Setting up a ‘Special Relationship’: Students as Co-Creators of a Research-based Curriculum

The idea of student/staff partnership has become ubiquitous in the way universities market their institutional ethos and enshrines an idealised 'dialogic structure' within curriculum design. Which universitities are actually putting this into practice and allowing their students a significant role in the machinations of curriculum design and enhancement?This case study investigates the emerging co-operation between the University of Leeds Library, a team of Special Collections interns and the academic and student communities they reach out to. It suggests, in microcosm, a model for the co-creation of the curriculum which positions the student as co-creator, certainly, but also as mediator, tutor, mentor and communicator.The project case study adds insight into the fascinating hybrid identity that students can occupy within the contested territory of university-wide curriculum design, and explores the complex status and authority of students and tutors as they explore fresh relationships of opportunity and expertise.

Involving international postgraduate students in university initiatives – a qualitative investigation into ‘UCL ChangeMakers’

UCL ChangeMakers is the collaborative initiative launched in 2014 to enhance student learning experience in University College London (UCL), UK. Its aim is to enable students and staff to work together to make changes in the UCL community. In 2016/17, the UCL ChangeMakers initiative struggled to recruit projects from the postgraduate (PG) student population; however, postgrads are believed to have brought exceptionally valuable ideas into the initiative. The current study aimed to investigate the general image of the UCL ChangeMakers initiative among the UCL PG population and identify potential areas of improvement for attracting more PG students into the scheme. Two focus groups were conducted with current international PGs participating in the UCL ChangeMakers programme and international PGs from the general UCL population. The results included a discussion on current UCL PG ChangeMakers’ experiences, the image of the initiative among the general PG UCL population and suggestions for promotion of and improvements to the initiative. Furthermore, recommendations for postgraduate involvement in university initiatives were made.

A Platform for Partnership: A Technology Review of the Padlet sharing platform.

Since technology permeates every aspect of contemporary life, just navigating Higher Education (HE) in the 21st century makes you, to an extent, ‘tech savvy’. However, when looking to technology to assist student/staff partnerships, colleagues need to take their practice beyond Microsoft Office, social media and Photoshop.During a student/staff partnership research project, a student and a higher education professional used the online platform Padlet as their selected medium for collaboration, in order to replicate such of Healy’s principles of partnership as inclusivity, reciprocity, trust and community (Healy et al., 2014).

Students as Partners: The development of an Extensive Reading Program at the Ningbo Campus of the University of Nottingham

"Changing Reading Circles brought more than we expected: we also changed ourselves". A reading interest group at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China was changed to an employability award by a team of five students and two staff partners by the use of a Students as Change Agents student/staff partnership project. Responsibility and authority was devolved to students and the final product has resulted in more engagement in, and enthusiasm for, extensive reading. It also gave the student partners greater levels of self-belief, autonomy and understanding of their potential within an academic community.

Student/staff ‘Collaborative Event Ethnography’ at the Antiques Roadshow

This case study reports and reflects upon a project using Collaborative Event Ethnography (CEE) as, simultaneously, a research and teaching method. Through training workshops and a day of interviews and participant observation at the Antiques Roadshow at Ightham Mote in Kent, staff and students worked together on a project that clearly demonstrated the scope of the CEE method for producing robust academic data while also challenging presumptions that ethnography is a necessarily lone pursuit.

Co-creation, contexts, and complexity: a case study concerning blended learning.

This case study reports on the value of engaging students as partners in research carried out concerning module redesign, specifically the development of blended learning activities for a first-year module in linguistics. It should be noted that the focus of this report is on the partnership approach to researching, not the material redesign itself. The approach taken involves recognising universities as complex systems and, as such, needing to be researched with the voices of all stakeholders incorporated. The study supplies an exploration of the reasons for choosing this partnership approach; it gives a description of how this partnership was maintained (relating both to ethical issues and to practicalities); it summarises suggested guidance and lessons learnt, to be shared with others to encourage them to consider such partnerships.

Recruiting, Training, and Co-creation with PGR student reviewers on an academic journal

Compass has, like most other academic journals, traditionally reflected the reviews and voices of staff in Higher Education, even though postgraduate researchers (PGRs) are encouraged to submit work to it. In the interests of creating a more inclusive journal, a behind-the-scenes effort to increase student interaction with it led to an email invitation to PGRs to act, in collaboration with staff, as student reviewers.An application process was implemented as part of the recruitment stage. PGRs had to select a published text from the Compass archives and review the piece, using a standard review form. Each application was peer reviewed and individuals were then informed of the decision. Three PGRs and an Intern eventually participated in a training session which introduced them more explicitly to the scope and aims of the journal. It has been found that being student reviewers for Compass has helped these PGRs to develop their professional identity. The role which PGR student reviewers now play in Compass also increases their evidence of impact and introduces them to a research publication context with which they were not previously familiar.

A Partnership Approach to Scaling Up Student-Staff Partnership at a Large Research-Intensive University

This case study describes a project that undertook the endeavour of coherently and systematically scaling up partnership practices at a large Australian research-intensive university. We describe an authentic partnership approach to designing a university-wide SaP program drawing on the collective innovation and creativity of over eighty students and staff working in partnership. We present, based on structured reflective narratives, critical factors for driving institutional partnership change in our context. This case study thus provides a useful example for other practitioners considering similar initiatives that aim to take an inclusive approach to scaling-up partnership processes in higher education.

The Undergraduate Research Scholarship Scheme: A co-created approach to transforming student learning

The value of student as researcher/‘co-producer’ has been well documented in the research literature. This case study outlines an institutional 'student as researcher' initiative that was introduced to enable the co-creation of research by undergraduate students working in partnership with members of academic staff. The paper outlines the establishment and implementation of the scheme and offers a reflection upon and exploration of its perceived value, through the lens of staff and students who participated in it.