Succeeding in Co-Creation to Enhance the Student Experience: An Implementation Guide
A Co-Creation project requires university staff and students to work as equals, where both are partners who bring different perspectives on higher education. When beginning a co-creation (possibly also known as a student-staff partnership) project, both parties should respect one another’s perspective, listen to each other’s ideas and aim to contribute equally to the project (although these may be different activities). This blog offers guidance for both students and staff roles, suggested activities and methods to co-create enhancements to the student experience.
What are Co-Creation Practices?
Co-creation practices are a result of a sector move towards engaging students in decision making and solution development of the student educational experience such as curriculum design. Such activities have been influenced by national moves to embed student engagement in institutions such as the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education including a review theme on Student Engagement when reviewing a university’s quality (QAA, 2018). In addition to this, the National Union of Students called for partnership between students, Student Unions and Universities (NUS Manifesto for Partnership, 2012), which brought motivation from Student Unions to begin working in partnership to empower students to make change on mass at institutions. Several associations now exist to provide consultation and networking in the area of Student Engagement such as RAISE (Researching, Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement), CAN (Change Agent Network), Sparqs (Student Partnerships in Quality Scotland) and Wise Wales (Wales Initiative for Student Engagement Wales).
Numerous co-creation initiatives have been developed, with a vast array of titles, at Universities across the sector to support such activities, such as the UCL Change Makers Scheme. These initiatives provide structure around supporting students to work on real-world projects with staff members in their institution, bringing invaluable employability skills and creating agents of change. Student Co-Creator or Partner schemes have been invaluable for creating change and enhancements from the bottom up, and provide invaluable experience alongside students’ studies, providing project management, research, and presentation and networking experience.
What could Co-Creation initiatives do?
Co-creation projects, can focus on a vast array of areas, such as:
Assessment and Feedback
Technology Enhanced Learning
Addressing National Student Survey feedback
Increasing Student Engagement
Employability
Innovative forms of learning and teaching
Combined Honours
Curriculum Design
Internationalisation
Tackling a barrier to education
Enhancing the Student Experience
And many more…
Projects take a number of forms including conducting evaluations, literature research, surveying students, networking or developing new initiatives that address the broad topics mentioned above. The main purpose is to make a change or enhancement to some aspect of the university that improves the experience for students, whether this is on a specific module, an aspect of a professional service, or across the whole institution.
What does a Student Partner do in Co-Creation initiative?
What an individual student does on as a Co-Creation initiative will naturally differ from project to project. The following activities are an example of the kind of things a Student Partner is responsible for (specifically if they are working on a research project):
Providing an insight into the lived student experience
Co-designing solutions and enhancements in their project’s context
Collecting research data: E.g. Recruiting participants for focus groups
Conforming to standards of good ethical practices
Analysing research data: E.g. producing graphs and tables from questionnaires
Writing reports about research
Giving presentations to staff members on findings
Attending workshops and events
In terms of the workload of a Student Partner, a partnership project that sits alongside of a student’s studies is a significant investment of time. Often central scheme coordinators (or staff working with the student) should outline the expected hours, deadlines and commitments of the scheme, so the student can be clear across the academic year of their commitment as a Student Partner. While many schemes expect a high level of commitment from Student Partners to their projects, a student should always be able to prioritise their academic work over the project.
What does a Staff Partner do?
The role of the Staff Partner will vary between projects and schemes in different contexts. Following the principal of partnership, the role should be negotiated between the Student Partner and the Staff Partner. The extent and nature of the Staff Partner’s involvement will be determined by the size and scope of the project being undertaken, the amount of time that the staff member is able to give and the degree of engagement of the Student Partner.
In general terms, the following activities are typical for a staff partner:
Providing an insight into the staff experience and context
Co-designing solutions and enhancements in their project’s context
Help the Student Partner to refine the project
g. Provide supporting evidence (e.g. NSS scores) to guide the project
Helping to focus the project to make impact in the project’s context
g. Letting the student know how an issue is currently being addressed and what can feasibly be done about it
Provide advice about effective strategies
Support the dissemination of results
g. Organising meetings with colleagues for Student Partners to give presentations
Presenting key findings and recommendations at Faculty/School meetings with the Student Partner
Answer any questions that are specific to your course or department
Moral support!
Recruitment of a Student Partner
When embarking on facilitating a co-creation project, the obvious first step is to recruit students to work in partnership with.
When working with students as partners, the students involved will be bringing students’ perspectives from their context, therefore it is important to use accessible recruitment methods to attract a diversity of student partners. There is a temptation to simply ‘select’ a student to work with, but it is important to ensure your opportunity is open to a diversity of students, so a greater number of opportunities to engage with the development of education are available.
Best practice with recruitment for student partners includes running information sessions prior to application deadlines, and alternative formats of application such as videos instead of solely written applications. If only working with one student as a partner, then it is important that throughout the project, your team consult wider student and staff perspectives in your development area, so that the individual student or staff partners do not over-represent their personal experience when developing an area of education. Therefore, often co-creation projects involve conducting some form of social research to field wider perspectives.
The source of project ideas
Ideas for projects to be addressed on a co-creation project can come from a number of different sources;
Students - the most common source of projects is from the participating students. Often students are motivated to participate in schemes because they or their peers have encountered problems or deficiencies on their course that they would like to see addressed.
Staff - on many occasions, ideas for changing or investigating teaching and learning will come from the staff members. In these cases, the staff member may facilitate a project and we will pair them with a student who is in their department or has expressed an interest in a related area.
Staff and students - sometimes a student and a staff member who have an existing working relationship will apply to the scheme together in order to develop a project to address a mutually agreed issue.
Student Academic Representatives - if an issue is regularly being raised about a
particular course with Student Representatives then a Student Partner could look to begin to address these issues. In these circumstances the actual project may be developed by staff or students but the Student Rep process is essential to identifying the initial issue.
Because all co-creation projects are staff-student partnerships, negotiation between the Student Partner and their Staff Partner is essential to ensure that the project being undertaken is appropriate and addresses the interests of all stakeholders involved.
How can your projects have ‘impact’?
Co-creation projects should aim to have a meaningful impact on a course, department, school or faculty, a professional department or students. Though this does not mean that every project on a scheme needs to completely change everything! A meaningful impact can be a small change that makes a difference to the experience of students. Student Partners will work closely with their Staff Partner to determine the most effective strategy implementing change and/or disseminating findings.
These may include:
Presentations at Programme/Department meetings
Particularly if your project produces some clear recommendations for making changes to a course
Producing guidance leaflets
g. if students are making recommendations about effective library resources
In-depth written reports exploring your topic in a broader context
These kinds of report can lead to publishing research findings in academic journals
Conclusion
Co-creation provides a means for mutual understanding between staff and students, to contextualise and address development themes in the modern university. Through engaging with one another in dialogue and research, co-creation teams of students and staff have the opportunity to create meaningful education enhancements that will have considered both parties. Only when we listen, debate and innovate with these two critical parties in learning and teaching (or service provision) can we truly create engaging practice that work for the university of today based on the lived experience of higher education.
About the authors
Tom Lowe is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Portsmouth, where his research includes student engagement in the development of education, embedding employability into the curriculum and belonging. Prior to Portsmouth, Tom was the Head of Student Engagement and Employability at the University of Winchester where he led the University’s student development, internationalisation and extra-curricular opportunities, staffing and strategies. Tom was also the programme leader for the MA in Student Engagement in Higher Education at Winchester, and has served on the RAISE Committee in various roles for over eight years. Tom is experienced in the practicalities surrounding student engagement in quality assurance, learning and teaching, University governance and Students' Unions, as well as student involvement in extracurricular activities and overcoming barriers to student success through inclusive practice.
Dr Stuart Sims is Head of Academic & Learning Enhancement and Associate Professor at the University of Greenwich, where he has strategic oversight for academic development. Prior to this, Stuart has worked as an academic developer at the University of Portsmouth and University of Winchester, primarily in the areas of student engagement and degree apprenticeships. Stuart has published research on a wide range of education topics, including private schooling, research-informed teaching, and staff-student partnership. He is a member of the editorial board for the Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal and convenes the Research & Evaluation Special Interest Group for RAISE.