Responding to student views on induction

The Student Consultation on 'Integrated Induction', looking at different aspects of how the OU is introduced to students when they first join, enabled the OU to gather important feedback from students.

At the Student Consultation, we invited students from the Student Consultation Panel to register, as well as students from each faculty at the OU and students new to the OU. The students were asked to feed back on the types of support they find useful to allow them to settle into their studies. The aim of the Student Consultation was to:

• Reach a common understanding of student needs for induction (including needs for particular groups)
• Identify key points in the student journey for induction activity
• Gather information about the effectiveness of induction resources/events already in place

Summary of Feedback

Students commented that induction was really important in enabling them to start and contiune well in their studies at the OU. Feedback suggested that induction needs to be inclusive, have opportunities to build student communities and needed to occur before the module started. Students stated that some resources were hard to find so there needed to better signposting and ease of navigation, including hosting OU wide induction materials in one space. Other suggestions included self-assessment to allow students to gauge their prepardness to study and a dedicated induction week with input from staff across the OU and Students Association.

Response to Feedback

The student feedback has been shared with the OU Integrated Induction project group. Initial actions include the use of the feedback to create a framework of induction principles to ensure that provision is relevant for all students, and occurs at the key points during the student journey. The lack of visibilty of induction resouces is also being explored. Any module/faculty relevant feedback has been shared with faculities along with proposed recommendations for positive improvements.

You can download and read the full response that details all the feedback provided by students and the responses, and next steps