ago, when he was a student at NTU.  University attendance has always brought its own challenges, even before the various lockdowns. To these have now been added more uncertainty regarding jobs for graduates and what will happen after they graduate.  He believes that one of the key contributions of the service is to enable students to leave the university better equipped to deal with whatever life throws at them next. 

The impact of the pandemic and consequent lockdowns has been significant.  “Each lockdown has put an increased burden on mental health,” Paul says.  “It’s difficult to know whether it’s worse for the first years, who have never known ‘normal’ university life, or for the second and third years, who have experienced what it was like and therefore know what they are missing, for some or all the remaining time they have left here.” Students are not used to isolation. In non-lockdown circumstances, they meet regularly and this gives them a sense of belonging, of being part of a community.  Many students have welcomed the online support now on offer.  Paul says he recently read a comment in a study issues by the Mental Health Foundation about the present situation which struck him as particularly apposite: “We’re all in the same storm, but we’re not in the same boat.”  The message he and Leah want to get across is, “If you’re struggling, that’s OK and perfectly understandable, but don’t suffer in silence.”

Asked what has made her most proud, Leah says it is the work that the champions have done.  “They get the student voice across, especially now they have started becoming more involved in online activity through social media and our events that run peer-to-peer sessions online. The work they do is amazing and they keep up with it – it doesn’t dwindle over time.”

Asked how he sees the future, Paul says he thinks the service will keep on building up its identity and raising awareness of “what we do”.   He would like to be able to focus more on promoting positive health and mental self-care.  “And of course, we need more staff.” That is perhaps undeniable; but it’s also undeniably true that what Paul and Leah have achieved is also “amazing”.

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Mental Health, Students

Mental health of international undergraduates in a time of global crisis

Gold Leaf

As part of our mini-series about undergraduate mental health, we tried to find out more about the specific issues international students face at this time of global crisis, and which strategies universities and students themselves are deploying to address them.

First, to provide some clarity: the term “mental health” is frequently used ambiguously, but for the purpose of this and all following blog posts, we shall work with the definition provided by the World Health Organisation [WHO], which states that “Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” (More details on this can be found here.) The purpose of our articles is to examine imbalances of this state of well-being; we do not consider mental disorders (which require professional support by a GP, psychotherapist or psychiatrist) to be part of this remit.

We spoke to psychologist P. Weigelt-Lindemann, who provides psychological counselling to students at a medium-sized University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

“I started working at this University last year, shortly after the first lockdown had begun in Germany. Since taking up the post, I have therefore always worked from home, and have conducted all counselling remotely so far. My university is a very young (less than 15 years old) teaching university, teaches most degrees in English and has a focus on Natural Sciences, Technology and Agricultural Sciences. As a result, we have a very international student body and more than 50% of students are not German; they mainly come from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and African countries. It has been interesting to see that at first the pandemic barely featured in my counselling; it is only since the second [much stricter] lockdown that was imposed in December that Covid has created real concern for our students. The main anxieties they raise include homesickness, no prospect of being able to travel back into their home countries any time soon and worry about their families, particularly when their families live in countries where infection numbers have gone out of control.”

Social isolation has been a worry throughout the pandemic, but over the winter it has become a bigger issue. Not only international, but also domestic students are suffering from an increased lack of motivation and find it more difficult to absorb information purely through screens and with very limited possibilities for informal exchange with other students. Initially, students adapted well to this new way of learning because they assumed it would only be temporary, but now they are struggling with a state of fatigue – one year on, there is no real end in sight.

P. Weigelt-Lindemann says: “Our ‘Welcome Centre’ that looks after first year students has done an incredibly good job in providing induction to new students remotely, so interestingly these students are coping relatively well with the remote learning. It is those students who were able to build friendships and relationships before the pandemic broke out, and who are used to learning in lecture halls and seminar rooms, who are struggling much more.
“Having said that, international first year students face the added difficulty of cultural assimilation. With everything closed, – not only the university buildings, but also shops, restaurants, cultural venues etc. – these students have only seen their student halls since having arrived in this country, and it is incredibly difficult for them to get to know the country they have moved to and to settle into this new culture. At the same time, there is no prospect of going back home in the near future, so they find themselves in a state of limbo between two cultures, which makes it very hard for them.”

P. Weigelt-Lindemann says the University has experienced a sharp increase in demand for counselling. It has also been noticeable that the pressures on students have increased. Whilst fees are less of an issue in Germany than they are elsewhere (there are no tuition fees at German universities for anyone taking a first degree, though international students have to provide solid proof of financial resources to obtain a student visa), most part-time job opportunities for students – who typically work in bars, restaurants or in the events industry to cover their costs of living – have vanished, and they are more dependent on their families or government support than before. This leads to an increased pressure to be successful in a more challenging learning environment.

The concept of “Emerging Adulthood” as a new phase of development for the period from the late teens through the twenties was first introduced by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett in 2004 and describes the phenomenon of a distinct phase in people’s lives which they spend in self-focused exploration and trying out different possibilities in their careers and relationships, while society sees them as adults who are expected to have entered adulthood and taken decisions accordingly.

P. Weigelt-Lindemann witnesses this discrepancy when engaging in counselling sessions with students. The difficulties that must be negotiated by “emerging adults” are exacerbated by the current situation. “The students are not ready to be adults yet, they need a lot more support in finding their way than previous generations did, but the current situation doesn’t allow them to rely on this support network. This is very difficult for many of them, who are not used to organising their lives for themselves, and that has an effect on their mental health. The university support network has to understand this and the services need to take into account that these students need a lot more (often basic) support than the university is used to providing.”

However, as P. Weigelt-Lindemann points out, the universities can offer a lot to support these students, who should not feel ashamed of asking for help. “Many students think they are the only ones who struggle, but it helps them to find out that their worries and struggles are shared by many and that there is help at hand.”

The university’s counselling service is a good starting point for help, and in many places the Student Unions also provide Mental Health support of excellent quality.

[written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Mental Health, Students

The mental well-being of our students

Gold Leaf

Whilst at Gold Leaf we believe it is alarmist – and not at all helpful – to call the present generation of students “lost” because of the impact of the pandemic and various lockdowns on their education – in our experience most young people are astonishingly brave and resilient – it has to be acknowledged that everyone who has enjoyed working for a degree in happier times must sympathise with their plight.  Even though many universities around the world have done sterling work in supporting students as much as possible with online learning and blended learning and librarians have both rapidly increased their electronic holdings and made sure that academics and students are well-versed in using them, it cannot be denied that students are missing out on many of the things that make university special: for example, fieldwork expeditions and collaborative lab-work; trips to the theatre, concerts and art galleries and the other rich cultural experiences usually available to undergraduates; even simply hanging out with their peers. On top of this, students may be worried that degrees awarded under today’s restricted studying conditions may be “worth less” than “normal” and that even if the qualifications are recognised, there will be few jobs waiting for those who have qualified.

It is therefore not surprising that concern for students’ mental well-being has increased substantially throughout the past year. A significant amount of research has now been undertaken on this issue. One study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that thoughts of suicide among undergraduates encouraged by 8 – 10% in just three months.  A survey conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute found that students now report considerably lower levels of personal well-being than the population as a whole. Dartmouth College, in the USA, detected spikes in student depression and anxiety as early as March 2020, when students were first encouraged to leave the campus and conduct most of their learning online. In January, French students organised a series of nationwide protests to draw attention to rising mental health problems caused by the pandemic.  Special mental health counsellors appointed at the University of Lyon say they have been overwhelmed by the demands placed on their services.  Two undergraduates at this university have already taken their own lives this year. An article in The Lancet points out that not much is known about the effects of large-scale pandemics on the health of children and adolescents[1]. As well as having a profound impact on their education, social distancing may exacerbate the risk of other threats to young people, such as physical, mental or sexual abuse. If their parents lose their jobs, this also undermines their sense of security.

Last year UNESCO started its Minding our Minds campaign. Eric Falt, Director and UNESCO Representative to Bhutan, India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, wrote: “It will take all of our collective effort and focus to ensure that students are getting the care they need to succeed.” To highlight the importance of the impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown on the mental health of marginalized communities, UNESCO New Delhi has created five awareness posters, which are available in four languages English, Hindi, Sinhala and Tamil.

Clearly undergraduate mental health is vitally important to everyone: today’s undergraduates will be the scientists, politicians, artists and writers of the future.  Over the next few weeks, we are therefore planning to dig a little deeper into how some universities are supporting the mental health of their undergraduate communities.  If, having read this post, you would like to contribute or comment, we shall be delighted to hear from you.

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

[1] Mental health effects of school closures during COVID-19 – The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health

General, Students, Trends in Publishing

Is the British education system racially prejudiced?

Gold Leaf

This is a delicate topic, but as it’s so much in the news at the moment, we thought we ought not to ignore it.

There is, of course, a mountain of statistics to support the assertion that our education system is stacked against people from BAME communities, but also other evidence to illustrate that black and Asian students often go on to be spectacular achievers if they succeed in being admitted to tertiary education. Usually, but not always, these students encounter less prejudice at university – probably because many universities exercise a different kind of prejudice: they are meritocracies. This may be accompanied by the strong feeling in some of the older generation of academics that all that has to be overcome is the same kind of prejudice as that of working-class undergraduates that they themselves triumphed against in the 1970s and 1980s. To muddy the waters even further, white working-class boys emerged some time ago as the group least likely to succeed academically.

It is an unquestionable fact that to get to university you have to succeed at school. If there is racial prejudice, therefore, it seems likely that this is where the problem may lie. Is racial prejudice institutionalised, perhaps covertly, in our schools?

We interviewed a senior teacher who has worked for many years in one of the UK’s largest and most successful comprehensive schools. For obvious reasons, he wishes to remain anonymous, but he spoke to us with passion about this issue.

The school in question was created by the amalgamation of two grammar schools in the 1970s, after which the combined institution became comprehensive. Although the two schools had always educated pupils of different nationalities and creeds, they had been mainly white and predominantly European, as well as academically able in the conventional sense. The school immediately at that point began to enrol pupils from BAME (though this collective term had not been coined then) backgrounds as well, until eventually the school’s population represented over thirty-five different home languages.

There were many difficulties at first which, although the school recognised them, were difficult to resolve. Some teachers were undoubtedly racially prejudiced or old-fashioned meritocrats who were suspicious of or impatient with people from different cultures. As time went on and these older teachers retired, the school was able to develop robust recruitment techniques which ensured that all the staff – including a growing army of non-teaching and support staff, from caretakers to teaching assistants to specialists in the education of children with identified needs to attendance and home liaison officers – were much more representative of the school’s population make-up, shared the same values and agreed on how they would work with students from all backgrounds to provide each child with the support and personal resources to progress well educationally. The school considered it vital to have transparency and clarity through policies carefully constructed by consultation that embraced governors, staff, parents, children and other relevant stakeholders.  

Cultural stereotyping was a more subtle problem. Well-meaning teachers and external influencers might, for example, think it a good idea to set up a steel band for black students and in fact the school experimented with this, but discovered that such a move immediately set participating pupils apart and formed them into a kind of elite. To be properly egalitarian and truly non-racist, the school needed, perhaps by deliberately accommodating particular cultural needs, to encourage BAME students to feel able, by choice, to participate in any school activity. Celebration of individual achievement became central to the approach.

Addressing behavioural issues was another important factor and the students themselves had to understand that, when they were being asked to modify their behaviour, this wasn’t a reflection on their culture, but simply a request to act with courtesy and consideration for others. “At any one time, black students never formed more than five per cent of the school’s total numbers – there were many more Asians – but the black students seemed to be everywhere. The lads in particular were strapping and noisily extrovert. If someone slipped and fell in the corridor, they would find it hilarious and laugh and shout and point. They had to learn to be more aware of the effect they were having on others. It was vital to develop in all pupils the capacity for empathy, rather than simply applying behavioural sanctions.”

Some of these same black pupils proved to be very academically capable indeed once they understood they were valued for themselves and settled down to work. However, over time the school’s own attitude towards what constituted success changed dramatically. Its roots were in the traditional grammar school system of hothousing high academic achievers and rewarding academic success, but by the 1990s its guiding principle was that every student was of equal importance and that each could achieve things which all could celebrate. Mutual kindness and mutual appreciation of talents of all kinds became its mantra. The emphasis was firmly on individual and personal needs and how those should best be met, whether they be educational, medical, cultural, religious, gender-related, social or even financial. It was clear that the school’s internal communication of pupil-specific information must be first-rate, confidential and effectively applied.

Both BAME and ‘Caucasian’ students who attended this school are now doctors, teachers, scientists, academics, members of the police or armed forces and politicians. Some are actors, artists and singers. Others are plumbers, bricklayers, secretaries and hairdressers. Across all walks of life, many have kept in touch with each other. Some return to the school to encourage those studying there today, when the students come from even more diverse backgrounds than previously. The school is now one of the most successful comprehensive schools in the country.  It is, however, the painful truth that not all UK schools have taken a similar approach. Schools with less mixed populations perhaps have not developed the expertise or felt the need to pay so much attention to the preparation of their pupils for the multi-cultural world they will enter as employees; such institutions may not have the resources, both human and material, to reflect the rich mixture of British society. Yet they have a duty to prepare their pupils not just with academic skills, but with the social capability that comes from knowledge and understanding of others and with values that will prevent any inclination to stereotype those who may seem different. As I was writing this, the announcement was made that this year’s British Bookseller Awards were dominated by black female authors. Candace Carty-Williams won overall book of the year with her debut novel Queenie; Oyinkan Braithwaite won crime and thriller book of the year with My Sister the Serial Killer; and Bernardine Evaristo, joint Booker winner for Girl, Woman, Other was named Author of the Year.

[Written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

General, Students

The Covid-19 crisis: views of a student

Gold Leaf

We asked Daphne van Engeland, who studies in her second year towards a BA in Digital Marketing at Coventry University about her experiences.

Please tell us a little bit about the courses and lectures you attend.

Each of my courses has two one-hour lectures and one two-hour seminar per week. The lectures can be in groups of over 100 students as some marketing courses overlap and the seminars are more interactive in smaller groups, typically around 15 students. During lectures we’d sit in a big hall and listen to the lecturer, while seminars have a more practical focus and we often have to do assignments which we present afterwards.

Which impact did Covid-19 have on your university and you?

From the end of March, Coventry University suspended all in-person teaching and assessments and then continued closing down the campus further as the situation worsened. When the announcement was made, I rebooked my flight to the Netherlands (where I am original from) that was scheduled for April to one that very same week so I could be safe at home with my family. I have been continuing to study from here.

Tell us about your experience of learning remotely.

The semester at Coventry University was already coming to an end, so I ended up not having any live remote lectures. One teacher did upload videos of the topics that he covered, which was about the coursework. We used Microsoft Teams to have feedback sessions for our coursework, which was new but very useful. I did not have any exams this semester, but from other years of my course I knew they had to complete exams in essay-style and students would have a few hours on a set day to complete them. Cheating does not really work in this case because the exams are all about showing understanding and examples.

Which challenges have affected you most? 

I found it very challenging to be home all the time and get myself to do the work as the situation is stressful for me. Having set days and hours to work on coursework helped me a lot. With group work it is a big challenge that we can’t go and sit down somewhere to work together. Having meetings on Microsoft Teams helps, but I noticed there were more miscommunications than we experienced in previous courseworks. Communication from lecturers differs by person, but they are mostly responsive to emails and do their best to make things work. I feel like it’s important to remember this is new for them too.

Has the Library been able to support you?

The online library at Coventry University has always been quite extensive, and that helps a lot now. Luckily, we get our books at the university included in the tuition fees, so I did not need to borrow any. As I am not in the city at the moment, I unfortunately don’t know if they can still provide physical books. I think they will follow the government rules and open up as soon as they are allowed to and can do so safely.

Which learning resources (books, textbooks, databases, software etc.) are you using for remote teaching? Have these changed?

My online resources often include academic articles and business reports. Those were mostly online anyway, so that has not changed a lot. The textbooks that I did need were mine already. My bank also offered a free subscription to a website of resources, which helped me find some more things I needed. What I would like is if some books came with a code to download the ebook version. I could not take all my books with me, and having them online or on my eReader would have helped me a lot.

Is there anything else you would like to say?

I think it will take a while before the large lectures will be started up again and I think that in future the university will be more prepared for situations like these. I think classes will be smaller as long as there is no vaccine and that they will keep on providing online content for those at risk of severe illness. Coventry University is moving to a new learning space as a replacement of Moodle, which will hopefully make remote learning easier. I hope that remote learning will be available even when the university opens again. I personally like being able to watch lectures at home, especially when I’m ill.

Please tell us a bit about yourself

I am from the Netherlands where I studied a few years of European Studies before moving to the UK. In my downtime I like reading and gaming. My love for gaming led me to start streaming on Twitch, which is a hobby for now but I’m hoping that it can be part of my career in the future. I have just started a marketing internship for the summer and will be going on straight to my third year at university after that.

[Written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Apprentices, Students

Apprenticeships in Academic Publishing – Part 1: The Scheme

Gold Leaf

National Apprenticeship Week featured prominently in the media earlier this month, which made us think about the scheme and how it is represented in Academic Publishing. We therefore decided to speak to several people involved and have received so many good responses that we have decided to create two blog posts about it.

This is the first, which introduces the scheme.

In the UK, the Education and Skills Act was passed 12 years ago; it makes education or training compulsory until the age of 18. This means that all young people are expected to continue learning after they have reached school leaving age at 16, and the government has since put various schemes in place to give everyone opportunities to shape this learning according to their interests and needs. This does not necessarily mean that everyone has to continue going to school – the training can, for example, be fulfilled by taking up on-the job training; and later this year the new T-Levels will be introduced, to provide qualifications for 16 to 18 year olds who do not want to go down the route of  (more academic) A-Levels. Whilst T-Levels will offer a mixture of classroom and “on-the-job” learning, apprenticeships offer an additional option to school leavers. These are mainly focused on the workspace (like other workers, apprentices earn a salary and have the right to paid holidays), but allow the apprentices time off for academic learning, in conjunction with a Training Provider.

With the high increase of university tuition fees 8 years ago and the government’s strong support of a newly-created apprenticeship scheme, apprenticeships have become an attractive alternative for some students who have completed their A-Levels. The government has introduced nationally recognised standards and in recent years, apprentices have become more and more part of the workforce, including the Academic Publishing industry.

So, what is the scheme?

Apprentices usually work in a full-time post at a company, receiving on-the-job training and gaining the skills and knowledge necessary for the job. However, unlike an untrained or unqualified member of staff who will simply learn a job by doing, apprentices are supported by the Training Provider – they are enrolled on a course that provides theoretical learning needed for the job (up to 20% of the time); an independent mentor who is in weekly contact with the apprentice to monitor their progress and answer questions; and pastoral care. Apprentices receive a basic salary (in Academic Publishing it usually is somewhere between £14,500 and £19,000 pa) and get the course fees paid via Apprenticeship Levy funds.
These entry-level apprenticeships usually take around 18 months.

The Apprenticeship Levy was introduced by the government in 2017, to support more apprentices. The Levy is a tax paid by every business that has an annual pay bill of more than £3million and the money is held in a fund that the employer can access to train staff who are doing an apprenticeship. Surplus money is used to cross-fund apprenticeship courses at smaller companies. These companies do not pay into the levy, but can still appoint apprentices – the cost is then split between the government (which covers 95% of the cost through the levy) and the employer, which covers 5% of the cost, plus the apprentice’s salary.

When talking about apprentices, many people will think of school leavers who join the workforce for the first time through their apprenticeship. These are usually called “Level 3” apprenticeships, and there are many different courses to choose from. The ones typically offered in Academic Publishing might include Business Administration, Customer Services, Accountancy, Project Management or – a newly accredited standard – Publishing Assistant.  However, employers also have the option to use the levy to offer apprenticeship learning to existing colleagues to further their education in work-related qualifications. These apprenticeships range from mid-level qualifications (such as Data Analysis or Operations Management) to a degree-level apprenticeship such as a Senior Leader Master’s Degree, which is the equivalent of an MBA. Like entry-level apprenticeships, these are studied for whilst the apprentice is working; the apprentice doesn’t pay for any tuition fees and continues to earn a salary, but is given 20% of working time off to study.
The courses are taught in block seminars, or through online learning; and it is a statutory requirement that all apprentices are given “20% off-the-job” learning during the working week. This might be done one day per week, or spread across the week, depending on individual circumstances.

Why do companies engage in the scheme? In an interview with Heidi Mulvey, Head of Community Engagement at Cambridge University Press, she made the reasons clear:

“We started employing apprentices in 2012, before the levy was introduced, initially with roles in shared services such as Customer Services, HR and IT. Now we employ apprentices in departments right across the business and we currently have 28 entry-level apprentices, plus more than 50 colleagues who are using apprenticeships to further their development.

Apprenticeships are helping us to attract fantastic new people into the business, many of whom, for a variety of reasons, did not go to University. Most of our apprentices have A-Levels or equivalent, though in some cases candidates as young as 16 have been successful in their applications, which really demonstrates how much they have to offer: their potential is more important than their formal qualifications, and the apprenticeship provides training around the skills and knowledge needed for their role, whilst they also learn their role. Apprenticeships are playing a big part in helping us attract diverse new talent into publishing, and our apprentices are bringing in fresh and innovative thinking.

Most of our apprentices stay at the Press when they have finished their apprenticeships and have opportunities to continue their development and gain promotions.  One of our earliest apprentices now manages an apprentice herself and two others are doing a degree apprenticeship. This opportunity to earn while you learn has become a very viable and attractive alternative to the classic career path of a university degree and graduate training.”

…please also read our next post, in which three apprentices in Academic Publishing will tell us about their experiences.

Many thanks to Heidi Mulvey, Cambridge University Press, who provided a lot of the insight for this article.

[Written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]