FACTS: Initiatives at university level since 2014

Most of the work on study environment is done in the individual academic environments and the challenges may vary from one study environment to the next. It may be the availability of study space, for example, which constitutes a challenge on one degree programme, and opportunities for feedback which may be the most important issue for students on another degree programme.

However, in certain areas, it has been more appropriate to launch AU-wide initiatives of a general nature to follow up on the 2014 study environment survey. The senior management team has focused especially on well-being, stress and digitisation. The most significant examples are listed below.

Studentwelfare.au.dk

Studentwelfare.au.dk contains tools and services which all AU students can use to improve well-being. The site is run by the Student Counsellors' Office and has been upgraded significantly since 2014.

• More inspiration and more tools have been added which can help students deal with study-related challenges such as working in study groups, stress and planning of studies.
• The user interface has been improved to make it easier to find help.
• The tools are used by the Student Counsellors' Office and in connection with various workshops.
  
  

Events

In collaboration with the Student Council, the Education Committee was in charge of two big events for students and teaching staff.

• An open meeting about stress and stress management at which different ways of dealing with stress were presented. The meeting was followed by dialogues between the Student Council and the Student Counsellors' Office about the continued development of student counselling services.
• An event about feedback for students co-organised by the university teaching development centres. At this event, feedback methods were presented which the students could then use. In addition, the university teaching development centres have included the students’ wishes and need for feedback into the planning of competence development for teaching staff.
  
  

Educational IT

Among other things, the 2014 survey showed that only few students experienced that the potential of electronic learning platforms was used to activate the students. Therefore, management has launched an AU-wide educational IT initiative aimed at supporting local initiatives in relation to digitisation of learning spaces. The list below contains examples of the local projects which received support:

• Reorganisation of courses into more differentiated and flexible learning activities – so-called blended learning. In relation to this, clickers, tablets and touch screens as well as integration of videos, simulation, games and voting were used in teaching on a trial basis. The experience gained will be used to improve and expand initiatives to ensure that as many students as possible experience teaching activities which exploit digital opportunities.
• Study trip to leading universities within educational IT. The trip led to valuable input for AU’s continued work on setting strategic goals and implementing blended learning and online teaching on a larger scale.
• A conference on educational IT was held with the purpose of inspiring teaching staff to work with educational IT in relation to their own teaching. This also led to a pilot project on blended learning on the MBA programmes.
• Concurrently with these initiatives, Blackboard was implemented at all of AU and a large number of lecturers have participated in courses in the use of Blackboard.

Read more about the various examples here: http://medarbejdere.au.dk/strategi/uddannelse/strategiske-indsatsomraader/tidligere-aar/afrapporteringer-2015/ (in Danish)

Get the latest information at http://www.au.dk/en/study-environment-survey/ which will be updated in the coming weeks.