‘Right to feedback’ campaign launched
Low levels of satisfaction amongst York students over the support provided by academic departments has prompted the Student Union to develop new policies to safeguard the welfare of its students.
YUSU Academic and Welfare Officer Charlie Leyland has complied a “wish-list for Assessment and Feedback” in the hope of making both students and departments aware of what support is expected and required of them.
“I really hope to empower students [with] their rights and what they are entitled too,” commented Leyland. “We hope to put into practise the mechanisms of what should be going on in department assessment and feedback, and then implement policy whilst disseminating the information to students”, she said.
The wish-list has six main points of focus: “a clear service-level agreement between students and departments”, the “clear publication and distribution of this agreement”, a “Student Union led plagiarism awareness campaign”, an accessible look at problems of referencing, a focus on joint honours students, and the idea of “feedback request stickers.”
The plagiarism awareness campaign has already seen particular success, receiving a £6,000 grant from the rapid-response fund FELT, the university initiative funded by the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFC). The campaign hopes to put in place a series of departmental “road shows,” with prizes and competitions to help inform students. Leyland hopes this will “provide a different way of actually getting through to people without the use of leaflets.”
The wish list also aims to produce study skills guides for departments, to target problems associated with online resources and to tackle issues of language barriers for international students. Its overriding aim, according to Leyland, is to “enable students to help themselves” and show them that they are entitled to feedback from their departments.
The list is being looked into by the university, with its policy currently being written into a set of mandatory requirements rather than just guidelines for departments. It is hoped that these new regulations will be in place by the spring term.
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